Month: September 2021

Categories
Business

The Key to a Thriving Business

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As the internet continues to become more and more widespread, we find ourselves growing increasingly dependent on it for even the simplest of tasks. Today, all it takes is a few short steps to get food ordered, payments made, messages delivered, and so much more. This is possible thanks to the massive technological breakthroughs that have taken place in the past couple of decades and have completely revolutionized the tech industry.

In the business world, the internet is a massive game-changer that has redefined the way businesses operate. For some, it presents a treasure trove of marketing opportunities. For others, it helps coordinate workflows and allows more seamless interaction with customers. According to modern standards, maintaining a decent online presence is essential for running a successful business. The demand for web page builders has reached an all-time high which is unsurprising considering that every company wants to leverage the wide range of benefits that comes with owning a website.

A Website Acts as Free Marketing

Before the era of personal computing, advertising was mostly limited to newspapers and billboards. These advertising methods were not very effective since they made it impossible to target a specific group of people. Today, it is a completely different story. Thanks to the internet and the intricate algorithms put into action, it is now easy to know who’s interested in your products so you can target them with ads. In fact, targeted advertising has rapidly become one of the modern world’s most widespread marketing strategies given its great effectiveness and affordability.

On the internet, a web page acts as a great representation of your business and plays an indispensable role in attracting new customers. This is because owning a simple web page is enough to make your business seem more legitimate and trustable for customers. For this reason, it is of great importance to pay attention to your website’s aesthetics and make sure it employs proper search engine optimization to make it more popular and widely viewed. 

A New Way to Interact with Customers

Because the internet never sleeps, a website acts as a 24/7 information desk for your business. By listing basic information like opening hours, phone numbers, and photos of your products, customers will be able to get a general idea about your business by simply looking it up. Including a FAQs page is also a great idea, as it eliminates the need to manually assist customers with their most frequent questions, which saves both time and money.

As e-commerce continues to grow at an unprecedented rate and as online shopping becomes the new normal over traditional shopping, most businesses are now enabling their users to place orders directly from their websites. This not only makes buying things easier for users, but it also helps in automating orders and processing them more efficiently. By automating tasks, your business will require a fewer number of employees, effectively cutting costs and eliminating human error.

Accepting online payments has never been easier. Countless options exist that enable customers to make instant and secure payments on the go. Most websites nowadays accept payments through internet-enabled credit or debit cards, but some choose to take a step further and enable more options like PayPal, Apple Pay, Venmo, and even cryptocurrency.

Access to Advanced Insights

It is easy to gather information about who visits your website. Through the use of embedded trackers and web cookies, you’ll be able to learn more about who is interested in your business so that you can continue to refine and improve it. Analytics as simple as users’ general geographic location, age, and interests are essential to building a brand that takes customer satisfaction seriously.

How to Get Started?

Coding a website manually is not easy. Hiring a web development team to build a website on your behalf usually gets the job done, but it gives little room for customization and creativity. After all, nobody knows your business better than you.

Thankfully, a new and widely adopted method for building websites is using “no-code” web page designers. These allow businesses to build professional-looking websites using a drag-and-drop interface without having to spend months learning web development. Invest some of your time upfront, researching the best website builder to suits your needs, and you’ll good to go. In no time, you’ll have a website live and will be able to see the benefits accruing, that will leave you wondering why you didn’t do your business this favor long ago.

Conclusion

In an internet-first world, having a strong online presence is crucial for the success of any brand. Fortunately, new services and platforms make it easier than ever to run an online business. As the world of commerce continues shifting to an increasingly online-centric state, we can expect to see more companies and brands operating fully online without any physical headquarters. 

Categories
General

For Veterans Thinking About Going Back to School

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As the workforce continues to move towards remote employment, many Americans find themselves unable or unprepared for the transition. For some, it is simply a matter of figuring out what they can do. For many, however, it is a question of retraining. A great number of Americans feel like they need to acquire new skills or update their training. That is the reason for the increase in adult enrollment in the past decade.

Veterans are no exception. In fact, many veterans are adapting to the changing needs of the workforce by going back to school. With numerous programs and scholarships available, it has never been a more favorable time to earn a degree, learn a new skill, or acquire a certification.

Newly-discharged and retired veterans alike can benefit from going back to school. Whether they are looking for a career change, aiming for a promotion, or simply accomplishing a goal, veterans know that extra training is always useful.

Here are a few short steps for veterans that could move them forward in their education. So brush up on your military alphabet, and read on to learn what kind of training can benefit your career.

Plan Your Outcome 

Not every person needs a Master’s Degree. Similarly, not everyone could benefit from an Associate’s Degree. The outcome of your educational journey should be centered around what your current situation requires. It might even be prudent to speak with your employer, as they often have the inside track on what can earn promotions.

If your current situation is a blank slate, ask yourself what your motivations are. Some people want to graduate from college for the feeling of achievement. Others want to train for a new career path. Once you begin your courses, you will find that this part of your life requires much of your time. Make sure what you are doing has an outcome, even if it is simply for a shiny plaque on your wall.

Similarly, map out your path by doing the proper research about what your field will require. Many students have encountered problems in their second or third year of college when they encounter a class they cannot pass. Understand the requirements of your program of study, but also be sure to understand what the work entails.

Finally, understand the costs associated with going back to school. Even if you are receiving tuition money, not all costs involved with higher education are always implicitly stated. For example, if you are quitting your job to go to school full-time, make sure you will not be hurt in the long run by a lack of income. Also, keep in mind that some of the programs offered are reimbursement-based.

Check for VA Programs

Many veterans are only slightly aware of the benefits that are open to them following their release from military service. However, millions of dollars in benefits have gone unclaimed since World War I. A local Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) office is where to begin when you want to discover your options for education. Most offices have an on-site education counselor that is familiar not only with the VA programs, but may also be in contact with colleges in the area. 

The most commonly known VA educational program is the Montgomery GI Bill, but there are many more programs besides this one. The Post-911 GI Bill and Vocational Rehabilitation program are also available to qualified veterans. In certain situations, one or more benefits can even be combined.

Other programs are available for veterans who may not be seeking a degree. Reimbursment programs are available for a myriad of certifications and licenses. Many of these programs also provide a stipend for materials.

Begin by checking the VA education benefits page, then set up an account on eBenefits to find out the programs that apply to your service.

Check for School Programs

Many colleges and universities offer scholarships and grants just for veterans. Many private organizations offer scholarships for both veterans and their spouses. If you qualify, then you should try to get a piece of that money. Anything outside of tuition and fees goes into the veteran’s pocket. This can help cover the cost of living while you are in school or simply pay for the extra equipment that your education may require. 

The online service Best Colleges even has a list of the most military-friendly colleges in America. Find out where your school ranks on this scale, and also discover many of the other scholarships and programs available.

If you are a veteran, there is at least one education or training program available. Some veterans have been able to achieve a Master’s Degree and beyond by strategically combining scholarship programs. Similarly, every year veterans gain the training they need to draw a better salary.

Education is not just for bookworms. With remote working becoming the new trend, make yourself more marketable by staying current with the knowledge and skills needed for the evolving workforce.

Categories
Business

What to Know About Becoming an Insurance Agent

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Working as an insurance agent can be an effective way to earn a living wage while helping people. In essence, you’re helping customers protect what is most important to them. However, there are many steps that you must take before you can start working in this field. Let’s take a closer look at the process of becoming a licensed agent and how long it will likely take to complete.

What Are the Requirements to Become an Insurance Agent?

In most states, you’ll need to be at least 18 years of age to start the process of obtaining your insurance agent license. You’ll also need to consent to a background check as well as have your fingerprints entered into a national database. If you pass the license exam, you will then need to apply for your license before seeking employment in your chosen line of authority.

Should You Obtain a College Degree?

In most states, you don’t need a college degree to obtain a property and casualty license. However, it can be a good idea to pursue a degree in finance or business if you want to become an actuary or to enter other fields that typically require you to have a formal college education.

You’ll Need to Meet Classroom Requirements Before Taking Your Licensing Exam

Although you won’t need a college degree to become an insurance agent, you will likely need to complete a prelicensing course. This course can take up to 90 hours to complete depending on the state where you’d like to obtain your license and the line of authority that you wish to receive. For your convenience, it may be possible to complete such a course online.

After you complete your pre-license class, you will receive a certificate of completion. You will need to bring this certificate to your test site. In addition, you’ll need to present valid identification to sit for your chosen exam. If you fail to bring either of these documents to the test site, you’ll need to reschedule your appointment. However, you will not receive a refund for any test fees paid prior to your missed appointment.

What Should You Know About the License Exam?

The license exam primarily tests your knowledge about state rules and regulations. For instance, you’ll generally need to be familiar with concepts such as risk, indemnity or renewals. You will also need to be familiar with contractual terms such as declarations, conditions and appraisals. Finally, the test will also assess your knowledge regarding your role as an agent and the responsibilities that you have to your clients.

What Is Considered a Passing Score?

Each state has different rules it uses when determining if you have passed a specific license exam. However, 60% is often considered to be a passing score regardless of where you take the test. In some cases, your test will be graded on a scale, which means that you might be able to pass even if you don’t get 60% of the questions right. It’s not uncommon to fail an insurance agent test on your first try, and anxiety on test day is one of the most common reasons cited as to why this occurs.

How Should You Get Ready for Your Exam?

It may be in your best interest to take an exam prep course prior to actually taking the test. A prep course can help you anticipate any tricks that the exam provider may use to confuse or frustrate you into giving the wrong answer. You may also learn valuable skills that can help to calm your nerves or otherwise help you stay in control while taking the test.

Where Can You Work After Obtaining Your License?

After receiving your insurance agent license, you can work at most brokerages and independent insurance agencies in the state where you passed the exam. If you find work in another state, your license can typically be transferred to that state with relative ease. In many states, obtaining the proper credentials means that you can start your own private insurance company. Taking this step may allow you to gain greater control over your career and make significantly more money than you might working for someone else.

You May Be Subject to Ongoing Training Requirements

State and federal laws change on a regular basis, and as an insurance agent, it is your responsibility to keep up with these changes. The best way to do this is to take continuing education courses after you obtain your license. In some cases, your employer may be willing to pay for the costs associated with your continuing education.

Obtaining an insurance agent license may provide you with an opportunity to embark on a lucrative and unpredictable career path. Ideally, you’ll take test prep courses, hire a private tutor or take any other steps needed to pass the exam on your first try.

Categories
Health

Monitoring and Maintaining Your Health During Graduation

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It’s easy to overlook your health when you are going through college. Not only will classes, assignments, and looming deadlines keep you busy and preoccupied throughout most of the year, but the majority of students are also quite young. And if you’re in your 20s or even your late teens and have never been seriously ill in your life, it’s easy not to worry about your health beyond looking up where you land on a BMI calculator.

However, being able to keep tabs on your health is a skill worth having during your college years. Not only so you can spot when something is going wrong, but so you can get ahead of potential future problems.

Health and future risks

It’s much easier to permanently damage your health in your 20s than most people realize. Obvious candidates like drinking, smoking, and drug abuse can all cause lasting damage, but it goes beyond that. Chronic stress and lack of sleep can both have long-term consequences to your mental and physical health. And even something as simple as brushing your teeth can affect you for all your life.

It’s often easy to get caught up thinking that if you pay the dentist they’ll make problems disappear. But dental work doesn’t last as well as your own dental structure, which means you’ll need more dental work down the line in order to maintain the repairs made today.

Finally, there are a plethora of medical problems that can be uncovered and treated much earlier when students a) pay attention to their own health and b) don’t skip on those regular appointments we should all be getting every year. And encouraging students to do both is an effort that both university staff and the student body can undertake together.

Staying on top of your health

The crux of the issue lies in one of the most boring facets of medicine: maintenance and regular check-ups. It’s important to get your bloodwork done, your eyes checked, and your teeth properly inspected and cleaned at least once a year, if not more.

There are also a variety of ways you can check for health problems and take better care of yourself. We already mentioned proper oral hygiene, but there is also a lot to be gained from spotting and treating caries early, so regularly inspecting your teeth is a good idea.

Keep an eye for other signs of health problems, such as trouble sleeping, recurrent headaches, unexplained pains, and more. It’s too easy to focus on your studies and hopes that minor symptoms go away, but recurring issues can be a sign of a deeper underlying condition.

The consequences of poor health

Exercising and healthy dieting, of course, also count as maintenance and self-care, and they can offer a variety of benefits for students in particular. Chief among them is their benefit to mental health, given that dietary changes and an active lifestyle can help mitigate the negative effects of stress, anxiety, depression, and more. It’s not a cure necessarily, but it does often help.

Staying healthy can also improve your energy levels and help improve the quality of your sleep, both of which can have a positive impact on your academic performance and overall quality of life.

On top of that, there are other benefits to becoming active in your younger years. It’s generally easier to achieve and maintain great cardiovascular health if you start exercising when you’re young, even if you stop doing it for several years before starting up again. Muscle memory is a real thing, and it can benefit you for the rest of your life. 

Categories
Life

Could My Child Have ADHD?

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In a daycare room full of children, some kids may prefer to sit and read quietly while others run around and play tag. Because children have varying personalities and different dispositions, it can be difficult at first glance to determine if any of them suffer from ADHD. ADHD was first described in 1902 by Sir George Still, a British pediatrician. The disorder was defined as ‘an abnormal defect of moral control in children.’ Sir George Still noted that affected children, although intelligent, could not control their behavior as effectively as their neurotypical counterparts. Throughout the years, our understanding of ADHD has changed, affecting the way it is diagnosed and the treatments available.

What is ADHD?

In 1937, medical director Charles Bradley discovered that children hospitalized for impaired behavior and learning abilities improved dramatically after being treated with Benzedrine. The seemingly paradoxical discovery of stimulants helping to improve inhibition control in hyperactive children would prove to be revolutionary. Nonetheless, thirty years passed before the National Institute of Mental Health funded its first study into the effects of stimulants on children with hyperactivity. In 1980, the name of the disorder was changed from hyperkinetic impulse disorder to attention deficit disorder (ADD). Seven years later, that was replaced with the current term: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Today, stimulants such as Adderall are frequently used to treat the symptoms of ADHD.

Because it can be challenging for laypeople to differentiate between ADHD symptoms and willful or post-traumatic behavior, there are sometimes dismissals of its manifestations as a mere matter of temperament. Fortunately, there is a growing mountain of research and publications that support the science. In fact, studies have shown that ADHD is coded in the genes, with evidence that it is highly heritable. The latest research has further shown that people with ADHD have minor brain executive function impairments and different neurological communication patterns compared to neurotypical people.

Currently, there are three accepted forms of ADHD. The first form is inattentive ADHD where people struggle to sustain attention, get easily distracted by environmental stimuli, and have a poor memory. This type of ADHD is more often observed in girls and adults. The second form is hyperactive-impulsive ADHD where people need to continuously be in motion, for example fidgeting or talking constantly. This type of ADHD is more often diagnosed in children and men. The third form of ADHD is a combined type whereby people demonstrate some symptoms from each of the two aforementioned forms. By using self-help resources such as a child ADHD quiz, parents can determine if their child is displaying symptoms of the disorder, and decide whether to seek a professional assessment.

How Could ADHD Affect My Family?

While most people are familiar with the major symptoms of ADHD—inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness—these are only a part of the possible manifestations that can impact the daily lives of children. Children with ADHD often struggle in school because the disorder can additionally cause learning disabilities, disorganization, and forgetfulness. This can translate to problems with understanding math, keeping track of homework, or studying for tests. The hyperactivity and inattention can also be misinterpreted as acting out towards their teachers, resulting in students being punished for actions that are out of their control.

Although children with ADHD can be just as creative and intelligent as their peers, many of them suffer from low self-esteem, causing them to feel unable to make friends and new connections. At the same time, other children with ADHD can be overly extroverted and energetic, sometimes unable to control their aggressive or emotional outbursts. Either way, both types of impulses can lead to children with ADHD feeling alienated and isolated, particularly if they are ostracized by their classmates.

At home, caregivers of children with ADHD are under additional pressure because they need to be actively involved in monitoring numerous aspects of their child’s day—from schoolwork to sibling interaction. Due to parents giving extra attention to the child with ADHD, siblings can feel neglected and resentful, more so if they must deal with disruption as well. As a result, parents can feel increasingly stressed and powerless about managing their child’s ADHD symptoms while the child with ADHD can develop long-lasting feelings of inadequacy.

A recent study has found that only 10 percent of children grow out of ADHD, which continues to manifest itself in adulthood, albeit in various ways and degrees. With this in mind, we need to further educate the public and expand the limited understanding of ADHD. We now know that ADHD not just affects children in the classroom but countless adults throughout their lives as well. Thankfully, there are more and more treatment options being developed to help people with ADHD. From medication to cognitive behavioral therapy and brain training, specialists can now tailor multimodal treatment strategies to maximize the quality of life for people with ADHD.

Parents are naturally invested in the contentment of their children. While ADHD cannot yet be cured, it can definitely be managed. By taking measures to address ADHD early and educating the people around them about the disorder, parents can provide their children with the support and encouragement they need to become healthy and happy individuals.