Setting up merchant services with your bank can be complicated, with lots of hidden fees; but when it comes to accepting a credit card payment directly on your smartphone, you have more options these days.

One of the fastest growing ways to accept payments is with mobile card processors, which offer a fast and easy way to use your phone to accept credit and debit cards while doing business. The affordable rates, free readers, and prevalence of smartphones have all made this the latest craze among small businesses. Though Square started it all, now PayPal and Intuit offer their own systems of payment processing. When it comes to these three popular readers, which one is right for you?

There are three popular payment processing options: The Square Reader with Square Register software; The PayPal Here Reader with PayPal Here software; and the Intuit GoPayment Reader with Intuit GoPayment software.

I’ve heard many stories from clients  where a merchant account like Paypal will shut down a seller’s account due to high sales volume or some other factor. Sometimes it can take six months to resolve. There are too many stories like this that can affect a business so I recommend that any business have two accounts. There is no extra fees so why not split your transactions between two companies?

But the details … There’s give and take with each companies product. For example, there’s no credit check or sign up fee with Square, but you still have to pay 2.75% plus $0.15 for each transaction. On the other hand, Intuit’s GoPayment requires a credit check, but you get a slightly better rate at 2.7% plus $0.15.

Which one is right for you? Figuring out which card reader is “right” for you depends on all of the details listed above. Do you need money the moment you swipe? Do you want a discount for high-volume selling? Do you want to scan checks. These questions are just a few of the many you may ask yourself when figuring out which reader to get, but in the end they all are solid choices for the businessperson, whether they be for once-in-a-while purchases or serious sales volume.

Richard Branson, Richard said this about life with passion –

“Ideally, since 80 percent of your life is spent working, you should start your business around something that is a passion of yours. If you’re into kite-surfing and you want to become an entrepreneur, do it with kite-surfing.

Look, if you can indulge in your passion, life will be far more interesting than if you’re just working. You’ll work harder at it, and you’ll know more about it. But first you must go out and educate yourself on whatever it is that you’ve decided to do – know more about kite-surfing than anyone else. That’s where the work comes in. But if you’re doing things you’re passionate about, that will come naturally.”

Feel free to down load my free eBook that can help you find that passion!

Let’s begin by discussing how to create a name for your business that will achieve what you need it to in terms of effectiveness and impact.

We have all seen business names that leave us confused, misled, or that are so complicated they are difficult to remember or spell. Some business names are understood only by the owners and were created without giving a thought to what the customers’ perceptions of the name may be. So before you name your business after your cat, consider the following guidelines.

Your business name must be easy to remember and to spell.

When you choose a name for your business you want it to stick in the minds of your customers and be easy to recall. This can be achieved in a couple of ways. It can describe your product or service well enough so that it is clear what you do or you can choose a name that stands out from your competition in such a way that it attracts the attention of your market. Ideally, you want your business name to do both.

Catchy is good but your business name must also be easy to spell, to find in the telephone book, and to search for online. If the spelling is too complicated or the name has too many words, your customers will have trouble finding you.

A good place to start is to make a list of possible choices. Write down any words that come to mind about your business, your service, your products, or your location. Also write down any words of phrases that you can think of that describe the feeling you want your customers to have when they work with you. Since, no matter what your product or service, people mainly buy how working with you will make them feel, it is wise to look at what feeling you want to evoke in your customers.

Don’t name your business something that has meaning only for you or your friends. Don’t name it after an inside joke or piece of information that is exclusive unless its purpose is to appeal exclusively to your target customers. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and see how your name choice feels. If it doesn’t mean anything to anyone but you, you need to keep working on it until you find a name that has strong appeal within your market.

Once you have a decent-sized list of words and phrases that pertain to your operation, begin to narrow the list down to the words that seems the most appropriate for what you are trying to achieve. Cross out the words that are not quite right until you find ones that that are not only accurate but also magnetic.

Your business name must coordinate with a visual element.

What does that mean? No doubt you will want to develop a logo that incorporates your business name, or design your company’s name in such a way that it can feature design elements like stylized letters or colours. You want people to have a visual image when they hear the name of your business so that you want them to remember having heard it, too. The sound of your business name should bring some king of picture to mind. Using both of these senses at the same time insures that the memory of your business name will “stick” in your customers’ minds.

Good examples of this are Nike, with its rounded check mark, and Coca Cola with its distinctive font style.

Your business name should represent a positive image.

Your business name not only must reflect positively on what you do but must also support the emotional response you want to elicit in your customers and clients. You wouldn’t, for example, choose a soft, weak word to describe a rough and tough business. If you have a heavy-duty mechanics business, which is masculine, heavy, and big, choosing a name like Daisy Mechanical or Feather Heavy-Duty only creates confusion in the minds of customers.

Try to imagine the image you want to portray and how the words you use serve to create that image. If you sell health supplements and nutritional products, the name you choose should reflect glowing health and good physical condition. If you sell one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces, your business name should reflect an air of exclusivity and uniqueness.

Sometimes you may find that your company engages in an array of business ventures and you want a name that covers everything. In this case, you can choose a word or words that are more general or neutral in nature. We all know of company names which in themselves mean nothing yet have come to be associated with the business so strongly that no explanation is required. Names like Coca Cola, Westinghouse, and Nike only describe the product or service because the company marketing has connected the name to what they sell.

Your business name should convey what you do.

When you are starting a new business you will be much further ahead if your business name also describes what you do than if you choose a brand name that is vague and unclear. It takes much less marketing to establish your brand if your business name already tells the story.

There is a good chance that your business will not become an internationally recognized brand, though that is certainly possible. Chances are, that’s not even what you want. So, you need to choose a business name that at least gives your market a clue about what you do. If you include a key word that describes what you do then work around that to add flair, that’s a good place to start.

If you want to open a day spa, it would be a good idea to include at least the word “spa” into the business name. A pizza restaurant should include the word “pizza” otherwise the customer will not have a clear idea what your specialty is. Online searches and yellow page ads make you much easier to find when you include something about what your business does in your name.

Keep it short.

While you may want to include your own name in your business name, and there are definitely reasons for doing this, if you also add a descriptive name plus an emotionally compelling name you will soon have so long a name that no one will remember all the words. We have all seen names for law firms which include all the partners and then some, such as Wilson, Wilson, Jones, Cavanaugh and Faraday, Barristers and Solicitors, Attorneys at Law. No one remembers all the names and it gets shortened down to “my lawyer” anyway. If you have a gift shop and try to name everything you sell plus some words that your customers will find attractive, you may end up with such a long name that the customer gets confused or even distracted. For example, Debbie Cannaloni’s Magnolia Cottage Gifts, Flowers, and Pretty Things is too much of a mouthful for any shopper.

Your business name needs to fit easily on a business card, look good on a display sign at a trade show, roadside, or store front, and fit a website headline. Keep it as short as you can while still conveying the right message.

Your colors need to fit your image.

While you are determining the right name for your business, keep in mind that you will also need to develop an image or images that you will use in your promotional materials to add weight to the impression you are trying to make on your target market. Unless you are an experienced graphic designer you will want to hire someone to help you develop a logo for your business.

Before you do that, give some time to considering the colors you want to represent your business. Different colors express different emotions and communicate different messages. Take a look at the research that has revealed these affects based on colors!

Keep in mind what the primary message of your business image is when you choose colors to represent it. Wild colors splashed across a business card convey a far different message than black on taupe with straight lines or simple accents.

The one thing that you must always keep in mind when designing your business image is the emotional response you want to elicit in your customers. Since no matter what your product is you are always selling a feeling, take some time to understand what the feeling is that you want your customers to have.

Now you may say, “I sell washing machines. How can that create a feeling?” The truth is that people will go looking for a new washing machine to fill an emotional need, not just a physical one which would be dirty clothes. Your customer may want the newest model in the latest colors for prestige or to feel superior to the relatives. They may choose a model that is trusted and reliable so that they can have peace of mind. A lower-priced model not only means they spend less money on it, but can also mean that they feel good about their own frugality.

No matter what your product or service may be take some time to learn what are the emotional reasons why your customers would buy from you. If you don’t know, ask your customers or your friends and family. When you have determined those reasons write down every word you can think of that describes those emotions or evokes those responses.

Once you have done this cross out the words that do not exactly apply until you have narrowed your choices down to two or three or until you are happy with the selections. After you have chosen your favorites you will have to register your choice with the appropriate government agencies. It’s a good idea to have more than one choice in mind since your first choice may already be taken.

Luckily, there are plenty of websites for copyright free images you can use for your website that won’t require you to pay a fee.  Here’s 5 of them.

http://www.unprofound.com/

http://morguefile.com/

http://www.stockvault.net/

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

http://www.sxc.hu/index.phtml

Coconut Mixture – Mix and Hold

• 1 ½ cups coconut milk
• 1 ½ Tbsp raw cider vinegar

After the coconut milk has soured (begun to clump), add

• ½ c. grape seed oil, extra virgin olive oil or your preferred oil
• 1 tsp pure vanilla

 Cinnamon Mixture – Mix and Hold

• 3 Tbsp xylitol or preferred sugar
• 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

Melt 1 cube butter in small pan over low heat

 Dough Mixture – Mix and Hold in a large bowl

• 1 c. hazelnut flour
• 1 ½ c. almond flour
• ½ c. tapioca flour (or starch)
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 4 Tbsp potato starch
• 1 tsp sea salt
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ c. coconut flour

Make a well in the center of the dough mixture and pour in coconut mixture, mix till evenly mixed, should form a soft dough.  If the dough is too wet to roll, adding 1-2 Tbsp coconut flour will dry it up. Gently kneading the dough to incorporate flour and make a dough firm enough to roll.

Sprinkle flour on counter or place parchment paper at the bottom of a raised backing pan 12” x 17” x 1”, put dough onto floured counter or in the suggested baking pan, then sprinkle flour on top of dough:

• ¾ c. almond flour
• 2 Tbsp coconut flour

Gently begin to roll the dough on counter 0r gently press into the 12” x 17” x 1” pan about ½” thick.

Spread ½ of the melted butter on the dough, and then sprinkle Cinnamon Mixture on butter.  Roll by picking up parchment paper slowly, rolling up with all the goodies inside.  Pinch together any holes and firm up the log with your hands.

Slice dough log into 1”-1 ½” thick pieces (12 rolls), and place on a pan sprayed with spectrum organic olive oil spray. Top each roll with ½ tsp or so of the melted butter and another sprinkle of the cinnamon mixture.

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes till set.

When rolls are almost done, prepare glaze:

• 4 Tbsp melted butter
• 4 Tbsp xylitol or preferred sugar
• 1 tsp pure vanilla

Melted over low heat, constantly stirring till all granules are melted and mixture is blended.

Drizzle glaze over rolls and serve.

You can make many different variations from this recipe – with different nut flours, sugars, or by adding additional ingredients like walnut pieces or dried cranberries.

Let me know what you did and how it came out!

via New Website Will Disclose Health Industry Payments To Doctors – Capsules – The KHN Blog.

Beet Juice Could Lower Blood Pressure? : Amerging Medical.

Should Private Companies Be Allowed to Patent Genes? : The New Yorker.

Join the cause to help save women’s lives with this new technology!

Heart disease kills ten times more women than breast cancer each year, and more than all other cancers combined.

Only 13 percent of women view heart disease as a health threat, even though it is now women’s No. 1 killer. Cardiovascular disease kills 480,000 women a year, about one per minute.

Almost two-thirds (64%) of women who die suddenly of coronary heart disease have no previous symptoms.

When it comes to heart attacks, men and women aren’t created equal. While men often feel chest pain before and during a heart attack, women have different symptoms. Women tend to feel chest pressure, indigestion and shortness of breath or fatigue when a heart attack is coming on.

Traditional blood pressure tests measure pressure at the arm…but what if you could measure blood pressure at the heart?

With modern technology, not previously available until recently, you can now measure a patient’s CASP non-invasively, painlessly, quickly and affordable.  This can give your business a huge boost, as well as help save the life of a patient previously undiagnosed.

So I talked to a woman in one of our monthly health meetings about my blood pressure and how I was getting nervous about it. She recommended a doctor who specialized in this and who worked with natural alternatives and medications to see if he could correct the underlying issue. While seeing him, he pulled out a device that looked relatively easy to use but gave him very advanced information. In minutes he was able to access my cardiovascular health and share with me that my arteries were getting stiffer much faster then normal. I was so intrigued with this technology I spent an extra hour asking him all kinds of questions!

Technology is changing our health options and making health personal

This device could measure my cardiovascular health almost as accurately as a cardiac catheterization, and it was non-invasive!  I was so intrigued I invited his nurse practitioner to scan my friends and family. What I found was even more interesting. Heidi and her sister had normal blood pressure at the arm but had high blood pressure at the heart! Huh.. how could that be? Two others at this original screening had higher than average blood pressure, and another was off the charts.

In that simple screening, my wife, her sister, and her mother found out that they all had arteries that were stiffening MUCH faster than normal and that there blood pressure at their heart was MUCH higher than at their arm. It gave all of them an opportunity to look for the cause and look for options. My mother-in-law was actually the one off the charts and was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen! Fortunately she was able to bring her pressures down! What if she didn’t?

I truly believe this device saved three women’s lives that are very close to me!

We have the knowledge and technology to prevent or reverse heart disease before it kills.  Medical professionals agree that heart disease is preventable.

Can you imagine…our number one killer preventable?

The traditional blood pressure cuff only measures the pressure on the arm, whereas this device measures Central Aortic Systolic Pressure or CASP. This is the blood pressure at the root of the aorta or the largest artery in the body, as the blood is being pumped out of the heart. I got so excited about this technology that I helped fund the purchase of a device with the woman who organized the monthly health meetings.

After a few years of working with her, I’ve seen a lot of people go through her system. We were invited to do screenings at a Lions Club health event in Foster City for Elenore – two people we screened had very high CASP’s and she suggested they see their doctors as soon as practical. Elenore says we saved their lives because after seeing their doctors, one was admitted into surgery for a stint. And they had NO signs of cardiovascular issues. It has been enlightening. Health cannot be determined from the exterior view. Some people eat organic foods, looked great, exercise, but when we observed their blood pressure at the heart, it gave a different view. Same was true when she saw a person who didn’t look healthy on the outside, but on the inside they were amazingly healthy!

All this brings me to why I’m asking you for your help!

In the process of the past few years I saw many women’s lives change all because of this technology. Until recently it was relatively expensive – but now it has become much more affordable and much easier to use.  Women were able to immediately see their cardiovascular health. I learned that:

• Traditional blood pressure technology is over 150 years old
• Your blood pressure at your arm can be very different then at your heart
• Blood pressure medications can lower arm pressure, but SOME can raise the pressure at your heart
• Too much calcium may not be a good thing – it can harden your arteries
• Heart disease and cardiovascular issues are 100% preventable and mostly reversible
• This affordable technology CAN SAVE LIVES if women just knew about it

So why am I writing to you? Because WE must get the word out!

Women have now surpassed men in Heart Attacks! Heart disease kills ten times more women than breast cancer each year, and more than all other cancers combined.

Only 13 percent of women view heart disease as a health threat, even though it is now women’s No. 1 killer.

I Know I can do something about it. I’ve seen the prevention work first hand.

This technology is amazing – and now very cost effective! It is more sensitive to document atherosclerosis and elasticity of the major arteries.

But how do we get the word out? It takes a voice from each and every one of us to pass this startling information on to one another.

Then the idea came to start with women and create awareness. So Heidi, Mellissa, Peter and I started a campaign and we need YOUR help – both by donations and spreading the word!

So here we are.  PLEASE pass this message on so more women get screened with this new technology and we save women’s lives!

I hope I can count on you to share this campaign, see link below:

Saving the Heart of Women!

Everything helps even if it is just a dollar!

Share the news so that this technology might save the life of a women in your life – your wife, mom, sister, daughter, or grandmother .. even the neighbor down the street.

Always the best and THANK YOU!

Andy

831-216-1075