Boogles Blog

CoreLegal – provider of legal support services - has brought together three leading speakers in their field to stage a half-day (3 hour CPD) seminar in London to discuss the highly topical question of ‘How To Grow Your Practice – By Organic Growth, Merger Or Acquisition?’ The seminar follows on from last November’s sell-out event ‘Outcomes Focused Regulation – What It Is And How To Achieve It’.

Specialists Dave Mort, Jon Hepburn and Ray Fox will all be giving key presentations on the day, calling upon their practical experience in the fields of legal services sector research, business development and helping Solicitors sell, merge or value their practices. Attendees will be able to get the inside track from some of the best brains in the business and discuss the issues with fellow professionals.

Dave Mort, Director of IRN Research – says “Whilst no industry possesses a crystal ball to predict the future, there are real opportunities for innovative high street law firms looking to expand. This seminar will highlight those opportunities and will give useful, practical advice on how law firms can grow.”

This CoreLegal seminar is open to all law firms. Sessions will cover:

-          Changing business models and working with others to keep the business growing

-          Business development tips for law firms staying independent

-          How to grow through merger or acquisition

The event also provides an excellent opportunity to network following the presentations.

Date:   Friday 25th May 2012.  Price: £60  Time: 2:00 - 5:00pm (arrive by 1:45pm please)

Venue: The Bloomsbury Suite, Hotel Russell, 1-8 Russell Square,

London, WC1B 5BE   http://www.londonrussellhotel.co.uk

Tube:   Russell Square (Piccadilly Line)

Delegates can book online at http://lawfirmbusinessdevelopment-es1.eventbrite.com/?srnk=1

For further information, please contact Jason Cobine on 07817 252226 or 020 7371 2812

E: jason@cobinecarmelson.com

Ends.

Notes:

(i)         CoreLegal is an alliance of brilliant minds and talent to support you - the legal profession. A one-stop shop for solicitors who want solutions now. Find out more at http://www.corelegal.net

Copied from Yahoo: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/can-you-do-this-maths-test-.html

“Can you do this maths test?”

Q1. To clean a work surface, how much bleach is needed in half a litre of water?

CONCENTRATED BLEACH
Use diluted
- for work surfaces and basins (40ml bleach in five litres water)
- for bleaching whites (20ml bleach in five litres water)
Soak for no longer than 45 minutes, rinse thoroughly

A) 2ml
B) 2.5ml
C) 4ml
D) 20ml

Q2. How much bleach do I need to use in 2 litres of water to bleach whites?

CONCENTRATED BLEACH
Use diluted
- for work surfaces and basins (40ml bleach in five litres water)
- for bleaching whites (20ml bleach in five litres water)
Soak for no longer than 45 minutes, rinse thoroughly

A) 5 litres
B) 20ml
C) 10ml
D) 8ml

Q3. The jacket potatoes and chicken joints have to be ready at 7.45 sharp.
When should Mick start to prepare them?

Chicken joints: five minutes to prepare, 35 minutes to cook.
Jacket potatoes: 15 minutes to prepare. One and a quarter hours to cook.

A) Potatoes at 6.15 and chicken at 7.05
B) Potatoes at 6.45 and chicken at 7.15
C) Potatoes at 6.30 and chicken at 7.05
D) Potatoes at 6.15 and chicken at 7.30

Q4. Four friends have joined a gym to lose weight and get fit. After one month they recorded their weight loss on a chart.  How much weight have they lost between them?

Weight loss after one month

Jo – 500 grams
Hasran – 1 kilograms
Kevin – 1 kilograms 200grams
Cathy – 750 grams

A) 2 kilograms
B) 2 kilograms 450 grams
C) 3 kilograms
D) 3 kilograms 450 grams

It is shocking if adults cannot figure these things out. But, we stay - start off young, and maths is a life skill that you will use over and over and over again….

Our CD for kids aged 5-11years is a start: www.boogles.biz

For the answers - scroll down

Answers

Q1. C - 4ml
Q2. D - 8ml
Q3. A - Potatoes at 6.15 and chicken at 7.05
Q4. D - 3kg 450g

Greece has been extended (another) life-line. They’ll be getting €130 billion, with some conditions attached - i.e. to reduce national debt from 160% to 120% of GDP with 8 years… The question is - how do you get to a point where you ‘earn’ £100, but yet ’spend’ £160? When is the last time you took a serious look at what you were spending? Everyone always seems to have a rough idea of income.. but what about the expenses? Have to checked lately to see if your expenses are out of control??

Standard & Poors have downgraded the USA’s triple A rating… my only question is…. what took them so long ?! The USA have just extended their overdraft … which is already at 13 Trillion Dollars !!! Its outrageous.

Word of warning for you all out there - just because it was AAA in the past… doesn’t mean its AAA now…. times have changed… and are changing… The power is moving EAST.

A lot of well-known businesses and countries trade on their ‘past achievements’ but the current reality is that they’re not all that they’re cracked up to be (any more)… and the businesses trading with them - need to be aware of this.

Otherwise, you can easily find yourself in a position where you are owed hundreds of thousands of pounds…. and you’ve NO CHANCE OF GETTING IT BACK.

Interesting times….

Another set of regulations is set to fall on the shoulders of all employers. This time it’s a compulsory pension scheme for all employees.

To prepare for these new regulations talk to your pension scheme provider, if you have one. If you don’t have a workplace pension scheme you need to plan to set one up as this can take sometime to implement, and to start budgeting for the costs!

Taken from: accounting-help.co.uk

There is a lot of news lately about ‘Free Schools’, and if you are a parent - maybe you should be concerned. For those of you that don’t know Free Schools are based on the same ethos as acadamies; They are free to set their own budgets their own curriculum’s, their own hours and are even free from local council control… its a free market!

In September between 10-20 of these schools are set to open. This month, the Guardian reported that the walkout over pension changes could lead to the closure of up to 20,000 primary and secondary schools in England and the government has yet to reveal the cost of the free school project… it doesn’t seem to make any sense! To top it off there is no guarantee to parents that there will be good places available to their children. A uni professor has raised concerns that these schools could take the best teachers, pupils and funding away from already failing schools…

All kids just need a fair chance. A level playing field. One where merit does actually count for something!

But right now, it doesn’t seem to exist. It’s a postcode lottery. If you can afford to live in a good area, with a good school - your life chances are better than those who don’t.

So, taking your child’s education into your own hands is important, now more than ever just giving them a little head start with their learning can make all the difference especially with 1 in 4 kids leaving primary school unable to read or write properly. Yes 25% of primary school pupils, at leaving age - are being failed by the system. Has the government addressed this issue? No, it has taken a little paper like the Evening Standard to launch a literacy campaign!

Take a look at boogles.eu - we have maths books & games aimed at 5-11 yr olds which try and make learning the concept of maths and money a fun experience. There is also a FREE membership club for kids and plenty of games and puzzles to try.

Today in the news we are told ‘that poor spelling is costing the uk millions of pounds in lost revenue for internet businesses’. Apparently it is so common place and the money being wasted  by customers put off by these mistakes is very high.

You think that such a mistake would be unlikely given that spell check is so easily available and you would proof read before posting anything online, this seems rather silly and poor common sense. But it has become such a big problem ‘that too many employers are having to invest in remedial literacy lessons for their staff’.

Businesses do not need the added expense of having to fund this problem, or have the time to spend on training staff how to spell! In today’s financial climate such a waste of resources is unthinkable. When setting up a business there are lots of aspects to consider and some things just get taken for granted, If you want helpful ideas on starting a new business or fresh ideas to make your current one work more efficiently for you check out www.business21c.net.

Learn what makes a successful business model and how not to waste money but increase your revenue, have a look at the free e book and put yorself and your business at an advantage.

In the news today the Federation of Small Businesses says that late payments are still a big problem for small businesses. 56% of small businesses said that they had written off invoices worth between £1 and £9,000 because of non payment, of those small firms that had been paid late in the year the FSB said that 77% had been hit by late payments from other companies. That is a staggering amount and such a waste of money. In the current economic climate every penny counts and for small businesses a late payment can mean not being able to pay employees.

In 2008 around 4000 businesses collapsed because of late payments, don’t be one of those businesses that fail when this problem can be so easily rectified. You need a credit controller, or a bookkeeper who can do a little bit of your credit control for you.
Don’t let bad accounting disrupt your cash flow, use your company’s time and resources on something more productive than on chasing payments!

In reading a Profit & Loss account - it’s important to look at your expenses to see where the majority of your money is going…

One key thing to keep an eye on are the telephone / internet charges - remembering that it’s not just business expenses, but personal expenses like this should also be reviewed regularly too. Maybe you got a good tariff / deal a few years ago, and haven’t looked at it since. Or maybe your usage/ consumption patterns have changed?

A recent deal which caught our eye was: UK Best Value Mobile Phone Tariff… 500 minutes, unlimited texts, (sim only)… £10 per month !!!

If you go on the ValueMax tariff - its UNLIMITED minutes, unlimited texts, £20 pm! Shop around. Don’t be wasting money in these times.

Check out: www.Telecomplus.org.uk/Boogles

So it’s 2011 – a decade of the 21^st century has officially passed, and where has it got us? To understand where we are today, it’s helpful to look back into time, as a reference point. We’ve come through various ‘ages’ from Fred Flintstone’s stone age, to the current day information age. In a nutshell – the agrarian age was where we worked the land, and the best position to have was to be a land owner. Then along came the factories and we moved into the industrial age. The best type of business to be in was to be manufacturing / making something and to own plant / equipment / the factory. Then since around the 1950s…we’ve been making a move (slowly at first, then more rapidly), into the Information age – and we have a lot of ‘knowledge’ at our fingertips. But what is the best type of people to be in? Something technological?

The 21^st century brings with it plenty of opportunity and excitement for business, but also its challenges and difficulties too. The impact which computers, mobile phones and technology has had on our life cannot be ignored – but what impact does it have on your decision to start a business? Or the type of business which you want to get into?

The book ‘The 21^st Century Business Model’ looks at the ideal type of qualities which your business ought to have, to be a success in this century. We may well be in the knowledge / information age, but how do you make a business in this? With sites such as ‘wiki leaks’ and phones being tapped for information – there’s a lot ‘out there’ in the public sphere about us, (true and false), which we may or may not be very happy about. Creating and managing reputation has been a very 21^st Century activity. One massive social change about life in this century, is that we’re living a lot longer – and this socio-economic shift in the demographics of society is going to have a huge effect and will shape the future of many businesses to come. Producing a product (be it in leisure, health, travel, IT, media, house & home), aimed at the over 60s – is likely to do very well over the coming years…. Just because they’ll be so much of them – and as a group ‘pensioners’ will have a much more positive association than it does now.

Naturally, you’ll probably need a bookkeeper to manage the books of this 21^st century business – and we’ll be here, but it’s an interesting concept of where we’re heading, the ideal type of business to be in, and what changes are ‘bound’ to happen. If you think back to the year 2000 and the turn of this century – it was only 10 years ago, but the landscape was very different. We had the dot com bubble, yet (even then) there was no google, no facebook and no twitter. These businesses have come out of no where and are household names today despite probably never having ‘advertised’ in the traditional way in which we know it – millions of users, daily, globally. Can you think of a business that you can do, which can perform like that?

Find out more here: www.The21stCenturyBusinessModel.com