Just when many forecasters were predicting that the worse was over, the credit crisis in the US has gone from bad to worse.

Lehman Brothers has filed for the biggest bankruptcy in history and Bank of America said it would buy Merrill Lynch in a $50 billion deal. The markets responded to this news, with the biggest one day fall since 9/11, with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 500 points, or 4.4%.

Lehman Brothers is a 158-year old company that has lost $60 billion in bad real estate debts and the resultant collapse of the credit market.

What Does The Credit Crisis Mean For You?

It may actually be easier to survive now then it was a few months ago. If you are struggling to pay your mortgage, banks are likely to be more willing to discuss ways to avert foreclosure than they were a few months ago.

If you are in financial difficulty, and are looking at ways to avoid foreclosure, you may find this information useful.

On the other hand though, if you are looking to finance a new loan, things could be much more difficult, even with a good credit rating and access to low interest rates.

If you have cash to invest, you can take advantage of the current situation to grab some bargains, but as with all investments, you should take a long term view, as the crisis still has some way to play out. If you have cash, or access to finance, now is the time to take advantage of the massive amount of foreclosures to start building your property portfolio.

If you are new to property investment, you would be wise to protect your investment by arming yourself with all the forms you need to get your money from your tenant.

Some home builders are banking (no pun intended) on the crisis having bottomed, with the Phoenix Business Journal reporting that two builders have started nearly 4,000 homes in the first six months of the year. That is a pretty big gamble, there is already a 1 year inventory of houses on the market, so adding to the list would seem a strange move.

I think it is a big gamble, but large building companies have little choice, they can’t really stop building for a couple of years and hope things improve. For the buyer this presents even more opportunity. With so much housing on the market, bargains will abound. While some of these properties will allow you to buy and flip, you should be thinking long term and building a property portfolio.

In November 2007 I wrote an article on Building A Better Brand, which detailed the process in building a business brand.

This post is to prove that I do actually practice what I preach. The business I had been alluding to in the previous article has been operating successfully now for about six months, which is enough time for me to post about its success.

The business concept I built was for a new hair dressing salon for my wife and her business partner.

As I said in the previous post, this industry is heavily represented, especially in the town the business is located, so simply starting another run-of-the-mill salon would have made business success very unlikely.

The Business Concept

What I did, was develop a business concept that would set this salon apart from all others. I wont go over the process again, you can read about it here, but I arrived at a totally unique offering that leverages the qualities of the individuals and uses all the features to build a brand that delivers far more than a simple hair dressing salon can provide.

The entire concept was developed before a location was even selected or secured. However, the location was not an afterthought, it was part of the plan, but rather than having a specific location in mind, I had the particular type of location. It was simply a matter of finding one that met the requirements.

At one stage, finding an appropriate location that met the requirements was looking quite difficult, but in the end, something came up that was perfect.

The Challenges

The location previously had a hair dressing salon on it, but it had some issues and had closed the doors. Now, this would not normally be an ideal proposition, but to add more challenges, the previous salon had serviced a clientele at a different price point, so this presented advantages and disadvantages.

To add further challenges, there exist two other reasonably successful salons in the vicinity, one across one road, the other across another.

Once again, many people would look at this as a problem, but this just adds further proof that you can be successful even with challenges directly on your doorstep, so to speak.

Before And After

Below are some photos of how the salon looked, before we started the transformation. As you can see, it was not overly inviting and falls well short of the concept I had planned.

And here are some photos after the transformation. As you can see, it is significantly more inviting.

A lot more went into the business plan then simply making the salon look pretty, the quality of the partners, the atmosphere, the service, the products and other added features give this salon something that no other salon provides.

I also created the business name and logo and developed the entire marketing campaign, including the jingle and Website. I have some other great marketing ideas to roll out yet that will further enhance the business, which I will report on at a later date.

Instant Success

A couple of things you may be instantly thinking is, that the pink colour would probably mean that there is no way any self-respecting male would set foot in the place. Well, you may be surprised to know that is not the case. The clientele is fairly evenly spread between gender, with no fewer men than in a more conventional salon.

Have you ever watched the news and seen the currency reports? I know I have. I have watched as the US dollar. has fallen and watched as the Aussie dollar has gained in strength, to the extent that some were even forecasting parity by the end of the year, before falling back below 90US cents in recent days.

Seeing these fluctuations, I have often thought, that foreign exchange trading would be a good thing to get into. If you are like I was, you may not be as conversant with Forex trading, which is the purpose of this article, to educate you and get you started on your way to Forex trading.

What Is Forex Trading?

Forex trading (foreign exchange trading) is the largest market on earth today. It has a daily turnover of more than 2.5 trillion US$ (more than 100 times greater than NASDAQ), and it’s still growing.

Millions of traders from all over the world are trading Forex online. The participants are banks, business organizations - large and small, and obviously many private individuals. Everyone on earth today can immediately start trading Forex online, from any computer, anytime, using their credit cards.

Forex trading opens up the World of currency trading in much the same way that day trading did back in the 90’s, however, it has much more to offer than traditional stock trading for the average person.

The FOREIGN EXCHANGE (FOREX, FX) market is not a “market” in the traditional sense. In fact, it is the nearest to “perfect market” from economics perspective. There is no centralized location for trading as there is in futures or stocks. Trading occurs around the clock over the telephone and on computer terminals at thousands of locations worldwide. Foreign Exchange is also the world’s largest and deepest market.

Most foreign exchange activity consists of the spot business between the US dollar and the six major currencies (Japanese Yen, Euro, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar). The FOREX market is so large, and is hosting so many participants, that no single player, governments included, can directly control or make any significant influence over the direction of the market. That makes the FOREX market the most exciting market in the world. Central banks, commercial banks, international corporations, money managers, speculators, and private individuals - all involve in FOREX trading.

Foreign exchange (FOREX) is the trading of contracts of currency pair exchange rate. It is a NON-DELIVERY trade, which means that there is no physical transaction of currencies, but it is rather an agreement, or “contract” (FOREX DEAL), to trade specific volume of a pair of currencies at an agreed exchange rate. The magnitude of such FOREX trade is that, in order to make the deal, only a proportional amount is needed (the COLLATERAL, or the MARGIN). Thus, if the currency pair exchange rate has changed by some percentage, the value of the MARGIN invested would accordingly change, however - in a much higher proportion. In fact, the actual change onto the Forex trader’s investment (the MARGIN they deposited), will be the nominal change occurred to the exchange rate, multiplied by the MARGIN ratio (the leverage).

It Doesn’t Cost Much

The good thing about Forex trading is that you don’t need a lot of money to begin to start making money. Basically, having a 100:1 margin account means that you can control $100,000 using only $1,000 of your own money. Where else can you get that kind of leverage?

For example: a FOREX DAY-TRADING deal has been made, for buying EUR100,000 against USD, on an exchange rate of 1.3500. The MARGIN required for this deal (offered by the FOREX Trading Platform) is of a ratio of around 1:100. Accordingly, the trader invests only USD100. After a few hours, the exchange rate went up to 1.3620. This is an increase of 0.89%, quite normal for the global Forex market. However, thanks to the MARGIN ratio, the trader’s investment went up by 89% (since a leverage of 1:100 has been used)!! Remember: that happened in less than a day!

Traders cannot lose more than their original MARGIN deposited. When the rate goes against the trader’s favor, the deal closes automatically (”Stop-Loss”) when the margin does not cover anymore the contract’s decrease in value.

Note that the Forex trader may choose any direction for his deal (for example: either to BUY-EUR or to SELL-EUR in a EUR-USD deal), and still do that with his account base currency (the currency with which he operates his trading account). Hence, he may still profit (in case he was right…) even when the EUR goes down.

The Forex market offers today FOREX trading not only in MAJORS (the leading world currencies) but also in many other currency pairs (including exotic, gold and silver, etc.).

To get started, you can explore the new page I have setup for Forex trading. You will find a lot of extra information here that will guide you through the process and get you started. Take a look, or dive straight in and begin Forex trading. Imagine telling your friends that you make money on the foreign exchange market.

I remember hearing about the Alchemy Cordial Company years ago when they brought their products to Woolworths shelves.

What started as a simple family recipe for chilli cordial sold at Sunday markets, their range has expanded considerably and has blossomed into a business that exports internationally and is available in the best stores & cafes in Australia, but in Paris, London, the U.S.A, Bali, Dubai, Singapore, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

Using only natural ingredients, with no artificial flavors or colors, the company still maintains the same quality and standards that made them famous, with each product remaining hand made.

This further reinforces one aspect of startup success; if you provide a high quality, niche product or service, you are half way there. Your idea doesn’t even have to be too outlandish; something as simply as an old family recipe for cordial can take on the World.

This is a different idea, manly candles.

Now before you get any ideas, manly candles are simply candles for men. That means, instead of potpourri, they emit scents such as leather, hunting lodge, coffee shop and yardwork, to name a few.

Manly candles are so popular that creator, Brent Grassman is now shipping them Worldwide.

Even more amazing for many who buy them is that they are pleasantly surprised at how great they smell and come back for more.

The operation is a simple affair, with Grassman making the candles in his basement. The latest scent he is working on is that traditional favorite, beer. Unfortunately for all those waiting with baited breath, so far he has only been able to recreate the smell of stale beer, which might be a good thing, as if the candles smelt too good, it may encourage excessive drinking…..

With limited funds, but a good idea and bigger vision, Angela launched her company, Hello Dolly in 2006 with five products.

Since then the range has expanded to 37 products, with 15 more on the way. Hello Dolly products are available in 700 stores in her home country of New Zealand, plus 2000 others in Australia. Angela has lost track of the number of international stores carrying her range.

On top of this, she has six distributors operating in Britain, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia, Canada, the Middle East and Europe.

She has also forged partnerships with six distributors operating in Britain, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia, Canada, the Middle East and Europe.

What Is Hello Dolly?

Hello Dolly provides a range of DIY products designed specifically for women, from pink trimmed hammers with diamantes, to gardening tools and even a stud finder; sorry ladies, this one only works on wall studs.

Don’t think this is just a range for the ladies though, Angela says that 30% of her customers are men and admits that she wants to bring out more colors in the future.

Breer got her break on the New Zealand series of Dragons’ Den, where she appeared before the potential investors with a team of pink-clad models demonstrating how the idea would bring flair to the tool trade.

“I knew it would be a high-risk strategy. I didn’t want to look stupid but I was looking for an investor. It was all smoke and mirrors,” admits Beer.

“The riding crop was really a fishing rod and the toolkit was spray-painted pink.”

Barry Colman offered to buy in, but Breer had second thoughts, not wanting to relinquish half her business before her idea had got off the ground.

Deciding to go it alone, she researched manufacturing partners and took a solo trip to China.

It seems to be a wise move and something others should consider before taking partners on board, simply to gain financial support.

As expected, prices have dropped for the new iPhone, with is now starting at $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB.

So how many of the rumors were accurate? read below to see.

As expected, it is 3G. There wouldn’t be much point without it now. Apple is claiming load times 36% faster then the Nokia N95 and the Treo 750, so speed will be an improvement over existing 3G phones.

It has the edge design similar to the MacBook Air, comes in black or white (no metal) and includes a flush headphone jack, but one rumored item that is missing is the front facing video camera.

A feature heavily lacking in the previous model was enterprise support, and this has been taken care of with the ability to work with MS Exchange. You will now be able to get push email, calendar and contacts with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.

As rumored, it has GPS, with Apple using A-GPS, which uses a combination of regular satellite GPS data and location data from mobile phone towers.

With all of these features, you would expect battery life to suffer, but Apple claims 300 hours of standby, 8-10 hours of 2G talk, 5 hours of 3G talk, 7 hours of video and 24 hours of audio.

The App Store is for all those great 3rd party apps that will be coming out and this could be a real boon for the mobile business person, not always wanting to take a laptop into the field.

I am putting my order in, that’s for sure.

Pressed4Time has 170 franchises in 33 US states and Canada. The business model is relatively simple, Pressed4Time provides a dry cleaning as well as shoe repair pick-up and delivery service.

Anyone who is time pressed will recognise the benefit of the service. Twice a week, Pressed4Time picks up or delivers dry cleaning and shoes to homes, businesses or offices. The service claims to be free, with the company operating as a middleman between the customer and local dry cleaning and shoe repair businesses.

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A Pressed4Time franchise A Pressed4Time franchise is relatively inexpensive and consists of.

• Franchise Fee  $29,900
• Start Up Costs  $6,010 to $14,910

For this you get:

• A 50% profit margin
• A relationship with an existing dry cleaner
• Use of the Pressed4Time name and logo
• Training
• Operational manual
• Marketing manual and material
• Business management software

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I was driving back from a nice Sushi lunch today and traveling behind a new Jim’s Cleaning van. I hadn’t noticed Jim’s cleaning before in my town, but this pricked my memory to check on how Jim’s is performing in general.

Jim’s is performing pretty well by the look of things; it is celebrating 25 years in business and is now the World’s largest home service franchise, operating in 4 countries, with a total of 2635 Jim’s Franchisees.

The Jim’s story begins with Jim Penman, who started mowing lawns to pay his way through University. What is interesting is that Jim has literally stumbled his way into the business he now commands. He appears ot have never had any direct plan or goal for a long time, but still the business grew all around him.

Jim’s dream of being an Academic was knocked on the head when his thesis was rejected. With no job, all he had to fall back on was his lawn mowing.

“I was basically broke, I owed $30,000 and had crappy equipment,” he recalls. “So I got hold of $24 and had some leaflets printed and I shoved them into letter boxes.”

That was Christmas 1982.

“For a long time I never saw it was something with great potential, even when I started franchising, I was thinking about selling the business,” he admits. “I tried a whole lot of other things I thought would be more promising such as a computer shop and a lawn mower shop but it was mowing that I knew really.”

“And gradually after a decade I eventually said wow there is some potential in this.”

The real push came when VIP Home Services moved into his areas. It gave him the impetus he needed to concentrate on expanding the business.

As with the Jim’s mowing, the move into more diversified areas was not carefully planned. He could see the fit between mowing and cleaning, but thought the logo gave the wrong impression. He set up a new franchising company called Sunlite and sold a couple of franchises. The business failed; it had no brand.

Eventually, someone came along and convinced Penman that Jim’s cleaning could work and it did. Jim was proved wrong, but this lead to the expansion into other areas. Jim insists that the driving force for the expansion is the people who come to him wanting to use the Jim’s brand in a new area.

JIm says he has very poor business skills and is a poor salesman. His story would seem to indicate that he lacks planning and is an accidental entrepreneur, but this tag would be deceptive; you simply cannot build a business of this size and maintain growth over 25 years without having some ability.

Jim Penman comes across as an honest person who has a good rapport with his Franchisees and has a knack for surrounding himself with the type of people who make both their and his business successful.

Any the final question, is he making a lot of money?

the Jim’s Group has mowed 30 million lawns for one in five Australian households, cleaned 2.5 million houses, built 200,000 fences, installed 300,000 antennas, washed 100,000 dogs and more. 4000 people worldwide work in the franchise group which now has an annual turnover of around $200 million, but the margins are terrible.

Penman has further expansion plans, particularly in South Africa and is looking at selling up to a quarter of the business to the right business partner to fund the endeavor. That doesn’t sound too accidental to me. [Source]

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Proof that you can have your cake and sell it too, is the Crabapple Cupcake Bakery.

The Melbourne based business sells about 10,000 cupcakes per week, with 40% sold through the Crabapple’s three Melbourne stores.Â

Founder Jennifer Graham didn’t have plans to be so large when she started the business in 2001, she was simply looking to sell some cake-stands at a local market and made some cupcakes to place on them.

Needless to say, the cupcakes sold well, although no mention of how the cake-stands went.

Graham was astute enough to realise that there was a market for high quality cupcakes, with customers happy to pay a premium price to get the hand decorated cakes.

Attention was placed on high quality ingredients, but the biggest attraction is the frosting and the signature Crabapple swirl.

She points to the use of top-notch ingredients as crucial, but also to the attention paid to the look and design of the product, especially the precise application of the frosting.

An appearance on a television show helped demand grow to the point that the business moved out of the home-based category and into its own factory. Cookbooks have followed, along with expansion into weddings and corporate functions.

Crabapple has also entered into partnerships with some coffee shop chains, but wisely stipulated that their brand remain on all the products.

With a high quality product such as this, comes a high end price, with Crabapple cupcakes selling for $3.50 - $4.50 each. At this price, margins are still tight, which would be a factor of the ingredients and the hand frosting.

With the products niche being freshness and quality, growth is stifled due to the cupcakes not traveling well. Graham admits the only real way to expand into other states is to build more factories to serve interstate markets, something they are not in a position to do at this stage.

In the meantime, they will continue to do the local markets and stay in touch with their customers.

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