When you think of disaster preparation, you think first about blankets and sandbags, potable water and crank radios. What most folks don't think about are their finances and operations, but they are important as well and should not be neglected. Here are the six things that the IRS believes you should concentrate on when preparing for a disaster: 1.    Recordkeeping Take advantage of paperless recordkeeping for financial and tax records. Many people receive bank statements and documents by e-mail. This method is an outstanding way to secure financial records. Important tax records such as W-2s, tax returns and other paper documents can be scanned onto an electronic format. You can copy them onto a ‘key’ or ‘jump drive’ periodically and then keep the electronic records in a safe place.  2.    Document Valuabl... [Read Full Article]

We understand that marketing is primarily concerned with generating sales leads and sales works to turn those leads into closed sales. That is clear enough, but what many have a problem with is public relations. Is it marketing? Is it something else. We hear vague terms like “communications” and we can see public relations at work when things go wrong or when a politician wants something from the voters (what do you think the latest presidential news conference was all about?). However, if you pin down the average person and demand a proper definition for the term “public relations,” they may be hard-pressed to give you one even though they know it when they see it. The PR Toolkit UnderstandingMarketing.com has gone a long way to solve this issue wi... [Read Full Article]