Smiling Joe and the Twins

Smiling Joe and the Twins

By Florence V. Mayberry, excerpt

The Old Man’s fancy for Joe increased at that first meeting. He told Dion afterwards he hadn’t laughed that much in years, said Joe’s down-home humor and way of looking at things relaxed him. He’d slept that night straight through, first time in ages.

At the time, this admiring comment slipped right past Dion on account of he’d laughed a lot too. It was only later, after five or six similar comments, that he started thinking about it.

Joe started out as kind of a flunky, translate that bodyguard, driving the Old Man all over Nevada to inspect his multiple investments, some of them in areas where the king was not real popular. But all that riding around can be pretty hard on an old man, and in a couple of years it was Joe showing up to check the clubs and bars while his boss stayed home. Dion allso stayed home, in a fine new administrative office above the main club. “I knew you wouldn’t want to be doing all that driving around, being away from your family,” the Old Man had pointed out to Dion. “Besides, I need you to keep the store here in Reno. Those back-East mobs are itching to take over Nevada and they’ll hit Reno first. Joe can watch the outskirts. If they try to sneak in the back door, he already knows some of their boys.”

Dion felt a light sweat pop out on his forehead. “Yeah, I know, but remember, Joe’s a newcomer himself. Maybe I oughta go with him some of the time, keep an eye-”

Smiling lady. Photo by Elena.

“Joe’s got great eyes,” the Old Man broke in. “The kind sees backwards and forwards at the same time. So have you, Dion, so why put two four-eyed guys on the same job? If Joe blows it, the Imll take a hand and I’ve still got you. Besides, you got your family here , you don’t need to be running around.”

About then whispers started up and down Commercial Row and around Lake and Center streets that there was a runner-up for crown prince.

Dion didn’t catch the whispers right away, it took him awhile. Which was a good thing for Joe’s social life. Because by that time he had become real popular with the Galway females. Both Jerry and Pat were into a teenage crush on big, handsome, fun-fun “Uncle” Joe, who was keeping them supplied with expensive chocolates and wall-to-wall stuffed animals. Inga, therir mother, considered Joe a dariling lonely man who kept smiling to cover secret sorrow that he did not have his own wonderful children like her daughters. To fill this vacancy in his life she made a point of inviting him to all her lavish parties, determined that some lovely, also lonely, rich divorcee would latch onto him and eventually fill his need. She was cheered to discover that a number of almost-unattached ladies were quite ready to do this.

Joe was at the Galway home so regularly, always loaded with flowers for Inga and teddy bears and chocolates for the kids, dancing with pretty ladies including Inga and the twins in the big recreation room, that Dion began to brood about it. To aggravate this brooding, he kept remembering how relaxed and good-natured the Old Man always became when Joe showed up.

(Ellery Queen, Mystery Magazine, September 1993)

Structuring a sales call

Structuring a sales call and an e-mail

When you make a sales call, you should structure your call as follows:

1. State your name and company: give your full name and company name so the client knows whom he is dealing with.

2. Ask if he (or she) has a moment to speak? In fact finding out if someone has time to speak to you is common courtesy. The client may be in the middle of working on a project and should not be expected to drop everything because you called. If he does not has time, ask for a specific time to call back. Make sure you do call back at this time, as this proves you are reliable.

3. Keep in mind elevator pitch. That’s give your pitch as succinctly as possible, speaking clearly so that the executive can follow each point (the term elevator pitch is used because it should be possible to describe it to a CEO whom you bump into in an elevator).

4. Make your value proposition – highlight the benefits of what you are selling. Many researches show that doing so you should mirror the speech patterns of the person to whom you are talking. So, if you call a trader at a bank and they speak slowly, you should also speak slowly. If a person speaks carefully, you should do the same. Support your value proposition with real references in order to gain competitive intelligence.

5. Try to get the executive to talk to you and the more the executive talks, the better. This will provide you with more information of what the company needs, while also building an affinity between both of you. From a practical point of view that means that they have invested their time and they are therefore more likely to continue that investment.

New York, New York. Photo by Elena.

6. Meeting in person enables us to build a strong personal relationship and therefore helps to complete a larger deal. Thus it’s always convenient to meet and discuss items.

Structuring an e-mail

The benefit of working remotely is that you can achieve a higher volume of interactions in less time.

Today’s technological advances mean that many of the aspects of a face-to-face meeting are now available remotely, and e-mail has become a primary form of communication in the modern world and one of the most powerful sales tools, as succinct, brief, coherent e-mail is an excellent vehicle for a sales pitch. Some ground rules exist though when structuring your e-mail:

– An e-mail you send must be personalized to be effective. The person you target must see that this is not a spam.

– Summarize your value proposition and pitch it in one sentence. A busy person should scan the first line of your letter and understand exactly what you want.

– Present the opportunity to the company, as presenting the opportunity to a company is less likely to be discharged.

– Elaborate on the one sentence pitch you gave in the first line. Add two or three clear sentences on the resource, process and time expectations of the client (the opportunity draws on resource… follows process… takes amount of time).

– Give two or three examples or recent projects you have done in the client industry.

– You may want to attach a comprehensive presentation

– Show courtesy and underline that you are willing to provide a professional service that will meet the professional needs of the client.

– Add all contact details.

– Add credibility to your signature by adding qualifications and awards. This helps your credibility and this is a free advertising for you and your project.

Iceland

Iceland

The pictures below were inspired by Iceland in Summer. In literature and folklore, Summer is often linked to romance, due to its coincidence with revival and reproduction. So here comes Iceland, this curious country, full of surprises and strange things.

The Saga Museum, the Viking in face of the museum.

A street in the down-town of Rejkyavik.

Well, to tell the truth, many other texts about Iceland are present here, on this website, and you can read and learn more about this amazing country here:

Mathematics for Management

Managerial Mathematics

By Dr. Megan Jorgensen

Together with financial accounting, managerial accounting is taught as an introductory course in most accounting, finance and other Bachelor of Commerce majors and realted programs. The expression CMA (Certified Management Accountant) represents a professional accounting designation for accountants specializing in managerial and corporate areas. For example, an associated professional order, the CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants), released a report on the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The BSC, together with the just-in-time inventory and FIFO (first-in-first-out) methods, if and when prescribed by the GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) help to keep a commercial enterprise on track.

Academic prerequisites to managerial accounting usually include at least two of the following: Calculus I, Calculus II and Linear Algebra, as well as financial accounting. Conversely, a general management graduate diploma would require a specialized mathematical course. Such classes shed light on formulas on how to calculate the real rate of return, the interest rate on promissory notes and other topics in mathematics for management and finance. Most mathematics, statistics and accounting textbooks contain solutions to quantitative problems, which greatly aids learning. Also, successfully completing actuarial lectures without appropriate practicing is virtually impossible.

Can mathematics prevent us from seeing ghost cities? Photo by Elena.

To illustrate, in a book compiled by Lau (2008), the present value of an interest-bearing promissory note is explained. The face value, or principal, of promissory notes can be derived using the following formula:

P = S/1+rt

Where,

P= present value of note when issued

S = maturity value

R = interest rate

T = interest period

References:

• Lau, H. (2008), selected and arranged by. Mathematics for Management: Second Custom Edition for McGill University. Pearson Learning Solutions: Boston, MA.
• Qu, S. Q., Cooper, D. J., & Ezzamel, M. (2010). Creating and popularizing a global management accounting idea: The case of the Balanced Scorecard. Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, 6 (3): 1-8.

Copyright © 2015 Megan Jorgensen. All rights reserved.

Financial Markets

Financial Markets

To get a job in finance, one highly benefits from field experience with securities and financial markets, investments and trading. Real estate is typically discussed in finance courses as well. Finance careers include financial analyst, trader and broker. Further, financial markets offer a range of lucrative employment prospects. To get a job in finance, one highly benefits from experience with securities and financial markets, investments and trading. Real estate is typically discussed in finance courses as well.

Types of financial markets include capital markets, commodity markets, bond markets, money markets, derivatives markets, futures markets, insurance markets and foreign exchange markets. Further, capital markets comprise  primary and secondary markets.

One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute (William Feather, an American Publisher and author, born in 1889 and passed away in 1981). Illustration : Megan Jorgensen (Elena).

Typically, investments include long-term and short-term investments. Financial institutions, such as banks, manage investments for their customers. An array of invested funds are called a portfolio and may include stocks, bonds or a combination of stocks and bonds. Moreover, bonds refer to debt, while stocks correspond to traded shares of a public company. A healthy cash flow is vital to any company doing business, and raising funds is one of the main concerns of any business firms. Therefore, capital may be raised by loans or debt (liabilities) or shares (shareholders’ equity). Also, the first time a company sells its shares is called an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Initial public offerings are sold in primary markets. In contrast, security trading takes place in secondary markets. Naturally, fluctuations in the market may result in invested capital decreasing or increasing in value over time. Stocks are traded on stock exchanges, while currency exchange refers to international capital flow and exchange.

Alternatively, to obtain a loan, it is quintessential to have good credit or be in good standing with credit rating agencies. Finally, market fluctuations may lead to capital gain or loss.

Also, an investment portfolio is chosen based on the consumer’s needs, such as saving to buy a house, as well as, tolerance to risk. Consequently, risk averse investors tend to favour conservative investing, while risk tolerant investors prefer aggressive investment strategies. Qualified financial advisers or financial planners may be very helpful in dealing with these matters.