Business Markets

Roughly one in four Americans have a six-month emergency savings cushion. Another one in four have no savings at all. These numbers come from a Bankrate.com study that also points out that 6.2 million Americans have been out of work for six months or more.

Falling somewhere in the middle are about 22% of Americans who have some savings, but not enough to make it through three months of expenses. The study was investigating financial security among Americans which has dropped slightly from 98.5 in May to 97.8 in June. More Americans are comfortable with their debt compared to where they were a year ago.

Probably not that surprising is the fact that those most likely to have six months of savings are higher income households. People under the age of 30 are the least likely to have a substantial emergency fund. “Over 6 million people have been out of work longer than six months, yet only 24 percent of Americans have at least six months’ expenses in an emergency fund. An

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The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that its index of sales agreements for previously occupied homes rose 8.2 percent last month, to a reading of 88.8. That followed April’s seven-month low of 82.1.

A reading of 100 is considered healthy by economists. The last time the index reached that level was in April 2010, the final month when buyers could qualify for a federal tax credit. Signings are now 17 percent above June’s reading of 75.9, the lowest figure since the housing market went bust nearly four years ago.

Contract signings rose 4.1 percent in the South during May, but pending sales dropped in Southwest Florida.

In the territory covered by the Sarasota Association of Realtors, pending sales totaled 841, down from 959 in April. April had been the first month this year when pending sales had not topped 1,000. The measure had peaked at 1,208 sales in March, which had marked the highest level in six years.

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You may be a natural salesman, and your clients may indeed love you, but youre playing a different game when you’re contacting the media. You are entering a very specific phone world. You may be a great person one-on-one, with a winning smile and a firm handshake, but that wont get you far over the phone. You may be an extremely successful high-pressure telemarketer, but remember, here youre dealing with a different, more weary, more sophisticated audience. Making PR follow-up calls can be a difficult proposition. Be candid with yourself. Do you have a personality that works over the phone? If the phone intimidates you, or if you come off gruff, demanding, or impatient over the phone, dont make the calls yourself, hire someone to make them on your behalf.

You need to be painfully honest with yourself. Most of us dont like to admit that there are areas that arent our forte. But none of us are proficient in everything. D

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National Australia Bank’s move into China announced this week will be followed by similar ventures later in the year in India and Indonesia.

Chief executive Cameron Clyne says NAB’s decision to join Australia’s other major banks in China represents an organic growth strategy.

“We don’t have an aggressive expansion strategy in Asia … it’s very much an organic, customer driven strategy,” he told a business forum in Melbourne on Tuesday.

Mr Clyne said planned branches in Shanghai, Mumbai and Jakarta would primarily offer support to existing Australian and New Zealand customers.

The branch will also support Chinese businesses wanting to operate in Australia, New Zealand, the Britain and the United States.

NAB already has Asian branches in Tokyo, Osaka, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Are you in danger of becoming a me too with no real competitive advantage?

It is true that its becoming increasingly difficult for us to create a business that has key point of difference. Something that gives you a competitive advantage over the competition. There are a number of reasons for this. High quality and great service are becoming commodities and in many ways just expected. Copying ideas and technologies can now happen almost overnight! Customers are becoming bored with hyped up messaging and choose their own media diet. So can we still achieve a competitive advantage in todays marketplace as a small business?

We can but we have to think faster, act sooner and compete in new ways.

You know when the universe just keeps repeating the same messages about something. This is what happened to me this week while on holiday. For some reason I started thinking a lot about branding and why it seems to have cascaded down from the big brands to now this personal branding of small businesses.

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(This speech exercise is part of the Speak For Success Course. While you can use this exercise to work on your speech skills at any time, its designed to work on a particular speech skill that you can find out more about at Speak for Success Speech Lesson 4.)

Because the pace of speech and comprehension are so closely linked, this exercise focuses on speaking at the optimum pace for making your message understood.

You will need a partner to work through this speech exercise. His or her task is to comprehend what youre saying and give you feedback about your speech pace.

As the speaker, your task is to tell him or her how to do something in five steps. You may jot down the five steps youre going to use as speaking points on a piece of paper before you begin, if you wish. Choose one of the following speech topics and think of five steps describing how to do it.

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