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Most companies use Material Requirement Planning (MRP) software or an MRP module of an ERP to plan and manage the purchasing and scheduling of materials based on a demand plan or forecast. It is time phased and can manage large numbers of materials and bill of materials to ensure the right components are ordered and on hand to support a production scheduling software. However, MRPs aren’t always enough to maintain optimal levels of inventory.

Originally, MRP systems were designed to operate off a forecast driven Master Production Schedule and were associated by definition with Make to Stock (MTS) or Push systems. One built to a plan that was based on a forecast. If it were wrong, either customer service suffered or inventory would pile up. MRP systems were thought to be incompatible with the Make to Order (MTO) or Push systems, but that is not the case. A lot of work has been done to manage both systems using MRP software, depending on if you are using MTS or MTO, by adjusting parameters and time fences. MRP systems are quite versatile these days and can be used to operate in a Make to Stock (Push System), Make to Order (Pull System) or Hybrid (Push/Pull Mix) environments.

Yet, MRP systems cannot do everything. Materials Managers have to ensure that the data tables are maintained, which can be non-trivial and the real make or break of how effective a MRP is:

? The Bill of Materials has to be up to date. These are not static documents. Specifications change resulting in changes of suppliers, this information must be accurate.

? The lead times for all component and supplier locations must be up to date including the transit times. Shipping times, lanes, and carriers are always changing, suppliers are changing, and sometimes their location as well.

? Forecasts or demand plans must be constantly updated and every effort should be taken to make them as accurate as possible. This is incredibly critical in MTS environments, but it is crucial in MTO scenarios as well, because you may still need to pre-build to level load the factories in preparation for peak shipping seasons.

? All of the above data is critical in their own rights, but they also contribute to the calculations of re-order points and Economic Order Quantities (EOQs) for all finished goods and materials. MRP systems do not, in general, calculate and evaluate re-order points and EOQs and if they do, they might not be using the calculations best suited for ones particular business.

How often should you recalculate the inventory parameters? This depends on the growth or decay of the business in general. It depends on the volatility of the business environments. Consider the past few years. We have seen:

? A dramatic shift of material and finished goods sourcing to Asia adding dramatically to the lead times for these materials. The mean lead time most certainly grows but in many cases the standard deviation of the lead time will increase as well. Not adjusting often enough for this will result in stock outs and poor customer service.

? A steady decline in sales for at least the past two quarters. In many cases, the decline has been 25-45% in sales. You need to react as quickly as possible to this to avoid having too much inventory and yet be ready to react in the other direction when the recovery comes.

MRP systems are not suited for these kinds of tasks. Some companies do these calculations and evaluations themselves in home grown software or spreadsheets. Others use a third party software specifically designed to size and calculate the inventory parameters on a rolling basis and populating the MRP with re-orders points and EOQs over the next six months or one year.

The bottom line is that MRP systems are very good and may be the central engine for managing inventory and ensuring customer service. But, MRP systems require good data to run effectively and this includes the periodic recalculation of re-order points and EOQs often best done by a specialty software module.

Written by Mark Gavoor.

http://www.cadentresources.com

For more information, please send an email to: ldewit@cadentresources.com

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There is probably not another profession on the face of the earth more tailor-made for the “average person” to develop into a stage seeker than MLM. From the time you take your distributors to their first major event on (and perhaps even from the time you take them to their first business meeting), many of them begin to long for the moment when they can step up to the microphone. In fact, one the first declarations they make is, “Next year, I’m going to walk across that stage!”

There is something intoxicating to people about being center stage. Actually, I find it rather humorous that while I hear many people declare an aversion to speaking from the front of the room, it never seems to shorten the length of their remarks. In fact, sometimes the so-called terrified ones have to be cut off by the host of the program because they won’t shut up.

Although the lure of being on stage for money has a compelling charisma, I would list it as one of the most expendable activities for any leader wanting to make the big money. You may be wondering why I say that. It’s because your best money-making spot is the back of the room as you watch your leaders flock to the stage.

The more your leaders get to participate from the front of the room, the more momentum and enthusiasm they will have for the event. Incidentally, they almost never find fault with an event in which they are a major participant.

It is important to begin cultivating them for that leadership participation as soon as you sign them up. Begin in small groups, like at a home party or a small meeting. First, they need to observe you (or someone else) and ask questions. Then, you need to coach them for a small participation role. When they have successfully mastered a supportive part and have proven that they can manage the clock, you will want to give them their starting role chance.

I first heard this “lead from the back of the room” stuff from my husband Taylor back in 1986. I though, at the time, that perhaps it was overrated. I was confident back in my professional teaching days that a trained presenter would be hard to beat.

What I learned is that it’s not about “beating.” It’s about developing, encouraging, supporting, and envisioning. It’s about accepting standards, temporarily, that might drop a tad so that they can ultimately rise to a new level. This fits right in with Taylor’s motto: “We build the people, the people build the business.”

In December of 2002, Taylor and I decided to host a historic Leadership Summit meeting. We had 55 of our top leaders come in for a 72-hour marathon. It was one of our finest hours. After a Mexican fiesta dinner and a tour of our estate, we held a Vision Workshop. The breakthroughs that began to occur there are still unfolding. On Saturday, seven of our top leaders presented to the group. The afternoon culminated in a question and answer panel followed by an inspirational call to action. I’m sure the string of seven limousines we hired to carry us to a holiday party at the CEO’s estate added extra sparkle to the event - but we are still at a loss for words to describe the power of the entire experience.

“Leading from the back of the room” is what generated that winning format. It is also how you can get the most out of an event while observing the responses of the audience. I would encourage you to set your ego aside and build up those around you. You may not see your name on the program, but you’re more likely to see it on a bigger check.

I’ve always said if I can make at least $30,000 a month, I can get by. If you aren’t happy with where your leadership has taken you, try stepping out of it and passing the baton. Trading glory for dollars seems like a pretty fair trade to me.

Here are some tips for leadership development:

1. Set and live by high standards;

2. Be consistent;

3. Know your people;

4. Bring out the best in people;

5. Earn the respect of your team;

6. Delegate;

7. Build confidence by showing confidence;

8. Project positive expectancy;

9. Create team achievement;

10. Communicate enthusiastically;

11. Have a vision.

Remember Mary Kay’s National Sales Director, Luella Gunter’s famous words, “Ultimate success is the ability to inspire followers to become leaders.”

In identifying large opportunities to accomplish 20 times more, nth degree thinking is critical. Nth degree thinking requires you to take one element of your business environment and expand it to extremes . . . both much larger and much smaller than you can possibly imagine could occur. In picking 2,000 percent solution (any way of accomplishing 20 times more with the same, time, effort, and resources) opportunities, you also apply nth degree thinking. To do so you stretch the benefits that stakeholders could gain or lose to their limits.

Here’s an example. Assume that a book publisher examines the following areas using the nth degree test for competitive and profit impact: cost of development; cost of production; duration of development; distribution availability in bookstores; amount of publicity; total of positive word-of-mouth comments; pleasure that readers get from the book; what percentage of readers like the book; and pricing. Notice that taking the number of positive word-of-mouth comments to the maximum would tend to overwhelm the other areas. Most publishers, however, don’t put much attention in that area. A publisher that did could probably expect to create an overwhelming 2,000 percent solution for its books and its publishing performance.

Time is an important element in focusing your attention because benefits that arrive sooner are surer and more valuable than ones that take longer. Certainly, in choosing between creating a 2,000 percent solution that you can put in place over a few months and one that will require decades, most would choose to pursue first the faster one. An analysis of the present value of the cash flow benefits (discounting the future estimated benefits for inflation and uncertainty) would also validate that choice.

The publisher’s most valuable benefit for increased sales is to generate unlimited amounts of positive word of mouth about its books.

Here are some of the possible solutions that the publisher might have identified that help improve other benefits:

-Publish books written by well-regarded celebrities with intriguing new information.

-Authors dedicate royalties to popular charities which will promote the books.

-Companies donate books as part of their product promotions due to the subject matter.

-Tie the book launch timing to a series of related broad-scale media events.

-Create an appealing corporate-sponsored contest related to the theme of the book.

-Provide newsworthy disclosures daily related to the book.

Next, the publisher needs to think about how long it would take to pursue each of these potential solutions. Clearly, there are only a limited number of celebrities who could have the right kind of appeal and would be willing to tailor their books to this purpose and donate their proceeds to charity. One might work on attracting those celebrities forever, and still not gather a single one. Some other approach for adding word-of-mouth interest is needed. This conclusion is particularly true for a small publisher whose market strengths might not be considered to be valuable enough to attract such celebrities.

Many celebrities are already associated with corporations through endorsement contracts and charities through voluntary activities. Having identified which celebrities the publisher wants to pursue, the next step is to research their commitments and connections to corporations and charities. Then, the publisher could see which celebrities could be approached through these intermediaries. The best starting point would probably be a charity. In some cases, the publisher might find that the corporate sponsor and the charity also have a tie. That combination could be even better.

As the publisher, you next need to develop a book concept that fits with all of these circumstances. Then, you should document why the book concept will be very valuable to the celebrity, the charity and the corporate sponsors.

How long would it take to pursue these activities? Not very long if you know what needs to be done, but most publishers don’t have the skills in house to advance such an approach into reality. Currently, publishers wait for authors’ agents to approach them with such packages . . . and then the acquisition editors choose among the proposals for the most valuable book concepts.

What is required is not unlike what theatrical, motion picture and television producers do. An important step might be to develop a partnership with such a producing organization that could participate in providing some of the other entertainment that could be built around the concept. Our publisher needs to focus attention on either working with people who have these skills and contacts or hiring such people.

No one should build a possible route towards a 2,000 percent solution around one potential set of allies. So our publisher needs to explore associations with other potentially enabling parties, like the celebrities’ agents, corporations and nonprofit organizations that sponsor popular events, and entertainment impresarios. Another approach might involve partnering with foundations that wanted to help pioneer this type of nonprofit fund-raising. Such foundations could use their own contacts to help put the necessary talent and skills together.

The publisher should continue to focus on potential solutions until several paths have been found that can be fairly quickly explored and implemented. At that point the publisher will be ready to begin developing a 2,000 percent solution using the materials and questions in the next eight chapters of this workbook.

If the publisher cannot find several paths for word-of-mouth increases that seem to have high potential, the publisher would be wise to shift focus. That publisher should look instead for rapid paths for pursuing some of the other benefits that the nth degree analysis identified as being particularly valuable, such as pleasure that readers get from the book and, how many readers like the book which can help build positive word-of-mouth-based interest.

Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved

It comes as no news to anyone that the American people love their animals. What did come as a surprise to me is that we also love animals on our wine labels. Yes, a study released earlier this year by ACNielsen confirms that wine labels with animal images are becoming increasingly popular in this country.

I felt compelled to do my own research on this topic so one evening I stopped by my local liquor store to check out the wine selection. Sure enough I was greeted with a veritable zoo of animals on labels. There were Dancing Bulls, Leaping Horses, Black Swans, Little Penguins, Kangaroos, even a hippopotamus courtesy of Fat Bastard Wines (which is French would you believe). This very informal research confirmed that there seems to be a much larger selection of wines with animal labels than ever before.

Critter Labels Rule

In the wine industry these animal labels are affectionately known as “critter labels”, and the trend began back in 2001 with the introduction of the Yellow Tail brand of wines into this country from Australia. Pictured on the label is what looks like a kangaroo (but which is in fact supposed to be the yellow-footed rock wallaby). These wines had labels that looked striking, were priced very reasonably and they tasted great ? so they became a runaway success. So much so that they spawned an entire new “category” of wine.

The ACNielsen study has some hard data confirming the popularity of this new wine category. In the past three years there have been 438 new Table Wine brands that have been successfully introduced in the American market (those wines that sold more than $20,000 annually). Of these 438 new brands 77 of them featured an animal on their label, around 18 percent. Combined with existing “critter label” wines, sales reached $600 million in 2005 out of a total of just over $4 billion, based on ACNielsen sales data from supermarket point of sale purchases.

“Critter-labeled wines are on the rise, quickly gaining share in the table wine category,” said Danny Brager, vice president of ACNielsen’s Beverage Alcohol team. “The sales generated by new brands featuring a critter outperform other new table wines by more than two to one.” That’s right, taken across the board new critter-labeled wines have proven in the marketplace to be more popular.

“While placing a critter on a label doesn’t guarantee success, it is important that wine makers realize that there is a segment of consumers who don’t want to have to take wine too seriously,” said Brager. “Not only are they willing to have fun with wine, they may just feel ?good’ about an animal label presentation.” With hundreds of new wine brands being introduced each year, wine makers realize that they need to stand out from the crowd if they are to make an impression. The easiest and most cost effective way to stand out is with an attention grabbing label on your bottle. The wine industry has also realized that there is an increasingly large segment of consumers who are attracted by fun labels. They want to buy a non-pretentious wine and they don’t want to pay a fortune. These are the people who walk into a liquor store and supermarket and have no idea what they are going to buy ? they decide by looking at the labels.

Chasing the Yellow Tail

The Yellow Tail wine phenomenon is the perfect example of this. From Casella Wines, a small family-owned winery in New South Wales, Australia, Yellow Tail went from zero to the number one imported wine in the US in just two years. The first year the Casella brothers expected to sell 25,000 cases of wine here, they ended up selling 200,000 cases. That was back in 2001. In 2005 they sold 8 million cases of wine. Yellow Tail Shiraz is now the #1 selling red wine in America (not just imports but ALL red wine). In the crowded and highly competitive US wine market with over 6,500 wine brands, Yellow Tail has become the #1 wine brand, and it took just five years.

Now, I realize that Yellow Tail’s success is not just because of their label. They have a great product that is reasonably priced ? the Shiraz is just $6.99 ? and they have a very loyal base of repeat customers. But could they have become #1 without their unique label? I don’t think so. One of the biggest barriers they faced was getting people to try the wine in the first place. With what looks like a brightly colored kangaroo on the label on a black background, it is a visually striking label. It was able to break through the clutter at the retail store with this label.

Perhaps the biggest indication of the success of Yellow Tail is the number of copycats it has spawned. Penfolds, Australia’s leading winery, was obviously disappointed in missing out on this opportunity, so they responded with the launch of the Little Penguin brand of wines. There is now a deluge of animal themed wines, so much so that ACNielsen is tracking their sales now. Despite all this new competition Yellow Tail remains the most successful wine brand in terms of total sales.

Labels are a Powerful Tool

While the wine business is somewhat unique there are lessons here that can be applied to any industry. One lesson is that with a high impact label you can make inroads even in a conservative and image conscious industry such as the wine industry. Your label should be working hard for your product. It should be informational, be a sales and marketing piece, carry any necessary regulatory information, and at the same time be eye catching. If you are selling your products at a retail store, then your label needs to perform well in all these areas for your product to compete with other more established brands.

Your label is your sales tool. The success of Yellow Tail wines demonstrates that in any competitive industry a good label can help bring success. Of course, it doesn’t have to feature a critter, but a visually appealing and eye catching label will always help sales.

Copyright (c) 2006 Peter Renton

There are a staggering number of different investment products that are available to investors today. Each one comes with different risks and with these risks comes differing rewards. One can feel that in order to understand each type requires an advanced degree, but you can improve your odds of success by doing your research.

You may have been aware of some financial advisers or institutions talk in regards to having a diversified portfolio. The thinking goes that to hold different types of investments better protects your money and maximizes your profits. You can think of it as being a multi-pronged strategy to investing. Savings, stocks, and bonds are considered to be just one kind of investment.

The next kind of investments are known as commodities. Some examples of these are items like gold, silver and oil. They can bring in very high returns but high returns are accompanied by higher risk. Commodities are generally left to the experienced investor who has the ability to closely watch the market since they are very volatile.

Real estate has traditionally been a solid investment but not everyone has the capital to go out and start buying property. To apply the Toronto residential real estate market as an example the average value of a property is over $300,000 with commercial properties being even more. But there are other ways to invest by using Real Estate Investment Certificates or REITSs.

These companies have the job of buying interests in or properties like malls, motels and hotels, office space or mortgages. As an investor you are able to select which kind of REIT you want. Equity REITs are investments in property. The rents that are charged makes then money. To use Toronto as an example again you may have shopping areas with a Wal-mart, Home Depot, Payless shoes etc. that are all leasing buildings from the property owners. All together these Toronto properties are all making money from rents for the REIT and its investors. The second type of REIT involves the lending of mortgage funds generally to developers or property owners. If you don’t know which one you prefer you can choose to get a hybrid REIT which is a combination of the two.

One risky kindof real estate invest is known as an option. This is simply a purchaser is making what’s known as an “option for consideration”. The option entails an offer to buy a property as long as certain conditions are fulfilled such as financing or inspections. During this time the property is taken off of the market in return for a small amount of money as a deposit. There is a risk that if the conditions are not fulfilled the potential purchaser may be forced to forfeit their deposit. On the positive side the purchaser could earn a quick and substantial profit if they can quickly sell their option to a third party. carrying this out successfully means a thorough knowledge of the market and a fair amount of research.

It can be complex at times but the more you learn the better off you will be. Long term investing is the key and real estate has been shown to be a great vehicle for investors and even with the many possible risks involved it is thought to be the least risky when set side by side with other types of investments. This makes it is a vital component of any portfolio.

Among many things, Donald Trump is a successful businessman and an extremely wealthy individual. Donald Trump is perceived by the mass public as a true corporate King. The question is who are all these people that competed so fiercely against each other during the hour that the Apprentice show was broadcasted and why did they strive to prove their skills so as to secure their position in his empire? One might support that they are the products of America’s powerful media networks, the gladiators of our postmodern reality. But are these reality shows we tend to watch ritually, the mirroring of our contemporary culture, or are they the outcome of today’s spectators’ confusion regarding the prevailing notions of modernity, revolution and self-development?

To be a citizen of the modern world, is equivalent to remain open to change and evolution, to be able to explore and create, accept or reject, all those forces and trends that shape the global scene and the mere self at the same time. This ongoing change, the development of human history, has been classified according to scholars as the act of relating modernization (the socio-economic process) with modernism (the cultural vision), through modernity (the historical experience). But this powerful process, although once considered linear, has evolved over time to the point that it can now be conceived as “curved,” since modernism has experienced a major decline during the 21st century. This realization can be partly explained by the fact that social, political, or economic revolutions have ended, while the upcoming reformations are not fostered by the bourgeois engagement, but mainly by the continuous technological progress limited to specific time fragments which make any kind of revolution seeming obsolete.

If then we accept that modernism has ceased to exist then what exactly are we left with? How can we identify ourselves in this endless game of change and evolution? The answer is hidden in the method used to analyze the present living circumstances and humanity’s past actions. Postmodernism or post-historicism, is another generic title given to the period after modernism, in order to characterize a shift in mentality, methods, and processes used by society to deploy a new system of reference. Having to deal with an almost static capitalistic scheme that blocks the likelihood of any profound cultural renovation comparable to the great Age of Aesthetic Discoveries in the first third of this century, society is left to revolutionize itself through the ruins of the past, equipped with the belief that a true revolution would be to abolish modernity as a whole.

Where is the Apprentice show on this check board? Is it the King, the Queen or the soldier in this game of power and control? Various arguments may be raised to answer such a question, but the underlying truth is that television, along with other technological innovations of the 21st century, like the Internet, have succeeded in becoming a new type of artistic expression, where the spectator has no intention to classify and analyze what is seen using specific labels, since their existence is considered temporal. The threat is hidden on the simple fact that the majority of the viewers, regardless their age, as the citizens of this global village, remain almost indifferent to these alterations in the scenery of life and consume these preheated meals without questioning their source while sitting in front of a TV or PC screen, unable to resist the magical world of consumption, misinterpreting it as the best solution available in this chaotic mode of living. It may seem pessimistic or oversimplified as a view, but Apprentice, Big Brother and many of these reality shows, are actually an analysis on the cultural shift of today’s societies, towards an epoch whose title has not yet been articulated.

Is there a trend in stock and option trading??

Let’s start of by defining a trend.?A trend is simply the general direction of the market.?The market can only move in 3 directions ? up, down or sideways.?It is as simple as that.

For directional traders, knowing the trend is important because that is how money is made.?If there is no trend, then how would the buyer of the uptrend profit when the market moves sideways.?They need to buy low and sell high.?Likewise, short sellers can only benefit when they sell high and buy back lower.?Trend followers will always wait for the market to shift or turn before jumping in.?Directional trading, like any trading strategy, requires discipline and patience.?Directional traders can only benefit when the market moves in their direction ? up or down.

Directional trading demands strong self-discipline to follow precise entry and exit rules. Successful traders utilize strong risk management systems that use current market price, portfolio allocation system in an account and takes advantage of market volatility. Directional traders use an initial risk strategy that determines their capital exposure at the time of entry. This means that they must know how much to buy or sell based on their account size. On the other hand, adverse price movements may lead to an early exit for their entire trade for a small loss. To be a successful directional trader, the risk reward ratio should be 1:3 for any trade to be worthwhile.?That is because despite the technical tools available, directional traders are wrong most of the time.?If they are profitable 4 of 10 trades, then they can be considered as excellent traders.?Directional traders have the market odds staked against them every time that they enter into a trade.?So when they are right, they have to let their profit run, and when they are wrong, they must quickly cut their losses fast.

Before entering into any trade, any trader must already consider the below.

Price: One of the first rules of directional trading is that price is the main concern. If a market is at 50 and goes to 47, 49, and 46 - the market is in a down trend. Sometimes technical indicators can show otherwise. There are many different indicators that can supposedly show where the market should move.?While that is always a nice tool, successful traders should only be concerned with what the market is doing, not what the market might do. The price tells you what the market is doing ? not the indicators!

Money Management: The most critical factor of any trading system.?Successful traders will already have a money management system is place.?Money management ensures that the traders will always be in business despite a bad spell.?Good traders will lose money.?Bad traders lose more often.?Whatever you trading level, a good money management system will prevent a wipeout of your portfolio.

Risk Control: How much can you afford to lose in a trade if it goes wrong??That must be determined before any position is opened.?Setting your rules upfront will curb emotional and irrational decision making.?For most traders, emotional decisions can almost certainly be the worst decision that they make.?Knowing what to do before trouble come knocking will help keep you on your toes.

Any trader should already know the below questions before entering into a trade.

How and when to enter the market?

How many contracts or shares to trade at any time?

How much money to risk on each trade?

How to exit the trade if it becomes unprofitable?

How to exit the trade if it becomes profitable?

While trading trends can be extremely profitable, the odds are unfortunately staked unfavorably against the directional traders, even more so for directional option traders due to time decay.?A relatively unknown but superior trading strategy does not forecast nor predict market movements exist ? a Market Neutral Trading Strategy.?Prediction is impossible in the stock market.?The Market Neutral Strategy is certainly not a holy grail.?It is not some passing fad or hyped-up secret trading strategy.?It is the strategy that takes full advantage of the depreciation of options premium as it approaches expiration.?Markets may move up, down, or even sideways for this strategy to be profitable. If you must trade everyday, the market neutral trading strategy will not work for you.?A sound trading strategy should only limit you to 3 to 6 trades per month which should provide decent returns of up to 10% per month.?With all the discipline and rules of a directional trading strategy applied, the market neutral strategy can be used to devastating effect.

What do you need to get started?

An active mind, willingness to learn, strong discipline and passion to succeed.

No knowledge of what is happening in Shanghai or the ability to read financial statements is required. The key is the price on the chart.

Discipline and common sense to do the right thing.

About ten minutes a day to check on all open positions.

A reliable PC/Notebook and internet connection.

Trading is a zero-sum game. For every winner, there is a loser.?If you are tired of losing in the market, then it is time to arm yourself with Market Neutral Trading Knowledge.

Copyright (c) 2007 CashFlow Avenue

There’s a class you’ve been thinking about offering for some time now. But, you’re not quite ready. A little more research, a little more thinking, and you’re sure you’ll finally be ready.

But, despite your passion, it’s flat. Even practicing it in front of a friend or colleague, it still feels flat. Oh no! When will you ever be ready to offer this to people?

There is a missing ingredient, and Moses knew what it was.

You need manna from heaven. Allow me a short biblical story. You see, when the Israelites followed Moses out of Egypt, they wandered in the desert for 40 years. And, every evening, manna came from heaven to feed them.

There’s a funny thing about manna, though. If you collected more than you needed, it spoiled, because it was only good for one day. You were forced to trust that more was coming tomorrow.

You have to be where the help is needed. When you stand in the facilitator/teacher position, it’s like being a spark plug. You are a conductor, as it were, of Source. Simply standing in that role means that your being becomes part of the pathway Source travels to reach the students in need.

There is no amount of pre-event preparation that will provide that feeling of being ‘plugged-in’ for you. You have to trust that the manna is coming.

The scariest exercise ever. When I was faculty at the University for Spiritual Healing and Sufism in the Teacher Internship Program, we gave the students a scary exercise.

Stand up in front of the group, and teach from the heart, without any preparation. Without an agenda, without knowing what you were going to say. Just sense into what is needed, what is flowing through, and let it come out your mouth.

The result? Well, if fear overcame the student, the flow was blocked, and the effect was often stilted. However, if the student overcame the fear, and allowed him or herself to connect, what came out was stunning. Stunning.

It reminded me of my friend Alison Luterman, a poet who taught poetry in the schools. The older kids often had a lot of self-consciousness in their writing. But the young ones? You could hold their poetry up to Rumi or Hafiz, and the power was stunning.

The best speaker got a D-. I used this approach when I gave a talk at the National Speakers Association national conference. Afterwards, one of the members told me what he told an NSA board member: “In terms of all the things professional speakers are ’supposed’ to do to give a good presentation, I give Mark a D minus. But, I found him to be the best speaker of the entire week, including those giving the key notes, because he connected to us.”

You don’t need to be perfect. In fact, you can be very imperfect. And yet, the manna from heaven always comes. It always comes. Repeat this to yourself: ‘Manna from Heaven always comes.’

Heaven delivers the manna to the hungry. The only way to see if it shows up is to show up there yourself, in front of the people who need it.

Is it really as simple as that? Well, yes and no. There are a few things that can help the process. Keep reading.

Keys to Finding the Manna.

? It does help to prepare.

How much preparation? I plan a fair amount, but I don’t fret over exact wording. I also make sure that I’m limiting how much I’m trying to say. A little bit goes a long way.

The trick is I don’t look for whether or not I’m ‘ready.’ I look for whether I have bullet points on the pieces I want to convey. If I feel like I know the material to the point that if someone asked a question, I could answer it, then that counts for me as ‘enough.’

? Take time to connect in every moment.

In radio, the ultimate sin is ‘dead air’ when no one is saying anything. This does not apply in teaching. If you don’t know what to say next, pause, connect in your heart, connect to the audience, and wait to see what comes out.

This is the most nerve-wracking part: waiting to see if the manna comes. However, I urge you to try it. If you just wait with your heart open, you’ll be surprised to find that something does come out of you. It may be nothing you planned for, but it will be good, I promise you.

When I say ‘wait’ I mean feel free to pause, take a deep breath, look into the eyes of people in the audience, and wonder in your heart, ‘What’s needed next?’ And see what comes.

? Receive from the audience.

They want you to succeed. They do. They’ve invested their time and energy to show up, they really want you to do well. That’s some good juju to receive from their hearts.

Just recently during a talk I gave, I looked around the room and noticed several people smiling and beaming at me. I took a pause just to soak that up and smile back. Others were staring intently. I might have interpreted that as they were upset, but I know from experience that usually people with that kind of an expression are really engaged. I took a moment to connect with their eyes and to soak that up, too.

Whatever new class, offer, presentation that is facing you, forget about being ‘ready’ for it. Prepare yourself, and then step into the spark plug position with your heart open. And watch as the manna from heaven comes through you to those who need it.

Used car loan with bad credit does not come easy as lenders take utmost cautions. Still if one applies for online bad credit used car loan the required finance can be availed in a hassle free manner and at low cost as well. Online bad credit used car loan is called so because the loan is applied online. Because of the benefits attached with the electronic medium the loan is approved instantly.

Online bad credit used car loan is easy to apply for. All a loan seeker does is to give required personal and loan related information like your name, occupation, employment status, loan amount and repayment duration etc in a simple online application format. The lender will then verify the information which will not take much time and you will be conveyed the approval of the loan within days. Thus online bad credit used car loan is in the account of the loan seeker in right time when he intends to buy a used car. Bad credit happens to a borrower when he has repeatedly defaulted on payment and therefore has to face CCJs or bankruptcy. His credit score on FICO scale of 300 to 850 remains below 600, considered unsafe for a loan offer. Bad credit however will not come in way of taking the loan if certain conditions are met.

You can apply for online bad credit used car loan in secured or unsecured versions. For taking secured option the borrower is required to place any of his property like home, vehicle, valuable papers etc as collateral with the lender. One can easily take any amount of secured loan for buying used car depending on higher equity in the collateral. The secured loan has this advantage of lower interest rate which can be in fact further lowered as the loan seeker compares different loan packages.

One big advantage with secured bad credit used car loan is that the lender usually will not look into bad credit of the borrower. This is mainly because lender has secured the loan. If there is payment default from the borrower, lender can recover loaned amount on selling borrower?s property placed as collateral. Remember that the used car deal can also be taken by the lender that will be returned only when the loan is fully paid back. Though the borrower can use the car but in case of payment default, lender will take the car in his possession.

Unsecured online bad credit used car loan requires no collateral. The borrower however will verify your annual income, employment status and financial standing the details of which you fill in the online application. Once the lender is satisfied, the loan will be approved despite your bad credit.

While searching for used car seller avoid buy-here-pay-here car lots as they normally do not have quality cars and do not report the deal to the credit bureaus and it does not help in improving your credit score. See if used car has any mechanical defects and get it repaired or get a warranty on the used car.

Online bad credit used car loan makes the loan availing at low cost possible for a loan seeker having bad credit. Once the loan is fully paid back in time, it goes a long way in restoring credit score at improved level.

When debts are giving us the troubles that we never anticipated, what we do the first thing is to look for a loan option which gives us the comfort of borrowing money that we can use as a solution for our debts. Such low rate money can be easily obtained by the borrowers through a secured debt consolidation loan which is available readily.

The borrowers who have debts may have some missed repayments in the past which is the cause for this problem. This may be due to a bad financial stance of the borrower or maybe without the conscious knowledge of the borrower like arrears etc. But the conclusion here is that whatever the cause may be, the debts have to be cleared as soon as possible.

The borrowers can pledge any of their assets which have a high equity value with the lender so as to get a low rate deal of money. This money is then used by the borrower in repaying all the previous multiple debts that he has. This way of removal of debts is suggested to those borrowers who have debts accumulated with more than two lenders and amounting more than ?5000.

The amount that can be borrowed lies in the range of ?5000-?75000 so that the need of paying debts can be fulfilled easily. The term of repayment for these loans is 5-25 years which is pretty long coupled with the low rates of interest charged on the money. these two factors make the repayment of the loan amount very easy and therefore this means the asset of the borrower is all the more secure with the lender.

The borrowers with bad credit can also take up these loans easily. All borrowers can get money for their needs at lower rates by applying and researching online. This saves the money of the borrowers as well.

With a secured debt consolidation loan, the borrowers get money at a lower cost and their debts can be easily removed with the help of these loans.