Scene one: you are sitting on your office desk surrounded with files and work overload, you are thoroughly frustrated. You work hard and get paid. But somewhere something is lacking.

Scene two: you work for yourself; you do what you want to do. You work hard and you are satisfied. You go home a better person each day cause you work for yourself. And you definitely earn more.

You don’t even have to look at the results; votes for Scene two are definitely more. You want a life like that. But every business entails capital. Small business loans can accrue the capital you need to start a small business. With so many online sources for small business loans, you don’t need to rely on family or relatives for capital.

Homework! Yes, it is not meant for school kids only. You too have to do it, to find the right resource of your small business loans. There are a few points, the loans lender will be looking at, when he is contemplating providing you small business loans. A lender will be paying attention on your education, experience, business plan and its feasibility. Other things that are crucial are repaying ability, credit history, equity, presence of collateral.

The first things will be your ability to repay. Every loan is meant to be repaid. Loan lender wants his money back. They will look for a business that has existed for some years now. If you are starting a new business, prepare an application that will prove to them that you will repay the loan. If your business is low risk proposal, you are getting a small business loans.

Presence of collateral would provide a positive boost to your small business loan application. The financial institution would be looking for an alternative source to payback the loan. Without collateral, you would need a cosigner who can pledge collateral. Collateral can be any business or personal assets that can be sold to pay for the small business loan. The market value of collateral is not taken into account but the value which results after negating the valued lost when the collateral is liquidated.

Equity is also significant. The equity will be in the form of money you invest in your business. The loan lender will be very pleased to know, if you have invested your money in the business. If there is enough equity in your business to payback the loan, the small business loan will be yours.

The next crucial thing will be called a credit report. If your credit report is good, your small business loan application will be reaching the top of the application pile. If you have no idea what your history reveal for you – get a copy of credit report. Make sure the details given there are correct. In case there is an error, get it corrected before you apply for small business loans. Pay all the pending debts and get going.

The question that you will be facing with small business loans is what you are going to do with the money. Give concrete answers. Convince the lender that you will repay the small business loan with long term profitability that your plan ensures. Your confidence will be a key to unlocking small business loans.

Small business loans are available in three forms -

Short term loans will solve funds problem for immediate business starting. Their term is usually one year or less.

Intermediate loans are meant for large initial expenses with loan term between one to three years

Long term loans supply for initial costs of a start up business and extends from three to seven years.

Documentation! Yes, just get ready with your file of documents and make sure it has – proof of ownership, letters of reference, contracts, tax returns, financial statements, credit references, Incorporation or LLC organizational documents. The loan lender might ask for any other documentation for Small business loans.

Read the small business loan agreement carefully and have your lawyer review it. Some terms can be negotiated with the loan lender. If your circumstances are favourble, you can even manage to waive some terms. Obtain terms which you are comfortable especially with regard to repayment process and interest rates.

You can have a great idea, great people to work with, a well written business plan – everything, almost everything. All you need is a small business loan to make it a success. So, how do we begin writing the success story? With writing small business loans application.

1 Introduction

In this article we cover the few important rules that should never be broken in trading. If you can apply these rules consistently, and with discipline, you will be well on the way to being a profitable trader.

The rules we cover are:

o Have specific goals and objectives

o Be consistent and disciplined

o Let profits run

o Cut losses short

o Never add to a losing trade

o Don’t take too much risk

o Only trade positive expectancy systems

o Minimize all trading business costs

o Be well educated

o Don’t trade scared money

Each of the rules will now be discussed.

2 The Golden Rules of Trading

The following sections outline a set of rules that can significantly improve your chances of success if they are understood, practiced, and implemented consistently in your trading. These rules have been learned the hard way, by study, research, trial-and-error, and the inevitable mistakes that everyone makes when they start a trading business.

We hope that you can learn from the work we have done, and benefit from our experience. The rules will now be discussed.

2.1 Have specific goals and objectives

Few things are more important to your trading success than having set (i.e. written) goals and objective for what you are aiming to achieve. It is amazing to me how often we hit our targets, meet our objectives, and reach our goals only when we articulate them and write them down.

For any business to be successful it must have measurable objectives that are actually achievable. In trading (obviously) the primary objective is to make money, but it is important to have other objectives that are not purely cash-related. We must always remember that reward and risk go hand-in-hand in trading and that we cannot expect to achieve high returns without planning for high risk (i.e. draw-downs).

Your objectives and goals will be very specific to you, but they must have the following characteristics to be useful:

o Be measurable (in completion and timeframe)

o Be achievable

o Be worthwhile

o Be positive

As an example, here are some of our current objectives (this is only a partial list):

o Develop 2 new positive-expectancy trading systems each year

o Make fewer errors implementing our trading systems each year

o Achieve a return to maximum draw-down ratio of 1.5:1

o Take 2 weeks vacation each year

Note that only one of them is about making money, and that has a measurable objective that is relative to draw-down, not absolute (i.e. make 100% per year). If you know what you are trying to achieve, and when you are trying to achieve it, the whole business will be focused on meeting
your objectives and help guide you to only pay attention to things you really want to achieve with your limited time and resources. This will also give you a way to measure the success and progress of your trading. Generally traders with well-defined objectives will be much more successful than those that do not have pre-defined goals.

2.2 Be consistent and disciplined

In order to realize the full potential of your trading systems it is critical that you take every trading entry, adjust every stop, and close out every trade as and when your system says you should do. This takes extreme confidence in your trading systems, good robust reliable technology, and the mental discipline to stick to your trading plan whatever happens (assuming it is complete).
An underlying assumption about being consistent and disciplined is that you have a pre-defined plan for every situation you may face in your trading, so that you know how you are defining what being consistent is. Your plan needs to include at least the following items:

o All your trading rules for entering, adding to, and exiting positions

o What you will do if your trading computer, internet connection, broker, power, telephone
etc. fails

o What you will do if you are unable to trade

o What you will do if you lose X% of your account

o What you will do if all the markets are closed and you can’t exit your positions

Unless you write the answers down to all these issues, you cannot be consistent and disciplined in your approach to trading and if you lose money you will not know whether it is because you didn’t follow your plan, because your plan is incomplete, because your systems do not work, or simply because you are going through a losing period.

2.3 Let profits run

This simple rule is the key to being a successful trader. It is three simple words that are very hard to actually implement. When we get a profitable trade our natural fear of losing the unrealized cash kicks in and we truly want to close it out now and take the money. Most trading consists of long periods of small winners and losers followed by a few huge winners that make the difference between overall profitability and simply breaking even or losing due to trading costs(commissions, spread, and slippage).

It is our ability to let the huge winners become just that – huge – that determines how we will perform overall during the year. The key to letting winners run is to have trailing stops that are outside the daily noise of the market so that they are not tight enough to get stopped out during ‘normal’ trading. This means being prepared to give up a significant portion of a winning trade’s open profit and is the thing that makes this so hard to implement. In fact, we should be adding to a winner and widening stops rather than working out how tight our stops can be to capture maximum profit. The trade has already shown you that it intends to be a winner, and the chances are it is a low-risk idea to add to the position now rather than ‘strangle it’ with stops that are too tight.

It is very important that your position management rules allow for large winning trades, and that the rules are pre-defined and understood before you place the trade. This will allow you (if you have confidence in your method and discipline) to stick to your rules when you do get the big
winner.

2.4 Cut losses short

This is the sister rule to the previous one, and is usually just as difficult to implement (although it
is very easy to define). In the same way that profitability comes from a few large winning trades, capital preservation comes from avoiding the few large losers that the market will toss your way each year. Setting a maximum loss point before you enter the trade so you know before-hand approximately how much you are risking on this particular position is relatively straightforward. You simply need to have a exit price that says to you ‘this trade is a loser and I will exit before it gets any bigger’. Due to gaps at the open, or limit moves in futures we can never be 100%
certain that we can get out with our maximum loss, but simply having the rules, and always sticking to it will save us from the nasty trades that just keep on going and going against our position until we have lost more than many winning trades can make back.

If you have a losing position that is at you maximum loss point, just get out. Do not hope that it will turn around. Given that trades are either winners or losers, and this one is shouting ‘Loser’ at you, the chances that it will turn around and become a large winner is tiny. Why risk any more money on this losing trade, when you could simply close it out (accept the loss) and move on. This will leave you in a much better place financially and mentally, than holding the position and hoping it will go back your way. Even if it did do this, the mental energy and negative feelings from holding the losing position are not worth it. Always stick to your rules and exit a position if it hits your stop point.

2.5 Never add to a losing trade

One of the few trade management rules that we can state we never break is ‘Never add to a losing trade’. Trades are split into winners and losers, and if a trade is a loser, the chances of it turning right around and becoming a winner are too small to risk more money on. If indeed it is a winner disguised as a loser, why not wait until it shows it’s true colors (and becomes a winner)before you add to it.
If you do this you will notice that nearly always the trade ends up hitting your stop loss and does not look back. Sometimes the trade turns around before it hits your stop and becomes a winner and you can count yourself very fortunate. Sometimes the trade hits your stop loss and then
turns around and becomes a winner and you can count yourself unlucky. Whatever the result, it is never worth adding to a loser, hoping that it will become a winner. The odds of success are just too low to risk more capital in addition to the initial risk.

2.6 Don’t take too much risk

One of the most devastating mistakes any trader can make is risking too much of their capital on a single trade. One thing is certain in trading and that is if you lose all your capital you are out of the game. Why risk so much you could be prevented from continuing? There is a saying in
poker than going all-in (risking all your chips) works every time but once. This is true of trading.

If you risk all your account on every trade it only takes one loser to wipe you out (and no trading method is 100% accurate), so you will be out of the game at some point – it is only a question of time.

In general, we only risk 1-3% of the available capital allocated to a system on any individual trade. This is calculated using the size and, the difference between our entry price and our maximum stop price, and the amount of capital allocated to the system. With the win probability
and ratio of size of winning trades to losing trades we are almost certain never to lose all of our trading capital. In fact, the chance of us hitting our maximum drawdown for the year is tiny.

All trades should be of a size that almost seems insignificant. If you are worried about the size of a trade then it is too big and you should reduce the size immediately. Remember that longevity is the key to making money by trading – slowly over a long time with minimal risk, is always preferable to rapidly with too much risk.

2.7 Only trade positive expectancy systems

If you have a positive expectancy trading system, the only factors that determine how much money you will make per year are the number of trades the system generates, how much capital you allocate to the system, and how accurately you implement the trading signals. If you do not know whether your trading system is positive expectancy then why are you trading it? Expectancy is calculated using the profit or loss on each trade (net of trading implementation
costs) divided by the initial risk (using your stop loss) and then taking the average of this number of a series of trades. Systems that have positive expectancy will make money on average and those with negative expectancy will lose money.

Successful traders only trade systems where the odds of success are in their favor (i.e. the system is positive expectancy) so they know that making money is the result of accurately implementing the system and not just pure luck.

2.8 Minimize all trading business costs

Some trading systems have only marginal profitability, and trading implementation costs (commission, spread, and slippage) can be the difference between profitability and making a loss. With the easy availability of modern electronic brokers, and fully-automated trade processing and
execution, it is definitely worthwhile looking for a very low cost way to implement your trading system. High commission, wide spreads, and large amount of slippage can be reduced considerably simply by carefully choosing a broker. This can be the difference between a system
(especially a high frequency one) being useable or not. Paying too much for trade implementation is an avoidable way to lose money.

2.9 Be educated

In order to compete at the highest level in the trading business and be one of the few truly successful participants you must be well-educated about what you are doing. This does not mean having a degree from a well-respected university – the market doesn’t care where you were educated.

Being well-educated means that you have thoroughly researched and tested your trading ideas and know why your trading system worked in the past and is continuing to work now. It means understanding all the technology and applications that your system needs to perform accurately.
It means understanding your goal and objectives and how trading will achieve these. It means understanding yourself and how your personality affects your results. It means understanding the markets and instruments you trade.
In order to succeed you really need to become an expert in your own trading business to understand how it all fits together, when it is broken, and how it can be improved. As with all worthwhile endeavors, this takes commitment, hard work, dedication, and more hard work.

2.10 Don’t trade scared money

Lastly, no one ever made any money trading when they had to do it to pay the mortgage at the end of the month. Having a requirement to make X dollars per month or you will be financially in trouble is the best way I know to completely mess up all trading discipline, rules, objectives, and
leads quickly to disaster.

Trading is about taking a reasonable risk in order to achieve a good reward. The markets and how and when they give up their profits is not under your control. Do not trade if you need the money to pay bills. Do not trade if your business and personal expenses are not covered by
another income stream or cash reserve. This will only lead to additional unmanageable stress and be very detrimental to your trading performance.

3 Summary

In this article we have covered the rules that we believe should never be broken in trading. If you work on never breaking them, your trading should improve dramatically.

We sincerely hope this information has helped you to improve your trading performance.

Good luck in your trading.

Is a job change in order? Peruse the 25 most effective ways to job hunt. If it’s time for new beginnings, and if you’re searching for a job, it’s a good time to make sure your priorities are in check. Begin with some basic soul-searching, move to creative networking, and conclude with the foremost ways to investigate prospective companies. These are all sure strategies for getting a competitive edge in the job market. But finding a job means more than being competitive. In the bewildering new world of technology-online boards, career centers, and growing numbers of complex web sites-it also means knowing your way around. Here are 25 tips to learn how to maximize your time, your effectiveness, and your chances of success in your next career search!

1. First and foremost-take a personal inventory. Job hunting gives you the opportunity to go back to “square one” and inventory all over again what you are all about, what skills and knowledge you have acquired, and what you want to do. Who are you? What do you want out of life? A job? A career? Where are you going? Do you know how to get there? Have you been happy in your work/career/profession? What would you like to change? An inventory such as this is the best job hunting method ever devised because it focuses your view of your skills and talents as well as your inner desires. You begin your job hunt by first identifying your transferable, functional, skills. In fact, you are identifying the basic building blocks of your work.
2. Apply directly to an employer. Pick out the employers that interest you the most from any source available (web listings, yellow pages, newspaper ads, etc.), and obtain their address. Appear on their doorstep at your first opportunity with resume in hand. Even if you don’t know anyone there, this job hunting method works almost half the time, if you are diligent and continue your pursuit over several weeks or months.
3. Ask relatives and friends about jobs where they work. Ask every relative and friend you have now or have ever had about vacancies they may know about where they work, or where anyone else works. It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes an entire network to find a new job! If you tell everyone you know or meet that you are job hunting and that you would appreciate their help, you more than quadruple your chances of success.
4. Search hidden job markets. Networking is the “Hidden Job Market.” Because every time you make contact with a person who is in direct line with your career interest, you set up the possibility that he or she will lead you to more people, or to the job you are seeking. People are connected to one another by an infinite number of pathways. Many of these pathways are available to you, but you must activate them to make them work to your advantage. Most of the available jobs are in the hidden job market. They aren’t listed in the classifieds or placed with a headhunter. Find them through your network of contacts. This is your most valuable resource!
5. Ask a professor or old teacher for job-leads. No one knows your capabilities, dedication, and discipline better than a teacher or professor who had the opportunity to work with you in school. Since more people find their work through direct referral by other people than by any other way, this is a target audience you don’t want to miss
6. Spend more hours each week on your job hunt. Finding a job is a job! Treat your job hunting just as you would a normal job and work a normal number of hours per week, at least 35, preferably 40 in the process. This will cut down dramatically on the length of time it takes you to find work. Did you know that the average person in the job market only spends 5 hours or less per week looking for work? With that statistic, it isn’t surprising that it can be a long, tedious process. Improve your chances and demonstrate your discipline and determination. Devote Sundays to answering ads and planning your strategy for the next week. Don’t spend precious weekday hours behind a computer. You need to be out there researching leads, networking, and interviewing. Work smarter for yourself!
7. Concentrate your job hunt on smaller companies. Most new jobs will come from smaller, growing companies, typically with fewer than 500 employees, not large, restructuring companies. Although larger employers are more visible, well known and aggressive in their search for employees, it is with the smaller companies that you may have the best chance of success in finding work. Pay particular attention to those companies that are expanding and on their way to prosperous growth…they are easier to approach, easier to contact important personnel, and less likely to screen you out.
8. See more employers each week. If you only visit six or seven employers a month in your job search (which is the average, by the way), you will prolong your search and delay your successful outcome. This is one reason why job hunting takes so long. If you need to see 45 employers to find a job, it only makes sense to see as many employers a week as possible. Determine to see no fewer than two employers per week at a minimum! Do this for as many months as your job-hunt lasts. Keep going until you find the kind of employer who wants to hire you! Looking for a job is a numbers game. The more contacts you make, the more interviews you’ll get. The more interviews you have, the more offers you’ll get.
9. Be prepared for phone interviews. Would you believe that over 50% of prospective candidates are disqualified after the first phone contact is made with them by an employer? In today’s world, employers don’t have time anymore to interview every possible applicant and are using phone calls as a less expensive, less time consuming way to weed out potentially unqualified candidates. The phone interview catches many people off guard. You might receive more than just one phone interview, and you have to pass them all. The interviewer usually makes up his or her mind within the first five minutes. The remainder of the time is spent just confirming first impressions.
10. Create a support group. It is easy to get discouraged, depressed and despondent (the three D’s) in the job-hunt process. This can be one of the toughest and loneliest experiences in the world and the rejection you may have to face can be brutal, but it doesn’t have to be. The key is in understanding that you are not alone. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people looking for work, and you can team up with one if you choose. Many job-hunting groups already exist, such as the local Chambers of Commerce and online support groups through the Internet. Find a partner, or a larger group, and support and encourage each other. The path to success is literally a phone call away.
11. Contact potential employers directly through professional associations. Professional associations provide excellent networks for your benefit. Almost all committed professionals are members of at least one or two professional networks. Usually membership includes a directory, which provides you with a direct networking resource for verbal contact and mail campaigns. Additionally, most professional associations hold regularly scheduled meetings, which provide further opportunities to mingle with your professional peers on an informal basis. Finally, professional associations all have newsletters that are a valuable resource for other trade publications, associations, and help wanted sections.
12. Post your resume online. In today’s world there are numerous resume databases on the web. Job hunters can now tap into giant online databases when launching a search prior to interviewing. There are three primary ways to job search electronically or online: Joblines, Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), and the Internet. Many employers today have their employment opportunities accessible through a simple phone call. You can also use the advanced Resume Caster feature in ResumeMaker to post your resume to all of the top career centers on the web for thousands of hiring employers to review. You can also use the Job Finder feature to search from among more than 1 million online-listed job openings for a specific job title in the state you specify. The data is all there, waiting for you.
13. Promote yourself in unique ways. Promotion is creating an audience of potential employers and making them aware of your qualifications. There are many nontraditional ways to accomplish this task. For example, use electronic resume services to broadcast your resume. List yourself in appropriate trade association newsletters. Prepare 3 x 5 Rolodex cards that contain your name, address, and phone number on the front and your objective and skills from your resume on the back. Leave them behind wherever you go and give them to anyone who has reason to contact you later about a job.
14. Accept a temporary position or volunteer work. Be your own working advertisement by accepting a temporary position. This provides you with valuable experience, contacts, and references. Volunteer for organizations and activities with business sponsors and relationships that increases your visibility and personal contacts. Explore your possibilities and leave all options open. You never know which method may ultimately land you your ideal job.
15. Make cold-calls. Next to face-to-face meetings, the telephone is the most effective method available to find a job. Every call you make is an opportunity to sell yourself to a prospective employer, to pursue a new job opening, or to obtain a referral. Your technique in the initial telephone call can have a categorical impact on your chances to obtain what you want from the call. Complete at least 15 calls per day. You will be astonished at the results. Always be agreeable, gentle, and positive. Smile when you speak; the listener will hear it. Prepare a brief outline for each call and rehearse it. Create brief statements that outline how you can help your prospective employer accomplish their goals. Always, always, always ask for referrals.
16. Re-define your job hunt in terms of alternative possibilities. Successful job hunters always have alternative plans ready in the background and implement them at the first sign of difficulty. Prepare alternative ways of describing what you do, alternative avenues of job hunting, alternative leads and contact lists, alternative target organizations and employers to contact, alternative ways to approach prospective companies, and alternative plans to continue your job hunt through its successful completion. The jobs are out there-you just need to be sure you are using the right methods to look for them.
17. Seek career counseling or job hunting help online. Many service providers, through the Internet, are offering career counseling services, job hunting advice, and reference tools that you can turn to in your job hunt. Some of the best of these services are free, and the number is growing astronomically each year. Your first approach would be to visit the online career centers integrated with ResumeMaker and visit each site to determine what services they have to offer. There is a virtual community just waiting to hear from you.
18. Consider federal and local government sources. The federal government is a huge resource of potential job search information, available to you at little or no cost. Several Department of Labor publications, for example, can take you through your job search from beginning to end, and help with career counseling and industry research. Call your local employment office and take advantage of the services they offer.
19. Make sure you can survive financially between jobs. Budget for the time you will be looking for a job. It is always helpful if you can get an overall view of how your money will carry you through any work search or training you may need to take on. You will have enough worries and issues to deal with and do not want to have to be concerned about your finances.
20. Set and prioritize goals while job-hunting. You need to know what you want, or else you can’t ask for it. There are literally thousands of jobs open around you. Determine what it is that you want, set your goals for achieving this, and prioritize the steps that you will ultimately need to take. The more specific you are about your goal, the better your chances of getting the job you want.
21. Zero in on a career position and research the market. Before you start meeting people, you need to know something about the industry or field you want to work in. The more you know, the better your conversations with prospective employers will be-and the more impressed they will be with you.
22. Interview others for information. Interview people whose occupations interest you. You can always find someone who has done something that at least approximates what you want to do. Find the names of such persons, and go see, phone, or write them. You will learn a great deal that is relevant to your dream.
23. Organize a job search campaign. Organize your job search campaign. Failing to do so is a common flaw in many people’s job search strategy. Make a plan for your job search. This entails: planning and organizing your job strategy, setting up a base or operations center for your job hunt, preparing materials, and carrying out job search tactics.
24. Update your resume and be prepared. Update that resume! A resume is what nearly everyone you approach in your job search is going to ask for. Get your resume in top shape. Use a professional service or ResumeMaker to prepare a show-stopping resume!
25. Keep yourself dedicated, strong, positioned, and consistent. Job-hunting can certainly be one of life’s most stressful experiences. You have more power to keep the pressures of job hunting under control, however, than you may think. The key is to focus your job search and stay strong, dedicated and consistent. One of the curious things about the human brain is that it focuses on only one thing at a time. So keep it focused on you-and finding a job!