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Introductory

Anyone who's worked in an office at some point or another has had to go to accounting.

They're the people who pay and send out the bills that keep the business running. They do a lot more than that, though.

Sometimes referred to as "bean counters" they also keep their eye on profits, costs and losses. Unless you're running your own business and acting as your own accountant, you'd have no way of knowing just how profitable - or not - your business is without some form of accounting.

No matter what business you're in, even if all you do is balance a checkbook, that's still accounting. It's part of even a kid's life. Saving an allowance, spending it all at once - these are accounting principles.

What are some other businesses where accounting is critical? Well, farmers need to follow careful accounting procedures. Many of them run their farms year to year by taking loans to plant the crops. If it's a good year, a profitable one, then they can pay off their loan; if not, they might have to carry the loan over, and accrue more interest charges.

Every business and every individual needs to have some kind of accounting system in their lives. Otherwise, the finances can get away from them, they don't know what they've spent, or whether they can expect a profit or a loss from their business.

Staying on top of accounting, whether it's for a multi-billion-dollar business or for a personal checking account is a necessary activity on a daily basis if you're smart. Not doing so can mean anything from a bounced check or posting a loss to a company's shareholders. Both scenarios can be equally devastating.

Accounting is basically information, and this information is published periodically in business as a profit and loss statement, or an income statement.

Chapter 1: Accounting Principles

If everyone involved in the process of accounting followed their own system, or no system at all, there's be no way to truly tell whether a company was profitable or not.

Most companies follow what are called generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, and there are huge tomes in libraries and bookstores devoted to just this one topic. Unless a company states otherwise, anyone reading a financial statement can make the assumption that company has used GAAP.

If GAAP are not the principles used for preparing financial statements, then a business needs to make clear which other form of accounting they're used and are bound to avoid using titles in its financial statements that could mislead the person examining it.

GAAP are the gold standard for preparing financial statement. Not disclosing that it has used principles other than GAAP makes a company legally liable for any misleading or misunderstood data. These principles have been fine-tuned over decades and have effectively governed accounting methods and the financial reporting systems of businesses.

Different principles have been established for different types of business entities, such for-profit and not-for-profit companies, governments and other enterprises.

GAAP are not cut and dried, however. They're guidelines and as such are often open to interpretation. Estimates have to be made at times, and they require good faith efforts towards accuracy. You've surely heard the phrase "creative accounting" and this is when a company pushes the envelope a little (or a lot) to make their business look more profitable than it might actually be.

This is also called massaging the numbers. This can get out of control and quickly turn into accounting fraud, which is also called cooking the books. The results of these practices can be devastating and ruin hundreds and thousands of lives, as in the cases of Enron, Rite Aid and others.

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Introductory

Aromatherapy is one of the fastest rising industries in the country. With the fad of new age activities like yoga on the upswing, it seems that aromatherapy is here to stay for the next couple of years.

In fact, it is one of the most popular practices in terms of holistic and alternative medicine.

It is being used everywhere, from clinics and hospitals for their pain relief treatment especially during labor and with chemotherapy to the rehabilitation of patients who have heart ailments, from the alleviation of stress and the relaxation of muscles in day spas to the beauty and cosmetic products being made. You name it and aromatherapy has influenced it one way or the other.

But besides candles and lotions and scents, which define aromatherapy to a T, what is it all about and what can it give us?

Aromatherapy is the practice of using oils from plant extracts for medicinal, relaxation and aromatic purposes. These oils are called essential oils, which are used and combined with other ingredients to produce perfumes, lotions, and other beauty, skin care and hair care products.

In fact, all the products with your favorite plant scent such as Rose, Lavender and Chamomile are results of the practice of aromatherapy. It is said that aromatherapy can also improve one's mood, lightening it up and easing the stress. This is perhaps why the technique is also used in massage parlors and spas to relax customers.

The use of essential oils is a practice that has been going on for centuries. It all started with the Greeks, who invented the crude way of distilling. The process of distillation was then used to extract the oils from the plants.

Next to adopt the practice are the Egyptians, which incorporated it into their traditions and customs. Plant oils are used in their various religious set-ups and even in the burying of their dead. In fact, archaeologists who dug up tombs in Egypt have found plant extracts and remains with embalmed bodies. It was also the Egyptians, who first used the plant extracts for cosmetic and aromatic purposes.

Next in line were the Romans, who discovered the use of the essential oils as medicine. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, has been known to use plant oils in his medical work back in his time.

It was only in the 1920s that the practice got the name "aromatherapy" which was invented by René Maurice Gattefossé, a French chemist, who used the process in his own work. Unknown to many, aromatherapy has a lot of branches.

One of those branches is Home Therapy, which deals with the use of the practice for self-treatment as well as in the use of it in making perfumes and cosmetics. It is also used in medical practice and this branch is called the clinical aromatherapy. Lastly, the branch that deals with the use of aromatherapy in the psychology of odors and its effects in people is called the Aromachology.

One of the best-known scents in aromatherapy is the lavender, which people can actually find in every product label in groceries and in beauty stores. Unknown to many, lavender can also be used in the treatment of wounds as well as in the enhancement of memory. It can also be used as a sleeping aid as it helps relieve anxiety and insomnia.

In addition to lavender, other really popular aromatherapy products are those with the scents of Rose, Eucalyptus, Bergamot, Cinnamon, Rosemary and of course Jasmine.

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Introductory

Have you heard other people talking on and on about their “blogs” while all you could do was smile and nod?

Yes, “blog” is a peculiar word, conjuring visions of mosquito-infested swamps, and you can’t imagine why people would be eager to get more visitors to theirs.

But eager they are. In spite of the rather unfortunate name, blogs are the hottest things in communication since cell phones. Blogs are websites on which almost anybody can post information on almost any topic as often as they like.

Blogs can be devoted to a single factual topic, or they can be the equivalent of personal diaries in which people record their private thoughts and observations about the world. The contents of a blog are limited only by the imagination of the blog’s creator, or “author”.

If you find the thought of your own blog appealing, and have an Internet-connected computer, here are some suggestions to help you both get a blog going and build an audience with whom you can share it:
First, choose a topic for your blog on which you will enjoy communicating, and prepare your material. Your opinions on a subject are fine, as long as they are based on some underlying. There are always going to be those who know as much, about a topic as you, and if you want a credible blog, you need to be able to back up your statements.

Add some humor and personal experiences to your topic if you can. Writing a travel blog about places you have actually been, and about colorful locals whom you actually encountered, will make much better reading than just posting facts and figures picked up from travel sites and TV shows.

Offer material which will appeal to both novice travelers--like how to avoid pickpockets--and more seasoned ones--like the best undiscovered attractions in a specific destination.

Don’t limit your blog to your own experiences. Keep it updated with news that might affect those interested in your subject. While your experiences can give people valuable insight, recognize that your opinions about what happened to you or about a specific product are, after all, just opinions. Give people factual information which they can weigh for themselves.

Keep you blog current. On the Internet, news can become old in a matter of hours, and what happened a month ago is ancient history. Telling people considering a trip to Thailand that Thailand experienced a coup last September will do nothing to help them decide about a trip next month. Updating them on the peaceful state of affairs in Thailand today, however, will.

Updating your blog will require a commitment from you. You’ll need to establish a regular time to search for and write about fresh news, and get it posted. There’ll be times when not much has happened, and there’ll be times when you can’t type fast enough. But two or three times a week are not too many to post something new.

Even if it’s only to tell your readers that not much has been going on, share a few thoughts, and tell your readers when to next check in for your next entry, make an appearance. Your audience will keep coming back as long as they know you are.

Keep you blog as simple as you can, without sounding like you don’t have a complete grasp of your subject. You want to appeal to as many people as possible, and nothing will drive those newly interested in a subject away faster than lots of technical jargon and statistics. You can provide complex information, as long as you make the effort to put it in user-friendly terms.

Find a memorable name for your blog, and use your blog editing feature to post it in large, bold-face type. “My Hiking Blog” will probably sound interesting only to Mom and Dad and only because you never write or call them while you’re out adventuring. “Climbing through the Clouds” will appeal to those who either tackle the high places of the Earth, or want to.

Every so often, say, at the end of each month, archive your existing blog posts. Your blog editor will let you do this in a less than a minute. The entries will still be available for new blog readers who want to catch up, or those who want to reference your earlier writings. And list keywords for your archived work so that new traffic will be able to find its way to you.

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Introduction

Increasing your website’s traffic is already a time-consuming task that will take up enough of your time. So, you need to make sure that traffic converts into sales, right?

Thankfully, there are drop-dead simple ways of capturing attention, boosting conversion rates and ultimately, maximizing your profits without breaking the bank, or spending a lot of time tweaking your traffic campaigns.

In fact, the conversion boosting hacks featured in this report are ones that you can easily implement into your existing website without spending more than a couple of hours tightening up a few weak areas so that you can transform your business in just a matter of a few short days.

Does that sound like something you’d be interested in?

If so, let’s begin!

Polish & Shine

It all begins with ensuring that your website or landing page is optimized for conversion. Whether you are directing traffic to a sales page, or you’re sending them to a landing page, you need to make sure that your page will motivate visitors into taking action.

Here are a few quick and easy ways to do that:

Make Visitors Do Less Work

If you are sending visitors to a squeeze or landing page, it’s important that you only ask for the information that you absolutely need.

Your opt-in form should ask for only their name and email address. You can segment your lists later as your subscribers begin to open and respond to your campaigns, but to maximize opt-in rates, you need to keep it simple. It shouldn’t take your visitor more than a few seconds to fill in the required information and subscribe to your list.

Additional form fields will severely decrease conversion rates because you’re bogging your visitor down. The less effort you require of potential subscribers, the easier it will be to grow a list.

Keep the page crisp and clean so that visitors aren’t confused about what action they should take, and make sure that all conversion elements are above the fold for optimal results.

Minimize navigation. In fact, eliminate it altogether so that all they see is the headline, opt-in form and incentive offer.

Also, pay careful attention to your headline. Make sure that it speaks to your visitor and gives them a reason to give you their name and email address. You’ll want to test out different headlines to determine what works best for your audience.

A compelling headline captures attention and convinces people to continue reading every single word on your page until you have closed the deal. It persuades visitors into becoming customers, and makes believers out of the skeptics. And if it’s done right, it has the power to transform a sales page into an incredible money-making machine. David Ogilvy, a business tycoon, known as the “father of advertising” believed that the headline of a sales page was the single most important component in a marketing system.

He also summarized the importance of a killer headline with the following quote: “On the average, five times as many people read the headline than they do the body.”

Your job is to create a headline that immediately captures attention and touches down on what is most important to your target audience. You don’t want to get too creative, crafty or clever with your headlines. While you can create headlines that create curiosity, when it comes to your marketing message you want it to ring loud and clear.

This means you need to be very direct. No guessing. No wordplay.

Replicate What Works for Others

Study successful landing and squeeze pages from within your niche and save yourself time by designing your opt-in pages around what has proven to work.

And if you really want to increase opt-in rates, add a video to your squeeze page or a high-quality product box or graphic that represents your incentive offer.

Offer an Irresistible Incentive Offer

You’ll want to make sure that you are offering something of clear value that resonates with your target audience. Don’t make the mistake of trying to cater to every potential client on one squeeze page.

For best results, create multiple landing pages that are aimed at specific target audiences, and then offer a giveaway that is designed to help them in some way. Even when focusing on just one niche, it’s important to speak to segments of your market.

For example, if you sell a guide on self-publishing, you could set up a landing page aimed towards beginners while offering a free report on “Top 10 Tools You Need to Build Your Author Presence”.

Then, create a second landing page that is targeted towards intermediate authors who already likely have an online presence but are looking to maximize exposure and build their readers base. The better targeted your incentive offer is, the easier it will be to convince visitors to subscribe to your list.

Creating a High Converting

Sales Page

When it comes to your sales page, you need a very narrow focus so that you’re able to communicate with your visitor and convince them to purchase your product.

Keep your sales copy moving along by constantly engaging your potential customer. If your sales copy doesn’t get you excited about your product, don’t expect that it will convert visitors into customers.

You want to guide your visitors’ attention to the most important elements of your copy using bullet points, headlines and sub-headlines and other visual cues. Keep them glued to your copy!

Use short, concise sentences so that visitors can quickly scan your copy for the information that’s most important to them.

Don’t bog them down with endlessly long paragraphs of text. And use images or video content whenever possible to maximize engagement and humanize your brand.

Speak their language. Use every day language, as though you are talking to a friend.

Your visitors will feel more relaxed when reading your sales copy if they aren’t forced to Google unfamiliar words.

If your product is aimed at beginners, using everyday language, rather than fancy wording, will also ensure that they aren’t overwhelmed or concerned that they won’t be able to utilize your product effectively because it’s too advanced for them. Your sales page is not the place to show off your linguistic skills.

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Christmas Cooking Made Simple

Cooking at Christmas time either brings joyful thoughts or thoughts of dread. Maybe it’s a combination. We all love the food at Christmas and the smells wafting through the house. But, it also puts a lot of pressure on whoever is the main cook of the house.

Most of the issues with cooking at Christmas can be solved by making things simple. The truth is, we tend to complicate food production for the holidays, making too much food, too many different types of food, and not involving the family to help cut down on the host having to do all the cooking.

Mixing the Old and the New

Every family has its traditions, and it’s always good to keep and pass these on. But, it’s also fun to add in something new. If you find out that no one in the family likes something, just stop doing it. Even if it was tradition, there is no point in continuing.

There are many traditional foods that you can serve at Christmas, but there are also some foods that you can add to make the celebration newer. Let’s look at some traditional foods and how to incorporate something new.

* Potato Salad – This is a common dish served at Christmas celebrations all over the world. There are many ways to make it. If you’ve always made it one way, why not try a new way. For example, if you make mayonnaise-rich potato salad, you might want to try one that doesn’t have mayonnaise just to shake it up a little.

* Turkey – It might seem odd to you but not everyone eats turkey at Christmas. Many people today are now enjoying plant-based diets so they want something else. Others are just tired of the same old thing each year. Why not have a pizza party, or try some traditional dishes from around the world - like Chiles en Nogada, which is enjoyed during the holidays in Mexico, as your main dish:

pre-Christmas merrymaking | chiles en nogada

* Feast of the Seven Fishes – This is an Italian tradition. You can change the theme of your holiday depending on what you normally do and still be fully traditional, while also trying something new. If you want to try this, here is a great recipe to get you started:

https://www.saveur.com/article/Menu/A-Feast-of-Seven-Fishes

* Doro Wat on Injera – This is the traditional Ethiopian Christmas dinner. It’s a spicy chicken stew. You could sub turkey for chicken and use this recipe as a way to use leftovers from your traditional turkey dinner, shaking up the old and new in a very tasty and original way:

https://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/doro-wot-ethiopian-national-chicken-dish-2105964

* Go German – There are many rich traditions for food in Germany. Instead of your normal turkey, why not roast a duck instead? This can be a good way to shake up your Christmas dinner, keeping it traditional while adding something new:

https://www.quick-german-recipes.com/roast-duck-recipe.html

You get the idea regarding food. Look to your heritage. A fun idea is to get everyone to do a DNA test to check your genealogy before the holidays, then ask each person to bring a dish from a country that they discovered was part of their genetic makeup.

You can set up a Facebook group around Halloween with your entire family to discuss cooking for the holidays, as well as DNA test results if you do that. However you choose to proceed, remember that you don’t have to do it all. You can ask for help, you can skip some things, and you can add new things as you desire.

Link for DNA testing: https://www.helix.com/shop/national-geographic-geno-2-next-generation