Luke Jones, a Brit who was an Estate Agent in the USA for nearly a decade, came to chat on the WatkinSofa in January 2021 to chat about the differences between UK Estate Agents vs US Estate Agents.

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NSBO, Charter House, 33 Fore Street, Cullompton, EX15 1JS, Devon
https://www.nsbo.org.uk

Posted by The Staff at the NSBO Office:

NSBO, Charter House, 33 Fore Street, Cullompton, EX15 1JS, Devon
https://www.nsbo.org.uk

It seems that there is no end to all this grief and uncertainty!

I can't imagine what must be going through the minds of the Ukrainian people at the moment. I am stunned that such a thing could happen in Europe, in this day and age. Putin is as bad as Trump, with his childish rhetoric, and inability to run a country in a professional and ethical manner. They both deserve serious jail time, and I hope that the Russian people rise up and put an end to all this pain and suffering, death and destruction.

We all have enough problems to deal with in this life, without those in power, making things worse!

Our thoughts, hopes and best wishes are with the people of Ukraine.

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NSBO, Charter House, 33 Fore Street, Cullompton, EX15 1JS, Devon
https://www.nsbo.org.uk

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Posted by The Staff at the NSBO Office:

NSBO, Charter House, 33 Fore Street, Cullompton, EX15 1JS, Devon
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Episode 3: Embracing the founder mindset with great time management Spend Your Time Right is a digital series where Amazon Business UK & Ireland General Manager Molly Dobson speaks to experts from different fields on a universal topic - the concept of time: its importance, its management, the challenges it throws up, how to save it, and how to spend it well.

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Posted by The Staff at the NSBO Office:

NSBO, Charter House, 33 Fore Street, Cullompton, EX15 1JS, Devon
https://www.nsbo.org.uk

Posted by The Staff at the NSBO Office:

NSBO, Charter House, 33 Fore Street, Cullompton, EX15 1JS, Devon
https://www.nsbo.org.uk

Dear Members,

I hope you are all well, and managing to survive through these crazy times.
I have been working on the new Website Directories page, slowly adding more counties, and advertisers (long job!). I have already managed to create 12 county pages so far.

While doing this work, I was utterly stunned by the number of businesses that have simply closed permanently, and shut down their websites. I estimate that between 40% and 50% of the businesses, which I collected from Kompass.com (a big international directory), are now dead in the water. I knew things were bad, but I had no idea of just how bad things had become. There was around 6 million businesses in the UK pre-pandemic, and I know that this number had fallen to around 5.6 million last year. I hate to think what the number is now!

It was also the range of businesses that have closed down which shocked me, which includes almost every type of business there is (including shops, restaurants, offices, garages, plumbers etc.). Even website builders, graphic designers, and other businesses that generally work from home (low overheads), have shut down.

As is my nature, I am still positive about the future, but I will be glad to see an end to these troubled times, even though it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel at the moment, with the price of everything ballooning, as we slowly come out of the pandemic.

Regards
Max
NSBO

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NSBO, Charter House, 33 Fore Street, Cullompton, EX15 1JS, Devon
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Posted by The Staff at the NSBO Office:

NSBO, Charter House, 33 Fore Street, Cullompton, EX15 1JS, Devon
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New  years resolutions…In case you want to exercise more in 2022, ponder this:

• The inventor of the treadmill died at the age of 54.
• The inventor of gymnastics died at the age of 57.
• The world bodybuilding champion died at the age of 41.
• The best footballer in the world, Maradona, died at the age of 60.
• James Fuller Fixx, credited with helping start America's fitness revolution by popularizing the sport of running, died of a heart attack while jogging at age 52.

  BUT ...

• The KFC inventor died at 94.
• Cigarette maker Charles Winston died at the age of 102.
• The inventor of opium died at the age of 116, in an earthquake.
• And, the Hennessey Liquor inventor died at 98.

How did smart people come to the conclusion that exercise prolongs life?

The rabbit is always jumping up and down, but it lives for only two years, and the turtle, that doesn't exercise at all, lives 400 years.

Oh yes of course, Hugh Hefner died at 90 on the job ( or shortly thereafter)

So in 2022  chill, stay cool, eat, drink and enjoy your life!

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Dear Members,

I know that 2021 has been another difficult year for business owners in the UK, and with Omicron on the rise, it is likely going to be another stressful time in 2022.

I wish you all the very best for 2022, and I hope that these variants prove to be a storm in a teacup, and things get back to some sort of normality, very soon!

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Join Us FREE, Click the Link Below!
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Four female founders from our 10,000 Small Businesses UK programme discuss what it’s like to run a business, how they maintain work-life balance, and their advice to others considering starting their own business. Goldman Sachs

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1) Jeff Bezos - Amazon - 0:00
2) Steve Jobs - Apple - 0:12
3) Pierre Omidyar - eBay - 0:33
4) Michael Dell - Dell - 0:59
5) Sergey Brin - Google 1:16
6) Biz Stone - Twitter 1:35
7) Gary Vaynerchuk - Wine Library 1:50
8) Daniel Ek - Spotify - 1:58
9) Kevin Rose - Digg, Tiiny - 2:29
10) James Altucher - 'Choose Yourself' - 2:55
11) Robert Greene - 'Mastery' - 3:21
12) Guy Kawasaki - Apple - 3:35
13) Steve Wozniak - Apple - 4:06
14) Mark Cuban - Broadcast - 4:26
15) Sam Altman - Loopt - 5:01
16) Tony Fadell - Nest - 5:12
17) Danae Ringelmann -Indiegogo - 5:26
18) Simon Sinek - 'Start With Why' - 5:46
19) Seth Godin - Marketing guru - 6:25
20) Evan Williams - Blogger, Twitter, Medium - 6:52
21) Reid Hoffman - LinkedIn - 7:13
22) Jack Dorsey - Twitter, Square - 7:45
23) Kevin Systrom - Instagram - 8:08
24) Drew Houston - DropBox - 8:34
25) Brian Chesky - Airbnb - 8:53
26) Peter Thiel - PayPal - 9:04
27) Elon Musk - Tesla, SpaceX - 9:14
28) Alan Schaaf - Imgur - 9:36
29) Chris Sacca - Baller Investor - 9:56
30) Paul Graham - Y Combinator - 10:18
31) Dennis Crowley - foursquare - 10:40
32) Eric Ries - The Lean Startup - 11:11
33) Leah Busque - TaskRabbit - 11:25
34) Anthony Casalena - Squarespace - 11:44
35) Alexis Ohanian - Reddit, Hipmunk - 12:03
36) Jason Fried, Basecamp - 12:21
37) Palmer Luckey - Oculus Rift - 12:42
38) Kamal Ravikant - AngelList - 12:52
39) Ben Silbermann - Pinterest - 13:19
40) Tony Hsieh - Zappos - 13:43
41) Andrew Mason - Groupon - 14:14
42) Richard Branson - Virgin - 14:39
43) Andrew Ljung - Soundcloud - 15:08
44) Justin Kan - Justin.tv - 15:30
45) Jessica Livingston - Y Combinator - 15:59
46) Mark Zuckerberg - Facebook - 16:14
47)  Marc Andreessen - Andreessen Horowitz - 16:15
48) Dustin Moskovitz - Facebook - 17:22
49) Tim Ferriss - 4 Hour Work Week - 17:47
50) Emmett Shear - Twitch - 18:24

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I'm going to give you some of the best startup business ideas for 2021 and more importantly how to find small business ideas that work for you.
Having a business should be fun and exciting right? That's why want to show you some simple strategies for finding business ideas that you'll love. In this video, I'm also going to show you how to get clients before you've even started your business so that you can tell if your startup business idea is going to be a success or not. ... and finally, I'm going to tell you the best UK business ideas for 2021 by looking at recent trends. Ross Welch

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NSBO, Charter House, 33 Fore Street, Cullompton, EX15 1JS, Devon
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Ever feel like your boss just doesn't understand you? That's because they don't—and that's especially true when it comes to flexible working.
Future Forum, a research group backed by Slack, runs its quarterly “Pulse” survey of 10,000 knowledge workers alongside focus groups with their bosses across six countries, including the US and UK. For the latest iteration, the Pulse study focused on the lockdown-imposed home-working experiment and the slow return to the office—and it'll come as no surprise to find out that management are rather more keen to see staff at their desks than leave them working from home.
The study showed that executives are more than twice as likely to want to get back to the office full time—every single working day, just like in the “before times”—than their employees, with 44 percent of executives longing for their commutes and fluorescent lighting versus 17 percent of their staff. Some bosses are willing to offer a bit of flexibility, with two-thirds of execs saying they want to work in the office most of the time or all of the time.
But staff—or, as the survey identifies them, “non-executive” knowledge workers—don't agree. More than three-quarters (76 percent) said they want flexibility in whether they work from home or the office, and even more, 93 percent, want flexibility in when they work.

It is an interesting report, and worth a read!

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If you’re like a lot of managers and leaders out there looking to motivate staff members, the following scenario should sound eerily familiar:

You finally have your dream team in place. You’ve hired selectively, waiting for just the right fit for each role. These are people with stellar backgrounds and proven track records of success. On paper, these individuals are poised to contribute to your culture and help take your department – and your business – to the next level.

how to motivate employees

If you’re like a lot of managers and leaders out there looking to motivate staff members, the following scenario should sound eerily familiar:

You finally have your dream team in place. You’ve hired selectively, waiting for just the right fit for each role. These are people with stellar backgrounds and proven track records of success. On paper, these individuals are poised to contribute to your culture and help take your department – and your business – to the next level.

To their credit, your team started strong. They came out the gate with fresh ideas and energy.

But lately… not so much.

These days your team seems to be fine going through the motions. That star performer who put up those crazy numbers in her first three months? She’s hit a plateau, and lately her work product has the telltales signs of complacency – sloppiness, surface-level analysis, and an overall lack of creativity.

The frustrating thing is you know how great they can be. You’ve seen them at their best, but for the moment, the spark seems to have gone out

The good news? This is an entirely fixable problem.

Before you decide to clean house (a terrible idea!), remember that there are proven ways you can reignite that spark you once saw in your team.

We’ve talked to employee motivation and engagement experts to narrow down the 23 best tips to motivate your people and elevate their performance to optimal levels once again.

1. Recognize a Job Well Done

How will recognition motivate my employees? Managers and HR pros may be on the fence about incorporating recognition programs at their companies, but here’s why it’s a great idea.

Recognition creates an emotional connection between employer and employee – a critical piece of employee engagement – and fulfills employees’ basic needs of esteem and belonging within a group.

Our friends at Bonusly, an employee recognition software, suggest using spot bonuses as they’re a simple and effective way to recognize and reward positive behavior.

If you’re new to spot bonuses, it’s a type of “on the spot” bonus where you provide your employees with a reward to show them an appreciation for their hard work. Rewards can be cash, gift cards, or money toward their Lifestyle Spending Accounts.

Because these are given “on the spot,” it helps employees to easily identify what behavior is appreciated by the organization and motivates them to work harder and to build upon these values.