Creative commentary plus crafty composition

Archive for the ‘Business Commentary’ Category

When Sales Skills are Life Skills

Many are the skills we can develop which help us to grow, making a positive ripple effect of our efforts on others, gradually wider and fuller.

Some aptitudes have wider applications than others – consider cooking versus negotiating skills.  The significance, the impact, of some talents may expand beyond the borders of their logical environments. (more…)

A Wider Range of Employee Benefits

To what extent might we see the landscape expand in what are deemed to be ‘employee benefits’, in relation to being potentially taxable?

Take the case of the electric automobile. (more…)

Minting More Customers

A post nearly two years ago provided my observations about perhaps the most popular of ‘atypical assets’, namely collectible coins. Here’s a revisit of that commentary, with some updated points.

The Royal Canadian Mint has become much more than a creator and distributor of Canadian daily coinage. In addition to special orders for foreign governments, transit authorities, etc., it has expanded offerings to the world of coin collectors and investors, in Canada and beyond. (more…)

Life Lessons from the Winter Olympics

We’ve just had the latest round of the Olympic Winter Games play out in Korea in the latter part of February.

Some nations, particularly the three highest medal count countries – namely, Norway, Germany, and Canada – found relative success after their long journeys to southeast Asia. Other countries didn’t have their usually expected triumphs (U.S.A.), and one wasn’t even able to compete under its national flag (Russia) – so, bigger is not always better. (more…)

What is ‘Independent Advice’?

An article in the current edition of The Insurance & Investment Journal raises the age-old conundrum of receiving ‘independent advice’. It should be noted that the report is in support of the idea.

Why has this been such a prevailing issue, frequently a hot topic of reportage? (more…)

Travel Tips

Open any travel related periodical or insert, and chances are that, in addition to glowing enticements to visit sites far or near, there will be some degree of tips from supposed experts. Sometimes the expertise is limited to lessons learned by the author about specific destinations; sometimes it’s more general ‘rules of thumb’ (not the green kind).

Case in point: the spring edition of CAA (Canadian Automobile Association) Magazine devotes several pages to recommending travel locations for 2018, with brief comments from CAA travel specialists. Some remarks are more insightful than others. (more…)

A Hurdle is not a Stop Sign

Perhaps all of us, at one time or another, have been tempted to feel discouraged, perhaps quickly, by setbacks on the long journey to accomplishing major goals.

Indeed, if looking at statistics, one can easily be ready to throw in the towel, especially if that towel is frequently coated with rejection.

Many of us are familiar with the 80/20 rule, which anecdotally applies to a wide range of endeavours: (more…)

Adding Value

The proposition of ‘adding value’ has been an underlying foundation for success in service-oriented businesses for many years.

If one wants to generate a positive, lasting and loyal, relationship with customers, providing those extra ingredients of value is vital. This could be indirectly related to business, i.e. taking clients to lunch, paying for tickets to events, etc., or more directly, such as keeping in regular contact, or going the extra mile in solving problems quickly, or obtaining more helpful data for decision making. (more…)

You Know It’s Time to Move On

I have a friend who is being compelled to move from her longstanding residence shortly, due to a very unfortunate set of circumstances. She is quite unhappy, having to give up the apartment, albeit in a creaky old house, given its scenic, multidirectional view, but the environment has become untenable.

One of the constants of life is change – but some changes are much earlier to adapt to than others. (more…)

Charitable Rewards

According to a recent report from the Fraser Institute, using tax data, the percentage of Canadians giving to charities has diminished to about 21% from a level of 25% ten years earlier. It has also gone down as a percentage of income.

Americans compare more favourably on this particular scale, with nearly 25% contributing and at a much higher rate of income than Canadians. (more…)