Article

Personal Loan is a big help

My friend encountered a budget shortage. He asked my help but sorry for him because I don’t have an extra cash that time. He needs an additional money for the next month because his billings due period come together. Though he is receiving a big salary, still is not enough. I shared this problem with my office mate. Then my office mate did some good suggestions.

Base from my office mate’s experience, he also had a cash problem before and he doesn’t want to ask the help of his relatives. So he goes for a Personal Loan which he found online. According to my office mate, it has been made easier and better. Even he is busy, he accomplished the application immediately. Besides, there are options according to what kind of Loan is preferred. He added that online service is good. He is confident that he is dealing with the trusted site. There is also Small Business Loan available for those who wanted to put up a small business. Luckily he has been approved and his cash problem has been solved. According to my office mate, cash loan online did a great help for him.

From my officemate’s suggestion, I know now how to help my friend. I hope that his cash problem could be solved also like what happened to my officemate.

By admin on March 23, 2010 | Article | A comment?

Good domain name | How to look for one?

It is very usual to encounter troubles when you are looking for a perfect domain name. The first thing we had in mind is that almost all domain names are already taken, but I tell that is not a good attitude. On that instance, you loose too much ideas already. Remember that domain names can be made up of letters, numbers and other special characters like a dash, and they can be mixed up depending on the situation. What do I mean by that? Well it all depends on your likes and the nature of your planned website. It is very necessary that you also consider the relevance of your domain name to the content of your website, more people will come to you if everything is done accordingly. Easy to remember and short names are also considered, the fact that it is easier to remember by visitors.

There are lot of ways on how you can pick your domain name, whether you surf the Internet for some InTrust Domains or just get ideas from somewhere else. Ideas are always important, having a lot of ideas will be a big help on looking for some InTrust Domains. One of the best thing to do is you have to realized doing some continues researching, getting ideas from someone is not bad if they are giving them for free. To tell you frankly, looking for some InTrust Domains will be easier if you put out a lot of dedication of doing it, essentially it is needed.

By admin on February 1, 2010 | Article | A comment?

Considering Acquisition

Economy is one of the things that is unsure on today’s world, everyone knows and feels it. No one can tell that an economy of a country will go straight upward, there is nothing like that. But there are lot of factors that are considered to be the basis for an economy of a country to have more chance of success, that is why we have plans. Plans are made by highly trained professional people who’s work is to provide insights of what gonna happen if we do certain things, it is like a prediction with basis. For sure, if they can predict that an economy will rise, most likely it will succeed.

On our present situation, commodities and other needs are hard to acquire. Certain rules are applied, so as slowing the process of acquiring things. On a business, it is not that easy to get things every time you want it. Everything will undergo a certain process, so every one will be accommodated. But there are some strategy that are available there on how we can be able to acquire such hard to get commodities or other stuffs, it is a matter of asking them of what you want to acquire. On today’s world, everything must be perfectly aligned with time so success follows. If we are having a hard time establishing, the growth will also follow. It’s kinda seesaw effect, it’s a common sense actually.

Anyway as I said earlier, there is a way of acquiring things the easy way. That is by asking some acquisition agents like Cydcor, these guys are the professional on acquiring things really fast. Such service is very ideal for starting business and those that are on-going as well, or for individuals. Acquisition is a process of acquiring things really fast, and it will never fail time-line schedules. This strategy is proven and well known by other successful company.

By admin on January 25, 2010 | Article, Business | A comment?

Becoming a Professional Affiliate Internationally | 10 Tips

Venturing across borders with your affiliate business can be a lucrative source of additional visitors and income. If you have already taken the first step and experimented with targeting international traffic, this article will take your international activities a step further. Through following these tips, you will professionalize your presence in foreign markets and avoid common pitfalls associated with international virtual trade.

1. Don’t Skimp on Your Market Research

This is classic advice, even a cliché for any marketer. But it is all the more vital for internationally active affiliates who venture into a foreign territory.

Your very first step after deciding to go international should be to turn to your favorite search engine and spend at least a few days just gathering information on your target market. Even if you have been promoting the same products online for 10 years, targeting a new market will present new opportunities and new, unfamiliar challenges.

International trade organizations, your country’s foreign trade office, and independent research and trade organizations frequently publish reports on various markets in a specific country. These reports, while they are made for manufacturers and exporters of local products, can provide vital statistics and information on the characteristics of your new market.

Trade associations that deal with your niche in your target countries are another good source for firsthand information on local markets.

2. Be Serious, and Let It Show

In an online environment, the written word is the means of communication with your potential buyer. Therefore, make sure your words present the right professional image about your business, your website, and the products you promote.

Never rely on automatic translation software to translate consumer copy or any content on your site. There is probably no bigger turnoff for a visitor than the random and grammatically incorrect text generated by a piece of software.

If you are serious about marketing internationally, invest in hiring a human translator, who not only can – correctly – translate, but can localize your web copy to make it work with local visitors. You can find quality translators in online freelance marketplaces.

When creating your local content, use phrases commonly used in that location (think “trousers” vs. “pants” or “wardrobe” vs. “closet”). Not only will this present a professional image to local visitors, but it can make or break your local SEO efforts.

3. Save Your Energy for Real International Merchants

Even though many websites mention in their FAQs that they ship internationally, the foreign customer frequently encounters a U.S.-only order form on their way through checkout on the same website. Before promoting a merchant internationally, do a test, and make sure they process international orders online. If international buyers need to phone in their orders, or call for a shipping quote, you risk not being paid for a referred sale, so that merchant may not be worth your efforts.

Also make sure that you are actually paid for international sales! Many merchants do not pay commissions on international orders for legal or marketing reasons, even if those are legitimate orders. This should be indicated within their affiliate information pages, but if you are unsure, it’s better to ask beforehand than to be sorry after you have invested time and money into promoting a nonpaying merchant.

4. Talk to Your Merchant Partners

Before starting any promotion, talk to your affiliate manager about your international plans. Ask for any specific rules regulating promotion of their products and brands internationally.

See if they already do any marketing in your target market. If they do, you can try to piggyback on their efforts. If they don’t, the entire market is virgin territory, ready for you to conquer.

5. Display Currencies

If you are targeting international shoppers, always indicate the currency when displaying prices. (And the dollar sign doesn’t cut it, as there are more than 20 countries, from Australia to Zimbabwe, who use “dollar” as their currency, but with different values.)

6. Take Payment Issues Seriously

Research which payment methods are used most frequently by your target country’s shoppers and make sure the merchants you promote accept at least one (ideally, all) of those methods. With international credit card companies and the now-widely available online payment systems such as PayPal, this is less of an issue than it was a few years ago. However, there are still huge differences in familiarity or trust in specific payment methods among consumers worldwide.

The classic example of this is the prevalence of debit cards in Europe that carry the Visa or Mastercard logo. While these are accepted everywhere their credit card versions are accepted, they are often perceived to be more risky to use online. This continues to be a major obstacle to the adoption of online shopping in some countries.

7. Research Shipping Issues

It’s not enough to know that your merchant partner ships internationally. Take a look at the actual list of countries to which they ship, and display this list on your website. If you don’t, you risk alienating visitors when they are ready to purchase but discover that they live in a country not serviced by that merchant.

It is best to indicate available shipping methods to international shoppers, because shipping a package via surface mail (meaning trucks, trains, and ships) and priority air mail or even courier service can make a world of difference, quite literally! It is not uncommon for surface mail packages to travel months from one corner of the world to another, while simple air mail crosses the globe in about a week – not to mention time-guaranteed courier services.

8. Read Up on Sales Tax and VAT Issues

In many countries (including those in the European Union), displayed consumer prices already contain the local sales tax equivalent. Read a primer on VAT (Value Added Tax) and familiarize yourself with the basics of how VAT works within international trade.

You may be able to promote sales tax or VAT exemptions, discounts, or refunds (and therefore, lower consumer prices). But before you do so, it is absolutely necessary to research and know what you are doing. (For example, within a simple European transaction, the applicable VAT rates vary by product, location of the buyer and of the seller, and whether a registered business entity or a consumer is placing the order.) Check your merchant’s buyer FAQ for basic information on how they handle sales tax or VAT, and ask them about VAT issues specific to their business practices.

9. Localize Your Offers and Content

Be prepared to adjust your calendars. Research local holidays and seasons, and promote products and offers specific to that country’s calendar. For example, Mother’s Day is celebrated worldwide, but on entirely different days.

The good news is, if you create Mother’s Day content for one of your sites, you can adjust it and use it on your different local sites throughout spring and early summer, or even later. Localize the offers with local phrases and images to show visitors that the holiday you are promoting is the one they are about to celebrate.

10. Promote Only Products That Your Customers Can Use

It may sound like common sense, but in the age of globalized trade with varying standards, it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself every once in a while to sell only the things that people can use in their location.

In the case of electronics, pay attention to different electricity standards with DVDs, region coding, etc. As a courtesy to buyers, provide compatibility information, such as clothing size conversion charts and measurement conversions. This may mean extra work for you if your merchant doesn’t provide such information, but you will reap the returns on your efforts when international buyers buy more confidently through your affiliate site.

By admin on January 17, 2010 | Article, Business | A comment?
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Going International | Partnership | Part 1

As the world economy shrinks step-by-step into a united mass, more and more companies consider it imperative to gain a foothold in other markets through acquisitions and strategic partnerships. Here are some principles that will enhance your organization’s chances of creating a successful overseas partnership.

  • Consider using an agent. In an ideal world an organization would want one of its employees working within a partnership organization in another country. This is not always possible for smaller companies or when the size and importance of the overseas partner are less significant. The next best alternative may be a local agent, who:
    • will already be familiar with your market partner
    • can make visits frequently and at low cost
    • can intervene in a more culturally sensitive way when roadblocks
      are encountered
  • A poor agent, however, can seriously damage your relationship with your partner organization, so ensure that you:
    • do your due diligence to ensure that you recruit someone with an
      impeccable reputation
    • ensure that the agent has no conflict of interest caused by representing
      other organizations similar to yours
    • clearly define your expectations, in writing
    • limit the agent’s role to day-to-day activities but not in major market decisions
      or strategic issues
    • avoid making a long-term commitment until the agent has proved
      himself
  • Be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time getting into the heads of the people you are dealing with. Find out everything about
    their cultures. Are they conservative? In what way? Are they religious? How so, and what philosophy do they follow? What are their time horizons? What do they expect from a westerner? How do they perceive westerners?
  • Get to know the key people well. Find out about their likes and dislikes, what motivates them, what angers them, how they spend their spare time, their beliefs, and their family lives. By showing interest in key people and modifying your approach to fit their styles, you are more likely to avoid irritants and misunderstandings that can sour a relationship.
  • Expect to change your behavior to suit that of the potential partners, not the other way around.
  • Avoid creating an impression that you will deliver more than you are capable of. Ensure that expectations are realistic.
  • Deal with legal aspects last.
  • Ensure that your key people are likely to stay with you and help sustain relationships.
  • Temper your expectations about speedy conclusions to negotiations. Asian and European organizations are much less sensitive about time issues than are North Americans. Getting to know and trust you will be a slow process that cannot be done overnight. So expect to spend longer to reach an agreement and get decisions made than might be the case at home.
  • Learn about the financial details of your partners’ environment. Find out about their tax laws so that you can use them to your advantage. Understand that profit margins are typically lower in countries outside North America, since volume, market penetration, and longer-term success are often more important than short-term profitability.
  • Be cautious about the currencies used for transacting business. Your controller may have information about the advantages of certain currencies over others, favorable exchange rates, or problems associated with currency conversion.
  • Authority to negotiate is essential. Ensure that the person or team you are dealing with has the power to conclude a deal. If not, avoid details and key issues until you are face-to-face with the real decision maker.
  • Be prepared for some give-and-take on benefits. You’re in the relationship for the long term; learn to give a little so that you can expect
    something in return. Giving in on a number of small issues could enable you to win big on major items.
By admin on January 12, 2010 | Article, Business | A comment?
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Inspiring Others

Along with every leadership role you take comes the opportunity to inspire your followers. This opportunity is not taken by every leader. If you think of the leaders you’ve admired in the past, it’s likely that you found them inspiring.

What exactly does it mean to inspire others? It means creating conditions that cause people around you to feel excited and energized about being part of your team. Although you can’t ‘‘install’’ inspiration in others, you can plant the seeds and create the right conditions for it to grow.

Your company can pay your employees to use their minds and bodies on the job, but it is only when they are inspired that their hearts and souls will also be engaged. People who are inspired work longer, harder, faster, and with more enthusiasm than you (or they) might have thought possible. Here’s how to be an inspiring leader.

  • Inspire by example.
    • Be clear and enthusiastic about your own life purpose and goals. The most inspiring leaders are themselves inspired and excited about the purpose of their lives or their missions. Do you know what yours is? If not, consider what you believe is your primary focus, mission, or ‘‘calling’’ in life. Can you articulate this mission in a few simple words? Do you feel inspired when you express it to others? Sharing your excitement is often a catalyst for others to join in the pursuit of that mission or to find their own, equally inspiring purposes.
    • Share stories from your own experience. People who capture the hearts of others and leave them feeling uplifted often do so by sharing stories about their own struggles, mistakes, and life lessons. Be willing to share the human, fallible side of your life experience rather than trying to maintain the facade of a perfect leader who never has doubts or struggles.
    • Focus on the dreams and goals of others. If you think about the people you have found inspiring in your own life, it’s likely that
      those people took the time to talk with you and listen to your dreams, goals, and frustrations. They were probably much less focused on what they wanted and much more focused on what others wanted. Get to know your employees and other people with whom you regularly interact. Find out what they want to achieve. Ask what you can do to help. Use your influence to make things happen that make life better for everyone, not just yourself. Adopt a service mindset. Do this not only because it will motivate others to work longer, harder, or faster, but because you truly care about their well-being.
  • Create and communicate a clear, positive, inclusive vision of the goals to be achieved by your team. People are unlikely to be inspired in
    situations where they don’t know or understand what goals they are working toward or they don’t feel their efforts matter much.

    • Ensure that you are clear about the goals that have been assigned to your team by management above you. Communicate these goals to your people and listen carefully to their feedback.
    • Have the team develop plans for achieving these goals. Ensure that everyone has an opportunity to participate and contribute to the plan, which will encourage buy-in by all members.
    • Help others to bring out the best in themselves. Identify the unique talents and abilities of your employees and ensure that they understand how they can contribute to the overall plan and vision.
    • Keep the vision front and center. When things seem to be going off track and people are losing their focus, remind the team of what they are working toward.
    • Commit to communicating employees’ concerns to upper management if something seems confusing or unworkable. Even better, have your boss join the next employee meeting to hear their concerns face-to-face.
By admin on January 11, 2010 | Article, Business | A comment?
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Visioning

A vision and mission are different. The vision is the compelling dream that the leaders create to motivate and challenge the organization. The mission, on the other hand, is a pragmatic statement of what it takes, each day, to move the organization closer to the vision.

Having the ability to formulate a clear, compelling vision and working constantly to achieve it can be a major factor in differentiating between the success and failure of an organization. The vision will create the stimulus and energy to drive performance to ever higher levels.

  • A vision needs to inspire those who hear or read it. For a vision to be compelling, it must be:
    • short and to the point
    • inspiring
    • connected to the key stakeholders, especially the employees
  • Avoid creating a vision that’s so simplistic it becomes a cliche. Such vision statements talk about being the biggest or best in the world (often interpreted as ‘‘most profitable’’). They seldom connect with the employees of the organization, whose job it is to make it happen! Leaving employees out of the vision gives the impression that shareholders are Number One and customers are Number Two, or vice versa. But employees are certainly only Number Three.
  • Create the vision. This is difficult, and it cannot happen overnight. You need to think about it, dream about it, discuss it, and discover it. Visit companies you admire. Speak to people who have created a legacy. Read about the best. Finally, before putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, draw a picture of what your organization should look like, not what it is now—get some crayons and be a kid again. Just draw the images that come to mind and that give you a charge. Take no more than three to five minutes. Then try and put words to the shapes and images you have drawn. Massage those words, time and time again, until they excite you and capture your enthusiasm.
  • Document the vision. Don’t wait for it to percolate upward. But should it come from the leader or the leadership team or be based on a
    consensus of all employees? Involving frontline employees is impractical in most circumstances. It is up to the leader and his/her team to create it, communicate it, and plan to achieve it.
By admin on January 7, 2010 | Article, Development | A comment?
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White Hat VS Black Hat

You can put literally hundreds of hours in building the perfect website. You have your graphics just right, your content is quality and your friends and business associates on and off line have given you the thumbs-up showing their approval of your creation. You feel like a proud Mom or Dad with your brand new baby just laying there waiting to be shown to the world.

Of course if you have your website up you don’t want it to just lay there and not be seen so you have to be creative and use tools and methods that will direct new and repeat visitors to go to your site to take a look and come back for more after their initial visit. How do you do that?

Simply stated, you want to be indexed by the search engines so people who are searching for the content your page offers will be sent to your page. Yes you want Google, Yahoo, and MSN to send you traffic. Making your site search engine friendly so that you get natural traffic from search engines is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Methods that you purposely use to optimize your site for the search engines are called Search Engine Optimization Techniques.

The study of SEO is an entire course in and of it’s self. For this report it is important foryou to note that all of the different methods can broken down to White Hat, Black Hat, and some use the term Gray Hat. What is meant by these terms?

Do you remember the old cowboy movies? Those old movies always had the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats. And for our purposes we can imagine a guy in a gray hat who was questionable but not definably good or bad.

In the old cowboy movies the Good Guy always wins. Not so in SEO. In the SEO drama that is played out daily on the Internet The White Hat, the Black Hat and the Gray Hat coexist and each one wins. Each one defines the rules for themselves.

The purpose of this section is not to pass judgment on White, Black, or Gray hat methods. The purpose of this discussion is just to make it known that there are different techniques for SEO and you must decide which ones you will use. In the end you are responsible for your success or failure.

To simplify the definitions of White Hat and Black Hat think of it this way. White Hat methods are designed to fight/compete with fellow website and blog owners for traffic. Black Hat methods are designed to fight/compete with the search engines themselves, almost to trick them to send traffic.

White hat methods follow Search Engine rules and Black Hat methods skirt the rules for the benefit (hopefully) of the web site owner. A White Hat Webmaster will write all of his articles or hire ghostwriters to write for him and only use these articles to attract traffic. A Black Hat webmaster will use and submit thousands of PLR articles and use article generation programs to add even thousand more variations of articles to thousands of pages and article directories, hoping to attract attention with the enormous amount of content with which he floods the Internet. A Gray Hat Webmaster might just occasionally or less aggressively use article generation programs or other questionable methods.

Benefits of White Hat methods include not worrying about being found out by Google or other search engines for breaking the rules. White Hat Methods produce content that is informative and enjoyable to read.

Drawbacks for White Hat methods are that they take longer to implement and can cost more not only in time but also in money if you hire ghost writers and others to help you with your White hat methods.

The Drawback of course is that if you are found out by the search engines (especially Google) your sites could be banned from indexing and all of your Black Hat methods will eventually cause your natural traffic to dwindle to nothing. Black Hat methods produce in many cases laughable content that at best makes sense but is a very ridiculously structured article and at worse a series of key word rich sentences that make no sense at all.

By admin on | Article | A comment?
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Article Marketers | Serious Internet Marketers

A great number of article marketers will tell you that article marketing is the best free method of getting visitors to your web site, bar none. He will also tell you that once you get them to your website you have them in a position where they can Opt In to your list, purchase a product from you or buy something from one of your affiliate links. Yes the popular marketing technique called article marketing is one of the best ways to market online today.

There is a reason for the great success of professional article marketers. To understand why article marketing is such a moneymaker for many, you must be able to answer correctly one question as it relates to the offline world as well as the online world. Ask ten people this question and nine if not all ten will get it wrong.

What is the often Wrongly Answered Question?

Q: What makes money for TV stations, newspapers, radio stations and magazines.

A: Advertising.

WRONG. If you answered advertising then you like most other people must realize what it really is that makes money in the media. When we know what the real income generator in the media is, we can fully understand why article marketing is such a powerful tool in Internet Marketing.

Think about it. All advertiser pay for time on TV by the quarter minute, the half-minute and the full minute. They advertise twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Now you might be thinking, “That is what I said, Advertising is what makes money for the TV stations, the newspaper owners, radio stations, magazines etc.”

Well my friend if it is advertising that makes the money then why does a minute of advertising for a situation comedy rerun at 4AM pay the station a couple of thousand dollars and one minute on Super Bowl Sunday pay the station several million dollars. You say “They get more money for The Super Bowl than they get for the situation comedy at 4 AM.”

True, they get more money depending on what they are presenting. Instead of saying that Advertising makes the money wouldn’t it be more correct to say…

Content Makes the Money.

Now it becomes clear. On the Internet, articles are content, and content draws visitors who spend their money on things that the articles, the content, lead them to.
Knowing the fact that it’s the content on the Internet that draws the crowds and thus the dollars we can understand many things about why article marketing is so successful for many people. We can also understand why high quality content is better than low quality content. Super Bowl = Hi Quality = more viewers = more money paid by advertiser. The same formula can be applied to quality content, thus, quality articles.

Now that you realize that quality content and thus quality articles can get people to visit your site what do you do? Simply make it your focus to come up with some quality articles that establish you as an expert in your niche. Be sure to have a resource box at the end of your article that takes people to your website where you will lead them to take action.

That action might be to opt in to your newsletter or eZine so that you can continue to send them CONTENT. The action might be that while on your page they see an AdSense ad that interests them and they click it, thus earning you some money. Whichever action you want your visitors to take, they cannot take it unless they visit your site. With article marketing it is the quality article, the quality content that gets them to your site and it is the content on your site that keeps them there or brings them back and causes visitors to take the desired action.

You can of course have high quality articles on your site to attract visitors but there are other ways to use your articles, written by you or by others to send visitors to your site.

One tried and tested form of article marketing dictates that you submit your articles to article directories. One of the most popular directories is eZinearticles.com. You can find other articles by doing a Google search for article directories. There are article announcement lists that you can join, and of course there are eZine or emailed newsletters. You can use these methods individually or all together to get your high quality articles in front of the eyes of your potential customers.

If your intent is to earn income with Google AdSense then you should put your best articles on your site with your AdSense ads. The simple truth is people will click on AdSense ads if they like the content on your page. Your goal should be just that. Your quality articles should get you “friendly clicks” on your AdSense ads and the AdSense ads should not be the escape route from your page by visitors who will never return. Your AdSense ads should be a friendly “Good bye, see you later” exit for a future returning visitor.

When well known quality article directories and reputable eZine publishers use your articles as content it establishes you as an expert in your topic. When you use your own quality articles on your own site and you have visitors who read your content you are not only established as an expert in your niche but as an Internet business person. After all if I come to your site to find what I need and I find it, I just might think you have something else I want or need and eventually buy it from you. At least I will exit your site with a friendly good bye as I click off your page to your AdSense advertiser. Either way we both get what we want, quality information for me and a quality visitor for you. Now that’s what quality content is all about.

By admin on January 6, 2010 | Article | A comment?
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Governance: More Than Staying Out of Jail

In the light of an alarming number of high-profile cases of theft, greed, and misuse of corporate assets, directors and senior corporate leaders have been pushed into drastically changing the way organizational assets are taken care of. This process is known as governance.

Governance is about the influence of stakeholders in the affairs and direction of an organization. It reflects their interests, how their views are included in decisions, how decisions are made, and how the decision makers are held accountable.

Governance is not about restrictions. It is more about creating democratic processes in organizations to enable and encourage freedom of initiative and enterprise. This freedom is designed to build trust among all the stakeholders so that they can focus on their goals, create world-class products and services, and optimize financial benefits for shareholders and employees.

Improving governance requires that we strengthen and change the relationship that the board has with the corporation. It requires that the board uses increased power to ensure compliance of the officers of the organization to all standards set by government and other outside regulatory bodies.

Legislation alone will not lead to significant improvements in governance. The attitude of senior management is key.

✓ Good governance is the responsibility of all executives as well as the board. Good governance will enhance the performance of an organization if the executive team:

• takes a longer-term focus on financial performance, beyond quarterly
results

• supports a strong board that is independent of those running the
daily affairs of the organization

• establishes methods for listening to the shareholders and responding
to their needs

• ensures that it does not become ensnarled in defensive activities that
detract from management’s ability to take risks

• promotes strategic planning and the execution of those plans

• emphasizes and promotes success instead of avoiding failure

✓ At the heart of good governance is accountability. The benefits of increased accountability include:

• Increased employee confidence in the organization.

• More effective use of assets.

• Greater debate within an organization as to how better to allocate
resources to competing priorities. The creativity that flows from this
debate will lead to improved performance.

• Increased participation by investors willing to contribute knowledge
capital, as well as financial capital, in order to boost shareholder
value.

✓ Good governance is characterized by these factors:

Involvement. All members are capable of being heard.

Transparency. Information is available to all.

Consensus Decisions. Attempts are made, when practical, to achieve
broad agreement to decisions.

Equity. All people, no matter what race, age, color, creed, gender,
or sexual orientation, have an equal ability to participate.

Effectiveness. The organization’s resources are utilized effectively.

Accountability. Decision makers are responsible for their behavior.

Strategic Vision. There is agreement about the general direction
and influence of the organization.

✓ Good governance requires that the board and the CEO become independent of one another so as to prevent collusion. Ideally:

• The chairperson and CEO roles should be occupied by different
people.

• The CEO should be nonvoting.

• In strategy formulation and policy making, the CEO will be seen as
a full partner with the board.

• The board will focus on monitoring performance rather than formulating
policies.

• The CEO will attend all board meetings and participate fully in all
discussions.

• In large organizations, the board will monitor performance through
standing committees, including an audit body.

✓ The board does not involve itself in the day-to-day running of the organization—that is the task of the CEO and his or her management team. The primary tasks of the board are to:

• create a strategic plan, which sets the course for the organization

• regularly update the strategic plan as circumstances change

• set the organization’s direction, ensuring that it has a compelling
mission

• develop clear objectives stemming from the mission

• create a set of values to ensure that the corporation operates effectively
and professionally

• ensure that the assets of the corporation are being effectively utilized

.

✓ Good governance often means change. Here are some specific actions that may demonstrate your organization’s good intentions.

• Increasing the number of independent directors to the point where
they form a majority on the board. Size matters, depending on the
nature of the organization and the complexity of its operations. As
a general guide, however, the board should be made up of between
five and seven members.

• Ensuring that all committee members are nonmanagement in order
to ensure that decision making is impartial.

• Conducting some board meetings without management present, ensuring
open and candid discussions.

• Promoting stock ownership (in the case of for-profit companies) so
that directors have a stake in the long-term success of the organization.

• Seeking shareholder approval for significant change in systems of
compensation for senior executives.

• Promoting the concept of pay-for-performance rather than stock
options. Rather, bonuses and ‘‘performance share units’’ should be
linked to specific performance objectives—cash flow, profits, or customer
satisfaction—rather than stock price.

• Seeking third-party professional advice when reviewing and evaluating
compensation practices.

• Separating the role of chairperson of the board from those of president
and CEO. The chairperson should be seen as the chief governance
officer.

• Separating the audit and risk-management committees to recognize
the importance and contribution of each. These committees should
be viewed as committees of the board, not autonomous entities.

• Designing compensation plans for executives who are aligned with
corporate strategy rather than with short-term share value increases.

• Enhancing the competence of directors by creating position descriptions
for the chairs of each committee and the chairperson of the
board. Then—scary as this may be—have each director assess himself and each other. When shortcomings are identified, have each
person develop a plan for improvement. Any director refusing to
improve should be removed.