Shoe Repairs And Several Other Things When I Was 7

Shoe Repairs And Several Other Things When I Was 7
My Dad repaired most of our shoes believe it or not, I can hardly believe it myself now. With 7 pairs of shoes always needing repairs I think he was quite clever to learn how to “Keep us in shoe Leather” to coin a phrase!

He bought several different sizes of cast iron cobbler’s “lasts”. Last, the old English “Laest” meaning footprint. Lasts were holding devices shaped like a human foot. I have no idea where he would have bought the shoe leather. Only that it was a beautiful creamy, shiny colour and the smell was lovely.

But I do remember our shoes turned upside down on and fitted into these lasts, my Dad cutting the leather around the shape of the shoe, and then hammering nails, into the leather shape. Sometimes we’d feel one or 2 of those nails poking through the insides of our shoes, but our dad always fixed it.

Hiking and Swimming Galas
Dad was a very outdoorsy type, unlike my mother, who was probably too busy indoors. She also enjoyed the peace and quiet when he took us off for the day!

Anyway, he often took us hiking in the mountains where we’d have a picnic of sandwiches and flasks of tea. And more often than not we went by steam train.

We loved poking our heads out of the window until our eyes hurt like mad from a blast of soot blowing back from the engine. But sore, bloodshot eyes never dampened our enthusiasm.

Dad was an avid swimmer and water polo player, and he used to take us to swimming galas, as they were called back then. He often took part in these galas. And again we always travelled by steam train.

Rowing Over To Ireland’s Eye
That’s what we did back then, we had to go by rowboat, the only way to get to Ireland’s eye, which is 15 minutes from mainland Howth. From there we could see Malahide, Lambay Island and Howth Head of course. These days you can take a Round Trip Cruise on a small cruise ship!

But we thoroughly enjoyed rowing and once there we couldn’t wait to climb the rocks, and have a swim. We picnicked and watched the friendly seals doing their thing and showing off.

Not to mention all kinds of birdlife including the Puffin.The Martello Tower was also interesting but a bit dangerous to attempt entering. I’m getting lost in the past as I write, and have to drag myself back to the present.

Fun Outings with The camera Club
Dad was also a very keen amateur photographer, and was a member of a camera Club. There were many Sunday photography outings and along with us came other kids of the members of the club.

And we always had great fun while the adults busied themselves taking photos of everything and anything, it seemed to us. Dad was so serious about his photography that he set up a dark room where he developed and printed his photographs.

All black and white at the time. He and his camera club entered many of their favourites in exhibitions throughout Europe. I’m quite proud to say that many cups and medals were won by Dad. They have been shared amongst all his grandchildren which I find quite special.

He liked taking portraits of us kids too, mostly when we were in a state of untidiness, usually during play. Dad always preferred the natural look of messy hair and clothes in the photos of his children.

Coupling Inbound Marketing With Your Online Reputation Management

Unlike how it was in the past, marketing has changed dramatically over the years. Although traditional marketing still exists and is very important to the overall process, inbound marketing is essential at this point and pairing it with your increased reputation is a natural choice.Having a fresh, novel approach to marketingWith traditional marketing, you have to go after your customers. You have to educate them about what they want and need and you have to convince them that you have what they cannot live without. That often involves a lot of interrupting and it often leaves the customer (or potential customer) feeling irritated and put upon. On the other hand, more modern marketing (inbound marketing) takes the opposite approach in many ways. First of all, with inbound marketing, you don’t go after your customers and potential customers. You get your customers to come to you. Because of that approach, those customers and potential customers are prescreened and prequalified. You don’t have any need to twist their arms. They come to you willingly and happily.Another positive feature of inbound marketing is that you will not have to eat up most of your budget to accomplish your goals. Inbound marketing costs very little. With traditional marketing, in all likelihood, you would have been forced to spend a great deal of money in order to accomplish what you set out to do. Because of that, if you owned a small or even medium-size company, you would have had a difficult time competing with larger companies from a marketing perspective. Of course, what follows that is your professional reputation. The more successful you are at causing a stir and getting people to know you and to eventually buy your offerings (after they have believed in your credibility, trustworthiness, and expertise), the better your professional reputation will become.Marketing to the appropriate peopleWhen it comes to your marketing efforts for your business, it is important to choose the most appropriate target audience possible. Your target audience must be interested in what you have to say and in what you can do for them. They must also want to be in the market to buy what you are selling and to feel that you are the best person from whom to buy that particular product and/or service. Additionally, the usual traditional (outbound) marketing approach may no longer work for you. Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that when it comes to outbound marketing efforts, the target audience has gotten very clever about thwarting your efforts. They can block your advertisements, they can put themselves on a “Do Not Call” list, etc. In other words, they have ways of avoiding you entirely.On the other hand, inbound marketing can be extremely effective and, if you do it correctly, your target audience members may not even be aware that you are trying to sell them anything at all (not even at some point in the future). When it comes to inbound marketing, the approach that the technique takes is concentrating on drawing people, converting prospects to eventual customers, closing the sale, and satisfying those customers on a long-term (or permanent) basis. Inbound marketing creates solid, enduring relationships that last for very long time and are mutually beneficial. Those relationships create a very positive feeling between the other people and you. Again, along with successfully marketing your brand, your reputation will also get a boost and it will become stronger and stronger. Inbound marketing will general more online traffic, it will create new leads, and it will allow you to ultimately increase your revenue.How do you ensure that your inbound marketing campaign is successful?The best way to ensure that your inbound marketing campaign is successful is by writing and posting top-notch content. You want to share content that is well written, innovative, insightful, and amazing to the point where other people feel compelled to share it with people they know and trust. If your content was done correctly, it will answer all of your target audience’s questions (even the ones that they haven’t asked yet). In fact, you want them to seek the answers automatically from you. If you can get them to that point, you will be good to go.Making loyal customers from target audience membersWhen it comes to the nature and approach of inbound marketing, it is important to understand that the relationship and interactions between human beings is at the heart of it. Your target audience members are critical to your professional success; however, on some level, it is even more critical that you create loyal customers who will stick with you for a very long time to come. If you can create brand champions, you won’t have anything to worry about.ConclusionUsing inbound marketing to help boost your professional reputation is a brilliant thing to do. Inbound marketing is a proven, successful, intelligent approach to marketing your brand. It is very easy to learn how to use it and it is extremely effective. You will start to see positive results within a relatively short amount of time. Outbound marketing is an approach that interrupts the target audience members to get your point across. It is a hard approach and, although it works well when paired with inbound marketing, it often doesn’t work so well by itself. On the other hand, inbound marketing has tremendous benefits for everyone involved (on both sides of the fence).

Business Loans In Canada: Financing Solutions Via Alternative Finance & Traditional Funding

Business loans and finance for a business just may have gotten good again? The pursuit of credit and funding of cash flow solutions for your business often seems like an eternal challenge, even in the best of times, let alone any industry or economic crisis. Let’s dig in.

Since the 2008 financial crisis there’s been a lot of change in finance options from lenders for corporate loans. Canadian business owners and financial managers have excess from everything from peer-to-peer company loans, varied alternative finance solutions, as well of course as the traditional financing offered by Canadian chartered banks.

Those online business loans referenced above are popular and arose out of the merchant cash advance programs in the United States. Loans are based on a percentage of your annual sales, typically in the 15-20% range. The loans are certainly expensive but are viewed as easy to obtain by many small businesses, including retailers who sell on a cash or credit card basis.

Depending on your firm’s circumstances and your ability to truly understand the different choices available to firms searching for SME COMMERCIAL FINANCE options. Those small to medium sized companies ( the definition of ‘ small business ‘ certainly varies as to what is small – often defined as businesses with less than 500 employees! )

How then do we create our road map for external financing techniques and solutions? A simpler way to look at it is to categorize these different financing options under:

Debt / Loans

Asset Based Financing

Alternative Hybrid type solutions

Many top experts maintain that the alternative financing solutions currently available to your firm, in fact are on par with Canadian chartered bank financing when it comes to a full spectrum of funding. The alternative lender is typically a private commercial finance company with a niche in one of the various asset finance areas

If there is one significant trend that’s ‘ sticking ‘it’s Asset Based Finance. The ability of firms to obtain funding via assets such as accounts receivable, inventory and fixed assets with no major emphasis on balance sheet structure and profits and cash flow ( those three elements drive bank financing approval in no small measure ) is the key to success in ABL ( Asset Based Lending ).

Factoring, aka ‘ Receivable Finance ‘ is the other huge driver in trade finance in Canada. In some cases, it’s the only way for firms to be able to sell and finance clients in other geographies/countries.

The rise of ‘ online finance ‘ also can’t be diminished. Whether it’s accessing ‘ crowdfunding’ or sourcing working capital term loans, the technological pace continues at what seems a feverish pace. One only has to read a business daily such as the Globe & Mail or Financial Post to understand the challenge of small business accessing business capital.

Business owners/financial mgrs often find their company at a ‘ turning point ‘ in their history – that time when financing is needed or opportunities and risks can’t be taken. While putting or getting new equity in the business is often impossible, the reality is that the majority of businesses with SME commercial finance needs aren’t, shall we say, ‘ suited’ to this type of funding and capital raising. Business loan interest rates vary with non-traditional financing but offer more flexibility and ease of access to capital.

We’re also the first to remind clients that they should not forget govt solutions in business capital. Two of the best programs are the GovernmentSmall Business Loan Canada (maximum availability = $ 1,000,000.00) as well as the SR&ED program which allows business owners to recapture R&D capital costs. Sred credits can also be financed once they are filed.

Those latter two finance alternatives are often very well suited to business start up loans. We should not forget that asset finance, often called ‘ ABL ‘ by those Bay Street guys, can even be used as a loan to buy a business.

If you’re looking to get the right balance of liquidity and risk coupled with the flexibility to grow your business seek out and speak to a trusted, credible and experienced Canadian business financing advisor with a track record of business finance success who can assist you with your funding needs.