Should the Government bailout Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic?

Should the Government bailout Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic?

By Charles Kelly, Property Investor, Author of Yes, Money Can Buy You Happiness and creator of Money Tips Podcast.

In this Money Tips Podcast episode:

1.      Should the Government bailout Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic?

2.      Branson does not personally own the airline – Delta, KLM and others

3.      Branson is asking Government for a loan offering his Necker Island as security

4.      Burger King withholds rent on 500 stores as private rental demand drops by 42%

5.      Crude Oil prices reaches and 18 year low as demand collapse and storages runs out

6.      Learn insider secrets on buying and selling in auctions from leading experts

7.      See full interview with auction expert https://www.facebook.com/CharlesKellyUK

8.      10 things you can do to thrive during Covid 19 isolation

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See more articles at www.moneytipsdaily.com

Jamie Oliver lost £25m trying to rescue restaurant chain but what has he learned from failure?

Jamie Oliver lost £25m trying to rescue restaurant chain but what has he learned from failure?

A lot of authors and motivational focus on successful people like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett. They talk about copying the habits of successful people, learning from successful people and that’s all fine.

But you can also learn from failure. You can learn from bad habits as well as good habits and you can learn from other people’s mistakes rather than making your own.

A good example is the recent collapse of UK Jamie Oliver’s restaurant empire. The business not only went under, Jamie sunk £25 million of his own cash trying to save it.

I assume that he had no personal liability for the business debts, so he could have just walked away and let it go instead of throwing good money after bad.

However, I’m not sure if Jamie has learned from his own mistakes and doesn’t seem to accept that he even made any apart from being misled by his management.

In a recent interview for the Times, the TV chef blames high rents, or the landlords, business rates and competition from delivery services like Uber Eats and Deliveroo for the downfall of his business, which saw the closure of 22 restaurants and the loss of 1000 jobs.

Whilst the above list might be factors in the story the decline of the business, they are just external factors.

He does not seem to accept that he and poor management had a hand in the mess, although he admits that the “wool was pulled over his eyes” and he had “poor advice”. I’m not sure if that is more in relation to him pouring in £25 million of his own cash to save a sinking ship rather than the mismanagement of the business prior to it going into administration.

A good leader takes the blame as well as the credit for the success or failure of business.

Either way, he’s blaming someone else. To be fair, he might not be able to bare his soul in public, as we are not very forgiving towards failure in this country. Privately he might just be saying, “sorry I screwed up” or words to that effect!

If he felt that rents were high in the prime spots he took on, why did they sign those leases for over 22 restaurants in the space of a few years?

When you sign a lease, you must look at all the clauses and rent review periods and look forward to project future rent rises.

Landlords have businesses to run too. Whilst people may not have any sympathy for what they often called “greedy” landlords, it should be remembered that many of these prime city centre buildings and shopping malls are owned by your pension funds. If they go down, so does your pension.

If rents are too high, the buildings would not be let or the landlord would not be able to find tenants.

There is some evidence that we could be reaching saturation points for shopping developments and maybe rents are too high. Primark are now asking for 30% reduction in rent because of deals done with administrators for companies which have renegotiated rents.

Regardless of that, Jamie took on these leases in prime areas at top rents whilst riding the crest of a wave.

There would have been a lot of competition for these spots and I’m sure the landlords felt that Jamie Oliver was almost a prime blue-chip tenant and good for the rent. Landlords will be left sitting on empty premises with long rent voids. Nobody ever mentions that the landlords might have mortgages to pay when these high-flying businesses come crashing down to earth with a bang.

I was also a commercial landlord and know what it’s like when a tenant pulls the plug.

As for business rates, they are a known fixed cost which would have been factored into the business plan from the start. Not all councils have raised their business rates in recent years. He’s just jumping on the retailer bandwagon of complaining about business rates in relation to online services like Amazon which obviously do not pay business rates for premises.

The truth is, the problem had less to do with increasing costs than decreasing revenue.

You can’t control external factors like taxes, but you can control internal factors and the way you run your business.

Jamie cites home delivery services as a reason for a fall in profits. He does not say why he did not join the booming home delivery market by using companies like Uber Eats, Just Eat and Deliveroo to deliver his food to his customers?

You know the old saying, if you can’t beat them join them.

It’s interesting to note that none of the above companies own or run a restaurant or takeaway establishment. They make money on delivering food and actually help smaller restaurants gain wider access to the online market in much the same way that Amazon does for small retailers.

Just Eat is now valued at £112 million after takeaway.com increased its stake in the firm founded in 2000 by Danish investors. The combined group will be worth over £8 billion

Uber recently launched on the US stock market valuing the company at $82 billion.

Uber Eats is in talks to buy Deliveroo which raised £400 million in venture capital when it launched in 2013 and is now valued at £1.5 billion. Amazon were also interested in acquiring Deliveroo but the deal was blocked by the competition commission.

I like Jamie Oliver and admire many of the things he has done to help young people, even if some critics say he is motivated by self-publicity! I also love his great food and simple TV recipes, and I’m actually able to follow them! I even have one of his books.

I certainly don’t gloat over any business failing and feel sorry for the people lose their jobs.

Having said that, I think Jamie should admit some simple truths.

Firstly, he took his eye off the ball big time. Even if he was not running the business hands on himself, he should’ve been keeping an eye on the figures long before the business went into a downward spiral.

Unprofitable branches should’ve been closed, costs reduced and management shaken up.

Secondly, the management could have adapted the business to a changing market, such as home delivery or lower spending during the Brexit period.

The sad fact is, that the restaurants were not quite as good as the hype. Sorry Jamie, unfortunately the food was overpriced and as a customer I felt that I was not really getting good value. Everything was extra for this and extra for that to complete an already expensive main course. I don’t mind paying for a really good meal, but the food was not quite up to the prices and was not fine dining.

I tried several of his restaurants and did not see much change in the menu or special offers that would attract new customers.

I was never asked to register to a mailing list or app for special offers and discount vouchers, as practiced by other chains like Prezzo or Bella Pasta. Today I received another email from Bella pasta offering a £10 special to encourage me back through their doors.

Sadly, there was nothing there that made me want to rush back to any of Jamie’s outlets, although a discount voucher would have helped.

Thirdly, you have to question whether or not he expanded too quickly or open more branches then the management were able to cope with. The company must’ve taken on huge borrowings to open up so many restaurants in a short space of time.

I would imagine they paid premiums for some of the leases on the sites. I don’t think they would have got much change out of £1 million for the set up and fit out for the premises of the restaurant branches.

Jamie was riding on the back of his celebrity name and frame. The public loved him and he could do no wrong. Maybe he believed too much in his own publicity and thought he could do no wrong?

I personally wondered why he did not open up a select few restaurants, like Gordon Ramsey, in a few prime spots or use his name to offer franchises or joint-ventures where he was not taking on all the risk. Yes, it’s easy to say that with hindsight.

I do hope Jamie learns from his mistakes and I’m sure he will be back. I believe he also has overseas branches which are not affected by the UK collapse.

The main thing that is that when you make a mistake or things go wrong in your business, you can’t just blame external factors and you have to ask yourself questions like,

What could I have done better? Where did I go wrong?

How did I f*** it all up!

There is an old acronym, which has almost become a cliché, when setting up a business plan: S.W.O.T, which stands for:

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

You Fill in the blanks.

In summary, failing can be a useful learning experience as well as a stepping stone towards success, as in the classic Thomas Edison experience of 10,000 attempts to invent the right lightbulb.

Most successful business people have suffered Major setbacks at some stage in their business career.

Steve Jobs was fired from the company he founded, but was later brought back to rescue it and make Apple one of the most valuable companies on the planet.

Businesses also have to adapt to changes and threats. In the 1970s, the oil crisis caused petrol prices to skyrocket. American gas-guzzling carmakers were caught short and were almost put out of business by Japanese car makers who made smaller and more fuel-efficient cars.

They regrouped and adapted and come out with their own fuel-efficient cars.

Now they face new external threats from regulators and electric car makers like Elon Musk’s Tesla, whose firm was recently valued on the stock market at more than 100-year-old multinational companies like General Motors and Ford, despite never making a profit!

Do you think they are going to just sit back and let Tesla steal their market? Of course not! They are already developing their own electric vehicles, which will no doubt be cheaper and more accessible than the luxury Tesla. They may even buy out companies like Tesla that threaten to take too many bites out of their lunch.

Do you think these companies are going to say, “oh well, the regulators have brought in these new emissions laws and higher taxes so there’s not much we can do about it”?

You can learn from both your past successes and failures by analysing what went right and what went wrong.

The author and speaker David Goggins says he always falls back on a military debrief format used to analyse every operation from his days when he served as a Navy Seal. If he has failed at something, like a world record attempt, he looks at everything that went wrong from preparation and training, to omitting to anticipate possible threats, obstacles or weaknesses in his plan. He then goes back and tries again without making the same mistakes.

It took David two or three attempts before succeeding at many of the things he tried to achieve, such as becoming a Navy Seal or breaking the world 24-hour pull-up record. He talks of that moment of pushing past pain and finding success just the other side or one step beyond his biggest failures.

I talk more about practical steps to managing your money, getting rich and being happy in my book, Yes, money can buy happiness, I cover the 3 R’s of Money Management, the Money B.E.L.I.E.F System, the Stars Who Lost it All and much more. Check it out on Amazon http://bit.ly/2MoneyBook.

Money is everywhere in abundance if you have the right money mindset to 'see' it

You will see that money is everywhere if you have the right 'money mindset, which I cover in my book, Yes, Money Can Buy You Happiness. There are trillions of Dollars in circulation right now. This does not include the hundreds of billions in pension funds, venture capital and hedge all looking for places to invest.

Examples of people who had a different money mindset are two former members of the Beatles pop group, the late John Lennon and George Harrison.

John Lennon wife once asked him for a swimming pool and he said, okay I’ll write you one!

When the ISKCON Hari Krishna movement approached George Harrison, for help to fund a new centre in the UK in the early 1970’s, he donated money for a property and wrote the album All Things Must Pass to help raise the money for the movement. One of the massive hits from that triple album was My Sweet Lord, which featured the chant Hari Krishna and went on to sell 7 million copies, outstripping sales by his former Beatle colleagues after the band split. The property Bhaktiavedanta Manor in Hertfordshire is still there today. I have visited the manor many times and walked in the commemorative garden opened by his widow Olivia.

You might be thinking, "ok, that's alright if you're a songwriter, but what about me? Fine, you may not be a writer or an artist, but you have talent, knowledge and experience in some other area.

In another example, a Guru in India, who needed millions of dollars to fund a new temple and centre., was asked, where is the money going to come from? He replied, “from where ever it is now “.

People with this level of mindset realise that when you have a project or a goal money is no object. The money is out there and you just have to find it, attracted, manifest it, ask for it or whatever you want to call it. Lionel Richie said songs and ideas are "in the air".

Billionaires are multimillionaires truly believe that if they lost everything today they would soon be rich again. Don’t forget, only a few years ago Donald Trump’s business empire was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and people were saying he was finished.

If Richard Branson lost it all today, how long do you think it would be before he would be a billionaire again? Much of his fortune has been made using other people’s money, ideas and work. All they needed was the virgin name.

Develop an abundance mindset by remembering that there is more money in the world chasing good ventures and ideas than there are ventures available.

If you are interested in developing and improving your money mindset, check out more on this subject in my book, Yes, Money Can Buy You Happiness, on Amazon - http://bit.ly/2MoneyBook

Making money and keeping money are two different skills

You may have read recently that Jamie Oliver’s restaurant empire has gone into administration. The talented TV chef had rapidly built up a chain of around 50 restaurants over the last few years. Like his new restaurant branches, Jamie seemed to be popping up everywhere on television, in the newspapers and on the Sunday Times Rich list.

Like his new restaurant branches, Jamie seemed to be popping up everywhere on television, in the newspapers and on the Sunday Times Rich list.

We don’t know exactly why his restaurant business went wrong. Some say that his prices were a little too high for basic Italian food, but I think it also has a lot to do with the expensive city centre locations and over expansion.

Jamie apparently put in £30 million of his own money when the company was on the rocks over a year ago. Evidently, he could not let it go and tried to rescue a sinking ship.

What this proves is that it is far easier to make money, or start a successful business venture, than it is to keep it.

When you’re on a roll like Jamie was you have a tendency to want to jump into the next venture and the one after that.

It’s easy to believe your own publicity and think you’re invincible. Instead of concentrating on what you have and consolidating your business, you want to conquer the world.

Would all like to emulate Richard Branson, the serial entrepreneur who has made billions from several different businesses, but we forget that he spent years building his virgin Empire before branching out into other ventures. In fact, he didn’t start the virgin airline business until after he had sold the virgin record business to EMI for several hundred million pounds.

Branson also works with partners and people who have expertise. He doesn’t bear all of the risk or trying to do all of the work himself.

Just because you’re a good chef, it doesn’t mean you can become a good restauranteur, as other celebrity and many lesser known but talented chefs have found to their cost.

Restaurants, like most physical businesses, are enormously expensive to set up and the difference between success and failure can be subtle and fickle.

A good friend of mine had a successful Turkish restaurant in a nearby town. Due to his first venture going so well, he decided that he would start up another restaurant in the same area. This one was to be a little bit more “classy”.

He spent over £200,000 converting the building into his fancy new, restaurant. It was really plush inside; the food was great and it was his pride and joy. Unfortunately, the paying public for some reason did not agree and the restaurant failed.

New owners took over and remodelled the restaurant based on their proven formula. The Turkish food was almost exactly the same, but they opened out the layout and put long tables in instead of smaller tables with white tablecloths. The new restaurant immediately took off and to this date is still nearly always full.

I have since seen a number of restaurants come and go in the same High Street. I know that each time a restaurant or shop closes down it has cost the owners hundreds of thousands of pounds, which is all gone down the drain.

My tip to anyone starting a new business from scratch is not to start a physical business or open up a shop. From day one you would’ve spent tens of thousands of pounds and have to make thousands of pounds every week just to cover your rent, rates, taxes and staff.

In my book, Yes, Money Can Buy You Happiness, there is a section on the celebrities who lost it all. There are countless stories of sports and media celebrities with quickly made and lost fortunes through mismanagement of their money and for advice. I’ve personally assisted form of popstars, I used to see performing on Top of the Pops, who could not obtain a mortgage due to a poor credit history and being behind with their current mortgage. Sam had lost their marriages and families. It was sad to meet once wealthy and famous people end up broke.

Then they were the megastars like Michael Jackson who had sold 700 million records and had repeatedly signed $1 billion contract yet was in debt when he died. Stars like Marvin Gaye, rapper 50 Cent, Toni Braxton, MC Hammer have all been declared bankrupt despite earning millions in their careers. MC Hammer received $33 million from one album alone, but blew the lot spending lavishly on cars and a $12 million home.

There are others in my book, some of whom will surprise you, like the fact that even Presidents of the United States have either been bankrupt or had money problems.

I also cover the common themes running through the lives of those who have made and lost millions. These include:

• Poor investments
• Bad management
• Overspending
• Not taking care of the taxes

Another theme is that most of them came from poor backgrounds and perhaps could not cope with large amounts of money or had a low money consciousness.

This is the type of money consciousness which I cover it in the book is about how you feel about money and how comfortable you are around money. If you think that all rich people are evil and bad this will have a negative effect on you when you obtain a lot of money.

I’ve seen this over and over again when people have money but seem to want to push it away and go back to being broke when they feel more comfortable. Take a look at some of the lottery winners who have spent their way through tens of millions of pounds on houses, cars boats, lavish holidays and investing in any stupid venture that then asked to sink their cash into.

I go through my advice on watching your back and protecting your assets in the book. I also talk about the difference between the way rich people and poor people manage their money.

Check out Yes, Money Can Buy You Happiness on Amazon.

A few phone calls could save you hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds

Loyalty does not pay when it comes to utility providers

A few phone calls could save you hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds.

After our mortgage or rent payment, utilities I’ll probably one of our biggest
expenses.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the companies which supply your gas electricity, mobile phones
and broadband, it does not pay to stay loyal to them. Same applies to car,
breakdown recovery and home insurance.

They say that it cost many times more to win the new customer than it does to look
after and sell to existing customers. We all know this is the case so why do
these providers take us for granted and offer us poor deals forcing us to take
our business elsewhere? It just doesn’t make any business sense at all.

We hear terms like “loyalty” bonuses, but in reality, we get charged more for the same service than new customers. You also see this with mortgage providers and banks. They will offer
a better rate to new customers than existing borrowers or make your savings
account less competitive by dropping the rate.

I frequently change providers or ask for a better deal by calling them up to asking them for…you
guessed it, a better deal! In most cases, they say yes! After all, they want to
keep you as a customer, even if they go a funny way about showing it!

This simple technique has saved me tens of thousands of pounds over the years.

You know the old saying, “A penny saved is…a penny earned”. Actually, it is more
when you take into account tax on your income.

Right now, I have an issue with Virgin Media who supply broadband to several of my buy to
let properties. When I first started, they were charging me less than £30 per
month per property. Now it exceeds £40 per month, whilst they are advertising
broadband and a phone for £27 per month to new customers.

To make matters worse, I’m not even getting a good service! They don’t even
acknowledge the fact that I’ve got several contracts with them.

In fact, one of the reasons I have not changed sooner is that I can never get
through to them on the phone. I’ve spent hours on endless automated answering
systems - press one for this, press two for that and then out the other end without
speaking to person!

Come on Virgin, you can do better than this! Richard Branson, I challenge you to try
getting through to your broadband service on the phone!

When I had a problem with the router they refused to change it until I went on
Twitter!

I wish they had many people monitoring the phones as they do watching complaints
on Twitter!

You don’t always need to change providers to get a better deal. I was able to
renegotiate the £40 per month saving on my RAC breakdown membership just by
challenging them on offer in a much better deal to new customers When I had
been with them for years.

You may be tied into a contract and unable to change, so you need to diarise key
dates to make sure that you don’t miss out on the best deals or get stuck on an
expensive tariff.

Electricity and gas companies are notorious for leaving you on an expensive tariff when you
could change to a cheaper one just by making a phone call.

Action

Set a target today to review at least three of your utility supplier contracts. Here’s
a list of typical providers: 

• Gas and electricity
• Mobile
• phone/landline
• Broadband
• Home insurance
• Car insurance
• Breakdown cover

Okay, you may have to wait online for 20 minutes to get through to human being, but
the savings will be worth it.

Have fun saving money, and don’t forget to celebrate!

Check out my new book on Amazon, Yes, Money Can Buy You Happiness

http://bit.ly/moneykin

10 Quick Tips To Improve Your Public Speaking

Have you ever been asked to do a talk at work or in a social situation? Public speaking is one of our biggest fears, so maybe you turned down the opportunity because you were scared of speaking in public or not confident to deliver a talk?

My advice is that you should take up the offer but make sure you are prepared, rehearsed and polished so that you give your audience value for their time.

Don’t be casual because as Jim Rohn once said, “casualness leads to casualties”.

In fact, we would probably not have heard of Jim had it not been for a talk he gave to a local Rotary Club. He was already a successful businessman and a millionaire when he was asked to give a talk about his career and how he made it from a ‘farm boy in Idaho to Beverly Hills’. Jim accepted the offer and gave a great speech.

As a member of Rotary myself I know that not all speakers really make the effort or prepare.

Someone saw Jim and asked them to do another talk at a different club. Then someone approached him and asked him to give a talk at a corporate event and said he would pay Jim. Jim thought, “wow, I get paid to talk?”.

This is how his multi-million dollar speaking and training career was launched. By saying “yes” and making an effort to do a great talk he was spotted and things just took leading to a whole new career.

I’ve seen many careers launched from one good talk. That’s right, I’ve seen people promoted because they were noticed giving a presentation to colleagues at work.

I’ve even seen a young guy promoted because he was good at cricket!

Funny as it may sound, my colleague Colin was my admin assistant serving on me when we worked for Legal and General in the 1980’s. Our branch was asked to take part in a cricket match against one of our building society business associates.

Colin been a young fit sporty type stepped up and volunteered to captain the team. He did a great job of organising fielders, selecting batsman and of course bowling people out and scoring a few runs. His prowess and leadership skills on the cricket field were noticed by the branch manager who not long after promoted him.

In fact, he snobbishly commented that he was impressed with Colin, but we just need to teach him not to wear white socks to work!

You might say that Colin got lucky, but the fact is he stepped up to the mark, took his opportunity and did his best. I don’t think for a moment the Colin thought that his performance would lead to promotion. It was just the type of guy that would give his all.

Colin went on to have a wonderfully successful career in financial services. I met him a couple of years ago and we shared a few jokes about the good old days.

Talking about seizing the moment, I’m sure many of us remember Queen’s performance at the Live Aid fundraising concert when lead singer Freddie Mercury stole the show.

Many of the bands who came on throughout the day just played a few songs and walked off, but Queen prepared a brilliant medley. They knew they only had a few minutes to impress the audience and the millions watching worldwide, so they packed everything into that performance. I believe that the performance re-launched their career and turned Freddie into a superstar.

I recently watched a documentary about the legendary Woodstock concert in America where an estimated one million people turned up to watch the great bands of the time.

Frankly, most of the performances were disappointing and a bit of a let down. The poor Soundsystem didn’t help, but the main reason was that they were unprepared and really winging it.

Then a British band came on stage who were completely different. They were professional, well rehearsed and gave an amazing performance. Anyone know who I’m talking about?

The Who. Like Queen, I think they quietly stole the show even though they seemed to have a late-night slot. Roger Daltrey was masterful and they really stood out from the crowd.

What I’m saying is that they seized the opportunity, grabbed the moment and gave it their very best shot. They were not casual. they were professional.

The same applies to any kind of talk or “performance”. Always be prepared and always be professional and give it your very best shot.

Barry Hearn recently remarked (in a podcast interview with Rob Moore) that we get lucky breaks in life, but we don’t always make the best of the luck we are given.

Don’t underestimate the power of speaking. Speakers have moved whole nations, launched businesses and started religions which have lasted for thousands of years.

What do religious leaders do every week in front of their followers? They speak, preach, lead prayers and reinforce the message, the word!

Think about World War II and how two powerful speakers lead their nations through speeches. Adolf Hitler on one side preaching hatred and Winston Churchill rousing his country to take a stand against the far more powerful enemy that was marching through Europe like a hot knife through butter. 

If you want to hear masterful speaking, google the speeches of Winston Churchill. Listening to him makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Winston was not a great speaker by accident. He spent much time at the BBC learning how to deliver is message on the radio, the leading media at that time. Like many great speakers, for instance John F. Kennedy and Dr Martin Luther King, he employed a Shakespearean style of language to inspire his audience.

Learning from an early age. I’m convinced that the reason why so many people who have gone through private education become confident speakers and leaders is that they are taught to speak from a very young age. I went to state school and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I was asked to read in a class, let alone speak in front of an audience. I sent my children to private schools and from a very young age they were taught how to speak in public. They were given short talks to practice and even learned how to emphasise words and not sound monotone. 

I can remember my son standing in our living room reading out a short speech which he had to deliver the next day. His tone was going up and down as he emphasised important points. I was amazed that he could do this at only seven years old when I was probably in my late teens or early twenties before I had to give a speech.

10 Tips To Improve Your Public Speaking

This is not a definitive list of how to speak in public. You can read many books and take courses on the subjects and mastering speaking can be a lifetime’s work. But these few short tips will get you started.

1. Never pass up an opportunity to speak in public. If someone asks you to give a short presentation or talk say yes and then learn how to do it, as Richard Branson advises.

2. Speak up at meetings at work or in public. Public speaking is not just about making speeches and becoming an “orator” - “speak to the back of the stalls dear boy” and all those cliches! Public speaking can involve delivering a speech on stage, but it can also involve speaking at a meeting, giving a short presentation to your work colleagues, selling, one-to-one presentations were just speaking to someone in public and a networking meeting.

3. Speaking is an asset. Learning to speak in public well could be one of your greatest assets. And by the way, we are all involved in selling in one where another directly or indirectly. The organisation you work for run has to sell to customers. Governments, councils and politicians have to sell policies to the public. We have to sell ourselves to others ifyou want to get on in life. I don’t have any complete loners limits that are successful in life, whether that be in business relationships. Almost all of this involves speaking, even if you’re putting that speech in writing to be sold off a page.

4. Practice your talk in front of a mirror open to still film it on your phone. Practice makes perfect as the old saying goes.

5. Never wing it. Even if you are asked at the last minute to stand up and speak, take a few moments to make some bullet point notes.

6. If possible, avoid reading out a speech word for word. Instead make some bullet point notes and practice your talks so you can deliver it naturally.

7. Use PowerPoint sparingly. I can’t tell you the number of speakers I see standing in front of PowerPoint and then turning the back on the audience to read out the points on the screen, which everyone can read anyway. Another mistake is to put too many points on one slide, which nobody can even read.

8. Time your talk and don’t over run. If you’re given 10 minutes, stick to it. It always shows. professionalism to finish on time.

9. Take a course in public speaking. There are thousands of courses and public speaking, but I think one of the best to start with is the joining organisation called international Toastmasters. I started with them and as a non-profit organisation I found them extremely cheap and good value for money. They have regular meetings where you be in courage to speak in front of a receptive and sympathetic audience. The program takes you through different levels of speaking, preparing talks and leading, eventually leading to becoming a Toastmaster and beyond. If you want to be a professional speaker you may want to take more advanced courses, for instance in tonality, projection, using mics and cameras and so on, but Toastmasters is a great place to start as it gets you on your feet talking!

https://youtu.be/wfhP0pLsbFI

10. Stand up and Speak. In my experience, nothing beats actually getting up and doing it! We learn from our actual experience, like learning to ride a bike. You can read about it all you want, but you will never really learn until you get on the saddle and start pedalling. The more you stand up and speak, the more you will overcome your nerves and get better at it.

Finally, remember that a large percentage of people who are in prison have a limited vocabulary, as well as reading ability. They can only see the world through their own limits. Once people become more educated and learn to speak, they are less likely to reoffend.

If you want to improve your vocabulary read more books and google the words you don’t understand. You can also learn a word a day and we that into your conversation so that you memorise it.

How does this relate to money tips? Nearly all of the money we earn and all of the relationships in life involve speaking to people. The better you are at speaking, the more chance you have of leading a happy and successful life.

More Money Tips will shortly be published on my new podcast, Money Tips.

Time Management is Life Management, You Cannot Control Time!

      Welcome to Money Tips Daily this is Money Kelly bringing you money tips to help you save and make more money!

Time Management is Life Management, You Cannot Control Time!

Time management is a misunderstood phrase, as we cannot control or manage time, we can only manage ourselves.

Time is money, as the old saying goes. But Jim Rohn said, “Time is more precious than money, as you can always earn more money, but can never get back lost time”. Time can’t be saved or banked, it must be used or it’s gone forever. 

Time is ticking away relentlessly and seems to speed up as we grow older. There is a biological reason for the way we perceive time as we age, but a more obvious answer could be that a year to a five year old is equivalent to 20% of their life, to a 20 year old it is just 5% and so on.

Regardless of our perception, we all have the same amount of time each day, 24 hours or 1440 minutes a day, 365 days a year, but not everyone produces or gets the same amount done in a day or a year.

Do you get as much done as billionaire Mark Zuckerberg or Richard Branson in a day or a year? I doubt many of us do! How does Branson do it, apparently relaxing and having fun on his island and running an international multi-billion dollar empire of several different business employing thousands of people?

There are a number of time management tools you can use, such as planers and lists, but much of your success comes down to prioritising and doing the right tasks at the right time. Pareto’s 80/20 law states that we achieve 80 percent of our results from 20 percent of our effort. In other words, concentrate on the tasks that get results and cut back on those that don’t. 

For business owners, this may mean finding out who are your top twenty percent of clients are or where the largest proportion of the profits come from and spending more time on that than the less profitable areas.

You might be working extremely hard and putting in long hours and feel that you cannot possibly do anymore, and you may be right, especially if you are doing it all by yourself. So if we are already working flat out and doing as much as we can in a day, how can we get more done in the same amount of time or less? The answer is the same as it was thousands of years ago when men wanted to lift a huge rock or build Pyramids: they used leverage, tools, teams, delegation and outsourcing. 

Nowadays, we don’t need to be a Pharaoh or a billionaire to ‘leverage’ our time to increase our productivity. We have more tools at our disposal than ever before and if you’re not using them, your competitor (who could be in the same building or in Asia) probably is. 

You can now outsource thousands of tasks - admin, creative or technical - easily and cheaply by using sites like Upwork.com and Fiverr.com, which are especially useful for small or solo business owners.

Most people have or could access a smart phone these days, which has multiple management tools at your fingertips from electronic diaries, database and thousands of inexpensive apps. You can literally run a business from your phone. However, if you still want to stick to your old Nokia 6310 or whatever phone you refuse to change, then you’re effectively driving a Model T Ford when you could be at the wheel of a Tesla. 

Maybe you still use that set of encyclopaedias and look up numbers in the Yellow Pages! Seriously, we must embrace change or we will be left behind like those once mighty businesses – Tower Records, Blockbuster - which have disappeared from our streets. 

Nokia used to dominate the mobile phone market until Steve Jobs turned the phone on its head. Newspapers and TV stations are struggling to compete with advertising rivals like Google and Facebook, old style taxis are fighting against the tide of Uber and hotels do their best to stop the spread of AIRBNB. 

Innovators and disrupters like Apple’s Steve Jobs and Tesla’s Elon Musk use massive time and life leverage to change the world. You can do the same for your world.

I will taking more about how you can leverage your time to earn more money and create more wealth in the next episode, so keep reading this blog and tuning in to my Money Tips Daily podcast. 

Check out my episode "Time Management is Life Management " on Anchor! https://anchor.fm/charles-kelly/episodes/Time-Management-is-Life-Management-e147t2

See also: 

Financial Education is Your Key to Wealth and Success

NEVER Borrow Money on Expensive Credit Cards to Buy Depreciating Consumer Goods

How to Make Money Online Without a Website or Inventing Your Own Product

2 Tips to Save and Make You Money

Model the Rich and Successful