MICE

If you are living in a colder climate, it makes you recognize how important thermal
curtains can be used for insulating a house. A cost efficient option, to most additional
heating solutions, curtains are a fairly nominal one-time deal. They can keep your
house comfortable and warm all through the cruel winter months without sending your
heating bill through the top.

Thermal curtains are in the middle of the more useful tools for keeping a home warm.
Additional five times as efficient at insulating compared to a traditional curtain, they
use thermodynamics to keep heat in. Windows are a main source of heat loss, since the
panes conduct high-energy heat away from the home and in the direction of the low
energy area of the outside.

This difficulty is enhanced, by weakening frames and window casings that allow
pockets of cold air to leak in. Thermal curtain uses insulating fabric to create a fence
intended to block this procedure. They can be made from scratch, but these days, it is
just as simple to buy them online. The simplicity of the Internet makes it useful to look
for professional-grade goods that will actually do the trick throughout the most
horrible months of winter.

About The Author:

Roger King is a successful author and publisher of http://www.all-shower-
curtains.com. Thermal curtains and ideas to showcase your bed and bathroom.

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China’s national government offers a tempting variety of financial incentives designed to lure inbound foreign investment, some of which were introduced by this author in the article “Investing in China: Tax Incentives”. However, additional incentives offered by provincial and local governments significantly sweeten the investor’s overall incentive package. These incentives tend to become more generous as one moves westward from the investment-saturated coastal provinces to China’s heavily populated interior, allowing the investor to cash in on China’s fierce domestic competition.

Central China’s Henan province, for example, offers manufacturing-oriented Foreign Invested Enterprises (FIEs) 100% waivers of business tax and a variety of local administrative fees. Furthermore, FIEs engaged in technology transfer, development work, and related consulting may apply for a full refund of business tax already paid.

Municipal governments, however, are often even more generous than provincial governments. Although various incentives are offered by Chinese municipal governments, the city of Zhengzhou (a metropolis of about 4.4 million people in central China) makes a good case study, if for no reason other than that the author is more familiar with its policies.

Zhengzhou rewards local FIEs in various ways:

Tax Breaks for Local Reinvestment of Profits Local FIEs that reinvest their profits within Zhengzhou will receive a 30% refund of the locally retained portion of corporate income tax actually paid on these reinvested profits (the national government offers an even bigger tax refund applicable to the nationally retained portion).

Investment in “Pillar” Industries and State-owned Enterprises Zhengzhou offers a three-year, 50% refund of the locally retained portion of corporate income tax paid on FIE funds invested in certain designated “pillar industries”. It also offers a financial incentive for investing in and reorganizing provincially administrated state-owned enterprises, and this incentive is magnified if the FIE retains a certain percentage of the enterprise’s original employees after reorganization.

Inward Remittance of Export Earnings Zhengzhou offers export incentives in the form of cash payouts of approximately 0.2% to 0.5% of every dollar of hard currency export earnings remitted inward (the highest payouts are reserved for the export of technologically advanced products).

Matching Funds The Zhengzhou municipal finance administration will provide one-to-one matching funds for the international market development funds of small and medium-sized export enterprises that are supervised at the provincial level (whether an enterprise is supervised at the provincial level or the national level depends on how much money has been invested in the enterprise, i.e., its “Registered Capital”).

Anti-Dumping Insurance Zhengzhou will assist FIEs in responding to anti-dumping initiatives, and will also subsidize expenses arising from participation by exporting enterprises in anti-dumping responses, as long as these initiatives are not otherwise subsidized by national and provincial authorities (which they often are). It may seem strange for an American company to establish a subsidiary in China, be sued for dumping by the United States, and then receive subsidies from the Chinese government for the expenses necessary to defend against the suit, but it’s possible.

Interest Subsidies for Loans Secured by Tax Refund Accounts. Zhengzhou will subsidize an amount equal to 70% of the interest due on loans secured by a tax refund account. If the FIE has no such loans, Zhengzhou will grant a subsidy equal to 50% of the interest that would have been paid on such a loan had it been taken out - the Zhengzhou municipal government will even provide the fund from which the interest is subsidized. Enterprises with an export volume of five million US dollars or more in the previous year that are verified by the National Tax Bureau to have increased tax refunds due for the current year will enjoy a 100% interest subsidy.

Export Incentives An export enterprise with either (i) a yearly export volume of at least ten million US dollars or more and actual export growth of more than 25% over the previous year, or (ii) a yearly export volume of at least five million US dollars, actual export growth of more than 40% over the previous year, and inward remittances from exports of at least 80%, will be designated a “Zhengzhou City Advanced Foreign Exchange Generating Export Enterprise” and awarded 30,000 RMB (roughly $3,500 US dollars) as long as it has not committed any serious regulatory violations during the same year.

Although a few of the foregoing incentives represent relatively small payouts, they are numerous and can make a significant difference when combined with the broad range of incentives offered by the national government.

David A. Carnes is a California attorney working for California Industrial City in Zhengzhou, China. His website, Start a Company in China, is at www.chinacompanystartupguide.com/58.html and offers free, step-by-step information on how to establish a business presence in China.

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The world moves fast. We often rely on technology to help us keep up. When making a connection with another person is critical, nothing tops an in-person meeting. Sitting in a room with someone face-to-face allows the other party to completely experience your personal brand. This experience takes place on many levels. The expression on your face, the tone of your voice, the look in your eyes all helps represent who you are and the nature of your visit.

Many people take this idea lightly. I often hear people say that in-person meetings are a waste of time and money. While it is true that you can save money by having conference calls and video conferences, the in-person meeting still has a place in business.

Whenever people question the value of a face-to-face meeting I tell them the story of a young hotel manager from Northern New Jersey. This young man was wide-eyed and aggressive. He was tasked with marketing a new hotel that was opening in an industrial area. The young manager spent a significant amount of time researching the market and putting together a marketing plan. He believed that he had thought of every detail.

When the time came to share this plan with the Senior Vice President (SVP) of Marketing in his company, the manager made a compelling case. He cited his facts and figures. He referenced the market segmentation study he had completed. He articulated a simple yet effective plan for his new hotel. Or so he thought

After the presentation, the SVP berated the young manager and told him that the plan would never work. She said it was too simplistic. She said that she would come up with a better plan and present it to the hotel’s owner.

The SVP of Marketing had always felt threatened by the young manager. She did not want the owner to see the true talent this manager possessed. She also wanted to make sure the owner did not establish a direct relationship with this manager. The SVP feared that the owner would see the young man’s marketing talent and replace her with him.

The manager was furious with this situation. He felt strongly that his plan was solid. He knew in his heart that it would work. He could not stand by and watch as his ideas were summarily dismissed. The manager knew that he would need to speak with the owner directly to make certain that his ideas were given a fair review. The manager felt that it was his job to do what he thought was best for his business. He also felt that this was a meeting that needed to take place in-person. The owner needed to see the passion the manager had for his hotel.

The manager drove eight hours to the owner’s office for their appointment. He made a compelling presentation. At the end of the meeting the owner thanked the young man for his ideas and his passion for the business. The manager left the meeting and felt good as he drove eight hours back to his hotel.

About one week later the manager received some interesting news. The owner met with the SVP of Marketing (after he met with the manager). It seems that she presented the manager’s plan as her own - down to the last detail. The owner immediately saw what had happened and fired the SVP of Marketing.

In the end, it was not the fact that the SVP of Marketing adopted her subordinates work as her own that prompted the owner to fire her. It was the fact that the manager was passionate about his business and the SVP of Marketing was beating that passion out of him.

Had the manager just met with the owner over the phone, the meeting would have not had the same impact.

Two years later when the hotel manager was promoted the owner used that meeting as an example of his passion and dedication to the firm.

There is no substitute for an in-person meeting to give the other party a sense of your personal brand.

David Lorenzo has more than 20 years of business experience as a successful corporate executive, entrepreneur, strategist, author, and speaker. He has worked with and mentored some of the world’s most successful businesspeople while helping lead many large organizations to unprecedented success. His latest book is titled: Career Intensity: Business Strategy for Workplace Warriors and Entrepreneurs.

Mr. Lorenzo’s experience in starting new business enterprises and repositioning under-performing business units, along with his ability to implement innovative performance improvement solutions, makes him one of today’s most sought-after trusted advisors.

Mr. Lorenzo is a participant in the Wharton Fellows Program at the University of Pennsylvania, a management think tank that meets regularly to analyze and address timely business issues. He received his MBA from the Lubin School of Business at Pace University, and he received a Masters of Science in Strategic Communications from Columbia University in New York City.

Dave’s blog is http://www.careerintensity.com/blog.

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‘The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry…’ Thus the paraphrase goes of the words of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. These words ring very true to me this morning. You see, my software company has leased a server for almost three years now, at a hefty monthly fee. This server has hosted a number of websites for various clients and has really been a great, if somewhat expensive, asset. Finally, however, I decided that it was time to bring this in-house, as they say. So, I got some office space, a phone line, and a business-class DSL line that would provide more than enough bandwidth to serve what I needed. I then converted a powerhouse PC into a web server to host some web sites owned by my company, Centrant LLC. For web hosting clients that need more than what DSL service can provide, and for purposes of redundancy, I have a number of partnerships that allow me to provide the service level that is required.

All the bases were covered.

All set with my arsenal of cost saving new toys, I was almost ready to make the switch from my leased server to the new one sitting in the corner of my new office. I had spent hours installing software and configuring the server. It was almost ready. Already locked down tight so hackers would have a very tough time trying to break in, all that was left was to install anti-virus and anti-spam software to protect those who would use the server for email. The result of around 40 hours of work was at hand, and I would finally be able to stop paying those outrageous monthly bills for a server located half a country away.

Now, I know better than to leave any piece of electronic equipment unprotected. Believe me, I’ve learned that mistake the hard way. A few times. So, I made sure that all the equipment was under the constant watch of a quality surge protector. The server itself, since it is so valuable, was even removed again from other equipment so that an intermediary device would have to first succumb before the server was hit by a surge of electricity. Not bad planning, huh? Pretty slick, right? I thought so too. And, well, it was good planning. And it was pretty slick. But remember the words of the old Scottish sage. ‘The best laid plans…’
Over the weekend, Saturday night to be exact, we were hit by a very forceful storm. Lightning and thunder came crashing in and seemed determined to destroy as much as possible before moving on. And destroy they did. As I came into the office on Sunday afternoon to do some work, I noticed that the network router was dead. Then I noticed that the phone was dead. Then the server that I had spent so much time installing and configuring and losing sleep to get ready was, you guessed it, fried.
Does this stop me from moving the server? Nope. It only means that it will take a little longer to get it going, and it will take a little more money to replace some things. I’ll have to pay for that leased server one more month maybe, and this time I will make sure that there are redundant surge protections in place. Did I lose any data? Again, nope. I’ve learned to make backups often. Did any site go down as a result of this? Nope. Everything is working great as far as my clients are concerned– remember that there are partnerships in place that I can utilize to protect against any loss of service.

It was a big personal let down, however. I put a tremendous amount of work into something and now have to start over. But, it was neither the first nor the last time that I’ve had to start over, and this time I’ll do it faster and better.

What’s the point of telling you all this? Where’s the ‘Tech Tip’, you might wonder. The tip for this week is that, even when you do everything right, sometimes things just go wrong. Every phone line and Internet connection in the entire building that houses my new office space was dealt a lethal blow. A direct hit can wreak havoc on any computer system. You know, now that I think of it, this applies to life in general, not just computers. Hmm, interesting.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions for future articles, please email me at mike@mikebryant.com.

Mike Bryant has worked as a professional software developer for over ten years. A born entrepreneur, he currently owns Centrant, LLC, a software consulting firm specializing in custom software for small businesses. He currently resides in Jackson, Kentucky with his wife, two kids, and five computers. For more information, please visit MikeBryant.com.

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