In some traditions, the word four should not be appeared in the amount such as 40, 400 and 444 are strictly prohibited because the pronunciation of word four resembles to death and signify bad luck. Money envelopes are very beneficial in different perspective. Today I will share 10 benefits of using money envelopes:

1. Money envelopes contain your blessings and lovely wishes that’s why with money your wishes will automatically transferred to your beloved people.
2. Money envelopes offer great way to control your budget and save money. You can prepare different envelopes for different activities such as grocery, child clothes, medical expenses etc. In this way, you can get money for all expenses at right time.
3. You can categorize all envelopes according to your traditions because these are available in different colors.
4. Money envelopes are frequently used in almost all areas of Asia so you can start a home business for manufacturing of money envelopes.
5. It is best way to manage your money and spend it to the right place according to your personal requirements.
6. Money envelopes bear no cost because you can easily prepare it at home and secure your money in envelopes. It is good idea to give pocket money to your kids.
7. It can be a surprise for you that at the end of the month when you have finished all money and suddenly you remember about money envelop that you have made for this time. It will save you from any kind of lending.
8. It is flexible and convenient way to access your money on time because credit and debit cards require some time to arrange money. You also have to go to your bank in any condition.
9. It is great way to give someone money as gift because money envelope is decorated with some flowers and ribbons etc.

10.  Use of money envelopes saves your time because you have no need to go to market to buy a gift. You can give money envelopes as gift to your friends and relatives.

In Islamic countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore money envelopes are used in green color to give money gifts at Eid-Al-Fitr celebrations on the other hand the red money envelopes are used to give sadaqah and zakat.

Memo is short form of Memorandum, often used format of company letters, notifications and other work related forms of communication. It can be tricky to write a memo efficiently but some guidelines and specific format of memo can be best guide for writer. Professional memo is a formal message and addressed those members of an organization who can fulfill your specific needs. Writer writes the professional memo and sends it with expectation of response so that he can take proper decision on specific problem. Business memos serve for several other purposes also such as you can state your problem for help; you can request for specific action, you can explain policies, instructions and guidelines of your organizations. Moreover, it is always very easy to produce quality and professional memos using ready made and free memo template available online.

These are very beneficial and important to invite people to attend meetings, conferences. You can give any kind of clarification through memo and can send your feedback too. In short business memo will save your lots of time and provide you great opportunity for oral discussion. Professional memo is used for following purposes:

• To convey information.
• Inform concerned people about decision.
• To make requests.
• Issue orders and instructions.
• To provide response.
• To provide useful suggestions.
• Present informal report.
• Solve problems.
• Used as reference in future.

Professional memos should be concise and have unity in theme and clarity. The memo is usually divided into five categories such as heading, date, name and designation of recipient, name and designation of sender and topic of the memo followed by the message. It is very easy to understand the importance of professional memo because every business organization needs it. It serves as a bridge between two organizations. You can request some help officially through memo because it is an official way to take some help. In the response of memo, you will surely get prompt response. It is necessary to keep a copy of professional memo for your business record because it will be helpful for you in future.

Five Important Parts of Meeting Agenda

Agenda is just like roadmap for meeting so it is necessary to prepare it with all essential contents. It should direct participants of meeting toward right track. Today I will tell you 5 things not to forget in meeting agendas:

• Commencement and ending time of meeting.
• Location of meeting.
• Topic headings with some topic detail for each heading.
• Approximate time for each topic to cover.
• Indicate your expectations with meeting participants.

Layout of Meeting Agenda

Agenda usually start with time, date and location of meeting followed by all other details. Typical meeting agenda is designed on following layout:

• Meeting agenda starts with opening remarks and opening words of the meeting secretary.
• Approve minutes of previous meetings.
• Apologize for absence.
• Remaining matters of previous meeting and some issues arises from previous meeting.
• List of specific points to be discussed. (This section is where the bulk of the discussion as well as decisions in the meeting take place.)
• Any other business (AOB). (A specific time is allocated to participants to raise another point for discussion).
• Arrange and announce details of next meeting.
• Close meeting.

While writing meeting agenda, it is best to request contents from meeting attendees. It will benefit you in two ways; you will get most important issues or points to be addressed in meeting and people you may consult will feel important. It is good to give some time to people to reply so take this step as early as possible. You can send an email to these people and the better way is to send them agenda to give a better idea about subject matter and meeting topics. Meeting agenda should contain certain amount of general information in the section of heading. After completing agenda, distribute its copies to all meeting attendees.

Today I will share some common steps that will help you to write your own plan for your business or project.

Do Some Research

Before writing a plan it is good to conduct some research in order to understand strengths and weaknesses of your rivals. It will help you to design your strategies for successful business and determine amount of finances you are required.

Executive Summary

It is first and most important part of plan because it is the summary of whole plan and the first thing that is preferred by all readers to read. It places before the table of contents but it should be written at last after designing whole plan. It contains mission statement that should be only three to four sentences long. These sentences are only to capture the interest of reader. Rest of the executive summary should contain necessary details such as short history of business, profile of founder and business commencement date, current snapshot, important locations, number of employees, products and services, summary of future plans and goals. You can use bullets to highlight important points for easy scanning. Avoid too many details in executive summary because one or two pages are sufficient.

Market Analysis

Next part of business plan will be market analysis. This analysis will show your strengths and weaknesses over your competitors. This part of the plan will include size of market, growth rate and chances of success of your business.

Description of Company

This section will describe nature of your business and needs of market. In this section you will determine the ways through which you can satisfy needs of your target customers. Your will mention those factors that will set you apart from your competitors. In short, company description should describe your whole business and portray a beautiful and attractive picture of business.

Hierarchical Structure

After description of business, you are required to describe setup of staff. Provide complete management hierarchy, division of labor, profile of business owner, management personnel, board of directors and employee incentives. This section is necessary to create loyalty in potential employees.

Marketing and Sales Management

This section will describe:

• Marketing Methods
• Distribute Methods
• Types of sales force
• Sales incentive
• Growth Strategies

Products and Services

It is one of the important sections of plan and focuses on the products and services offered by business. You have to include specifications and important features of products as well as services and benefits of these products and services. Prominent points of your products over your competitor, copy right, trade secrets, patent information all should be part of this section.

Funding Requirements and Sources

After describing your whole business, you are required to provide details about your funding requirements. This section contains information about bank or investor in order to understand the funding needs. You can include all possible sources of finances to persuade other investors as well.

Appendices

It is the final section of business plan. It contains information that does not fit in all above sections. You can provide information about letter of references, license and patents of organization, copies of contract, leases and other legal documents.

Here are some useful plan templates that can help you get started,

• Weekly Planner Template
• Daily Planner Template

There are some common mistakes that are done during writing invitations and it can spoil your invitations:

Lack of Introductory Information

Invitation either formal or informal, require proper introduction of writer to provide a quick idea to reader. It is one of the common mistakes conducted while writing. Sometime people directly start writing without introducing them that is bad manners also. It is necessary to include a paragraph of introduction and state last meeting for the convenience of reader.

Make Sure the Proper Contact Address

It is another mistake that writer carelessly state a useless contact number or address. It is annoying situation because guests of outer cities want to talk to you about venue and your wrong contact information creates problems for them. Double check your contact number and addresses for the convenience of guests and make sure to provide right contact number.

Typing Errors

It is very common mistake that while writing invitation letter or cards you do not care about typos. It portrays your wrong image before reader therefore after writing letter proofread it more than twice to ensure all typing errors. Be careful while writing the name of guest because this mistake can make him/her angry. Misprinting of any important information on invitation can spoil your relations with your friends and relatives.

Wrong Address

Before posting invitations to outside areas, double check address of receiver because sometimes sender write wrong address as a result letter is delivered to wrong person. This is very common mistake and your little attention can rectify it.

R.S.V.P Dead Line

Invitation letter should include R.S.V.P deadline so that you will come to know about number of guests coming to your party. Try to set deadline of two weeks before the party, meeting or conference.  In this way you can do better arrangements for the guests.

Inefficient Postage Services

Invitation card is heavy than an average letter therefore more cost is required to send these cards through post. You have to select efficient postal service to make it sure that your guest will receive your invitation on time. It often happened that the invitation cards return to the host after sometime. It is good to make a phone call to your guests after sending them invitation cards to make sure their presence at event. Send invitation cards before time to ensure their delivery on time.

These are some minor mistakes and some attention can save you from lots of problems so be careful while writing invitations.

Project dashboard serves as a snapshot of your project without spending a great deal of time in all details including project status report. Before start making your project dashboard, some key considerations must be analyzed to prepare a perfect project dashboard:

• You are initially required to estimate your time period. You are required to determine about reporting period to be depicted in dashboard of your project and it can be varied depending on your project size. For instance, you can consider the options like one-month long project might have a weekly dashboard while a project of six-months might have a fortnightly dashboard.
• Milestones are integral part of your project dashboard. You have to decide about which of these you want to add in your dashboard. Keep in mind while taking decision about these milestones that key purpose of making dashboard is to present status of your project in a glimpse. For this reason, you should consider to add major project milestones rather than including each and every milestone.
• Don’t forget to add snapshots of project resource scheduling and project resource allocation. These will be added as essentials of your dashboard.
• Project dashboard should provide a précised view of endeavor and schedule variance by indicating project performance. This should also contain major project risks for which support of top management might be needed for contingency planning.

You can also this dashboard along with Project Timetable template that can outline overall project’s time frame. If you keep in your mind some key features of a project dashboard, it will also assist you making your dashboard a complete document:

• Your prepared project dashboard must be easy to use and understand underlying project status. Facilities of entering data and making modifications without much effort should be prominent features of your project dashboard.
• If you have used some specific software to make your project dashboard, make it sure that your prepared dashboard is ready to integrated with other project management tools for instance Microsoft Project.
• Dashboard of your project must be easy to access for those who might want to see it any time. You should share your dashboard using some internet/intranet location to make it accessible.

First step you can consider to take is asking to everyone about your puppy. You should walk around your neighborhood and call your dog’s name. You can ask your neighbors if they have seen your puppy roaming in the street or if they have seen it going outside the street. Taking this step will help you to follow the way where your puppy was seen going.

You should make lost dog cards. You can write title on these cards as “Lost Puppy”.  Add on it a short description about your dog, its name, your address, your phone number and some special thing about your dog. You can prepare this card in a size in which you want it to be or if you make this card in business card size it will more appropriate for you.

If you are offering some reward in return of getting your pet back, add it on your card. It will make people willing to obtain this reward. Offering reward is one of the best options to choose as it will work quickly for you to get your pet back. If offering reward is affordable for you, you must consider it as it will give people an incentive to ring you with information.

Great and inexpensive way of finding your puppy is flyer and poster distribution. Prepare a flyer on which you will add clear picture of your puppy. Using flyers will help you to include complete description of color, breed and your contact number along with residential address. You can consider Lost Dog Flyer Template in this regard. Once you have made your flyer, consider to put these at different public places. Make it sure that your contact information is complete on flyer as it will help people to contact you in case of finding your puppy.

You can also consider placing an advertisement in local newspaper. You can consider internet advertisement too in this regard. For this task, you might require some help in creating a wanted poster. Here is one such free Wanted Poster Template that can help you immediately.

Many local authorities take away that are found roaming the streets. You can ring to your local council, animal control centers etc. you can consider to call all local vets, your puppy may be brought there.

Above described ways may be very helpful for you finding out your beloved puppy. You can get your puppy back sooner if adopt these ways.

While preparing for the your lesson plans, following important aspects must be taken into account to come up with a comprehensive lesson plan.

• Goals and objectives must be defined in clear statements.
• Better to use an existing lesson plan template to create your own lesson plan rather than just starting from scratch.
• List down your resources, objectives and activities on daily basis or weekly basis as per target time frame.
• If you are teaching more than one subject/course to a class, better to create different lesson plans or one comprehensive lesson plan with all subjects listed.
• Always cross check you objectives with school’s provided course outlines or teaching guidelines.
• Print it out and display it in a prominent place where you can see it every day.

It has been found very useful to teach according to a well-planned lesson plan in order to achieve best results from you class or small group of students. Such lesson plans also help schools and institutes to maintain a consistent quality of education for many years to come no matter who is the teacher actually.

• You should write your meeting agenda one week in advance before the meeting day. If you do this, it will give your staff members a proper time to get prepared for the meeting. Advance preparation will also give them a chance to revise their schedules to accommodate.
• You should determine problems that will be discussed during meeting. Once you have drafted the issues, you will be able to manage length of meeting. To reinforce the idea of meeting using bullet points will prove beneficial to give it a structured form. You should clearly mentioned the time of your meeting in your meeting agenda that will help meeting participants to understand whether the meeting will take place under an hour, a few hours, entire day or in span of days.
• If you want to create brief meeting, you can limit your issues in one page. It means that you should stop writing issues when your page ends. Issues that are left will be noted for a later date. You can note down issues on priority basis by including such issues that are more important than others.
• Think about time, location and imperative people involved in the meeting. Doing this will keep people aware of time and helps reduce unnecessary discussion within the meeting. You should set the time at which most of your staff is available. It will also permit your attendees to reschedule their other plans for that day. Reminders are also important part of your meeting agenda as switching off mobile phones, modification suggestions of deadlines and email address for those who must submit a letter in case of not attending the meeting.
• You must have a trusted co-worker review the agenda. Provided information in meeting agenda must be free of grammatical errors, simple and clear.
• While discussing your issues in meeting, try to be concise. Postponing such issues for some next day that can be discussed over other channels will save your lots of time.
• Lastly, print your agenda. Printed agenda must be posted on office bulletin board for all personnel to see. You can also email this agenda to all participants.

For effective meeting, all participants must be well prepared beforehand. This will improve flow of your meeting. Providing meeting agenda to all participants enables them to be already familiarized with flow of discussion.

Here are some useful related templates available on our website,

• PTA Agenda Template
• Seminar Agenda Template
• Formal Agenda Template
• Agenda Template

During in-person interview, advantages of eye-contact, voice inflection and body language are obtainable. This idea is extremely effective in generating sales. By obtaining advantages of in-person interview, you can satisfy your customers about your offer by declaring what is in it for the client to do his business with you. This is fundamental for all sales.

Much more can be found or said on direct mail. Using direct mailing depends on how targeted mailing list is and how effective is in getting prospects to open it. In this case, effective envelope of letter is describing the product or service. This envelop also state how competitive offer is to what the receiver is currently using.

Call-to-action pieces can be distributed using mass mail but are often delivered by hand. This strategy includes:

• Door hangers
• Coupons
• Flyers
• Posters

These pieces have an offer within a limited time frame to respond. Offers by these pieces have specific requirements for criterion to take advantage of the offer. To use this strategy, best way is of teaming up with another business and share your client lists. You can find a business that may be offering a complementary product to yours. You can also do a joint offer to both lists involving both businesses.

You should consider using your contact list for referrals generation. Your contact list is a profitable idea for getting referrals as each of the people of your contact list knows two hundred and fifty people or may be more than this.

Here are some related templates that our staff created to help you,

• Guest List Template
• Phone List Template
• Client List Template