Personal statement for master Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Individual proclamation for ace - Essay Example Information on the two standards will direct me in settling on right choices and plan methodologies that will be trailed by the individuals in the organization. I accept that these two capacities in the organization ought to be treated with cooperative exertion and as a group to make a culture of concordance in the business. Promoting methodologies are the endeavors done to make consideration, intrigue, want and activity of customers while the executives gives account and managerial help in doing the procedures. I had a short spell of dealing with a business on the grounds that my folks own a strip mall, a market and building rentals in my old neighborhood. My folks allocated to me the buying of crude materials and supplies required for the assembling of the items required by our customers. I have taken during the time spent sourcing through the web, through exchange affiliations and referrals. From here, I have assembled the essential abilities of valuing, examination, rivalry and quality control. There were occurrences that a cost of a similar crude material will be contrastingly offered by a few providers. As a result of this error, I got keen on finding the causes why costs carry on that way, a tad bit of Economics. Along these lines, we have practiced cost effectiveness in sourcing of crude materials. In the board of the organization, I have figured out how to satisfy clients by keeping up great client relations, similarly; I have drilled conduct control of representatives working for u s. This little information, I expectation could be helpful in my investigations of Business Management. I am certain that the instruction that I will gain from this college will assume a significant job in planning my future in the vocation way that I have made for my life. This early, I intend to be an effective business visionary sometime or just after I have completed my investigations and apply what I realize in school. With appropriate instructive direction, I realize I won't turn out badly in choices and techniques

Ideas for Engineering Science Fair Projects

Thoughts for Engineering Science Fair Projects Designing science reasonable undertakings can include planning, building, examining, displaying, or improving a gadget. You can likewise test or make materials. Here are some particular thoughts for designing science reasonable activities. What is the best material to placed in a sandbag to square water, for example, during a flood?How tall would you be able to assemble a pinnacle utilizing just a sheet of ​paper? You can cut it, overlay it, fold it, yet just utilize that solitary material. What works best?Compare the qualities of a structure that is made utilizing various materials. You can think about quality, consumption opposition, and versatility. Be imaginative. Try to make certain your estimations are really tantamount to each other.What would you be able to do with a dip top to improve its capacity to diminish haul in water? Would you be able to adjust the shape? Accomplishes one material work generously better than another?Which kind of paper towel assimilates the most water? Which brand assimilates the most oil? It is safe to say that they are the equivalent brand?What contrasts do you note in the capacity of various soils to help a structure?What kind of paper plane flies the farthest and stays up hig h the longest?How would you be able to outline attractive field? Would you be able to build a gadget, utilizing iron filings, that can be reused for field mapping? Develop a Lego building. Presently attempt to make a similar structure on a grade, for example, a 30-degree slant. What changes do you have to make so as to make it stable?How does an adjustment in the development of a parachute influence flight? Boundaries you could look at incorporate size, shape, material, as well as strategy for connection.

Our Daily Bread Essay

Our Daily Bread, as the title proposes this isn't about bread, as I trusted it seemed to be. Or maybe it’s about individuals gaining their bread, their occupation. The term ‘bread’ is gotten from the bigger term ‘bread-winner’ as the person who is the essential supplier of the family unit, and the ‘daily bread’ is basically alluding their day by day employment. As my time spent in the US, I regularly used to think about how the diverse food organizations had the option to create mass measure of food to keep the populace took care of. This film is the appropriate response and the disclosure of how food is created in Europe and the Western side of the equator. The film begins as we get a brief look at day by day sanitation customs being carted away at a meat ranch. The various scenes demonstrate us to transportation of domesticated animals, machine helped watering of plants, and a transport line at a poultry ranch where they separate the gu ys from the female chickens (I know this as I have seen this done before in an alternate setting). The apparatus at poultry ranch shows exactness and proficiency as it sorts the youthful chicks into moving containers. The immunization routine is additionally machine helped which expands productivity and creation for the poultry ranch. Following couple of moments, the youthful chicks have developed and we are indicated the laborer taking care of them. The shot changes into a lunchroom where the specialist is on a fellowship and tea, isolated. Next, we get the scene from a vegetable homestead. A tractor picks the potatoes from the beginning. Next shot, the laborers get ready and wear defensive apparatuses to apply pesticides and composts to the plants. Be that as it may, the greater part of the work is finished by machine help, requiring basically no human mediation. It appears as the vegetables are being developed inside a nursery setting which permits vegetables to be developed throughout the entire year, with no climate limitations. The main human work being done is picking of the aged vegetables. After work, the specialist appear to appreciate a little break, again alone. Presently we see a bull and a dairy animals where it appears to be rearing is in process. A more critical look and we find that the laborers a re really gathering the sperm. We discover the sperm is moved to clinical assessments, I don’t know precisely why however probability could be to productively utilize the sperms to treat each prolific egg they can bear the cost of with no misfortune. What's more, obviously, we see a solid calf being conceived. In any case, it is truly diverting to perceive how the dairy animals was cut open and the calf was pulled out, how could that truly be conceivable? What amount of prescription could the creature be on since it wasn’t moving or making any clamor all things considered? Furthermore, are there any points of interest of this sort of birth for creature? Next, we see a progression of shots of men in tractors who are accomplishing ranch work with machine help. This shows the effectiveness that is earned by machine which assists people with accomplishing more with less time invested and more energy to spend on extravagance, or more work. We return back to the poultry ranch, the egg cultivating space to be definite. The eggs are brought forth and because of the structure, they are helpfully open by the ranchers to pick. A specialist is demonstrated to hold a chicken as he strolls around the egg ranch, conceivably to caution di fferent hens who don’t lay eggs. In real note, he perhaps was checking for chickens which are dead. In the following shot, the laborers are moved to an enormous estate to gather crops becoming under the ground, just time where tractors aren’t utilized. This is perhaps the first run through where machine use is restricted to simply watering the plants. Presently we are demonstrated our way to a pig ranch. They are moved on a line into a machine where they are butchered by a machine. The human work is restricted to keep the line moving and all together. The machines are additionally utilized for the vast majority of the substantial work as heating up the skin and analyzing the pigs open. The human employment is restricted to tidying up whatever else the machines may have forgotten about and isolating inner parts. We are likewise indicated the wonder of present day innovation with a biplane is utilized to prepare the harvests. There are likewise shots of overwhelming apparatus utilization in ranches. At that poi nt we see a moving harvest truck where the outside laborers are picking the vegetables and inside just bundling them. Presently we move to a dairy animals farm. The bovines are drained by machines in a pivoting merry go round. The cows don’t appear to mind such a great amount, as it is by all accounts some portion of their every day schedule. Next, a visit to the profound underground salt mines where machines are utilized to do a large portion of the substantial work, for example, doing the salt here and there and outside the mine itself. A change moves from underground to submerged as we see a fish-ranch where hundreds and several fishes are found in a little region. This likewise makes it simpler for the gigantic channel to suck out the fishes from the water and into the vessel. They are shipped to an industrial facility where people adjust the fishes to take care of into the machines. Obviously the machines haven’t figured out how to recognize the fish head from the tail, yet. The fishes are cut and cleaned by arrangement of machines and afterward moved onto another human where he p uts them on another machine to move them to another area. Here, the laborer appears to be really exhausted of the normal errand he has, maybe feeling like the machine now due to his activity task. Next we see pack of laborers cleaning the fish for conclusive prep before delivery them out. Presently we go to a pig-ranch. The two arrangement of shots appears to be fascinating as the main spoke to insemination of pigs by tube and next shows the piglets conceived in bondage, much the same as ‘The Matrix’. Much the same as in the motion pictures, they grow up and the following shot appears as though the male pigs were being maimed. One can just get why in this way, as they don’t need to overproduce and give out the representatives any rewards. Or then again perhaps not. The following arrangement of shots show how chicken and dairy cattle are set up for utilization; as they are murdered by the machines with close to nothing or less human exertion required all the while. The last shot shows the day's end schedule how everything is cleaned and purified for the following day of work. Regardless of this, the laborers in all spots couldn’t hang tight for their every day bread, their well deserved break from their work. Maybe the standard way of their errands has gotten so natural to them that they don’t appear to mind how their own food is being created. For me, it was somewhat entertaining and stunning to see the states of creatures yet perhaps after a couple of more perspectives, I wouldn’t mind it either. This film shows the substantial utilization of hardware utilized in the creation of food, be it salt, pigs, chicken, vegetables, fish, or pigs. It was likewise diverting, as it were, to perceive how rearing had gone into the following level by logical use to adequately get their outcome monetarily and furthermore in monetary manners to take care of the regularly developing total populace. It appeared as nearly if people were not by any means the only ones estranged from nature, yet in addition the creatures which were by and large misleadingly inseminated and damaged against their wills. The laborers didn’t appear to think about what they were doing either, as long as it made their breads. It appeared as they had been prepared to do this for such a long time that they were utilized to it-like machines with machine hearts and machine minds. In another view, the unnatural size of the bulls in the rearing house appeared as though they were so-much hereditarily built to create the most extreme measure of meat conceivable. Maybe they had blended something in the dry grass that was being blown into their little confines they were placed in. The developing populace likewise has appeared to influence the unnatural procedure by which plants were developed with uses of pesticides and manures. The utilization of nurseries depicts, as it were, the plant’s estrangement from nature as it was currently conceivable to develop all plants in any climate or conditions. The nonappearance of portrayal or captions leaves the film watcher to make their own decision and point of view. The producer, as I comprehend, doesn’t need to change our propensities yet just know about the routes in how the planet is being taken care of. In the event that anything, this ought to be seen by however many individuals as could be expected under the circumstances to make them mindful of the status of food creation and the status of the subjects which are engaged with the food creation for example people, plants and creatures the same. I should state a portion of the scenes in the film hush up upsetting however that is the present status of our populace and food creation required to take care of them.

Love And Sacrifices :: essays research papers

Love and Sacrifices I don't get it's meaning to adore another? To adore someone else intends to feel empathetic towards them, to "feel" what they feel. Thinking about somebody, and what befalls them is likewise an indication of love. Imparting a relationship to somebody implies that you must be mindful what's more, must know that there will be times when things turn out badly. Adoring somebody implies taking these "wrong" things and attempting to fix them. What are a few indications of adoration? Making penances is one indication of dedication to someone else. At the point when you give it a second thought about somebody, you need to give a bit. Everything accompanies life. So as to get something, one must forfeit different things. For instance, if having to settle on a decision between the adoration for your life and heading off to a football match-up, a individual who is really infatuated, and not simply enamored with "being in love" will penance the game so as to be with that individual. What is the best intensity of potential human discourse? (words, language) All people have the ability to speak with different people, connect, and share their thoughts. The intensity of discourse is the thing that makes everything conceivable. Correspondence is the most significant thing in the accomplishment of a relationship, and for somebody to state that they love another is to regard them and their thoughts and to need to impart to them. The most anybody can ever accomplish for you is tune in, and the best way to do that is to convey that you need to be tuned in to and that you are eager to tune in to the one you love. That is the most anybody can do, and it is an endowment of sorts. What is the best thing about human love? Being infatuated gives a feeling of culmination, causes one to feel as though nothing else is required so as to endure. Some of the time, being infatuated can go about as a venturing stone, or an entryway into a world you never knew was out there. It can give you another point of view toward things, transform all that you've at any point known into something you never thought was conceivable. Love can likewise fortify a "tie" or "bond" that you may have with somebody, it might be said that you have substantially more in like manner. What is the best articulation of adoration? Giving up anything is the best articulation of your "love". The most noteworthy penance one would need to make is passing. Kicking the bucket for a friend or family member implies that your affection wasn't a "It", however a "Thou", and kicking the bucket just makes it more

Compare Contrast Performance Enhancing Drugs

Task 4-1-1 Compare and Contrast COMM 120 College Writing Justin Reed Professor Hilton-Ross Performance-Enhancing Drugs: New degree of energy or snappy passing? We routinely know about expert competitors being blamed for â€Å"doping,† or utilization of unlawful execution upgrading drugs. Many do this to be the absolute best at what they do. This is worthwhile for the player, yet additionally for the establishments that acquire the groups. The inquiry that emerges is, if these medications ought to be the new wilderness of sports, or on the off chance that we ought to vigorously screen the players to forestall passing. Taking a gander at this from an impartial point of view, it very well may be anything but difficult to see the two positives and negatives to ingesting such medications. Our general public requests flawlessness, however we likewise expect a degree of diversion that is on par or more noteworthy than the consistently expanding sticker price of the tickets that we purchase for these displays. A large number of the medications that are restricted from sports are because of the reactions that regularly happen. The players have crazy scenes, become expanding antagonistic, and in some cases even demise. Indeed, even with the proof sponsorship this, the medications are as yet utilized. The purpose behind this is fiscal additions. An inquiry rings a bell, OK rather carry on with a long, customary life or an abbreviated, astonishing one? You will be quicker, more grounded, and recuperate more rapidly than you ever have previously. In any case, let’s make the supposition that competitors start to utilize execution improving medications, the costs are higher for tickets,and the measure of time a player will really be equipped for playing at such a significant level is diminished. Who truly wins in this situation? I accept thefans do. Fansget an extremely energizing game, more plays, more activity, and more effect. Things that were impractical become undeniably progressively conceivable. Games are created or improved to make the exhibition all the better. The competitors can now demandmore cash in light of the fact that the groups are more prominent. In turn,the swarm draw implies the establishment can improve the offices and effect the encompassing territories. Indeed, the competitors have a capability of being harmed, however their penance could at last carry bliss to thousands, give them extraordinary wealth,and help the territories organizations. References Donovan, R. J. , Egger, G. , Kapernick, V. , and Mendoza, J. (2002). A Conceptual Framework for Achieving Performance Enhancing Drug Compliance in Sport. _Sports Medicine_, 32(4), 269-284.

How a Buyer (or User) Persona Can Improve Your Business

How a Buyer (or User) Persona Can Improve Your Business Have you ever tried to discuss the latest Mercedes or Range Rover model with your friend who doesn’t give a hoot about cars? What was the conversation like? You probably realized that your friend wasn’t even paying attention to what you were saying, and ended up changing the direction of the conversation to avoid wasting your breath.This is exactly what happens when you try to market your products and services without checking whether your message is relevant to the person you are marketing to. The only difference is that on top of your message being ignored, you are also wasting your marketing budget.To be an effective marketer, one of the first things you need to get right is to figure out who exactly you are marketing to. Knowing who you are marketing to not only helps you to determine if your products and services are relevant to the person you are marketing to, but also to figure out if you are marketing to them in the right way.Instead of trying to convince customers why th ey need a product, you can focus on selling them what they actually want. In order to figure out exactly who you are marketing to and how to market to them in the right way, you need to come up with something known as a buyer persona.WHAT IS A BUYER PERSONA? A buyer persona can be defined as a fictional, generalized representation of your target customers. It is a detailed description of the kind of person who might be interested in buying your products and services. The buyer persona is written as if it is a description of a real person.It should include everything about the ideal customer, including demographics such as age, gender, ethnicity, education, marital status and family size, personal and professional background, goals, challenges and concerns, hobbies and interests, past buying behavior, and so on.The aim of the buyer persona is to help you understand your customers better. It allows you to put yourself in the shoes of your customers and to get a clear picture of every aspect of their daily life. It makes it possible for you to get inside the head of your customers and prospects and figure out how they think and behave, and what their motivations are.Once you understand your customers completely, you can now tailor your messaging, content, products and services to their specific behaviors, needs and concerns.With a buyer persona, there is no chance of getting it wrong, because you are not making guesses or assumptions.You actually KNOW what your customers want and need and the messages they are most likely to respond to.IS A BUYER PERSONA REALLY NECESSARY?Many marketers ignore the buyer persona, and I can certainly understand this.Creating a detailed buyer persona needs some time and effort, and after all, no marketer wants to spend time coming up with a buyer persona if they don’t think it will have a solid ROI.What many do not understand is that lack of a buyer persona actually minimizes the ROI of your other marketing campaigns. Below are som e of the reasons you need to create a buyer persona.Helps You Identify Customers’ Wants and NeedsCustomers don’t purchase products and services simply because they are available in the market. Instead, customers purchase because the product and service fulfills a certain want or need.A buyer persona allows you to figure out your customers’ wants and needs and allows you to delight them with products and services that actually satisfy these needs.Selling becomes easier when you are fulfilling customers’ needs instead of trying to convince them to buy.Makes It Easier to Tailor Your Marketing Message to Your CustomersImagine you are selling ladies’ shoes. Would the message used to sell the shoes to 20 year old ladies work for a 40 year old woman?Probably not, because the two care about different things. Sure, both might buy the same shoe, but their reasons for buying the shoe are different.In order to sell the shoe to each of them, you have to use a message that resonates wit h them and their reasons for buying the shoe.A buyer persona helps you understand the personalities, desires, and buying motivations of your customers, allowing you to tailor your marketing message to appeal to each customer’s specific desires.Helps You Understand How Customer’s Make Purchasing DecisionsDifferent customer groups make their purchasing decisions in different ways.When buying a car, a 25 year old, single guy might go for things like speed and how cool the car looks. A 45 year old father of two, on the other hand, might be more interested in space and fuel economy.Not only does this affect how you market to them, it also affects what extras you can upsell with the car.The 25 year old dude might be more interested in styling and performance upgrades, such as turbos, superchargers and body kits, while the 45 year old dad of two might be interested in child seats for his kid’s safety.The more you understand your customer, the easier it becomes to understand their pur chasing decisions, move them along the sales funnel and increase their lifetime value.Helps You Develop And Improve Products and ServicesThe better you understand your customers, the easier it will become to understand the shortcomings and challenges they face when using your products and services.You can then use this information to improve your offerings or come up with new products and services to eliminate these challenges, thus allowing you to strengthen the relationship with the customers and increase their lifetime value.Helps You Determine Where Your Customers Spend TimeIn order to effectively market your products and services, you have to figure out where your customers like to spend their time, both online and in real life so that you can reach out to them and have conversations with them in those places. If your buyer persona is a senior executive who spends most of their online time on LinkedIn, it won’t make much sense marketing your services on Facebook.If your ideal customers are young ladies who spend their evenings in coffee shops, you won’t have much success promoting your services at the gym. Developing a buyer persona helps you figure out where and how you can reach your customers easily and effectively.Ensure Everyone In The Company Is On The Same PageIf you think a buyer persona is only beneficial for the sales and marketing departments, think again.The product team needs to know exactly who they are developing the product for. Your customer service representatives need to know the personalities, behaviors and desires of your customers in order to keep them happy.Developing a buyer persona ensures that everyone within the company is on the same page on how to please your customers, which in turn helps boost customer satisfaction and retention rates.Helps You Segment Your Marketing EffortsSometimes, a business might have a large target customer group. For instance, let’s consider companies that sell shaving razors. The razors markete d to men are fundamentally the same as those marketed to women. However, if the marketers use a general campaign to market to both audiences, the product will not appeal to either men or women.If they focus on one audience, they stand to lose sales from the other audience. What such companies do is to create buyer personas for the two audiences and then come up with segmented marketing campaigns that appeal to each persona.The companies end up using different colors on the razors, different packaging, and different messages. By segmenting their marketing efforts to each buyer persona, their marketing campaigns become more effective compared to a general marketing approach.Helps You to Pre-Qualify LeadsDeveloping a buyer persona also helps your business to focus on attracting better leads who are more sales- ready. Rather than trying to push your products to customers who are not sure whether they actually need the product, you can focus on leads that actually want the product.Taking the time to develop negative personas (personas representing the type of customers you don’t want) can also make your marketing efforts more effective and lower your customer acquisition costs by weeding out the ‘bad apples’ during your marketing efforts.These are just some of the reasons why you need to create a buyer persona. Not convinced yet? What if I told you that businesses using buyer personas experience a 55% increase in organic search traffic, double the open rates of their email campaigns and increase their email click-through rates 5 times?In addition, 71% of businesses that surpass their lead and revenue goals use buyer personas. Need I say more? The benefits of developing a buyer persona for your business are endless. Question is, how do you come up with a buyer persona?HOW TO CREATE A BUYER PERSONACreating a buyer persona involves collecting information about your target customers. While the type and amount of information gathered will obviously vary depending on your business, there are some questions you need to answer about your ideal customers. These include:1. What is Their Gender?Many products are gender specific. You don’t expect to sell products like wedding dresses, heels, cosmetics and beauty products, handbags, and so on to a predominantly male clientele. Similarly, you don’t expect to sell products like shaving kits, ties, and so on to a predominantly female clientele.Even for products that are not gender specific, such as smartphones, television sets, cars, computers, and so on, the language and message used to sell to men might not work for women, and vice versa.Therefore, it is important to know the gender of your ideal customers so that you can tailor your marketing to suit them.2. What is Their Age?Knowing your ideal customers’ age is crucial in determining the kind of products they might be interested in. If you sell home maintenance products like lawn mowers and wheelbarrows, it might not make a lot of sense marke ting them to 20 year olds who are yet to buy their own homes.On the other hand, if you sell baby products, marketing to 20-30 year olds might be effective since it is at that age that they are getting married and getting their first kids.Age also influences how you market your products. For younger customers, you might focus on the ‘cool factor’ while older folks will be more concerned with the utility of a product.3. Where Do They Live?Your customers’ location also influences your marketing campaign.For instance, if you run an online business and realize that majority of your buyers live in California, you can increase your budget for geographically targeted ads in the region.Knowing the location of your ideal customers also influences the location of your business. For instance, if you want to launch a luxury car dealership, it might not be wise to locate it in a low income area.Finally, your customers’ location also influences the kind of products they prefer. For example , automotive dealers might notice that people who live in rural areas lean towards trucks, whereas urban dwellers might prefer sedans.4. What is Their Level of Education?Your customers’ education level influences the kind of message and information you provide in your marketing material.For instance, if your customers are highly educated, you might provide study results and graphics about your product and leave them to make their own decision.If their education level is low, on the other hand, you might use testimonials and other forms of social proof to influence their decision.5. What is Their Occupation?A person’s occupation might influence the kind of products they buy.For instance, if you sell high end, high performance computers, it might be more effective to market them to designers, animators and video editors rather than social media professionals who only need a device that can connect to the internet.If you provide email marketing services or SEO services, online busi ness owners might be very interested in your services, whereas a nurse or a civil engineer might not care about your services.6. What is Their Income Level?This is another important consideration when coming up with a buyer persona. Remember, your customers will only buy your products if they can afford them, therefore you need to know the income range of the people you are targeting.For example, if you are a car salesperson, you wouldn’t spend your time trying to sell cars to students who don’t have any income. If you sell real estate, you wouldn’t spend your marketing budget advertising to people in entry level jobs since they might not earn enough to spend on a home.7. What are Their Interests and Leisure Pursuits?You might be wondering why you need to know the interests, hobbies and leisure habits of your buyers.This information helps you to better understand their personalities, which in turn makes it easier for you to connect with them. It also allows you to know where t hey hang out, so that you can easily reach out to them.For example, if you realize that majority of your customers go to the gym, you can partner with gyms around your locality to promote your products and services to them.8. What is Their Relationship Status?Are your target customers single or married? Do they have kids? What ages are their kids? This information is very crucial.The wants, needs, preferences and leisure activities of single people are very different from those of married people.Similarly, the wants, needs and preferences of people with toddlers are very different from those of people with teenage children. This information helps you position your products and services in a manner that resonates with your ideal buyer.9. What are Their Goals and Objectives?What are the goals and objectives of your ideal customers? What are they trying to achieve using your product or service?Understanding why customers purchase your product will help you refine your marketing strateg y and promote your products the right way.10. What are Their Challenges?What concerns and objections does your ideal buyer have about purchasing your products and services? Knowing these concerns and objections allows you to address them and convince your ideal buyers why your products are best for them.11. What is Their Purchase History?This information helps you understand what your buyers consider to be important and also helps you further refine their demographic information.For instance, if you notice that most of your customers are buying outdoor home equipment, you can deduce that they are middle class and they live in rural or suburban areas.12. What are Their Social Media Tendencies?How do your customers use social media? Which social media platforms do they prefer? This information helps you to determine the best social media channels to focus on in your marketing and the kind of content that will resonate with them.These are some of the questions you should try to answer when coming up with a buyer persona. Once you find answers to these questions, aggregate the average data for each question and then use it to create your user persona.Finally, come up with a fictional name to go with your buyer persona and choose a photo to go with the name. Doing so makes your buyer persona feel like a real person, rather than a collection of data.Obviously, you might be wondering where the heck you will get all this information. Below are some approaches you can use to get this information:Conduct traditional market research: If you do not have budgetary constraints, conducting market research about your target customers can help you come up with great data for your buyer persona.Conduct surveys: Sending out questionnaires with the above questions to your existing customer base can also provide you with a lot of information for your buyer persona. You can encourage your customers to take part in the survey by offering a small incentive, such as a discount coupon. Check your web and social media analytics: Your web and social media analytics contain a wealth of data about the people currently interacting online with your business or brand. This data can be useful in creating your buyer persona.Talk to your employees: Employees who interact with your customers can also provide you with useful information about your customers. Give them surveys with the above questions and use their responses to come up with a buyer persona.When conducting surveys, especially on customers, it is important to use open ended questions and where possible, follow them up with a ‘why?” Doing so will give you better insights into their behaviors, goals, and challenges.Open ended questions allow people to talk about their true feelings, which is important since you want to completely understand your customers.It’s also good to note that if your customer base is too wide, it is alright to come up with two or three buyer personas. Still, avoid the temptation to co me up with a buyer persona for every possible target customer. Just come up with buyer personas for two or three of your best performing customer groups and you are good to go.SAMPLE BUYER PERSONATo make it easier for you to understand what a buyer persona should look like, let’s take a look at a sample buyer persona from a web design agency that focuses on building and maintaining websites for freelance writers.Persona Name: Freelancer FredGender: MaleAge: 27Location: Remote (lives in an urban area)Relationship status:  Single, no kidsEducation: UndergraduateOccupation: Offers freelance writing services onlineIncome level: $50,000Goals: Build a thriving freelance writing agency that brings in over $200,000 annually.Challenges:Wants a modern website, but does not have a huge budget to spend on building and maintaining the site.Is not very conversant with SEO practices.Social media habits: Spends a lot of time on Twitter and LinkedIn, mostly networking with other freelancers and re aching out to prospective clients.Hobbies and interests:TravelingVolunteeringOnline gamingHOW TO USE YOUR BUYER PERSONAObviously, you are not going to use all this effort to create a buyer persona just to leave it at that. You need to make use of it. Below are some tips on how to make use of the buyer persona you just created.Classify Prospects by PersonaEvery time you get a new prospect, you should classify them by their respective persona. This allows you to tailor any further interaction with the prospect to suit their persona. Come up with a question or series of questions that will help you determine in which persona a prospect fits.You can then use these questions to classify the prospect during your first interaction with them, regardless of whether the interaction happens in person, through a phone call, or on an online opt-in form.Of course, not all prospects will fit neatly into your buyer personas. Just classify the prospect into the closest persona. If you realize that s ome clients are too detached from any of your current personas, you can use their data to create additional personas.Tailor Your Content to Buyer PersonasAddress your buyer personas: Now that you know who you are selling to, customize your messages to address your buyer persona instead of addressing everyone. For example, instead of saying “are you looking for a power suit,” you can now say, “Are you a 35 year old female CEO looking for a power suit?” The second question will resonate and connect better with your customers.Address their problems: Since you now know the specific problems of your buyer persona, you can address them rather than addressing general problems that your ideal customer might not even be experiencing.Appeal to different points of view: Instead of creating general content, create different content that appeals to each of your buyer personas.Serve dynamic persona-based web content: There are tools that allow you to show different content based on the bu yer persona you have placed a prospect in. Whenever they visit your website, they will only be shown content that is relevant to their buyer persona.Place prospects in persona-based drip campaigns: Once you assign a buyer persona to a prospect, you can then place the prospect in a drip email campaign that is customized to suit their persona and their current phase in the buyer’s journey.Find the appropriate marketing channel: Now that you know where your customers spend their time online, you can use the appropriate marketing channels to market to them. Since you know their interests, it becomes easier to determine which influencers your customers are more likely to follow and trust.Track Your PersonasYou should also track information and data about your buyer personas. For instance, is one buyer persona generating more leads than the other? Is one buyer persona spending more money than the other?This information can help determine if you are spending your advertising budget optim ally or if you are using the best methods to reach out to prospects.WRAPPING UPKnowing who your customers are, how they think and behave, and what their problems and concerns are allows you to effectively connect and communicate with them and build engagement, trust and loyalty.By creating a buyer persona and basing your marketing strategies on this persona, you will be able to boost your sales efforts and accelerate your business’ growth.

Agency Costs On The Investment Performance Of Australian Pension Funds Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

In Australia, the superannuation industry has undergone a rapid expansion since the introduction of a compulsory pension system in 1992. Superannuation assets grew from $245 billion to 942 billion in 10 years (Benson et al., 2010). Investors and consumers now have vast choice in their ability to pick a pension fund, ranging from non-profit funds, such as corporate, public sector and industry superannuation funds, and for-profit retail funds. However, there was a dearth of empirical studies which aimed to clarify any systematic differences in the performance of these respective funds. This is an important policy consideration as even small differences in cost and returns can have large remuneration ramifications in the long term. Bateman (2001) identified that a 1% change in costs could lead to a 22% change in returns on retirement. As such, it is crucial to analyse potential differences in returns between fund types and ensure retirees maximise their retirement income sav ings as performance ultimately affects welfare (Clark and Unwin, 2008). Systematically lower net returns will reduce final retirement savings. This can increase reliance upon the public pension system than would have otherwise been required under lower cost and higher return funds. In Coleman et al.s (2006) article, the authors utilised a large cross-sectional database which encapsulated not-for-profit and for-profit funds, elaborating on prior studies which tended to only consider for-profit providers. The article aimed to gain understanding of the performance of the Australian superannuation industry from 1997 to 2002, evaluating in terms of risk, returns and expenses, and what factors in particular were the determinants of investment performance. The core approach to these questions adopted a fund type comparison to enable the authors to ascertain whether the varying characteristics between not-for-profit and for-profit affected fund net return and performance. Despite the adoption of a prudent person approach according to the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993, the driving force behind potential disparities was hypothesised to be agency costs which manifest due to variations in the trustee board structure. In not-for-profit funds, consisting of the corporate, public sector and industry funds, equal representation is required from members of the fund and employers. In contrast, for-profit funds are non-representative and trustee board members are often employees of the professional financial institution who provide and manage the fund. As such retail funds are expected to have much higher agency costs which emerge in various ways. Without member representation, having only employees of the company on a trustee board creates conflicts of interest as the company aims to make a profit from providing superannuation services, whilst simultaneously attempting to maximise their customers retirement savings. Unlike not-for-profit funds which have established customer bases originating from industries of work, retail funds need to create networks and entice employees into their fund, often through commission-based financial planners. Commissions involve more cost for consumers, but more earnings for planners than fee-for-service charges. As retail funds are the only fund type that pays commissions, it creates an incentive for financial planners to advise their clients into retail funds, and encourages purchase of other financial products which is driven by commission, not independent and sage advice. Effective fund choice is further limited by agency costs which generates high exit fees to deter customers transferring their pension to another fund, another result of how retail funds have no established customer base. By dissecting performance through fund type, various features within each fund type could be assessed for any material effect on performance, such as size and economies of scale, returns over time and benefit structure. It is presupposed that for funds with a larger amount of financial assets, any fixed costs involved in administration and management, both of the fund and individual accounts, would be spread out over a greater volume of cash, resulting in lower average costs. Likewise, large funds should be able to negotiate more competitive fees due to the increased influence and bargaining power they can attain due to their size. Using return on assets, volatility on returns and expense ratios as a measure of performance Coleman et al.s (2006) analysis found that not-for-profit funds outperformed for-profit funds, with not-for-profit funds reporting significantly higher risk-adjusted returns. The difference in returns amount to an estimated 228 to 318 basis points per annum (Coleman et al., 2006). Another significant finding was that for-profit retail funds have significantly higher expense ratios than not-for-profit funds, which helped to drive the difference in net returns between the fund types. The higher expenses for retails funds were associated with marketing and networking costs which aim to establish and expand their customer base. Performance across fund types was also assessed in terms of risk-adjusted performance using the Sharpe ratio and Jensen alpha, both of which are measures of the returns received relative to risk taken. In terms of risk-adjusted performance using the Sharpe ratio, retail funds again had a statistically significantly lower performance, with a ratio 20-30% lower than not-for-profit funds. The alternative measure of the Jensen alpha also recorded significant differences between not-for-profit and for-profit funds. The greatest disparity occurred between the industry and public sector funds with the retail funds in the multiple index model with market timing. This suggests industry and public sector funds have more active management of their asset allocation to take advantage of fortuitous market movements. The results wer e concluded to be consistent with the hypothesis that agency costs exist to create differential performance between not-for-profit and for-profit funds (Coleman et al., 2006). The lack of a representative trustee board creates behaviour that fails to minimise expenses, resulting in lower returns for for-profit funds. That fund features such as size and benefit structure were not significant determinants of performance simply allows greater explanatory power to be attributed to agency costs for the stark performance between not-for-profit and for-profit funds. This study expands upon prior studies to provide a quantitative figure on the adverse effect of agency costs upon superannuation funds. Whilst Coleman et al. (2006) published a thoroughly researched articles, there are some methodological issues that emerged. A chronic problem was the underreporting of expenses where external expenses were often deducted from the gross return on assets. Therefore explicit figures of external management costs were often unavailable yet still need to be taken into account for the expense ratio. To remedy this, external costs were estimated using the average management ratio reported in the annual returns of 25 pension funds during 2001 or 2002, which is at least on par with (Rice and McEwin, 2002) or is a conservative estimate (Clare, 2001) compared to other studies. This would be more accurate if the sample taken was representative of the superannuation industry and not skewed towards particular cost functions of any fund type. However, it homogenises costs between fund types, which is far from the truth according to Coleman et als results. Subsidies in corporate funds also posed problems, possibly leading to an underestimated expense cost. This is difficult to correct for as subsidies may not be used uniformly, providing only a caveat for potentially understated corporate expense figures. The articles sample time period from 1997 to 2002 may also detrimentally affec t the results. Its relevance to the current superannuation industry can be questioned due to the introduction of the Superannuation Choice Act No. 82 in 2005. Future research should determine whether member fund choice has affected performance or fees. Fund behaviour may have altered in order to gain competitive advantage, e.g. increased advertisements to attract and retain members. The survey period of 7 years is sufficient to observe several peaks and troughs, however, whether these trends are an accurate estimation of performance throughout a members lifetime is uncertain. In Coleman et al. (2006), the results of the Jensen alpha multiple index model suggested that corporate and public sector funds had more active management which allowed them to reap higher returns throughout the sample period. This contrasts Drew and Stanford (2003), who subscribes to the Efficient Market Hypothesis which states that securities markets are informationally efficient. Hence, profit is already max imised and active management strategies are futile. A longer time frame of study should be adopted in the future in order to ensure the long term trend is captured, particularly since retirement savings is also a long term goal. Whilst Coleman et al. (2006) delivered a thorough analysis of investment performance by fund type, they acknowledged that they the experiment was not completely controlled. Differing allocation strategies can influence investment growth and this would create bias in the results if fund types were correlated with particular asset allocation and growth trends. For example, where retail funds tend towards more conservative asset allocation than not-for-profit funds (Ellis et al., 2008). Evidence of the alignment of asset allocation in the data was displayed by the high correlation between fund performance with a known balanced asset allocation. However, Ellis et al. (2008) improve the analysis further by directly controlling for asset allocation through anal ysing performance by investment option. This controls for the varying risk preferences and financial products utilised by fund members, synchronising fund type analysis. Ellis et al.s (2008) results showed that expenses and taxes were the only significant determinant of investment performance. It confirms Coleman et al.s (2006) findings, where net return relative to a benchmark return for retail funds in a standardised default option significantly underperformed the other fund types. Underperformance and higher costs in retails funds reflect the agency costs associated with for-profit funds as the trustee board struggle between attaining pension fund growth and earning profit. Hence Coleman et al.s (2006) are evidently robust and exposed the varying performances of pension fund types.