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5 Secrets...

5 Secrets to Networking Success

5 Secrets to Networking Success

Networking skills are an absolute must for people looking to grow their business.  One important skill is being able to interact socially. In this article we go over some simple ways to improve your networking success by polishing your social skills.

Social skills help us connect with others, and that’s what networking is, connecting with others. The more often you do something, the more it will become second nature. So make an effort to do the following five things regularly:

Remember to say “please” and “thank you.”

Saying “please” and “thank you” may be so basic that you don’t think it even falls under social skills. Be that as it may, courtesy is so important that it deserves to be listed here, and it’s a large part of what makes up good social skills.

Make proper eye contact

Making eye contact frequently and appropriately can make the difference between coming across as likable or not. Look at the person when you’re speaking with him or her, but without staring, and pay close attention.

Even if you’re one of those people who actually can pay attention when they seem to be preoccupied with other things, maintaining eye contact will let the other person know you are interested. Don’t just pay attention, but make sure the other person knows that you’re listening.

Repeat the other person’s name

In a conversation, be sure to repeat the other person’s name. It will make them feel very much acknowledged and remember their name. There are a lot of quotes about how much people love the sound of their own name, the thing is – it’s true.

Support others

Whenever you find yourself talking with someone, pay close attention. They may be giving you clues for assistance that you can lend your experience and opportunity with them to help solve their needs.

Repeat something they’ve said recently

When you’ve had a conversation with someone and talk to them again, repeat something they’ve said. Ask them about something specific to follow up on. It shows them that you paid close attention as we mentioned, but also will remind them of your previous conversation.

Social skills are a key part of what makes you achieve business success. Practice them regularly and watch how quickly you’ll get new clients!

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Author Michael Lewis discusses The Big Short and the future of finance

Author Michael Lewis discusses his book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, the future of finance as he sees it, and his thoughts on whether today's business students have a chance at changing it. Part of the Dean's Speaker Series, co-sponsored by the Center for Responsible Business as part of its Peterson Series on Sustainable Finance. (September 13, 2010) The University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business is one of the world's leading producers of new ideas and knowledge in all areas of business - which includes the distinction of having two of its faculty members receive the Nobel Prize in Economics over the past 15 years. The school offers six degree-granting programs. Its mission is to develop innovative business leaders - individuals who redefine how we do business by putting new ideas into action, and who do so responsibly. The school's distinctive culture is defined by four key principles - question the status quo; confidence without attitude; students always; and, beyond yourself.


Get The Kindle Edition with movie tie in here

After thirty five years on Wall Street, what I believe was a critical part of the cause of the Financial Crisis has been told in a book by Michael Lewis, which is now a movie. "The Big Short": author Michael Lewis on 'betting on Armageddon' during the global financial crisis; making of star-studded new film. Read more at Here...http://trkn.co/g/2899

TD Jakes Message - "The Secret To Elevation"

TD Jakes Message - "The Secret To Elevation"

Regardless of the assignment on your life, your career, or the other circumstances you are currently experiencing, the root of your walk with God must be your FAITH. It is the anchor that holds you fast against the storms of life and propels you into God's purpose and blessings for you. In this timely series, Bishop T.D. Jakes highlights the necessity of living by faith while expounding upon its various facets each believer must appropriate and practice. 

"Jesus said that nothing would be impossible for you. If you believe that word, your entire life would become so exciting!" --Bishop T.D. Jakes 

CD - https://store.tdjakes.org/p-2828-work...
DVD - https://store.tdjakes.org/p-2829-work...

Watch every week at http://www.tdjakes.org/watchnow

Affiliate Marketing - The Money Is In Commissions

THE MONEY IS IN COMMISSIONS!!!

Those that know me, know my background is in Financial Services. Some of the biggest gains that happened during the Major Mergers and Acquisition during the Financial Crisis, as outlined in "Too Big To Fail" by Andrew Sorkin, (Read The Book or Watch The Movie) were those who orchestrated the deals and got big payments (commissions). Commissions rule across multiple industries and Affiliate Marketing is a key player.

Accounting to an Entrepreneur's article, around two billion in Affiliate Marketing fees were paid in 2008, I have no doubt this amount has drastically increased.

The article deals with having your own (preferably multi-page) site and sending traffic to someone elses earning a percentage of commission.

Using these types of links was the subject of my blog over three years ago dealing iwth "Where I See The Money."

So what forums or communities exist to help you learn???

Digital Point 

aBestWeb 

Warrior Forum 

So who are the key Affiliate Networks??? Have a look see at some:

Clickbank, 

Commission Junction 

Google AdSense

For Books, Vidoe and more on Affiliate Marketing check our our Amazon Affiliate Store.

For a Catalog of ClickBank Affiliate Programs updated daily check out our Affiliate Store.

Whether Real Estate, Banking, Auto, Recruiting, etc., THE MONEY IS IN COMMISSIONS!!!

Part 3: Wall Street Custody Middle Office – A Day In The Life Of A Custody A/C Officer

As noted in our previous segment, we are continuing our segment, “Wall Street Custody Middle Office – A Day In the Life of a Custody A/C Officer. In this segment we will cover Foreign Exchange. As noted in my online resume, I got my start in Foreign Exchange in the year 1991. For the next five years I learned a lot about the Foreign Exchange Back Office and interacted with many colleagues in the Middle Office, I would eventually began to work in in 1996 after transferring from FX Support to Investment Manager Services. As I write this piece I am literally walking distance from that location where I got my first glimpse of the FX Support Business at 101 Barclay Street, downtown, Manhattan, NY.

I started out in the remittance area as an Assistance Supervisor where a lot of retail FX deals take place. I later moved to Confirmations area and the Multi-Agreement Processing (MAP) Unit where I was Supervisor. These groups touched more on the Custody Middle Office Business where I would later work as an Assistant Treasurer and Custody A/C Officer. In these groups, as FX Deals (Spots, Forwards, Swaps, etc.) were done between brokers, confirmations of these deals were also done via phone with the Counter Parties where the Custodian did the FX and well as Swift Messages (MT300) being sent. Confirmations were critical because due to an exchange rate discrepancy, the recorded conversation between the confirming parties was the only real proof used by the FX Investigations Unit. .  As any given point I could be on the phone with say a Middle Office Administrator in the say the Mutual Funds Group, confirming an FX Done with the Middle Office and the FX Trading Front Office for the Mutual fund client.  It was often during the Confirmation Process it was agreed on how the client’s funds would be charged for the US portion of the FX. We had been inputting a code on the FX Details system page to indicate we would process manual tickets to charge the client’s account. I realized that by putting in an alternate code you could charge the client’s account directly via the same System Detail page. The saved the department at least twenty thousand dollars monthly in manual processing and also made the Custodian Bank’s Newsletter as our team earned an award.  Process Improvement is so critical in our business!

The same Custody Clients I would later serve as a “Single Point Of Contact” were doing massive FX Deals As a Custody client purchased a security in which they had to pay in Egyptian Pounds (EGP), they needed an Foreign Exchange deal to cover that trade. Often they would use their custodian bank to do the Foreign Exchange (Buy EGP and Sell USD) and cover the security purchase.  We are covering the FX part of the deal here but we did cover some parts of the Security deal and what to watch for in our very first segment in this series.

Of interesting note I found later in my Middle Office activities (back in 2006) is that I found that Egypt had trades that settled over the weekend. The challenge here was that many Custody systems only reflected settlement dates on Business Week Days from Monday through Friday. So while the FX Deal to cover the Egyptian Security Purchase settled on a Monday (crediting the clients account the EGP), the Security may have settled on Sunday (debiting the clients account the EGP). The client’s foreign currency statement which keeps a running daily balance, might reflect an overdraft for Sundays’ Debit, not cleared until Monday. This may result in Debit Interest or Negative Interest. The Sub Custodian (where the settlement of Securities and Cash actually occur in the local market) might not reflect this on their books. Adjustment may just need to be made on your Custodian’s System to correct the debit interest such as a correcting FX deal (Cancel/Replace) to reflect the FX settling Friday, instead of Monday.

As moved to the Middle Office, whet I learned in the both the Securities and FX Back Office was critical. I knew what went into setting up a Securities Trade as well as an FX Trade because I had done it. When in a crunch for time, I could go right to the right people in the Back Office or even the Front Office Traders because I already had established a relationship.  Whether Internal or External Clients, it’s all about The Relationship!

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Wall Street Custody Middle Office – A Day In The Life Of A Custody A/C Officer (Part 2)

In my quest to cover “A Day In The Life…”, I present Part 2 in this series.  The Overall them is Client Service and is applicable not just to Custodian Banks Bank and Middle Office, but many other Industries. As noted in my first LinkedIn Pulse Posting, “Wall Street, seen through the eyes of a Student”, I’ve have the opportunity to see “The Street” very early in my career, and I’m happy to share what I’ve learned.

In our previous segment, we spoke about the monitoring of Trade activity and with primary goal being to “get in front” of potential issues. As I thought about this latest segments one of the things I want to cover is Relationships. I mentioned at the end of the previous segment dealing with locating missing funds for your client where the Paying Agent insists they paid.  So my client, an Investment Manager, had one key question, “Where were the funds?” In my situation, what was missing was an Income Payment in that should have been made in cash. The amount was something like forty thousand dollars.  I had to conduct a series of Conference Calls with the Paying Agent Contacts (My firm actually happened to be the Paying Agent in this case). Key to Client Relationship was continually keeping the client in the loop. Letting the Client know that while I did not yet have a final resolution, I was working on getting one.

I learned that the Paying Agent paid this payment and all income payments directly to a Central Depository, who in turn was to then credit the various client accounts who were holders of this security. As fortune would have it, I had contacts at the Central Depository having worked there as well and also I kept the contact information of key individuals. I went through the normal channels at the Central Depository who relayed the information that they could not find any payment that was not paid. I then used the Manager contacts I had at the Central Depository in hopes of getting more clarity on what might have happened with the funds.  Through these contacts I found out my client’s funds were sitting in suspense account at the Central Depository unapplied. I had the funds credited to delight of my client. I failed to mention that client in the past on their own opened up their own investigation with our Paying Agent contacts as well as the Central Depository using the regular channels with no results. You want to cultivate your relationships (keeping names and numbers) in your career as you never know when you might come full circle and need assistance. Those relationships were critical in getting the results that my client was not able to get. I also failed to mention that the client had this issue as a long outstanding issue and I took on the whole relationship after this issue had been outstanding for a while. 

I’ll repeat that it’s important to keep a Client Relationship Management (CRM) database always on hand, which can be an address book in its simplest form. If you regularly email your clients (Internal and External) and sometimes there are both Individuals and Groups, you will want to keep within your address book individual names as well as group names. In a global environment you may have Individuals and Groups located in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Latin America, South Africa, The Middle East, etc.  Trying to remember group names for either Internal or External Clients can be a challenge, having this info immediately available in some email programs as soon as you start typing a name is critical. You may have Counterparty Contacts that you often communicate with, you may want to have a Group Name representing your contacts at that Counterparty. Back in the early days we use to have something called, “The Red Book”. This book contained all the key contacts “On The Street” or rather who did business on Wall Street. The Red Book would have contacts for various Departments. Even if the individual contacts changed, the central number listed in The Red Book would often point you in the right direction. I like electronic copies recorded in an address book, versus sticky notes and sheets of paper whenever possible, ensuring that your data is backed up or archived. 

Let me also mention that getting the research done and facilitating the conference calls often happened outside of the working hours of nine to five.  As mentioned in our previous segment, it may seem crazy but a lot of what “gets done” in our business is done outside of the hours of nine to five. When you have a group of clients that you service, servicing them all and just dealing with the items settling that day, can take up your nine to five. To “get things done”, you have to, without question, put in time way before nine and way after five and maybe even some weekends.

I mentioned in my last segment in addition to dealing with the client, you also will find yourself dealing with other groups. Some days you will have to explain to the Accountant why a particular security was booked the way it was booked. They may need characteristics to verify pricing info as an example. Compliance Officers may want to question the details of a payment to a beneficiary to a country on the “Blocked” list.  You may be getting a request from an External Auditor that needs an audited statement. These are the reports that have already been validated by your Accounting Group. In addition to these groups, you have may have various other emergency requests that come up. Investigations alone can often take up a good portion of your day.

Stay tuned for upcoming segments where we will also cover Foreign Exchange as it relates to our topic with Securities, Cash, Negative and Positive Interest.

Mike Holman

http://mikeholman.com/