Looking great doesn’t have to cost you.

Looking good isn’t the be all and end all in life. However, it can make a difference to many things, from self esteem, to having the confidence to apply for that dream job or speak to someone you like. If you don’t have a lot of cash to spare but you still want to look good then there are many ways to do it for much less without having to borrow money on bad credit loans or doorstep loans.

1. Shop vintage

Second hand shops are a treasure trove for those who love clothes, shoes and accessories that are well made and look great. Yes, you might have to spend some time searching for those bargains, as not every item in a second hand shop is going to be a designer find. However, it’s often worth it as you can pick up some beautiful pieces for a fraction of what they would have cost new.

2. Get good at DIY

Beauty DIY, that is. You don’t have to invest in high priced beauty products to look good. There are some great beauty fixes in the average kitchen. Create your own DIY body scrub with a combination of olive oil and brown sugar or warm up soybean oil with a few drops of essential oil for an instant and effective hot oil hair treatment. Mashed up avocado, yogurt and honey also makes a fantastic facemask.

3. Trim your own hair

If you’re looking for a haircut – especially a very styled finish – then you might need to go to a hairdresser. However, if it’s just a case of straightening a fringe or chopping off split ends this can easily be done at home to make your locks look better. If you’re unsure then watch a “how to” video online first.

4. Rent for special occasions

Some occasions call for that show stopping dress or perfectly cut suit. If you want to access the best designer threads without actually paying for them then you can now rent them online. Most clothes rentals businesses ship out within a day and you simply return the item after it’s been worn for the company to dry clean.

5. Get more sleep

Not getting enough sleep doesn’t just leave you cranky it can also have a big impact on your skin too. Dehydration, redness, puffiness and inflammation can all appear if you’re not getting enough shut eye every night. So, if you want an instant fix that costs absolutely nothing, start getting to bed earlier and giving your body the chance to rest and renew.

6. Work out in the park

Expensive gym memberships are not the only option for keeping you fit – there’s the great outdoors too. If you want access to basic machines then check out your local park and see if you have an outdoor gym in your area – they’re free to use. If you don’t then be creative about fitness options, from jogging, through to press ups on the park bench.

7. Eat seasonally

You are what you eat so if you want to look good then you need to eat well and consume what’s nutritious. Eating seasonally can bring the costs of your weekly spend way down, particularly when it comes to meat, fruit and vegetables. Buy from local producers and you’ll be getting the tastiest, freshest ingredients and reducing your impact on the environment too.

The men and women who make up the upper echelons of big business in the UK are no strangers to top-level sport. Just look at the owners of today’s Premier League football clubs. Business people enjoy the thrill of live sport and have the money to back their chosen teams. But while football plays perfectly to the business leader who wishes to get involved in ‘the people’s game’, polo is still seen by many as the preserve of the privileged. That makes the case of the 4th Marquess of Milford Haven all the more curious – as while he is one of the top backers of UK polo, he is also the man behind a business which was founded to save the man of the street money.

In the beginning of Marquess of Milford Haven

Teaming up with fellow investors such as Andrew Salmon, the former corporate financier for PwC, and Vip Amin, the US industrialist, the 4th Marquess of Milford Haven found himself in the right place at the right time. This time was the post-dotcom boom era, which was ushered in after the Millenium. The place was at the helm of uSwitch, a new website which aimed to save gas and electricity customers money on their bills by allowing them to compare different contract options. Crucially, they were now able to switch suppliers more quickly than ever before thanks to the deregulation which had taken place in the UK energy market.

Doing things differently

uSwitch caught the eye of the British consumer. It was a website which was a million miles away from the small print filled presentations they might have been accustomed to when shopping around for a new energy provider. The 4th Marquess of Milford Haven oversaw a business plan which aimed to make it as easy as possible for consumers to save money, and very soon, the whole market landscape had changed. That’s because the 4th Marquess of Milford Haven’s uSwitch wasn’t the only price comparison website – the market had become filled, and even saturated, with them. What that provoked was a kind of price war whereby suppliers were now bidding to outdo each other by trying to offer the best benefits and contract perks. Who was the winner in this new race to offer savings? The consumer.

Building to a big sale

It might be said that one of the most important elements of being a business owner is knowing when to let go. It seems the 4th Marquess of Milford Haven chose the right time to sell uSwitch; he might have taken the organisation as far as it could go in the UK market, and by leaving it in the hands of US media giant EW Scripps after a £210 million sale, he offered uSwitch the chance to have a new lease of life.

New territory

But the 4th Marquess of Milford Haven’s involvement in the price comparison market didn’t end there. He was also instrumental in the exporting of the ‘uSwitch formula’ to foreign shores, in the form of EnCazip (Turkey) and MoneyGuru (Brazil). It proved that given the right market conditions, importantly including a country with an energy market which has recently been deregulated, price comparison is a compelling consumer concept.

Back to polo

Following the sale of uSwitch, the 4th Marquess of Milford Haven was able to channel more of his energies into a sport which he loves – polo. His whole family play polo, and he identified the former Sussex cattle farm of Great Trippetts as a perfect opportunity to develop a venue which Britain and Europe could be proud of. Now Trippetts is home to some of the top polo players from around the world during the season, with top class accommodation for grooms just one of the many facilities which are unmatched anywhere in the country.

The 4th Marquess of Milford Haven isn’t your everyday business figure; unlike those Premier League owners, his favoured sport isn’t ‘the people’s game’, but his business was.

SEO is the name of the game in our contemporary time when it comes to establishing solid online marketing strategies and tactics. Hence, if you intend to optimize your website, you are surely on the right track. But you would surely need to find the best SEO consultant.Here are ten of the useful questions you can ask your prospective SEO consultants to get an objective assessment of their level of capabilities:

1. Are you capable of making my website the top website on the SERP?

The answer to this question could very well indicate if your prospective SEO consultant can do the job for you. If his answer is a categorical “yes,” then he is obviously confident of his capabilities as an SEO expert. The basis of SEO is link building, because search engines rank websites according to the quality and number of their links. Hence, you should learn more about how your prospective consultants can increase the links that go in and out of your website.

2. What are your strategies and tactics in making my website rank high?

The answers to this question could very well spell out the capabilities of a prospective SEO consultant. If your prospective SEO consultant could confidently delineate to you his strategies and tactics, then he definitely knows what his job is.

3. Do you follow the Webmaster Guidelines?

This question can help you figure out if your prospective consultant is an honest one. If he engages in black hat tricks, he may later on jeopardize the integrity and credibility of your website. Hence, you should look for an SEO consultant who only uses legitimate SEO strategies and tactics.

4. Could you me give your timeframe on how long would it take for my website to rank high on the SERP?

If he could give you a definite timeframe, you can readily set your expectations based on that timeframe. SEO is like hiking a high mountain. You need to know the specific segments of the hiking trail. You also need to get reliable predictions as to when you are going to finish each segment of the trail. Similarly, your consultant should be able to predict the outcome of his strategies and tactics based on a given time so that you would know if he is achieving what he sets to achieve within that given timeframe.

5. Do you have resources to measure your SEO success?

SEO experts should be able to give you pertinent information on how well your website is doing every week. He should have resources that would enable him to track down how effective his strategies and tactics.

6. Would you give me a list of past clients and present clients?

You will know if an SEO consultant is a real expert by simply looking at the list of his previous as well as present clients. If he is presently working, for example, for great companies and have previously worked for well-known clients, then this fact could be a good indicator of level of experience as an SEO expert.

7. How much would you Charge?

Some consultants are paid on an hourly basis, while others are paid based on the projects that they do. SEO pricings generally range from $250 to $5,000. It would be beneficial to clarify at the onset the amount you are going to pay your SEO consultant to avoid any misunderstanding later on.

8. Which link-building strategies do you usually engage in?

As said earlier, link building is the gist of SEO, and the more quality links your website can have, the higher your website will rank in the SERP. Hence, at the onset, it is valuable to know your prospective consultant’s link-building strategies.

9. Are you familiar with the recent SEO strategies?

This question can let you gauge whether your prospective SEO consultant is cognizant of the latest trends in website optimization. You can ask him if he knows how to optimize your website for voice searches and for mobile searches.

10. Can you optimize my website for local search?

The value of local search is increasing in this highly mobile world. With many people using their mobile phones to search for locally available services and products such as in craigslist maine, it is becoming imperative that your SEO consultant perfectly knows how to optimize your website for local search.

Small businesses are especially vulnerable to shocks. If one thing does not go the way it should, that could spell trouble. If you find yourself in a difficult situation, then you should get the right kind of help. Working with a merchantcashadvances.co company will help you gather the cash you need to keep afloat.

Indeed, it is often the case that new companies need quick and temporary injections of cash to tide them over rough periods. This might be your situation. If it is, a cash advance company can provide you with the right resources.

The financial industry is quite different from what it was before. New, more flexible and independent companies compete fiercely for business. They get to set their own terms and come up with the kind of innovate solutions that put clients first. You will have an easier time of getting the money you need than previously. You will be able to get through the application process without a credit check, which will enable you to get what you need almost immediately.

You should not fret or worry about going through a hard financial time. A cash advance service can provide you with all that is needed to get through it.

Your move fast, you require expeditious action. You do not have the luxury of waiting around for a decision that might or might not come weeks after you have put in your loan application. Working with a cash advance merchant allows you to avoid this kind of situation. You will be able to get the money you need without a great deal of difficulty and fuss.

When looking for the right cash merchant, you should opt for the vendors that specialize in the field. They will have a better understanding of how it all works and will be able to give you the best deal available on the market.

However, it is important to realize that not every company is the same. They do not all adhere to the same standard of quality, service, and value. You want the best. To get the best you must work with a company that has already established a reputation for delivering excellent results and world-class customer service. Cost is also a factor. When you work with a cash advance service, you borrow money against future earnings. The vendors of course charge a fee for lending you the money. The fee you are charged should be reasonable; it should be at a level that is sustainable and practical as far as repayment.

If you are unable to do that, then there is no sense in borrowing the money because it will only put you in worse shape. You should take the task of finding the right cash advance vendor seriously. The company you work with should offer you the right financing at the right rates. The only way to find such a company is to venture onto the web. Doing so will allow you to range through the various companies that offer this service. You can begin your research by visiting this site: http://www.vendorseek.com/finance/merchant-cash-advance/merchant-cash-advance-vs-bank-business-loan
Have you exhausted all other possibilities of injecting cash into your business? If so, then you should see what merchantcashadvances.co has to offer.

A lot of people want to become a civil engineer. People like Reddy Kancharla, for instance, have had a huge impact on society as a whole, ensuring various important structures are fit for purpose and safe for the general public. Added to that, there is a huge demand for civil engineers, which makes it a very interesting career. However, it is also a complex career, and one with many different subdisciplines.

A Drive in Demand for Civil Engineers

There are a number of key factors that have led to a significant increase in demand for qualified civil engineers. This includes:

• An aging workforce, with the baby boom generation retiring.
• Aging existing infrastructure that requires updating.
• Greater knowledge of the environmental impact of constructions and their materials, but also of the impact of Mother Nature on structures.
• The new presidential directives as set by Donald Trump to put infrastructure first.

Civil Engineering Subdisciplines

One of the things students who wish to become civil engineers discover quite quickly, is that it is a very wide and varied career. People like Reddy Kancharla, who have worked in the field for many years, have come together to develop a greater insight into the types of careers and subdisciplines within civil engineering as a whole. Kancharla is also in negotiations with various colleges and universities to encourage them to offer these subdisciplines as concentrations in their bachelor or master degree programs, something that some of them have now started to do.

The accepted subdisciplines within the field of civil engineering include:

• Materials science and engineering, which focuses on the properties of the different materials used in engineering.
• Coastal engineering, which focuses on the environmental impact of coastal climates.
• Construction engineering, which looks a structural, environmental, material, and geotechnical construction issues.
• Earthquake engineering, which looks at making buildings earthquake proof.
• Environmental engineering, which focuses on minimizing the environmental impact of construction work.
• Geotechnical engineering, which looks at the earth’s behaviors and how this can impact construction.
• Water resources engineering, looking at how to minimize water wastage, water conservation, and utilizing water.
• Structural engineering, which focuses on weight issues but also the impact of Mother Nature.
• Surveying, which some see as a separate professional altogether. However, surveying is generally included in civil engineering degrees.
• Transportation engineering, which looks at the transportation network.
• Municipal or urban engineering, which focuses on urban planning.
• Forensic engineering, which investigates what causes failures in structures and other engineering projects.

Clearly, there are a lot of different subdisciplines found in civil engineering. It is important to be aware of this if you are considering it as a career. Often, the subdisciplines have some overlap, or even a significant overlap. This means that you will generally work together with students from other subdisciplines. The benefit of this is also that you will pick up knowledge from the other subdisciplines and that you will start to build a network of professional contacts, working together with those who will eventually become your colleagues.

I was recently reading about the highly successful Marc Leder, co-founder of Sun Capital Partners, the private equity investment firm. Leder has been successful throughout his life from education to his first job at Lehamn Brothers where he worked himself up from junior analyst to Senior Vice President. Mr. Leder has also involved himself in philanthropic activities as well as his success with Sun Capital Partners, a truly inspirational man.

I am often inspired in business by stories like Leder’s as well as inspirational quotes which I have posted all over my house and office. I wanted to share with you some of my favorites in the hope that they can inspire you too.

“There is a difference between being a leader and being a boss. Both are based on authority. A boss demands blind obedience; a leader earns his authority through understanding and trust.” Klaus Balkenhol

“Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas?” Margaret Thatcher

“If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever.” G.K. Chesterton

“Great leadership is about human experiences. It’s not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.” Lance Secretan

“Leadership is not magnetic personality that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not ‘making friends and influencing people’–that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.” Peter F. Drucker

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: It was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” John Kenneth Galbraith

“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow a weak trumpet.” Theodore Hesburgh

“Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”  Colin Powell

“Leaders aren’t born they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.” Vince Lombardi

Do you have some favorite leadership quotes? If so let us know in the comments section below, we’d love to hear what you think.

One of the greatest pleasures in life, believes Walter Viola, is to open a brand new book and not being able to put it away again until all has been read. When people are in school, they are forced to read certain books, the literary classics. However, it is after that when people’s love for reading really starts to shine through. The time when they have the choice to pick a book that they genuinely like themselves, a book that grips and captivates them. Of course, whether a book is good or not is a subjective concept. You may personally feel that Dean Koontz is the best writer of all times, and that Jill Mansell writes things suitable only for toilet reading. Someone else, meanwhile, may believe that Marcel Proust’s books should be devoured, while J.K. Rowling’s writings are just for children. That said, there are some books that have been released this year that are absolute must reads. Let’s take a look at Walter Viola’s personal best reads list.

The Top Reads of 2017 According to Walter Viola

1. Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: A Novel

This is the latest novel by Roy, which is a graceful and intricate story of magic, and how love can men lives broken by tragedy. It is a storytelling book, but one different from all others. 20 years ago, Roy published The God of Small Things and it took him two decades to write his new book, but it was worth waiting for.

2. David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

This book is a true story, albeit a story few people now of, about serial murder and oil, as it occurred in the 1920s on the Osage Indian Reservation. It is one of those books that leaves you angry at the world, and at how inhumane and arrogant our forefathers have been. It also points the many imperfections society still has to overcome.

3. Fredrik Backman’s Beartown: A Novel

Backman is perhaps best known for his novel, A Man Called. However, Beartown is something completely new. It is about truth-telling and soul-searching. In the novel, a small town where everybody is mad about hokey is rocked by a crime that nobody wants to believe in.

4. Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West: A Novel

This novel is futuristic in nature, in which young lovers run from a Middle Eastern country. They hope to find safe refuge in a western country, but cities like London are overrun by settlements of refugees. Hamid is best-known for his novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and he uses this new book to point out that all humans are refugees of some sort.

5. Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy: A Memoir

Patricia Lockwood had to move back into her parental home. Her father was a priest, but one passionate about electric guitars. Her mother, meanwhile, obsessed over Satan worshippers and disasters. Moving back in reminds Lockwood of her childhood, and the book is essentially a remembering of all that happened to her as a child.

Community development and social justice are two study tracks that more and more people are becoming interested in. This is also increasing the demand for an understanding of exactly what those two issues are. According to Peter Benedict St Andrews, the easiest way to understand it, is that social justice takes a global perspective, whereas community development has a more local perspective. However, this is a very simplistic view and Peter feels a greater explanation is required.

Peter Benedict St Andrews on Community Development and Social Justice Programs

Educational programs that focus on both the issues tend to have been created in an effort to bring the theoretical and moral study of what social justice is together, while also considering its practical applications, aiming to change certain communities. When studying social justice, people inevitably start to take action and that action can be properly supported by using proven to be effective community development strategies. Hence, it could be said that social justice is about understanding why action is necessary, while community development is about understanding how that action should be taken.

Community development is, at its heart, a type of social justice as well. Regardless of a person’s spiritual belief, we all agree that poverty is unjust, that war is a bad thing, and that the powerless are being oppressed. Often, it is students who become involved in issues that are referred to as “social justice”. This includes things such as:

• How to eliminate hunger and poverty.
• How to stop wars.
• How to welcome refugees.
• How to empower women.

Meanwhile, on a community level, these people try to liberate people from their constraints. They want to create an inclusive economy, in which everybody has equal opportunities to contribute, to be educated, to receive health care, and to live in secure housing.

Community development also looks at systems, however. It looks at the way in which policies have to change so that they can become sustainable. Those who wish to change the housing system must first understand housing production and housing policies. Those who want to ensure communities can have more access to healthy food, must first understand the politics and economics of food production. According to Peter, what matters is that people find a way to use big systems in such a way that they can be applied to a small place. That is precisely what community development is about.

IT could be said that, if real and sustainable change is to be brought about, people have to understand both social justice and community development. This is why it is now common for universities to combine the two, and to not require students to specialize in either of the two tracks until their final semester, if at all. In this way, they are able to truly blend the global and the local, as well as the theoretical and the practical. At the end of the day, that is what is needed to truly change the world for the better.

On the grand scheme of things, the concept of studying management practice and theory is quite new. In fact, it didn’t start until the beginning of the 20th century. The emphasis then was strong on looking at what made enterprises human. While this is still of importance now, experts like Larry Polhill Cafe Valley believe it is no longer enough.

Larry Polhill Cafe Valley on Demands of the 21st Century

Today, people management is no longer solely about understanding people. It is about being collaborative. The director of investors at APFC, for instance, must be able to work together with the president of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but also with the individual team members of both organizations. Collaboration isn’t just about interpersonal relations or being friendly. That’s been done now. It is about truly working together to improve businesses as a whole, while putting the business first.

Being Part of a Business

The aim should be on achieving results. These results should be measurable, precise, and clear. Employees shouldn’t just be developed in a rewarding environment that supports growth. Rather, it is about acknowledging that one of the greatest resources of a business is its people and that businesses can only achieve real results if its people perform properly.

According to Polhill, this must begin with marketing. This is what gives employees a truly clear focus to work towards, while at the same time understanding what their focus market is. Essentially, people need to know the business that they are in. Only if people understand this, and are committed to it, will they work towards the success of the organization.

Staff selection is, obviously, of huge importance. They have to be the people who perform the way you expect them to. At the same time, this means that you have to have full clarity on what your expectations are. You cannot rush this, but need to properly prepare yourself by analyzing your needs.

Secondly, you have to have the right systems in place. These must be designed to completely avoid failure. Having poor systems means poor performance, which equates to failure. Having good systems in place, however, will motivate people to do better.

What Does the Performance Manager Do?

Performance managers are no longer about staff supervision and holding the hand of the employee while micromanaging them. It is about trusting that you, as a manager, have enabled your employees to do their job properly. If they fail, it is because you failed. It is also about acknowledging their contributions, as this will encourage them to contribute even more. That is the essence of the 21st century manager, but also of the 21st century team. Team building, in a sense, is a thing of the past. Today, it is about team “development” instead. This means there is an emphasis on the interpersonal relationships that exist not between manager and team, but rather between the different members of the team, which the manager is also a part of.

Randall Benderson has been in the business of real estate development for a very long time. While people are constantly confronted on the news with developers who make it big, like Donald Trump, or stories of someone earning millions by acting on a scoop, the reality is that the sector is incredibly risky. As such, Benderson feels that it is important that people are aware of the risks that exist in real estate development.

Real Estate Development Risks According to Randall Benderson

Key is that developers tend to purchase an empty plot of land. They engage in stringent research to determine whether it should be used for a residential or commercial project. If the latter, they then have to determine whether it is suitable for office, industry, retail, or other such space. While research is important and can help to predict the future to some degree, it will always remain a gamble, although that can be said for all types of investments.

One of the key issues that they immediately come across, is that of zoning. The Town Plan determines which land can be used for what, and this means that it can be somewhat restrictive. Rezoning applications are possible, but rarely successful. This is true all over the country, from Tampa Bay to Phoenix and from Sarasota to New York City.

The second key risk is that of finance. The average person only knows about mortgages, which last for 25 to 30 years. These are generally not the loans used by developers, however. This is because a mortgage requires monthly payments, and since developers go for years without having a monthly income coming in, this is not a suitable option. Rather, they pay back the loan at the end of the development period, with interest, in one balloon payment. The big problem is, however, that developers often take out the wrong finance package because they aren’t sure what they can develop on the land, as discussed in the first risk.

Then, there is the fact that developers must find market knowledge from somewhere. Although they are called “real estate developers”, they are essentially manufacturers. This means that they have to create a product, and this product has to have in demand features. Finding out what those features are takes market research. The problem is, however, that it can take a long time before a project is completed, and this means that market knowledge is no longer applicable as needs have changed.

Last but not least, because real estate development has a reputation of being “where the big money is”, and everybody believing that if Donald Trump can do it, they can too, some enter the field without any strategic knowledge. Real estate development is hard work and it takes a lot of experience and knowledge to really become good at it. While some people have made it through luck alone, luck is not something tangible so you cannot count on it.