The Weird and Wonderful Business Of California

We know it mostly as the home of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, miles of protected coastline, and some of the world’s best vineyards. But then, there’s a lot more to California – a state which has been racking up the weirdness since even before it became a state, all the way back in 1850.

Here are a few weird and wonderful facts about the Golden State for SoCal home buyers.

LA used to have a much longer name. 

We really do mean ‘much longer.’ Los Angeles, City of Angels, was originally called ‘El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles Sobre el Rio Porciuncula, or ‘River of Our Lady Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula.’ The full name is long gone, shortened to Los Angeles presumably because it just took too darn long to say. However, you can still visit the original main street – Olvera Street in Downtown LA.

From grizzly to golden.

While we know it now as the Golden State, California was originally known as the Grizzly Bear State, and the grizzly can still be seen on the state’s official flag. The California grizzly in question is named Monarch, and is based on a real bear – of the same name, of course, who was captured in the Ventura Mountains all the way back in 1889. Monarch lived out the rest of his days in captivity, and is now a taxidermy exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences.

California got its new name not because of all the golden sunshine, but because of the Gold Rush. The specific subspecies of California grizzly bear the state was originally named for is now, sadly, extinct.

San Francisco is the home of the fortune cookie.

The story of precisely where and when the fortune cookie was invented has several versions. The prevailing wisdom is that Makoto Hagiwara, who worked at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, was the first person ever to serve them. He didn’t make them, however. Local San Francisco bakery Benkyodo got that honor. The right to claim the invention of the fortune cookie went to court in Los Angeles in 1918, after David Jung claimed he had actually invented it. However, Jung lost the case, and Hagiwara retained the credit.

McDonald’s was invented there.

The first-ever McDonald’s opened in San Bernardino, California in 1948 as the brainchild of Dick and Mac McDonald. The brothers invented a new way of serving food – cooking it in advance and then keeping it warm instead of cooking everything to order. This allowed them to sell a lot of burgers for very low prices. The company was sold to investor Ray Kroc in 1961 and now has tens of thousands of stores worldwide. The original site is now a museum.

It’s home to the world’s avocado capital…

If you live outside of California, chances are you’ve never heard of Fallbrook, but this sunny city has the unofficial title of ‘avocado capital of the world.’ You can even go to an avocado festival held there annually, which draws people from all over the world. They’re avocado fans, presumably.

… and the world’s artichoke capital.

The world’s artichoke capital is Castroville, which also has its own celebratory festival. In 1948, famous actress Marilyn Monroe was crowned as the first-ever Castroville Artichoke Queen.

Beverly Hills used to be all about beans.

90210 might be the home of all our most famous stars now, but back in the day, it was a straightforward Spanish lima bean ranch. Its current form started to take shape early in the Golden Age of Hollywood, when studio titans Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks bought land there and built a huge ranch. Now, it’s the only place to live for people who have ‘made it.’

It snows watermelons.

Not really (it rarely snows in much of the state), but at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, you’ll find snow that’s tinted pink, sometimes referred to as ‘watermelon snow.’ Apparently, it also tastes a little bit like watermelon, but we don’t plan on ever finding out firsthand if that’s true. That’s because the pink color is caused by the algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis.

It’s the world’s fifth largest economy.

California isn’t just geographically bigger than several countries. It’s one of the world’s biggest economic powerhouses. If it were an independent nation, it would sit comfortably in fifth place, between Germany and the United Kingdom, as the world’s fifth biggest economy.

Hollywood happened by accident.

When moving pictures first became a thing, most filmmakers struggled to get anything done because Thomas Edison (yes, that one) owned most of the patents for filmmaking equipment at the time. In the hope that Edison simply wouldn’t notice what they were up to, filmmakers moved out to the West, where the courts were legally against patent claims. It worked out rather well, and Hollywood was born.

San Francisco has delicious water.

Almost all of the water that comes out of San Francisco’s taps is snow-melt from nearby Yosemite National Park, and is directly piped in to the city. This makes it some of the freshest, best-tasting tap water in not just the state, but the entire country as well. Those lucky pups.

It has only one president…

The only California native to ever hold the country’s highest office was Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, he was also the only president ever to resign the post.

… but nine national parks.

It’s not all famous people, kids. California is home to some of the United States’ most beautiful scenery and holds the record for the country’s most national parks, with nine.

It has serious highs and lows.

In an odd turn of events, California is home to both the highest and lowest points of the continental United States – Mount Whitney being the highest and Death Valley the lowest. Even weirder is the fact that these two locations are just 76 miles away from each other.

Hollywood used to be called Hollywoodland. 

Well, that’s what the famous sign used to say, anyway. It was originally built as an advertisement for a real estate company called ‘Hollywoodland’ and had nothing at all to do with the film industry. The ‘land’ was removed in 1949.

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How To Come Up With A Killer Business Idea

In this day and age, it’s possible for just about anyone to become an entrepreneur. All you need is a great idea and the funds to get it off the ground. The funds part is easier than you might think, thanks to options like car title loans and other sources of funding.

But, what about the idea part? Coming up with a great, creative, and new idea can be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be, at least not if you can follow a few simple tips.

Look for Problems.

All our lives, we are told to “look on the bright side” and “think positive.” However, many great businesses have started because people noticed something wrong in the world and took steps, such as offering a product or service, to correct it.

Someone who got tired of paying late video rental fees probably came up with On Demand content rentals, just as someone who hated not being able to get fast food delivered probably came up with GrubHub.

While you don’t have to become a negative Nancy, an easy way to come up with creative business ideas is to take notice of issues or problems within the world and to posit solutions to remedy them.

Hang Out with Smart People.

When you were a kid, your parents probably warned you that the people you hang out with can have an effect on you.

And, while Mom and Dad may have meant that in a negative way, it works the opposite way too.

When you hang out with smart, successful, creative people, their ideas, energy, and enthusiasm are bound to rub off on you.

And, who knows? One day, you might just put your heads together and come up with a truly awesome business idea you can create together.

Be Forward Thinking.

Whenever you take advantage of a new product, technology, or service, don’t just assess it as a consumer. Instead, assess it as an entrepreneur.

Say you get a new phone, for example. Your entrepreneur brain might leave you asking what features or add-ons you’d like to see or how the phone could be improved upon in future versions. You could then put your ideas into practice and create a product with all the qualities you dreamed up.

When you ask yourself “what comes next?” or “how could I improve this item?” you are thinking like a true entrepreneur, and you might just generate some awesome and marketable ideas.

Talk to Others.

As mentioned, it’s important to pay attention to the things you think and observe since these observations could ultimately turn into great business ideas.

However, keep in mind that everyone’s brain does not work the same as yours. Thus, other people and their thoughts are a great fount of information for you to tap into.

Just as you assess your own feelings and thoughts about problems you experience and things you see that could be improved upon, ask others about their thoughts as well. And, don’t just ask. Research. Read relevant online reviews and posts and act on them.

When you pay attention to what consumers want, it’s easy to come up with a business plan to satisfy those wants.

There is no surefire, foolproof way to come up with a killer business idea. Sometimes, these things just happen. However, you can definitely tip the odds in your favor by trying these tips and also just opening your brain to be as creative, imaginative, and thoughtful as possible. If you can do that and just keep pushing yourself, sooner or later you’re sure to come up with a grand idea.

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What Your Business Card Should Say About You

Business cards have over the years become an integral part of every successful business. They act kind of like the business world’s modern day telegraph service.

They send word about your business, and they leave word about your business and its product or service.

These cards are often your business representative when you or someone from your business is not even present.

Message.

Business cards play this vitally important marketing role for every business that uses them. They are both a reminder to current customers and the best spokesperson for potential, future customers.

Think of your business cards as your company representative in your absence. For this reason, your business card must present a strong, positive business message. It must in a glimpse catch and hold the reader’s attention.

Business cards should also contain the critical message of your business model. It must succinctly and decisively convey your business proposition and the unique value doing business with your company offers.

Graphics.

Graphics play a centrally important role. They pretty much dictate the overall, immediate impression of your business to the reader and your current and possible new customers.

Font.

Even the font style matters. Font is the size and shape of the letters you select to print your message. These letter sizes and shapes give your card message its perspective.

Different fonts create different impressions in the mind of the reader. For instance, a company specializing in inflatables for children’s parties uses a different font style from say an attorney.

Colors.

The role colors play with creating a mental impression is well-established and settled science. Colors evoke emotion that results in either a favorable or unfavorable response. Use colors that deliver the appropriate message you wish to convey about your business.

The Most Important Graphic.

The most effective business cards all feature the single most important graphic. This graphic serves as a sort of shorthand for identifying your business.

It is of course your company logo. This is your most terse and effective summary statement of who your business is, and what it is about. Your logo is your company’s quasi-mascot.

Mascots do not need to be silly or cartoonish to be effective; but to be maximally effective, they should always be paired with your company’s name. The two must be inseparably linked.

Design.

Putting all the aforementioned message elements together in a persuasive and results-oriented way is the hat trick when it comes to business design.

It is one thing to identify the essential components of an effective message, but it is quite another to put those essential parts together in a way that forms that all-important first impression.

Perhaps the greatest help toward this stage of business card production is an online business card designer.

An online business card designer like this can help you make quicker progress toward the general layout of your most important absentee spokesperson. The choices for how your card can look are so numerous it can be downright confusing.

With business cards, every detail matters, and these details must be right before printing and distributing massive quantities. What is more business-profile damaging than a wrongly designed or error-laden business card?

Different Types of Business Cards.

With design issues addressed and central concerns allayed, the next vital part is the type of business card to use. This is yet another important detail of your business image to the public.

Business card types are classified according to the type of printing used, and formatting. Another type classification the actual card itself. Folding cards and gadget cards like the jagged tear look are all possibilities.

Likewise, the volume of choice here can be equally daunting, and an online business card designer can speed things along. Whether you select an unusual type of print, card shape or color, these details create the image and message you wish your card to deliver.

Conclusion.

Your business card should give the customers a basic understanding of who you are and what kind of business you are in. While a business card design is not a dealbreaker, it can be a great first impression to a new customer or client.

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How To Become A Real Estate Agent

There are nearly two million active real estate agents in the United States today, according to the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials. Real estate agents face new challenges and situations every day, so their days are never dull or boring. They’re constantly meeting new people, and they get to work as their own boss.

If you’re considering a career as a real estate agent, you may be wondering how to get started.

Know Your State’s Requirements.

The first step to becoming a real estate agent is to find out which requirements you’ll have to meet.

Every state has its own requirements for real estate agents. There is no national real estate license, so it’s important to meet your state’s own requirements.

How can you find these requirements? Start by visiting your state’s real estate regulatory website.

Every state has its own requirements for:

• Application process and fees
• Age
• Exams
• Continued education
• Background checks and fingerprinting
• Education requirements
• Process for achieving the next level of licensing
• Pre- and post-licensing requirements

There are some states that have reciprocal licensing agreements with other states, which means that you can also practice real estate in those states without having to take an additional exam.

New York state, for example, has reciprocity with several states, including Massachusetts, Georgia, Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Mississippi, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Every state will also have its own process for obtaining a license through reciprocity.

Education.

The next, and most important, step is to enroll in a pre-licensing course. No matter which state you live in, you will need to take a pre-licensing course from an accredited school before you can take the licensing exam.

Every state will have its own requirements for the number of hours the course must be. New York requires 75 hours of real estate classes, while California requires 135 hours.

Courses can be taken online, at community colleges or at a brick-and-mortar real estate school. It’s best to choose the method that best suits your schedule and learning style. Take your time when choosing a pre-licensing course, as the quality of the materials and instructors will impact your exam performance.

Take the Licensing Exam.

When taking the pre-licensing course, your instructor will walk you through the process of scheduling, registering and paying for the licensing exam.

The exam will be taken on a computer and will consist of two parts:

• National: Includes general real estate principles and practices
• State: Covers your state’s real estate laws

Keep in mind that each section will be scored separately. You must receive a passing grade in both sections in order to pass the entire exam. But if you fail one or more sections, you can retake the exam in the future. Every state will have its own rules on how often you can retake the exam and the deadline for retakes.

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Demystifying CRO: All You Wanted To Know About Conversion Rate Optimisation

When it comes to the aspect of conversion, what we need to do is to delve into some of its foundational concepts first. That includes illustrating its main role in what it does for your business. All in all, the conversion is considered when a marketing strategy finally results in a potential customer becoming a customer. In the entirety of this process, new customers are attracted through marketing, sales are carried out and customer service is offered for the sole purpose of retaining customers.

The beauty of the fact is that when the same template is applied to a website, the definition of conversion remains the same.

Breaking down the definition of a conversion.

Here’s the thing – it is extremely convenient and easy to think of conversions as merely websites sales, but that will limit your perception of the scenario in its totality. In fact, any accomplishment of a list of site goals can be considered conversions as well. Any website needs to have both primary and secondary site goals in order for the entire process to work effectively in a timely manner.

Before panicking and asking yourself what is conversion rate optimisation and website optimisation, bear in mind that the smallest aspects of customer engagement usually fall into the secondary site goals category, which in turn, eventually fuels the success of primary site goals in the long run. In this regard, one must not forget the vital aspect of tracking the secondary site goals to optimise primary site goals.

The importance of measurement.

Sure, no one out there ever said that conversions were not a good idea. However, the fact of the matter still remains that there is a vital question to be asked first – How does one know whether their website has enough conversions or not? This is precisely where the need for a metric to measure conversions comes from. To determine how successful your website is, analytics will take care of a host of things starting from the most visited pages to the number of visitors, and so on.

Whether your website has too many or too few conversions, the insights that come from studying conversion rates are predominantly goal-oriented and extremely detailed. Furthermore, they will make the process of finding the reasons why they are too many or too few, a lot easier in the long run. Hence, the problem-fixing aspect will also be taken care of smoothly in every way.

The CRO vocabulary list.

Here, we need to take a deeper dive into some of the most commonly used terms associated with CRO. They are:-

• Conversion rate: This refers to the calculative applications of various marketing strategies, analysis, innovation and testing for the sole purpose of increasing the website’s conversion rate.
• User flow: This is defined by the path taken by the user to complete a specific action. Another important point to remember is that this is not necessarily restricted to conversion events and can include adding items to a list or finding website support.
• Conversion funnel: The path that a potential customer takes to become a full-fledged customer. With the depiction of an inverted pyramid, the top part is representative of the complete audience and the bottom part refers to the conversion event.

The ultimate benefits of CRO.

The most obvious benefit is that it will help you to understand your audience better as well as get you a wider range of newer customers. Here are some of the most subtle benefits of CRO:-

It encourages existing users to convert multiple times.

After all, the fact of the matter is that attracting new customers does end up being more expensive than making the necessary changes to optimise a website. Plus, this maximises ROI as well.

The identification of conversion blockers.

With CRO, there is literally zero guesswork with regard to the overall development and content decisions. You can be positive of that fact. With well-implemented CRO, one would be able to identify the difference between a drop-off and a conversion, helping you to find a solution faster.

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How To Prepare For The Future Of Accounts Payable Processing

by Chen Amit, co-founder and CEO of Tipalti

The accounts payable process is often the biggest thorn in a small business’s side. And accounts payable processing is poised to become even more significant and complex over the next three years, according to the Institute of Finance & Managemen’s research.

To start, the use of electronic invoices is set to explode, completely eliminating paper invoicing. In fact, suppliers already prefer electronic invoicing formats that drastically reduce operational costs. On average, invoices cost AP departments about $30 each to send, while e-invoicing costs only an average of $3.50.

New technologies will also change the face of AP. As artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics process automation become embedded in future technology, modern companies will shift their focus to creating platforms and solutions that rely on these advanced capabilities. At the same time, businesses will be moving away from manual operations and toward solutions that are both cloud-based and mobile.

Based on the ever-evolving finance industry, your small business will encounter a few key trends in the next few years: an increase in complex cross-border payments, demands for faster payment reconciliation, and the need for more secure processes.

Increasing complex cross-border payments.

As your business grows, you’ll probably need to pay more vendors, suppliers, freelance contractors, and service providers who live and operate in other countries. Not only that, but McKinsey predicts a 5% increase in global payments revenue every year for the next few years. This means that complex cross-border payments will prove ever more important to your operations.

Cross-border payments are more complicated and riskier than in-country exchanges. To begin with, fluctuating foreign currency exchange rates affect your payment obligations. Sending money via expensive paper checks or wire transfer may be the norm, but they both have fraud rates and postal issues that make them a poor choice. These methods also eat into your profits: They’re expensive and subject to exorbitant currency conversion bank fees.

Speeding up time to financial close.

Payment reconciliation is already one of the biggest time expenditures in accounting. Businesses have to wait for and sort through delayed and cryptic data from their banks. Checks may not clear in time — or ever, and transfer and conversion fees have to be pulled from different reports. Multiplying payment methods, especially from cross-border entities, will continue to add even more layers of complexity to reporting processes.

If your business is growing, you’re consistently adding payees to your system. By the time you’re dealing with hundreds — let alone thousands — of payees, it will become increasingly difficult to manage multiple payment accounts. Trying to navigate this complex and time-consuming process can be disastrous for your business.

Reducing risk.

Funds leaving your business almost never return. That’s why it’s imperative to make sure that outgoing payment processes are secure. Companies often do this by limiting access to entire payment systems, like bank portals, to only a select few. Problems arise because this is a difficult process to audit, and it requires high-level executives such as CFOs or controllers to spend time logging into bank accounts and entering payment data. As your business grows, the increasing number of payments makes it even more tedious and time-consuming, which means that it oftentimes is neglected — opening up your business to delayed or missed payments, fraud, and other risks.

To reduce risk most effectively, your business will need to formalize a procurement resource plan and standardize organizational processes. And these processes should be automated. A Harvard Business Review study shows cloud solutions already boost speeds and lower costs for up to 85% of the organizations that have adopted them. Your payees want to be using cloud-based mobile solutions — and you’ll need to keep up.

Meet the Challenges Head On.

Most of these trends will be facilitated by AI and machine learning embedded in advanced financial technologies. To prepare for these challenges, modern companies should shift their focus now to implementing AP platforms, solutions, and capabilities based on those advanced technologies.

These steps will help you reduce risk, speed up account reconciliation, and simplify cross-border payment processing:

1. Consolidate payment transactions.

Most traditional AP infrastructures, especially for small businesses, aren’t built to handle thousands of payees from across the globe. However, consolidating payment transactions into a single system helps normalize and sync payment data to make global reporting easier. It helps you avoid the significant losses that can result from delayed reconciliation and falling behind on payments.

2. Go paperless.

Give vendors the means to upload or email PDF invoices and establish a flexible remittance strategy. An integrated vendor portal with the ability to add more electronic payment types makes the AP process paperless. Plus, giving vendors a choice in payment methods strengthens your relationships with them while ensuring more traceable payments for faster reconciliation.

3. Add financial controls.

Use role-based permissions to secure your outgoing payment processes. These segregate duties depending on who can initiate disbursements, fund accounts, create approval flows, run reports, and more. With role-based access control, high-level executives can maintain tight payment processing security without having to do everything manually. Instead, they can add financial controls to payment execution that track and limit who has access to each process.

AP processing is bound to grow increasingly complex over the next several years, and the sooner small and midsize businesses start preparing, the better. These steps can help minimize some of the biggest challenges, starting with investing in smarter, more integrated AP technologies.

 

Chen Amit is the co-founder and CEO of Tipalti, a payment automation software that helps businesses manage their entire supplier payments operations by streamlining all phases of the AP and payment management workflow in one holistic cloud platform. Formerly the CEO of Atrica and Verix, Chen is a veteran high tech executive and repeat entrepreneur.

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Starting A Business in Cyprus – What You Need To Know

Starting a business in Cyprus can be the right move whether you are looking to expand your business overseas or you are an entrepreneur looking for new challenges. Like any business, you need to do a lot of research into the history of the country, the culture, people and most importantly, the business environment.

The same applies to starting a business anywhere in the world – it will be counterproductive to pack your bags and head to another country without doing the necessary research. You need to have a full understanding of the way things work so that you will not encounter a series of problems that you could have prepared for. Every country has its regulations when it comes to setting up businesses, especially if you are a foreigner.

As of today, citizens of other EU countries can now start a business in Cyprus without any restrictions, since Cyprus is now a member of the EU. As of today, EU citizens no longer need a local partner and there are no longer investment restrictions, which is a great thing for people who want to start small businesses in the country. There are still strict regulations in place for businesses related to financial services, so if you are looking to launch a financial service in Cyprus, keep this in mind and make necessary preparations to work with the regulations.

Leisure and catering businesses make up the majority of businesses established by foreigners in Cyprus. Also, property development and investment is a popular choice by foreigners. The most common being villas, holiday accommodation, catering, apartment and cottages, bars and restaurants, property agencies, shops, language schools, sports centers including water sports, tennis and golf.

Whichever business you choose to do in Cyprus, ensure that you set up the necessary infrastructure including a bank account, an accountant and lawyer. The reason why you need these infrastructures is to help settle down and meet up with all the requirements of starting a business in Cyprus.

The services of a lawyer or a law firm cannot be overstated, regardless of the size of your business. The local lawyer understands the business climate in the country more than most people that you will meet and is also experienced in the process of business incorporation. This is vital because the lawyer/law firm will walk you through the legal framework for operating a business in Cyprus, and save you from breaking any laws which can shut down your business. If you need legal advice or the services of a lawyer, then you should visit oikonomakislaw.com, where you will have access to lawyers who have experience in helping foreigners start a business in Cyprus.

Cyprus boasts of a modern, service-based, free-market economy making it a viable destination for international investors. The country has a high per capita income which translates to a strong consumer base – an important factor to consider when deciding to start your business in Cyprus.

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