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Protecting Your Business: Important Considerations For Purchasing Liability Insurance

If you own a business, the costs of a lawsuit could cost you everything; in an effort to cut operating costs, many may fail to go without liability insurance, figuring their chances of being sued are low. But, in a world where frivolous claims and sue-happy people are rampant, it would be foolish to think you do not need that protection just in case. Here are some important considerations for purchasing this all-important protection for your business.

Look into Trade Association Memberships

In many instances, you can purchase products and services at a discounted rate through membership in some sort of organization. When it comes to liability insurance, belonging to a trade association relevant to your business may help you get better rates; this type of membership may also other benefits to your business so it is something worth considering regardless.

Look for a Broker that Specializes in Your Industry

Different industries have different needs when it comes to insurance and other types of products; they each also face unique challenges and have unique concerns. When shopping for liability insurance for your business, you should look for a broker that specializes in your industry. His knowledge of your type of of business and the risks it faces will help guide you in putting together the best policy to meet your needs at the best prices.

Examine Industry Settlements

When deciding on the proper amount of coverage, it is important to have an idea of what type of money you may be looking at should you get sued. Take a look at recent legal actions and settlements against businesses similar to yours. This will help you get an accurate estimate of how much money you would need to fully protect yourself.

Consider a Combination Policy

Liability insurance is not the only type of coverage a business should have. Maintaining separate policies will often result in paying more in premiums than you need to. But, when going this route, it is important to have a full understanding of what is included and what is not. These policies do not typically include all types of business insurance you are interested in purchasing. Examples of what is typically included besides general liability are property, business interruption and business vehicles.

Errors and omissions insurance, also called professional liability insurance, needs to be purchased separately. While general liability insurance is designed to cover things such as injury or property damage, this type of coverage is designed to protect against claims of professional negligence in which a customer believes your services caused them a financial loss.

Check Coverage Periodically

Your liability insurance is not just set it and forget it; as your business grows, it is important to carefully review your policy each year to see if any changes need to be made. After working so hard to build your business, you would not want to risk it because you failed to upgrade your coverage. If you feel you may need to make changes, contact your broker who can offer you sound advice.

About the Author: Kelli Cooper is a freelance writer who blogs about a variety of business topics; if you are in need of liability or other types of commercial insurance in Canada, she recommends you visit Kanetix.ca.

Disabled Access Considerations When Moving Your Business To The High Street

These days, thanks to modern technology, many businesses start their lives online. It is a good way of keeping costs down while the business becomes established. As it grows over time the natural move is to have permanent headquarters or a retail outlet that is physical rather than digital.

As online entrepreneurs know one area that is now under UK law is ensuring the website is disabled access friendly. If the site isn’t accessible your business could face legal action and be sued for discrimination. As you move into permanent premises you must also carry over the accessibility and this is an area you can work on right from the moment you get handed the keys.

A Large Task But It Doesn’t Have to be Daunting

Now you may feel a little out of your depth when it comes to improving the accessibility of your new premises. However, just because the task may seem huge it doesn’t mean that you can afford to ignore it or push it to the back of your to do list. By failing to conduct suitable changes to make the property more accessible you leave yourself open to being sued by employees or customers that feel you are discriminating against them.

There is help available out there so don’t go thinking that you need to read the Equality Act inside and out. The experts will be able to give you the information you need based upon your business, the size and location of your premises and be able to use your budget as a guideline to work out what is affordable. If it is impossible to make dramatic changes all at once the expert may be able to help you by establishing what needs to be worked on as a priority, how you can save money, where to source affordable goods, equipment and labour and what could wait a bit longer.

Doing Renovations Before You Move In?

When you undertake any renovations you must consider the disability access. This is why working with an access consultant right from the get go will benefit you greatly. You can hire them for very little money and their services can help you in many different areas. Make sure that you hire a consultant who is more than happy to discuss any necessary work with your architects and designers. This saves time and money by reducing the need to redo work later for additional costs.

You may have to request planning permission and this can be a long and drawn out process. After months of waiting many applicants have their plans turned down, another frustration. Access consultants are able to help you through the planning permission process. Showing that some parts of the design are required to provide a much better service for the community, by allowing improved access, can help to push through successful planning applications. So when you come to looking for a professional expert to help you, ask them whether they would be happy to help you in this area should it be necessary in the future.

Thinking of the Needs of Everyone

As a modern online business you made sure that your website was user friendly. Now as you have grown and decided to open a physical business you must carry those work ethics and legal responsibilities over to your new premises. Use the consultants to conduct an audit and they will be able to help you spot urgent and required improvements that will allow everyone to make use of your services successfully. By doing so you ensure that your doors are open to everyone and you can become a strong player in your community and your industry by refusing to discriminate.

About the Author: Aki Hashimoto is a business consultant and mentor. She has found that using access audits is the simplest way to overcome the legal documentation and start making steps to create improved disability access.

Old Tricks And Traditional Skills Still Vital To 21st Businesses

You would think, with this being the bright shiny and thoroughly wired 21st Century that the more traditional skills associated with the secretarial world would be thoroughly redundant. However, despite the fact that our lives are dominated by computers, tablets, Smartphone’s and a whole range of peripherals and apps that can be added to them, some traditional skills remain in high demand. From copy typing to audio typing and transcription services, traditional skills still remain in high demand. The latter, in particular, remains a crucial part of content creation for many industries, from humble minute taking to full scale TV transcriptions. Transcription services today are also an important feature for conference organisers and transcription offers a number of significant advantages.

The Bigger Picture

Recording and filming any event was, in the past, a difficult task which required a significant number of professionals and an equally large (and cumbersome) amount of equipment. Today any event, from a pop concert to conference can be (and is) recorded on a phone and the film is often uploaded to the web in seconds. However convenient this may seem it does not replace the need for accurate and professional filming or transcription. In large conference centres where a number of speakers may be talking at one time, or where question and answer sessions are part of the presentation, both professional filming and transcription still have significant advantages. Unlike audio or video files, fully transcribed events offer users a fast look up for significant points and sections. With transcriptions now available digitally, the simple use of the find function can take you straight to the point in a way that no amount of film footage can.

Old Skills and New Methods Combined

Post event publications of transcribed documents have a number of advantages. In terms of web publication, transcription offers a handy SEO tool. The broader the scope of your written content, the more opportunities for lead generation via search engines; again in a way which means that video content alone will not be as beneficial. Also the more traditional print press, while happy to receive audio or visual material, will often rely on transcribed versions of a presentation or conference to make their own jobs easier and making things easy for journalists means they’ll be able to find time to fit your piece in.

Applied Technology

Although transcription is an old skill, long pre-dating the internet, the technological revolution has made the process of finding reliable transcription services easier and more affordable. Most transcription services operate online and transcribers themselves can be located just about anywhere in the world. This has driven down the costs of professional transcription and can open up opportunities for these services. This means any content you need to promote in overseas markets can be quickly made available in a variety of formats or languages. The process is speeded up to almost light speed thanks to modern technology. This gives modern businesses a greater and faster reach than in the past, making it possible for firms of any size to go global.

New Opportunities

While transcription services offer advantages to a range of industries they offer specific advantages to conference organisers in any field. Post conference transcripts can be marketed alongside podcasts as part of a full package for both attendees needing to refer back to the conference and as a valuable product in their own right to sell to a wider market. Working with a professional and established provider makes sense in this context and planning ahead will also make the process run more smoothly. Contacting a transcription service provider well in advance and involving them in the planning of the event will help you both to create a package that suits your needs which will result in a quick and efficient turnaround on the end product. Despite the massive advances in technology and the opportunities that it has opened up for business it seems that some of the oldest tricks are still the best.

About the Author: Pipa Rose is a freelance writer who has a keen interest in business. While technology has made business presentations and conferences far easier and more accessible for many, she believes that many traditional skills such as transcription services still play a crucial role.

Transcription: The Great Unsung Hero Of The Business World

Speaking is (generally) a far more natural and less time consuming process than typing. This is an undeniable fact and as such, ‘typing up’ audio reports can be one of the most frustrating and tedious tasks that befall most of us in the business sector on a daily basis. There is however a select group of flash fingered wizards who can make their brains and their fingers work in tandem to the extent that the spoken word and the written word become almost seamless in their delivery; to them this work is as natural as breathing. These prodigiously talented individuals are known as ‘transcribers’ and they offer a service that has proven invaluable for millions of people in a variety of professions, all over the world.

The History of Transcription

Transcription has been used in various capacities since the early 1900’s, where medical stenographers were hired to document doctor’s work in text. Eventually (with the invention of cassette recorders and later computers) such documents were stored as audio records dictated by the doctors themselves but medical transcriptions are still commonplace. The actual act of transcription itself has over time, bled into many other sectors, primarily the journalism and business sectors where interviews or meetings are often transcribed in full. Before the invention of audio recording devices, transcription was an incredibly difficult process that required transcribers to use shorthand to write down speech as it was being spoken. The introduction of handheld Dictaphones in the 90’s made the job of transcribers immeasurably easier and now that most Dictaphones use mp3 technology, the audio data can quite easily be recorded and then emailed to a third party transcription service. Various ‘auto transcription’ software packages have recently started to reveal themselves online but they are largely unreliable (the intricacies of human speech are still beyond even the most powerful computers) and require absolutely crystal clear, perfectly pronounced speech to operate properly, which is very rare in most professional circumstances.

What is Transcription?

The job of transcribers is (literally) to transcribe. One of the most common forms of transcription is when transcribers are hired to take either an audio recording or live dictation and then transcribe the contents into text. Examples of where this sort of transcription might be used in the workplace include court hearings (court reporters are essentially transcribers in all but title), seminars and speeches, all of which can be converted from spoken content into text. Perhaps the most obvious use of a transcription service would be in television where transcription is required to produce subtitles. Transcription has only recently become a mainstream career option thanks to the advent of high-speed internet and the almost ubiquitous availability of personal computers. It is a job that is free of the restraints of traditional 9-5 office work and as such, most transcribers will either work freelance or will work for transcription companies but will do so from the comfort of their own homes. Transcribers will charge their clients either by time spent or work done so it will either be on a ‘per word’ or ‘per minute’ basis. Larger transcription firms will deal exclusively with private law firms, TV studios or government agencies but there are firms who will offer their services to anyone for a price.

What Goes into a Transcript?

The industry standard time for producing a transcript from a piece of audio is approximately one hour for each 15 minute chunk of audio. This means that live transcription is rare. In the few cases where it is used, translations tend to be unreliable at best as there is no time for transcribers to go back and check for errors or refine their text. In many situations however (such as live television) a broadcast might be delayed ever so slightly, to give the transcribers time to refine and correct their words before they are broadcast.

What else can a Transcription Company offer?

Besides straight English audio to English text, many transcription companies will employ staff members versed in a variety of languages so translation is usually an (incredibly useful) option. Post production work might also be offered, which is especially import for television work where specific time-codes, logs, musical cues and shot descriptions are generally necessary.

If you’re serious about your work then hiring professional transcribers might be the best decision you ever make. These workers have a number of valuable skills and their fingers can work as fast as their mouths (if not faster). What’s more, their lightning quick work (many companies offer 24 hour turnarounds) will save you countless hours as time is arguably the most important commodity in any business.

About the Author: Pipa Rose is a writer who understands that transcription has now become an essential part of industries such as television production. Television companies use from take 1, transcription services to help them produce professional and informative shows.

A Day in The Life of a Wall Street Trader

If you’re interested in becoming a Wall Street trader, get ready for an action-packed career that’s full of ups and downs. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the job outlook is set to grow by about 15% through the year 2020, which is about as fast as average. Also, although the median salary is just over $70,000 per year, there are significant fluctuations depending on individual success and general market conditions. Keep reading to learn more about what you might do during a typical day of trading on Wall Street.

Getting Ready for the Day

Because you may be trading in international markets, expect to be an early riser, ready to sit at a desk on the trading floor by about 6:30 every morning. On your way to work, you might use a tablet device or smartphone to read the latest versions of financial newspapers, but as soon as the commute is over, it’s time to hit the trading floor.

What Does a Trading Floor Look Like?

If you’ve ever seen news coverage of the trading floor, your impression might be that it’s all about people yelling at each other and hoping that the markets close in a favorable way. Although these high-pressure trading floors do exist, most of them are more low-key. While working as a trader, you’ll probably notice that most trading floors are big rooms filled with rows of long desks.

Watching the Markets

Traders from the same group often sit near each other and spend their time gazing at monitors that chronicle what the markets are doing. Some traders have several monitors so they can minimize the time spent switching between different windows. As you sit down at your desk, you may have five or more monitors to watch throughout the day.

Besides keeping an eye on the monitors that broadcast news about the markets, you’ll also probably access a financial information service called Bloomberg. It’ll tell you about any stocks you’re interested in via real-time information. The prices for securities changes by the second, but Bloomberg has features that allow you to look at how stocks in certain sectors are performing. That’s particularly useful if you’re a trader who specializes in certain industries like technology or energy.

Making the Trades

Some Wall Street traders deal with hundreds of individual stocks on a daily basis. To make things easier, you’ll use a specially designed platform that allows you to place orders quickly and also look at how pending orders are progressing.

What About Breaks?

Most successful Wall Street traders go to great lengths to make sure they don’t miss any important happenings. This means limiting your bathroom breaks so they’re as short as possible and also having lunch brought to your desk by a secretary, so you can wolf it down while still staying informed of developments.

The Close of the Day

Monitoring the markets is a constant necessity, and even if you see some gains, it’s often hard to relax, due to a slight paranoia that things could change in an instant. Around 5 o’clock, your day on the trading floor is done, but if you’re serious about staying competitive, you’ll continue expanding your knowledge about the financial industry even during off-hours.

As you prepare dinner and get ready for bed, any bits of free time might be filled with the same kind of analysis you started your day with and got engrossed in all day on the trading floor, only so you can feel informed when you wake up and do it all over again.

About the Author: Author Jena Daniels blogs for business sites. Interested in combining your interest in trading with a successful business? One option to prepare for your career is to get an mba degree online from Pepperdine.