Finance Manager

B2B trade and business is the deal between two businesses for acquiring of raw materials or supplying partnerships with one another. This type of platform needs a mutual understanding along with a contract where either both the parties exert influence on each other or not necessarily do that. This decision is taken in order to lead the market and take over the market share.

As the focus started shifting from the offline works to the online operations, the need to build online B2B buyer seller marketplace and online product directory became coming in vogue. More and more number of businesses wanted to grow by leaps and bounds as the cost was less and revenue was more.

Many people have the problem in understanding what a product directory is! To make them understand the concept of product directory, this article makes an effort. It is a resource available to the businesses to find vendors having creditworthiness in the market. It allows you to get in touch with liquidators, manufacturers and many other key management personnel. There are experts who help you in taking the business off the ground.

Going online and doing your business and market promotion is a very feasible option for the owners of the company. They reap the benefits by minimizing the costs and maximizing the arena of customers covered. Previously, the only businesses they were in touch with are the local ones or the national ones. But now the gambit has increased and brands from around the world can be made partners in trade.

Some of the platforms which exhibit the A level B2B online platforms are the big selling giants. It is the evolution phase which changed the way people buy things, the way the sellers sell and the way businesses collaborate. The competition has also increased. The benefits of these online B2B portals are:

Communication is speedy and secured.
The data is integrated into the systems of the computer. Now the mishaps and continuous updation is not a problem. The whole transaction gets recorded through the MIS systems or the software developed for the purpose.
Increase in demand with increase in quality and growth of competition in the market.
The hassle is an eliminated element. The businesses do not need the long travelling for the conduct of meetings. The online interface saves the time, cost and efforts of the businesses and focus upon the main work.
B2B is a large scale operation trade. The powerful people decide and negotiate on several ideas together. Some are influencers, some are followers and some are risk takers. The online product directory, however, deals with the idea of procuring products from various companies and making them available at the same place. This virtual platform allows them to transact easily and invest in the new ideas. The prospects of the business growth through B2B become even high as great minds converge to double the investments made into the venture. This is about investment be it in the offline sector of the online sector.

Are you a seller on eBay? If you are, one of the things you want out of it is to make a profit. You’ve done everything to make your products look well in their photos. You have also built up a reliable and dependable profile. Yet, the sales aren’t where you want them. That’s where outside sources come in to help you.

Have you heard of or tried Outfy? It’s a website that can help you increase sales from your eBay seller profile. It has a variety of services and tools to help you achieve your profit goals. One of the best ways to increase your eBay sales is to invest in social media promotion, which is exactly what this ingenious tool can help you with.

Why Choose Outfy
Outfy offers its users a quick and easy solution to share their products on different social media platforms.

It groups all your social media in one place and keeps track of which them perform better than others. It’s like having a dashboard where you can organize and manage all your social media. You can “collect” your products from your eBay seller profile and share it on your social media platforms within seconds.

Outfy supports the following social media platforms:
Pinterest
Instagram
Facebook
Twitter

You won’t have to keep track of different social media accounts again with Outfy’s simple solution.

How Outfy Can Increase Your eBay Sales
Outfy offers a variety of tools and services to help increase your sales and traffic to your eBay store. In this section, I’ll outline the different tools you can use.

Set Posts to “Autopilot”
When you set your store to “autopilot” it saves you a lot of time from posting yourself. You can set and change your daily or weekly posting schedule. To make your posts sound more authentic don’t use the robotic generated themes and hashtags.

Impactful SALE Promotions
You can make your product photos look more professional with this tool. It lets you create the image you want without the need for graphic design knowledge.

Connect All Stores
If you sell products on sites other than eBay you can connect them all through Outfy. Just like Gmail accounts, you can switch between them easily without signing in and out.

Auto Sync
Outfy syncs up with your eBay store so any changes you make on your selling page is automatically done with Outfy. It saves you a lot of time making sure each place has the same text and there aren’t any discrepancies.

Budget Friendly
You pay for what you use instead of a monthly bill or auto charge to your credit or debit card. Basically, you pay per post which is about 2.5 cents at the lowest. Or, you can buy a bundle of posts that never expire. This makes it easy for you to control your budget and grow your eBay seller account.

Outfy on the Go
To help you manage your eBay store even after you leave the house, Outfy has a mobile app that works for both Apple and Android products. It has all the same features to help keep your business on top.

Funnels are said to be a must for any digital marketer whether you are a newbie or a seasoned marketer. Honestly, there is still a need more than ever for good quality content and quality websites will always have their place and usefulness on the web.
But if you have a service or a product that you are offering, a funnel is a great way to capture leads and market to your prospects in a manner that has been proven very efficient.

The principle of a funnel is to attract cold leads with a freebie (usually a digital product) and then warm them up to your products until they become a buying and then a bigger buyer).

In the past, funnel service providers liked to make funnels sound complicated thus justifying charging such a high price as hundreds of dollars per month for their service.

You have to keep in mind that a funnel is nothing more than a series of web pages linked together in a particular marketing goal.

Luckily for newbies, the winds are changing and it is now possible to create a funnel and have it live online in a matter of hours for free. GrooveFunnels is a platform that offers a free version of its funnel building software for free. They even have templates so no coding is necessary.

The simple recipe to build a funnel is to create a landing page/ opt-in where in exchange for a free product (usually a digital one so it does not cost you anything), people provide their name and email address. More and more marketers are asking for a mobile number to be able to do message marketing. You should consider if that could make you lose some sign-ups as many people are reluctant to share their phone number.

The second page in your funnel is usually your offer. The page would look like a regular sales letter with all the selling arguments and guarantees, etc.
The last page is the thank you/ download page. This is where people can download or have access to what they got (either their free products or their paying ones).
Of course, many funnels online are way more complicated than this and the sky is the limit.

A digital marketer can add any up sells, down sells and other offers in his funnel as he sees fit. The danger of having a very complicated funnel or a funnel that takes more than 10 minutes to go through (more like a maze!) is that your customer will walk away without taking your offer.

When I began working online back in 2013, I discovered affiliate marketing (AM) as the surest way to start a business online. I plunged into it and after months of “hard work” wondered why I wasn’t going anywhere. What were the others doing that I wasn’t? Unknown to me, successful affiliate marketers (AMers) chose niches because internet marketing is too large a market for a newbie to succeed in.

This post is going to help you do exactly that.

# 1: What is actually a niche?

A niche is actually a small segment of a market where folks interested in something are prepared to dish out the required amount of money to acquire it. So when hunting for a particular niche, make certain that there are actually search terms folks are actually using when searching for your particular niche info so that you may be included among the best 10 search engine results pages.

# 2: What actually is the difference between a market and a niche market concept?

If we take a main category like AM and check under the titles we can easily discover a market level idea like affiliate programs.

To see if money is actually being made in this market, carry out a Google search to try to find advertisers. If you found ads, then Affiliate program (AP) is actually an interesting market.

So, if you narrow it to the two specifics of where individuals are actually spending funds as well as where there are actually search phrases folks are actually utilizing when searching for AP info, after that make use of Google AdWords KeywordToolExternal and also place in affiliate programs to receive overall suggestions concerning possible niches. If you require additional programs make use of AdWords.Google tool which can easily provide you up to 800, instead of 100 keywords the previous one gives.

Input (AP) into the search engine window on top left of the webpage and then click on search.

Get your hands on a list of a minimum of 10-20 AP associated search terms which display a reasonable number of searches per month however certainly not a lot of competition.

This can also easily offer you a number of profitable search phrases to utilize on your site as categories, in your content and also in your marketing campaigns.

Discovering profitable keyword phrases

Volume: is the average number of searches per month over the past 12 months.

Comp: is the higher this number, the more organic competition for the keyword.

IAAT: A count of webpages on which the keyword appears in both the title tag and the text of a backlink.

Keywords Volume Comp. IAAT

AP ¨ 8,857 24.21 4,366

AM programs 3,592 11.96 170

best AP 3,334 11.92 167

high ticket AP 1,050 6.73 12

best AM programs 912 8.02 27

Travel AP 896 7.67 22

saas AP 849 — 0

top AP 816 7.75 23

AP for bloggers 629 7.43 19

best AP for beginners 606 5.98 7

best AP to make money 556 7.6 21

high paying AP 551 8.88 43

pay per click AP 528 7.35 18

top paying AP 466 6.32 9

keto AP 347 — 0

AM programs for beginners 342 6.32 9

software AP 310 6.73 12

makeup AP 302 5.3 4

gaming AP 295 5.3 4

pet AP 292 4.56 2

AP site 261 — 0

best AP 2018 261 — 0

essential oil AP 261 — 0

highest paying AP 207 6.73 12

personal development AP 207 3.92 1

AP amazon 130 3.92 1

‘top golf’ AP 85 — 0

a list of the best AP 85 — 0

AdWords AP 85 — 0

affiliate credit card programs 85 — 0

affiliate credit card programs to build credit 85 — 0

AM AP 85 — 0

AM network programs 85 — 0

AM programs comparisons 85 — 0

AM programs for education 85 — 0

AM programs for local business 85 — 0

AM programs people want 85 — 0

AM programs plugin WordPress 85 — 0.

AM programs plugin WordPress woocommerce 85 — 0.

AM programs to make money online 85 — 0.

affiliate network programs 85 — 0.

AP easy to join 85 — 0.

AP for brands 85 — 0.

AP for dating bloggers 85 — 0.

AP for domain flipping 85 — 0.

AP for ecommerce 85 — 0.

AP for food bloggers 85 — 0.

AP for guns 85 — 0.

affiliate blogging programs 82 — 0.

AP for beginners 82 6.47 10.

One other excellent keyword research tool you can easily make use of is actually Jaaxy obtained through Wealthy Affiliate.

Avg: The average amount of searches that the keyword phrase gets each month

Traffic: Visits to your website if you make first page rankings in the search engines

QSR: Quoted Search Results: the amount of competing websites ranked in Google for this exact keyword

KQI: Keyword Quality indicator: Green is terrific; yellowish is alright; reddish is inadequate.

SEO: A score based on traffic and competition, the greater the score the more likely you will rank for this keyword on the first page (scale of 1-100, the higher the better)

Keyword Avg Traffic QSR KQI SEO

best affiliate marketing programs 178 31 219 Great 83

best affiliate marketing program for beginners 80 14 89 Great 93

are best affiliate marketing programs 48 9 5 Great 98

the best affiliate marketing program for beginners 80 14 73 Great 92

best affiliate marketing programs for beginners 56 10 175 Great 84

best affiliate marketing programs beginners 56 10 52 Great 96

the best affiliate marketing programs for beginners 56 10 111 Great 91

top 10 affiliate marketing programs 75 13 114 Great 97

top affiliate marketing programs 88 15 179 Great 89

top rated affiliate marketing programs 40 7 96 Great 97

what is the best affiliate marketing program 114 20 53 Great 91

the best affiliate marketing program 114 20 156 Great 86

best affiliate marketing program 114 20 176 Great 88

affiliate marketing programs 3037 517 232 Normal74

affiliate marketing companies 458 78 122 Great 91

affiliate marketing training 199 34 219 Normal80

start affiliate marketing 654 112 226 Normal77

best online affiliate programs 104 18 96 Great 97

best affiliate marketers 48 9 86 Great 96

best paying affiliate programs 86 15 118 Great 97.

# 3: Choose your niche market.

Statista determines that the amount of blog writers in the U.S. alone are going to go up to 31.7 million by 2020. If you’re beginning to build a blog anywhere on the planet today, it is clear that you’re dealing with a great deal more competition.

The only means for you to stand the very best odds of success is actually to niche down.

You need to concentrate on a specific category. “Food” is actually a huge category yet “grilling food” is rather sufficiently small to manage.

Tight topics like these may aid you develop a more focused audience and also possibly assist you rank higher in search engines.

Si Quan Ong did just that when he created his first website confining themself to only breakdancing rather than discussing “dance” or even “hip hop”. He declared he really did not understand just about anything regarding SEO at that time, however he was able to rank for a handful of key terms and produce ~ 3,000 organic visits each month.

The spread of Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc all around us. Businesses and lives in general have suffered a lot and we still seem to be inside a tunnel with a hope to see the light soon. Various businesses have been pushed to their limits and they are forced to re-strategize and re-invent themselves. Innovation has become the key to their survival.

While the new age businesses already had the edge of being digitally active, their reliance on digital marketing grew even further. On the other hand, the businesses that relied more on conventional forms of marketing like in-person events, trade shows, and exhibitions etc., suddenly found themselves in troubled waters. Hence, there has been a pressing need for the companies to go for digital transformation to stay competitive and to avoid extinction.

Here we mention 5 reasons for the businesses to embrace digital marketing at the earliest.

Visibility and Competitive Edge: With the growing penetration of the internet, it is getting increasingly common for people to go online to initiate their search for products and services. They usually discover your products and services through e-mails, Search engines, social media channels, and websites etc. The more you are found online, the more business opportunities it can generate. No wonder, digitally adept companies are doing more business. Hence, investing in digital marketing can give you that competitive edge.
Performance analysis and building strategies in accordance with that: Once you have started implementing digital marketing strategies, you can monitor your campaigns’ performance with analytics tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics, and Instagram Insights etc. For example, Google Analytics can help you to keep a track of key metrics such as number of visitors, bounce rates, and time spent on different pages of your website. It helps you gather information on what is working and what is not. Moreover, you can develop your future strategies based on these insights.
Marketing budget optimization: Last year was a nightmare for businesses in tourism, hospitality, events, and travel etc. Even other businesses that relied heavily on traditional forms of marketing suffered a lot because of the lockdown restrictions. However, there have been enough stories of how switching to digital helped them stay afloat in new normal. Even though the marketing budgets took a hit, some businesses were wise enough to redirect what was available towards digital marketing. It became an eye opener for many of them as they found newer avenues for lead generation. It has granted the businesses a vision to optimize their marketing budget in a way that they make the best use of both conventional forms of marketing and digital marketing.
Empowerment of employees: With more and more businesses adopting an integrated marketing strategy, employees feel empowered because digital tools enable them to accomplish their jobs faster and with increased transparency. Since this is an ever-evolving field, learning and development is a key aspect of this job. All of these contribute to innovative business practices that enable employees to make informed decisions faster.
Increased Revenue: With multiple digital marketing channels at your disposal and their effective usage, you can increase your organization’s revenue at a faster rate. 81.7% of respondents in a survey conducted by Grin agreed that digital marketing increased their financial performance. This is purely because of a data-driven marketing model with innovative concepts and strategies which help organizations to reach new markets while keeping the existing markets equally interested.
While adopting digital marketing strategies became a sort of emergency pill in this pandemic era, there are enough reasons to believe that they will continue to be an integral part of organizations’ marketing strategies when things are back to normal. Moreover, they would be more prepared to handle any such eventualities in future.

Our businesses also differ in terms of interface with clients. If you do “business to business” transactions, the number of people you interact with on a daily basis may differ from someone whose business relies on interacting with consumers. Appointments may be more practical in some instances than others. You have to tailor-make how you manage access to your particular situation if you are to eliminate distractions. Having said that it is important to note that some people do not mind spending the whole day at the office entertaining friends, visitors, and casual acquaintances dropping into the office whenever they feel like it. Do not be that kind of person. It sets the wrong kind of example to junior staff and can harm one’s productivity because these people take up time that you do not have and besides you want to cultivate a professional environment.

The demands of the day are enough to fill the eight working hours available unless if you tend to stay back and play catch up. How do you stay competitive in the market if there is no separation between work and play? Anybody serious about success and achieving effective results will put boundaries that are clear so that there is no confusion. Entrepreneurs are more susceptible to this especially when the workplace is easily accessible. The fact that you are your own boss even puts more responsibility on you to maintain self-discipline and self – management. I have written a whole book called, “Achieve More through Self – Leadership. In it I walk you through the practicalities of how you can get better results through managing self.

Appointments are an important way of not only managing time but managing life. They help you become more structured and productive. Some people seem not to be able to honour their appointments. I once attended a job interview that was supposed to start at 10:30am. By 11:30am there had been no communication about what was happening or when the supposed job interview was going to take place. I decided at the point that this company was probably not good enough for me to join because if you don’t respect people’s time you probably do not respect them.

You may be saying appointments are just not for me yet you never rock up at the doctor, dentist, lawyer or hairstylist without an appointment. Why is that the case? Because you simply won’t see the dentist without an appointment. They have given you conditions acceptable to them. We tell the world around us how to treat us by what we allow.

Some people are always available when you want to see them. If you are always free to see people at short notice, you are probably not that organized. The one who owns a diary will manage the one who doesn’t own one. Why? Because the one without the diary is always available, even though he is very likely to forget important meetings, dates and engagements because of a lack of organization. I used to have a boss who kept a diary and whatever you promised to do in the line of work, he would write down, including the day and time you said he would have it by. You would of-course forget because you didn’t record it like he did and when the time to deliver comes, guess who would be found wanting. It was then that I decided that I do not commit to an action that I am not willing to write down because, what’s written gets done!

You may be saying, “what if my business feeds off the “walk-ins? The fact that your business relies on walk – in customers should not be an excuse for disorder. Sometimes those who drop in unannounced may indeed be potential customers, suppliers, cold-calling salespeople, and even worthwhile business contacts. There is nothing wrong if the call is beneficial to you and your business but I believe there must be a structure and way of doing things that follows certain pre-set principles. I remember seeing a poster in an office that said “if you don’t have anything to do please don’t do it here”. It’s humorous yes, but true. Appointments help to structure your day and helps you allocate time to what’s important. This means you can focus on your most important asset: the paying customer. There is nothing as bad as walking into a place wanting to do business and staff are inattentive because there is just a demand on their time. I am more understanding if the personnel are not busy entertaining social visits at work.

In conclusion, you know your business situation better than any of us. All we can do is make recommendations that will enable efficiency that leads to growth. Some of you may actually need a personal assistant who will put order in your office and focus on the things you are not willing to do that will enable to focus on the highly value things you ought to do such as running a business.

Do you think successful people are just plain lucky?

Successful people did not become successful because they were lucky.

They did not achieve success by accident. Being at the right place at the right time, meeting relevant people, reading the appropriate book, did not come about accidentally or by luck.

Luck is brought about by Labour Under Correct Knowledge.

Successful people prepared themselves. Instead of giving up on anything they started and wanted to achieve they got stronger by learning more.

Success is a methodical, orderly and deliberate process of deciding what you want to do with your life, what are the steps that you need to undertake to get you there, and lastly what you will do once you get there.

One of the most important aspects, if not the most important aspect to success, is the ability to visualise your successful outcome and stay focused on it until you achieve it.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited.” – Albert Einstein

Successful people understood the potential power behind knowledge, yet they also understood that, for them to close the gap between where they are and where they wanted to be, they would have to piece together the enigma that is most often referred to as “life”.

They had to build a picture, a vision, of success in their mind, and then go about taking action on creating that envisioned life.

In much the same way, you have to be serious about your present and future, you need to have the knowledge that is required so you, too, may close the gap: you need to be and remain determined to devote yourself to taking massive action to build your business of succeeding in life.

You, too, will need to see the end, your dream and destiny that you desire in your mind’s eye. It is up to you to take the necessary and relevant action to make it all happen. It’s just like going to the doctor with a particular health problem.

The doctor may prescribe a medication for you to take four times a day, yet he cannot be there with you to ensure that you are taking the medication.

It comes back to deciding to be responsible for your life.

Have you noticed how it all stems from that one attitude? Being responsible for your own life.

Your success, your being responsible 100% for you to live your dream life starts here.

When you accept 100% responsibility for yourself and your current life situation, you will have the power to move towards those things you truly desire in life: which is success in all areas of your life.

This life-changing article is about possibilities and opportunities, knowledge and tools. It will help expose your unique course in life.

It will inspire, support and motivate you to excel, to do what successful people do, to have all that successful people have, and to become a shining example of a successful person.

Here, you’re not being told what you couldn’t do, instead you are being told to shoot for the stars. And above all, you are being shown how to shoot for those stars.

“A person is what he thinks about all day long.” – Emerson

Interesting thought, wouldn’t you think? So much so, it’s worth repeating: “A person is what he thinks about all day long.”

Success and happiness cannot happen if you possess the same old thoughts and beliefs.

If you do not change your mind, if you do not get rid of the unsupportive thoughts and beliefs, you will inevitably remain stuck in your old ways. Not much, if anything, will change.

Let’s give you a quick overview on how change comes about:

Your BEHAVIOUR, how you act (or perhaps do not act), controls your success or failure. Your ability to attain high levels of success is dependent upon your actions and behaviours. Your results are the outcome of your behaviour. Now let’s consider where your behaviours come from and what controls them?

Your FEELINGS command your behaviour. Every action that you take is first filtered through your feelings that reside in your subconscious mind. How you feel about something determines what you do and how well you do it. So where do your feelings come from?

Your ATTITUDES create and influence your feelings. Your attitude is your perspective from which you view life. Whatever attitude you have about anything will affect how you feel, which, in turn, affects how you act. Where do your attitudes come from?

Your BELIEFS create, control and influence your attitudes. What you believe about anything will determine your attitude about it, which will create your feelings, and then which will direct your behaviour and action. Belief patterns are so powerful that two people who are in the same situation could perceive things completely differently. It only requires us to believe what we see and how we see it. We all have thousands of beliefs – big and small. And where do your beliefs come from?

Your THOUGHTS create, control and influence your beliefs. Your thoughts are real and are immensely powerful. Everything you accept from the outside world and everything you feed yourself from within is a product of your thoughts. Everything starts as a thought.

So, it goes without saying you need to learn to control your thoughts. And when you do, you will automatically control your beliefs, your attitudes, your feelings and, consequently, your behaviour and actions.

The big secret to success:

Learn to control your thoughts and you will influence your behaviours and actions. It’s all a mind-set. That’s what we’ve been saying all along.

Success is predictable and is not achieved by accident.

Have the mind-set of the successful people and you will achieve success. Believe and it is yours!

“There is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.” – Joel Osteen

Science of success experts have concluded that the brain is a goal-setting organism.

That is fantastic news for us: for whatever goal we give to our subconscious mind, it will work for us day and night, 24/7, to achieve it for us; to make it a reality.

The principal breakthrough that scientists made was that we do not need to waste our precious time and effort trying to change old thoughts and behaviours: we just simply create new ones.

And the other discovery they made was that we can continue to create new thoughts, new memories, new behaviours, new skills, and learn new things for as long as we are alive on this earth.

Now, with the new discoveries in recent years, it has been scientifically proven that our capacity to achieve and succeed literally has no limits.

Our brain has the capacity to continually learn during our entire lifetime.

Our brain can form new thoughts, can have new memories, and can learn new things by the millions, no matter what your age is. By the millions.

That’s how many new things we can learn, that’s how many new skills we can learn, that’s how many new thoughts we can have, that’s how many new behaviours we can adopt.

This is encouraging because there is no limit on your capacity to achieve new things.

No limits whatsoever for the human brain to learn, memorise, develop, achieve and perform at higher levels than ever imagined. It makes no difference what your age is: you are capable of learning anything new that you want to learn.

That adds to what we spoke of earlier: no more excuses.

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

Your brain has the capacity to achieve way beyond what was ever thought possible. So now is the time to break out of your limited thinking and start dreaming big and imagining unlimited possibilities.

Becoming successful is not impossible.

It is a choice you make through a decision. Every day, step-by-step, you may climb the mountain of success if you’ve decided to do so, if you’re committed to accomplish what the others think impossible.

Design your future now.

Prepare to receive what you desire.

Thanks to the phenomenal advances made in cognitive science and the development of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), personal change, personal transformation, has come a very long way.

In fact, personal growth is no longer a mystery.

NLP has brought to light that change, transformation and growth can be fast, reliable, and even fun. It has shown us that we do not need to spend thousands of hours slaving away to increase our creative-thinking abilities.

By practicing a few simple exercises and applications, you can start your creative juices flowing, and you may even amaze yourself at the quality and quantity of good ideas that you can come up with to expedite your success.

It can allow you to achieve something you seek within days and months as opposed to years and decades. That’s the power of the progress science has made on how the brain works, and also how you can have your mind to be your best ally in achieving anything you want.

Learn to live as you like by no longer living as you dislike.

Are you ready to get on the road to success and fulfilment?

Bear in mind, much like everything else in life, success requires practice and massive, consistent action.

“Success doesn’t mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle.” – Edwin C Bliss

Do you feel as if you’ve outgrown your circle of friends? Perhaps you do not feel safe or understood any longer. There may be fewer and fewer things you can share with people in your habitual circle, and it leaves you feeling lonely or isolated. If so, you are not alone. Welcome to one of the core dynamics of continuous growth!

As we continue to evolve, many of us struggle with a sense of not quite fitting in with our traditional community or tribe: we may have expanded or changed beyond the borders of tribal norms, and no longer find the same sense of belonging there. Other members may have tightened the tribal rules to foster a sense of security. As a result, we may feel a sense of disconnection or alienation.

In truth, each one of us belongs to many tribes simultaneously: there is your original tribe – the family you were born into – and then there are all the communities of choice you have joined: your work tribe, your social circles, your faith-based community, your neighborhood, and more. These communities are not static; they are in continuous flux because they consist of individuals who are in continuous states of change. When there is a lot of change happening in either the individual or the community, a sense of dissonance results.

How are we to deal with this? First, it is important to recognize that tribal allegiances were historically forged for survival. They were adapted over the course of centuries to ensure the safety and survival of the group. Survival required that individuation be sacrificed for the trade-off of security.

In modern society, the tables are flipped. Whether we enjoy it or not, change is essential for survival at every level of being. The pace of change is driven by technological advances and happens with increasing rapidity: sociologists estimate that more change has taken place in society over the course of the past 100 years, than in the totality of the previous 6,000 years. Individual adaptation now is a requirement for survival, and the pace of individual change does not always match the pace at which our various tribal communities evolve. The resulting dissonance can cause intense friction and pain.

Dissonance also results from confusion between the concepts of ‘connection’ and ‘community.’ We tend to equate one with the other, when they really relate to different qualities. Connection relates to connectivity: the objective physical technology or media that enables us to build community, but which does not represent the quality of that community. Connectivity simply offers the opportunity to connect with others through internet, texting, phone calls, or any other social networking options.

Community is the result of building relationship through meaningful interaction over time. There is no shortcut; it is a process that develops when bonds of trust and intimacy are nurtured and honored.

And here lies a caveat: When we confuse connectivity with community, we depersonalize the sacred nature of true community and start relating to people as objects. Instead of developing intimacy over time, we collect friends on social network sites or try to buy people’s allegiance. Yet friending is simply an act of connecting; it does not create intimacy.

In fact, social experiments indicate that technologically dominated connectivity results in alienation and social collapse over time. In a groundbreaking social experiment conducted by Josh Harris, one of the founders of social networking on the internet, he found that the more people’s private lives were exposed by 24/7 technology, the more their sense of intimacy and relationship deteriorated until the community collapsed in violence and self-destructive behavior.

It is time to revisit our concepts of community so we can create tribes that offer a true sense of intimacy and belonging.

In his 1987 book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, psychologist M. Scott Peck described several core characteristics of true community. Beyond the obvious components of inclusivity, commitment and participatory consensus, Peck pointed out the quality of embracing diversity through realism. When each member contributes their unique viewpoint from a place of humility and goodwill, the community benefits from a broader perspective in which to better grasp the full context of a situation. In other words, mutual tolerance helps members to embrace one another’s different viewpoints as an integral part of the whole, instead of imposing a forced compliance to groupthink or cohesion.

In an environment like this, members experience and express compassion and respect for one another. They allow others to share their vulnerability, to learn and grow, and to express who they truly are. When conflict arises, they learn to resolve it with wisdom and grace. Members listen to and respect each others’ gifts, accept each others’ limitations, celebrate their differences, and commit to find solutions together rather than to fight against each other. Indeed, the true spirit of community is the spirit of peace, love, wisdom and power. The source of this spirit may be seen as an outgrowth of the collective self or as the manifestation of a Higher Will.

Does this description of community sound spiritual to you? It is indeed, because Spirit is the common denominator among all of us, regardless of how separate we feel from others.

As human beings, we often experience a socio-economic sense of separation from others because of different opinions, beliefs, expectations, language, culture, or interests, since each one of us expresses these in a way uniquely different from anyone else. And still, we continue to differentiate! In this ongoing process, we continue to evolve or devolve in response to life. A community that felt like a good fit last year may no longer work today; the places where we felt embraced, now may suffocate us. Over the course of a lifetime, we can expect to outgrow and change allegiances to many of the tribal communities we once belonged to.

And yet, when we transcend the layers of physical appearance, mental beliefs and socio-economic conditioning, we find in the presence of Spirit a common denominator in everyone around us. Perhaps it is time to expand our tribal definitions to embrace a spiritual community that includes all of mankind as children of God.

Mother Teresa admonished her nuns to see Jesus in every leper they encountered, to find His presence as they looked into the eyes of the homeless. When we can look past the issues that divide us to find omnipresent Divinity in each other, we will uncover the foundations of true community.

Spiritual community transcends all socio-economic borders, beliefs and backgrounds. It is inclusive because it operates on voluntary self-responsibility and mutual compassion, and its doors are open to everyone.

Building this type of community takes time: time to listen, to hear, to respond and to participate. Take a few moments to read the description of spiritual community again. Then, make time in your life to foster that type of connection with people who matter to you. You are one of the architects of community in your life, and you can participate in building a tribe where you belong.

What would happen to you if your home life was more organized than it is right now? Can work-life balance be achieved? What are the tools at our disposal? Could scheduling appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize?

What is the challenge we face? I sometimes find that time spent at home can be the busiest time, especially in the times we live in. Imagine someone working from home, home-schooling children, and sometimes even doing a side hustle. Imagine also the full-time home-based entrepreneur. How do they manage to do all they need to do in a day?. We are living in a time when many entrepreneurs and even company employees have adopted work- at – home culture. This comes with its challenges as the lines become blurred between home and work. These blurred lines and constraints on the limited resource called time result in over-worked, under-rested, burnt-out individuals. Whilst good time management has been encouraged and indeed, embraced in the workplace, I believe more needs to be done in changing the mindset for the elusive work-life balance to be achieved.

What are the tools at our disposal? To manage time effectively at home, there are many interventions one can employ including setting goals for the day, prioritizing wisely, setting a time limit for every task, organizing oneself, and instituting the discipline of appointments. Yes, an appointment at home! We can spend time pontificating on the pros and cons of each intervention, however, I believe we need to focus on appointments and see how this can powerfully change the course of one’s day regardless of whether it’s a workday or weekend. Life is busy as it is without any intrusions. The question is how do you handle the one who announces that they are at the gate. These can be friends, neighbors, a salesman of some product you do not even need. I am not promoting regimentation here but rather a culture of filling your day with what’s important. Everything that we succeed at is because we carefully plan and execute it. I am a firm believer that you cannot manage time if you do not manage yourself thus I implore you to incorporate planning and appointments into your repertoire. I am not talking about something I do not do. I have to achieve many things in a day therefore I set appointments with my work, others, and myself.

Could scheduling appointments and keeping them on the home front help us save time and prioritize? Whereas we have established that it is a normal business practice to set appointments and keep them, we need to abandon the liberal open-door policy of allowing all and sundry to have access to us as and when they please on the home front. Please understand where I am coming from. We each have greatness within us but for us to achieve it we need to culture great habits. Employing the use of appointments at home and seeing only those people you had agreed to see removes non-essential encounters especially during the most productive hours. I know this will vary with culture, geographical region, or even level of affluence, whether you live in a low density or high-density residential area, but doesn’t negate the need to be organized and effective. Controlling access determines how organized you are and how well you will work and rest when the time for scheduled rest comes.

What do we need to do differently? We need to be disciplined and diligent, learn to say no, now is not a good time, let’s make an appointment for next week. What are the benefits of this approach? You are not always fire-fighting to meet deadlines, You are not always tired because you have not taken time out to rest. You have set aside enough time to spend with your loved ones or a loved one. If you are a busy person, I am sure you appreciate what I am saying. Whether it’s time to work uninterrupted, family time, or “me-time”, it takes some kind of order to enjoy it.

I am not saying that those that come unannounced are bad people. No, not at all, they probably are people you enjoy spending time with. Nevertheless, there must be prior communication so that you can attend to your visitor(s) when it is convenient for both you and them. It can be quite disrupting and a whole day can just pass by without achieving anything that you had planned to do.

As we grow older we begin to appreciate that rest and recovery need to be scheduled. The fact that I am relaxing doesn’t mean that I don’t have anything to do. One therefore cannot assume that just because you are at home you are available. Maybe you have scheduled that time to rest. That is important. You need to make an appointment with yourself, spouses need to also set aside time for each other. Parents need to schedule a time to spend with their children. When you have some sort of order in your life you determine who sees you and who you see. It also means that your relationships will be healthy and that makes you a happier person.

In conclusion, I believe that the work-life balance can be achieved. There are many tools at our disposal just like it is in the workplace.I believe we could do more and be happier if we are disciplined enough to make only the commitments we can keep.I am certain that setting appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize.