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Worldwide Holidays or Events for February 2012

1st February
Confederal Agreement Day: Senegal.

2nd February
Groundhog Day.

3rd February
Heroes' Day: Mozambique.
San Blas: Paraguay.

4th February
Independence Day: Sri Lanka.

CCM Day: Tanzania.

5th February
Constitution Day: Mexico.
President's Day: Congo.

6th February
Waitangi Day: New Zealand.

7th February
Independence Day: Grenada.
Tet: Vietnam.

8th February
Culture Day: Slovenia.
Revolution Anniversary: Iraq.
Virgen de la Candelaria: Puno, Peru.
Youth Day: Congo.

9th February
Feast of Saint Maron: Lebanon.

10th February
Feast of St. Paul's Shipwreck: Malta.

11th February
Armed Forces Day: Liberia.
Makha Bucha Day: Thailand.
National Foundation Day: Japan.
Youth Day: Cameroon.

12th February
Lincoln's Birthday: United States of America.
Union Day: Myanmar.

14th February
St. Valentine's Day.

15th February
Chinese Spring Festival: Mauritius.
Folklore Day: South Korea.
Revolution Day: Iran.

18th February
Independence Day: Gambia.

19th February
National Day: Nepal.

20th February
Provincial Holiday: Most Canadian Provinces and Territories.
Presidents' Day and Washington's Birthday:
United States of America.: United States of America.

21st February
Shaheed Day: Bangladesh.

22nd February
Independence Day: Saint Lucia.
Union Day: Egypt.

23rd February
National Day: Brunei.
Republic Day: Guyana.

25th February
National Day: Kuwait.
People Power Day: Philippines.

27th February
Independence Day: Dominican Republic.

We try to keep the dates as accurate as possible. Please let us know if there is an omission or incorrect date. Click Here

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Managing Business Debt - 6 Tips to Keep Your Business In The Black By Gilles Herard, Jr. There has been a great financial shake-up of sorts that has taken shape over the past 5 years, around the world. Those who were only concerned with growing their businesses suddenly started becoming aware of debts incurred along the way and found themselves wondering how to curb them, and there are tried and true manners or practices that assist in the process of reducing the amount of debt held by a company. Business debt is for the most part something that all businesses have, as companies and proprietors are generally not cash-rich and therefore need to borrow in order for the business to grow. The problems begin when the amount of debt continues to build and becomes excessive. At this point, there is a good possibility that the company is either losing profit or on the verge of becoming non profitable and the owner needs to begin to make some major decisions on how to tackle the situation. Here are six basic business practices that are widely known that a company can do at this point: 1) Reduce Costs 2) Increase Income 3) Restructure Liabilities 4) Restructure Assets 5) Raise Further Capital 6) Exit the Business Asking a business owner to reduce costs is generally, as the saying goes... easier said than done. The company can look for a big savings, like eliminating a high cost - low return portion of the business or an across-the-board savings, where the company would cut costs by a determined percentage on all expenses. These decisions are not made lightly but are nevertheless a step in reducing business debt. There are three basic ways to for a business to increase income and those include: 1) increasing sales, 2) raising the price of the products sold, and 3) seeking alternative streams. Increasing sales is certainly something that all businesses seek to achieve but the difficultly lies in determining those particular actions that will be successful. For instance, a company may decide to offer special programs or discounts to referral customers or those who make advanced purchases. Also, some may look into the idea of adjusting the marketing aspects being used and make the necessary adjustments. Or, a company could just raise prices. This can be and generally is a very delicate thing and can backfire should the increase be out of the realm that consumers are willing to pay. Lastly, a business may decide to look to alternatives such as: selling advertising with the physical location or website, renting any available space, or selling any unused products. By definition, the liability a company has is the combination of what is owed to others and generally in the form of cash or money. The particular part of restructuring liabilities is the word 'restructure' as this process does not necessarily reducing the overall amount indebted but rearranging the terms of the liabilities that can lead to increased cash on hand. Some of those techniques would include: - Negotiate payment terms with exiting suppliers - Refinance present loans to secure lower interest rates or even consolidate all loans - An additional option that may require assistance from an accountant is to defer certain tax liabilities should such be an option.     Adland Digest Sponsor Message If You're NOT Banking at least $1,000 Daily - This IS A Must See... How would you like to hear about a generous comp plan that allows you to put immediate $200 to $1000 fast start bonuses in your bank account with weekly and monthly residuals to boot! A NEW product category that has an audience of millions and which is only getting bigger every single month? A product that is patented which means it can't be knocked off...EVER This Must See Webinar Reveals All. Click here to visit Be a sponsor. Place your ad here. (Spot II)   Most of if not all the above options are those that one cannot control exclusively as another party needs to be involved and be willing to accept any renegotiation that takes place. By that same token, some may not make sense at a certain time depending on the current financial climate. For instance, if your present interest rate is lower than what is being offered in the market, it would most likely not be beneficial to the company to do this. As always, any company should take the time to perform the necessary due diligences before embarking on any reduction techniques. There is also the possibility of restructuring the assets portion of a balance sheet. For a novice reader's knowledge, the assets of a company are those objects currently owned. A few of the different restructuring techniques for the assets include: - Utilizing current investments or even cash to pay down or off outstanding loans - A lease back option - Meaning selling an asset to a finance company and lease such back - Factor the invoices - The object here is to reduce the asset value of the invoice but raise cash Or, a company can decide to sell off any surplus or old equipment and even in some certain situations sell current assets. Raising capital is most likely not a new idea for many business owners as in most cases the current business operations began by either borrowing funds from venture capitalists or even family members. Therefore, this is generally the starting point to raising the needed capital to continue operations. The company could and would most likely need to issue more shares to accommodate the increase in capital by current investors. An alternative would be to go outside the current investors and locate new persons or companies who would be willing to join the present investment group or perform a buyout of the current investors. Either way, most likely an appropriate portion of ownership will need to be yielded. Also, and depending on the type of business one is in, the possibility exists of researching and obtaining grants from local or federal governments to increase the capital supply. Depending on the steps taken and how the additional funding is executed, the ownership structure prior to the funding need will change and as will the pressure to be successful with the additional investment. Finally, the last method in dealing with excess debt is to actually exist the business altogether. Certainly this path to reducing one's debt is the least desirable but under certain circumstances it is inevitable. Luckily there are some options. The most common would be to sell off all the business assets - including any goodwill or client list - that can be utilized to pay down or off the business liabilities. Secondly, there is the possibility of selling the business as it currently stands - a going concern - whereby another group would purchase the company most likely out right and remove the owner. Third, there is a technique that can be quite effective but also extremely damaging to any business endeavour, and that is going into receivership (or as is more commonly known, corporate bankruptcy). Debt is part and parcel of running a business, but it should not become an unmanageable burden. About the Author: Gilles Herard, Jr is a seasoned Merchant Banker and has been in the banking industry for nearly 40 years. He worked early in his career at the Toronto Dominion Bank (Canada) and later on joined Manufacturer Hanover (MH) of New York as Senior Credit Analyst. He eventually created his own Firm, Capital Corp Merchant Banking, where he syndicates and structures funding for top companies worldwide, all the while investing his own firm's funds into the projects. As the head of Capital Corp Merchant Banking, Mr Herard has become a leading figure in international middle-market project financing and engineers all funding structures for projects at Capital Corp. Mr Herard has received numerous awards for his work and other contributions. http://www.gillesherard.com http://www.capitalcorpmerchantbanking.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gilles_Herard,_Jr.   Adland Digest Sponsor Message Be a sponsor. Place your ad here. (Spot III)   3 Great Ideas For Marketing Your Business By J Allen Reeves There are many ideas for marketing your business that you'll find all over the Internet, from your friends, and from your colleagues. And many of them will work, too. The problem with asking people like that for help with your marketing ideas is that they're going to be biased based on what was good for THEM, not what will be good for you. In this article, I'm going to show you 3 easy to implement ideas for marketing your business. These will work for both online and offline businesses. The best part about these ideas for marketing your business is that not only will they get people looking at your website, they'll also bring targeted visitors. After all, I'd much rather have 10 targeted visitors than 100 visitors who aren't targeted! With that said, let's get right into it. 1) Article Marketing - As you can see right now, you are reading an article from me. It's obvious that you're interested because you're still reading. The best part about article marketing is that not only does it give you more credibility, it can also be done very easily and the visitors you get are extremely qualified. If you spend just one hour, or even 30 minutes, per day writing articles... you'll eventually develop a very constant flow of new visitors to your site. And those visitors are some of the most highly targeted visitors you can ever find! 2) Integration Marketing - One very little known idea for marketing your business is something I like to call integration marketing. This simply means that you're integrating with somebody elses business to get in front of the other person's readers. Why is it so effective? Because if they have a great relationship with that other person, they're going to instantly trust any recommendation that person gives. It's like you telling your friends about a great movie! There are many ways to do this... one of the simplest ways is to give away a valuable piece of content to other people's products when they sell them. 3) Guest Blog Posts - The last great idea we'll cover today is writing guest blog posts for people in your industry who aren't direct competitors. This is a very, very easy way to get quick traffic that's highly targeted since they're already reading a blog post by someone in your industry. Plus, you get the transferred credibility of the other person. Another great aspect of this is that it results not only in big spikes of traffic when the article goes live, but also trickles of traffic if that blog post starts ranking for certain keywords in the search engines. Plus, if you write good articles and can get a regular column, you can become an established leader in your field very quickly! As you can see, these are only 3 great ideas for marketing your business. While that might not seem like a lot, most of the time it's better to focus on just three ideas to market your business instead of trying to do 20 different activities at once. I hope these ideas for marketing your business have helped you, and I hope you'll use them!   About the Author: Jeremy Reeves is an online conversion and profit strategist. Through his little-known unique and innovative profit-boosting techniques, he's added tens of millions of dollars to his clients bottom-line in EXTRA revenue. You can grab his FREE report, "The 3x3 Formula For Doubling Your Profits In 60 Days Or Less" In his report you'll get a step-by-step blueprint for doubling your profits... written in a way that's easy to read and understand. To get your FREE copy, just head on over to http://www.3x3Formula.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=J_Allen_Reeves
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