Active AimA Journey and Destination

The media influences how our children think and act. Sometimes, they even follow what is seen in a show without thinking that this could be harmful if done

to another person.  This is why movies are given certain ratings and parents should monitor what their children watch at home.

One of the best ways to counteract the negativity of media is to watch with your children what is shown on television. If they have a question, it will be

better if you gave them the correct answer of what a certain words means and if this is appropriate for them to use or not.

If there is something that they don’t understand, you should be the one to explain to them what is happening rather than having them interpret how such

events happened.

Such things should not only happen for shows on television but also the commercials that are shown in between them. As we know, there are certain shows that

promote a variety of products that claim to make a certain task easier even when there are already other gadgets that can do the same job at home.

When this happens, you should just explain to your child that what you are currently using can do the same thing so there is no point in buying a

replacement.

There are also commercials that appeal to children especially if what is featured is a toy. After seeing the commercial, your child will probably want it

since that is what is popular right now. When faced with this situation, ask them if they really want it or is this just a phase.  Tomorrow, next week or

even a month later a new toy will come out so such things come and go so they don’t lose anything when they don’t buy it.

If you are not around that often to watch these shows and commercials with your child, set a time that will allow them to watch television and make sure you

stick with it. That way, they don’t sit on the couch after finishing their homework or during the weekends.

Aside from television, the biggest threat to children these days is the Internet. There have been incidents where some children have been bullied online by

being a member to certain sites and clicking on certain links which lead them to porn sites.

To counter such threats, you should monitor what sites they visit and block them from visiting certain sites. You should also allot a certain time that they

are allowed to go online or put the computer in the living room instead of the bedroom so you can see what sites they are visiting. If you are not home, use

a password so they can only use it when you are around.

Taking the appropriate steps like talking to your child, screening certain shows and sites are the most effective ways available to regulate the amount of

influence that media has over your child.

If your children doesn’t curse or exhibit some inappropriate behavior, you can say you did a good job in raising them but don’t forget that there are other

factors which make them behave badly such as the influence that may also come from their friends. When this happens, you shouldcreen who they interact with

Building a Business Brand

No business brand is produced overnight. It follows a methodical process that involves

strategy and organization. But if you think that once you have a business name and logo

that your work is already done, then you need to know that even with long-standing

business the process of brand management is still ongoing. Aside from time, some big

companies even invest lots of time and amount just to ensure that the legacy of the brand

remains consistent to the values embodied by the company.

Small-time business owners can take comfort in the fact that building a brand need not be

expensive. All you need is commitment to the process to provide a focus and consistency on

your branding efforts. There are four elements involved in producing a successful business

brand.

Consistent Message

One of the best way to achieve a consistent marketing approach is to create a unified

name, logo, and image. This is one of the most efficient ways that you can communicate

what your business is about to your potential customers. Therefore, you need to bear in

mind about the vision and mission of your company, which is initially the inspiration

behind the design of the logo. Then, you need to use that in relation with what marketing

strategies you employ to promote your brand image and increase awareness.

Even when you come up with innovative marketing ideas to reinvent your image or offer

customers something new, it has to remain true to the ideals of your business.

Brand Planning

Careful brand planning is essential in building a strong business brand. Regardless of

what marketing methods you utilize to enhance brand awareness, you need to look into each

detail that is involved with the process. This helps ensure that you are able to achieve

consistency, which is a crucial element indicated above.

You need to identify what branding strategies will enable you to achieve your goals. If it

does not work, what back-up plans do you have? All marketing efforts are aimed towards

strengthening your brand to gain a return of investment.

Branding System

This is the part wherein you put into action everything you have designed during brand

planning. Different systems must be employed for every phase involved in the overall

business and brand development. It must properly outline what steps you and your employees

must take during certain circumstances. Bear in mind that a holistic and integrated system

is key in creating a strong brand.

Review and Management

Every brand must continually undergo a review process. Since consumers’ needs and demands

change, so must your brand’s marketing approach. Here are aspects of the brand review and

management procedures that you must take into account:

• Product benefits and features

• Market competition

• Changing customer needs and demands

• Marketing methods used

Continued evaluation of these factors in relation to your brand’s marketing strategies

will help produce a more efficient and cohesive marketing efforts. You will have brand

managers to look into the welfare of the brand and what methods are to be executed to

enhance its market performance. However, internal branding is still of importance since

they are the ones that are responsible for delivering these products or services.

So, it is therefore important that they are aware about the business brand’s objectives as

well.

At the surface level, ‘purpose’ and ‘goal’ seem to be very similar. In fact, my thesaurus tells me they’re synonyms. It might appear that we can use them interchangeably. But in parsing the definitions of these words, we discover they’re as different as night and day.

Goals are the specific objectives we strive to achieve, usually within well-defined parameters of space, time and resources. On the other hand, purpose is abstract. It’s the ‘why’ behind any thought or deed. Purpose is not about achieving an objective it is more of a way of life. Purpose is enduring, whereas goals can be created, adjusted and discarded as needed.

Going beyond mere semantics, you can see the variation between purpose and goals in what you do at work. Goals can be the targets you set regarding the recruitment, retention, development and progression of your organization’s workforce.

In contrast, purpose should be what the goals serve. You establish those targets to achieve a greater overarching aim, one that benefits the business and its shareholders.

For instance, you wouldn’t bring in 1,000 employees just for the purpose of making your workforce larger, would you? Of course not. (At least I hope not.)

On the other hand, you might set a goal of bringing in these employees to prepare your organization to support its purpose and to ensure the success of an exciting new growth opportunity.

We often get lost and confuse our goals with our purpose, both with our companies and our families. I will never forget teaching a leadership development session in a Fortune 500 company that not only involved executives - it involved the spouses or partners of the executives. As part of the session, executives received feedback from their partners.

Many executives learned that their partners felt ignored or put in ’second place’ compared with work. When the executives were asked, ‘Why are you working so hard?’ they invariably said, ‘Because I want my family to have a great life.’ Their partners almost always replied, ‘We have more money than we will ever spend. We would just like to see you more!’

Many executives had clearly let their goal (make a lot of money) become more important than their purpose (create a great life for themselves and their families).

I bring this up because the distinction between a goal and a purpose sometimes can be lost on talent management professionals - we can get so absorbed in our own limited objectives, thinking that these are our raison d’etre.

A good friend of mine left consulting to become the executive vice president of HR for a huge corporation. He reviewed a study of the company’s employee benefits and found some benefits were costing the company millions of dollars and delivering very little that the employees actually valued.

When he suggested cutting the benefits to save the company money, he was told he was ‘confused’ by his HR staff members. They noted that cutting these benefits would mean a smaller budget for the HR department and less power for them. They had become so interested in ‘building their empires,’ they had forgotten about making a return on investment for their stockholders.

The idea that the purpose of the organization should come before the goals of any one part of the business seems to be simple enough. Yet why do many of the leaders in talent management (and to be fair, in other areas of business, as well) so often fail to get it?

The answer is rather simple: When a goal is designated, it tends to become a fixation for highly motivated people. Add to that the pressures that come with tight deadlines, struggles for finite resources and organizational turf battles, and it’s not hard to see how our own goals can absorb any of us.

The solution to this problem is equally simple, although it isn’t necessarily easy. It requires honest, perhaps even painful, introspection and reflection. Conduct a thorough analysis of your goals. Ask yourself, ‘What goals are consuming my time and energy?’ and ‘What goals are consuming the company’s resources?’ Rank your goals in terms of cost. Then look at the true purpose of your organization. Rank your goals in terms of ‘contribution to the purpose.’

If we are honest in our assessments, most of us will find some clear discrepancies between ‘cost of goal achievement’ and ‘contribution to our purpose.’

When this happens, we can step back, take a breath and realign our goals, successfully completing our ‘to do’ list with our purpose - successfully doing what really matters.

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At work, there will be times that you will have to cooperate with other people to get the job done. Since brainstorming usually happens before any action is taken, you have to know how to influence the rest of the group so you guys are able to move on from there.

But how do we do that? Well the first thing you have to do is make sure everyone is on the same page with regards to what needs to be done. Although this may make you look bossy, you have every right if you happen to be the project manager.

You don’t have to do this forcefully because this is surely not the first time you have worked with this group. Just go with the flow and try to please everyone so everything will go smoothly until the job is done. The best way to do is to keep the lines of communication open and giving their suggestions some thought before dismissing it completely.

Another great suggestion will be to delegate certain tasks because this will make the other members in the group also feel important.  This also sends a powerful message that you believe in their ability and once they get accustomed to this, you boost their confidence and competence.

Your basis in given them an assignment should be based on their experience but if you want to them to try something new, make sure you are ready to help if they encounter a problem. Just be sure to check up on them is to ask for a report at certain stages of the project.

If some people should go off track, remind them that you guys have a deadline and that there are people waiting for what you will be able to come up with. Make sure you say this politely so you don’t sound arrogant or superior even if you happen to be the most senior member in the group.

When everyone is tired after working on the project for hours, tell the group to take a break because you guys need to recharge your batteries.

When the project is over, don’t forget to thank everyone for their help and give credit where it is due. The last thing that your group wants to hear is your boss praising only you for a job well done when the other members contributed their share to make it work. That is another way to have a good relationship with them and ensure that you won’t have any problems working with them in future projects.

Keeping the group together, delegating tasks and saying what you want done properly is the proper way of influencing your colleagues at work. If you have never been a project manager before, don’t worry because this takes a bit of practice and time to gain their respect especially if you were always the one being told what to do for a project.

But if you are given the opportunity, make the most of it because this is the best time to show the bosses who you really are. As long as you maintain your composure and continue to be honest and trustworthy, there is no doubt that you will have influenced these people in some way and will continue to have a good working relationship with them.

Presently, lenders are seeing more and more commercial real estate property go into default as a result of non-payment by clients.; it has become especially difficult on the commercial real estate lenders as purchasers of products and services fail to make important purchases that keep Commercial borrowers and their Commercial Real Estate loans afloat. Commercial Real Estate loans are going ‘bad’. That means the clients are unable to pay to keep their doors open. Here are some telltale signs that your lendee has issues that may affect your loans as a lendor.

Some of the composition of a Commercial Real Estate Loan gone bad are: (1) Payments are late whereas they were on time prior with no indications of breach of contract based on payment; (2) Borrower makes various excuses; payments become later and later; (3) Borrower does not deliver financial data required (Rent Rolls, Operating Statements, Interim Financials, etc); (4) Borrower ceases communication; payments are 30 days + in arrears.

What to do ? At this juncture the Bank/Lendor should start communication, verbal and written, informing the Borrower of the issue and suggest dialogue. The Bank should also perform a site visit to verify occupancy, check on maintenance/security concerns, have discussions with tenants, etc. After 30 days of non-payment, Notice of Default or Intent to Default should be sent. In any case, after 90 days of arrears, the Default and Foreclosure process should be started.

There are interim solutions however to the normal default path. The alternative solutions may preserve, extend, and even save both the borrower and the lender from going out of business as a result of no true fault of their own in the tumultuous times.A few alternative solutions are: (1) Restructure of debt payment; (2) Sale of the debt; (3) Foreclosure; and finally, (4) The Bank may also wish to perform a Deficiency Suit against any and all Guarantors.

If the property is an income-producing property, the Bank’s counsel should request an emergency hearing to allow for a Trustee (of the Bank’s appointment) to take over operations of the property (similar to a Bankruptcy scenario; however, in such, the Court will appoint the Trustee). It may be that if the Borrower does file for Bankruptcy, the Court may allow the same Trustee to carry on that duty. Regardless, this will prevent “equity skimming” (rents being received by the borrow but no payments being made to the Bank, other creditors, management company, lack of maintenance, etc), lack of maintenance, damage of collateral and other problems that could occur.

The Bank or Lender may decide the Loan is too burdensome or that the Debt Service is not likely to be met even with a restructure. As such, an alternative may be to sell the debt. It may be sold at par, but likely at a discount with the institution taking a charge on the discounted amount. While not favorable, it is a quick and easy solution to a problem Loan that could become more of a problem.

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