If you’ve hired someone in the Philippines and pay them via paypal. It’s a good practice to pay them a least couple days before your arranged payment date. So if you’ve agreed to pay them on the 15th/30th of each month, make sure you send the funds on the 13th/28th respectively. Since the Philippines does not have a paypal debit card, paypal account holders have to transfer the funds directly to their bank account. For my personal finances, I transfer funds to my BDO account on a regular basis, and it takes 2 days on average to process.

A good percentage of online workers depend on being paid on a consistent basis. Most people in the Philippines live on a day to day basis. For the regular person here having a checking account or a savings account is not very common.

When you ask someone in the U.S. what’s their salary, they will usually say they earn X amount a year. When you ask someone here, they will respond that they earn X amount a month, and even more will say they earn X amount a day. It goes to show what the mindset is here in terms of income. A good majority of people are employed on a 6 month basis, so they are constantly looking for the next job.

Being a freelancer is even tougher because it’s not always consistent. Pay your freelancer on time, and you’ll reap the benefits of having a motivated employee that will work hard because they know that you’ll be paying them on time.

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If you are running your own business, this question must have crossed your mind: How can I make my business prosper and last? With the downturn of the economy, you can never be too slack or laidback in handling your company for too much is at stake.

The small business entrepreneurs are constantly facing new business problems and difficulties on a regular basis just like the thriving and established corporations that you see. There are only two paths for your business: it’s either headed on an uphill track, or a downward course. It is then never an understatement to say that finding ways to improve your business is a conscious effort and choice. If you want your business to generate money, then you must learn to look outside your business in order to get solutions, better ideas, and best practices. Of course, making use or borrowing ideas and best practices could pose disadvantages as well; however, if you know how to apply these strategies and practices effectively, the rewards could be enormous.

By incorporating best practices in your strategic plans, you are taking your business to a new level. I will be sharing with you some of the benefits gained by applying best practices, especially in small businesses.

First, let me define Best Practice, which is the process of searching for various strategies, tactics, and ideas from outside your company that you can use in order to improve the performance in any specific area of your business. A lot of big businesses that have used best practice benchmarking have gained billions, both in savings and revenues in all aspects of their sales and business operations.

There are four (4) distinct benefits gained by adopting best practices for small businesses.

(1)    Cost reduction. Small businesses cannot par the deep financial pockets that big corporations dispense in order to “reinvent the wheel.” Learn from their discoveries and what they have effectively done so you can apply them in your business. Not only will you be able to save a lot of time, but you will also be able to save a considerable amount of money.

(2)    Innovative Ideas. You need to innovate in order to keep your business going. Innovation is very important so that you can come up with new business concepts, better processes and services. Learn to apply the tested and trusted innovative ideas that big businesses use to make your business successful too.

(3)    Performance Improvement. By making use of best practices outside your business, you are raising the bar of performance and setting new levels of standard in order to propel your company to new heights.

(4)    Error Prevention. You are lucky if you can solve your business problems on your own without resulting in costly errors. However, it would be wise to learn from what other successful businesses have done to keep their companies intact.

Applying best practices in your business does not guarantee positive results unless you do your homework first. What I mean by that is you have to know the exact key ingredients that these successful businesses used to achieve those great results. Don’t rush into trying the new idea; first, probe the steps that they took before they achieved their desired outcome. It is only after a careful analysis of the reliability of an idea that you will be ready to effectively implement the concept in your own company.

So what are the basic steps for best practices? First, you have to identify one business process or area that you need to improve, take for instance, your product sales if you are in a retailing industry. Once you’ve pointed that out, start researching and collecting information on the best practices and hub systems used by your successful competitors or companies within your industry. Analyze the usefulness of the information gathered, and if applicable to your situation, modify the best practice for your business improvement.

Another tip is to survey and compare the best practices employed by relevant companies of all sizes. You won’t need a lot of time to do the researching. In fact, you can make a best practice study without having to complete it in months. A few weeks of thorough literature research and phone interviews are often sufficient for small businesses.

Remember that making use of the best practices from other successful businesses can dramatically bring improvement to your small business. What you need to do is to learn their basic ingredients of success and you are sure to excel in your business for a long time.

You can get more ideas for a creative date when you visit CebuHeart.com, where true love can be a click away. It’s a specialized Asian dating site with a focus on Cebu.

What’s great about this sport is you can share this experience with some of your friends. A family park or a huge playing field can be used for this activity.

For plenty of creative date ideas, check out CebuHeart.com, where true love can be a click away. You can get acquainted with some charming Filipina singles and hopefully find the Cebuana for you.

To find more of these ideas for a creative date, visit CebuHeart.com, where true love can be a click away. There you could meet that beautiful Filipina you’ve been dreaming of.

image source: http://flic.kr/p/jZ3on

How would you like to build a house that you can eat later on? I’m talking about building a gingerbread house. A gingerbread date is not something that you can do at the spur of the moment. It needs some planning and preparation like what you’re going to build and how much dough and icing you are going to need. I would recommend a simple four-wall cottage for starters.

If you are planning on an all-day date with your sweetheart, you can go together in purchasing all of your ingredients. A simple cottage structure will probably take 2-3 hours for baking and 1-2 hours for decorating.

Here is a recipe that has always worked well for me simply because you do not need to chill it.

Ingredients for the dough: 1 cup vegetable shortening, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup dark molasses or corn syrup (dark molasses give dark-colored dough while corn syrup gives light-colored dough), 1 tsp baking soda, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp ginger, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp cinnamon, 4 cups flour

Instructions: Melt the first three ingredients mentioned over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in the baking soda, salt, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Gradually add the flour, one cup at a time. Once completely blended, split the dough into manageable balls and enclose in plastic wrappers. Roll out, cut into the desired shapes and bake at 375 degrees for 6-12 minutes. If the dough isn’t working well, heat it in the microwave for 10 seconds to warm it. Knead again and then roll it.

Ingredients for the meringue powder icing: 3 tbsp Meringue Powder, 3 ¾ cups confectioner’s sugar, 4-6 tbsp cold water

Instructions: Whisk dry ingredients together and add half of the water. The icing’s consistency must be thick enough that a knife drawn through will leave a clean path. Add more water as needed.

Building instructions: Assemble the pieces using the icing to hold the pieces together. Let the house stand for at least an hour before decorating. Now you have a cute gingerbread house that’s edible as well.

For other good ideas on creative dates, visit CebuHeart.com, where true love can be a click away. It’s an Asian dating site with a focus on the Cebu area.

image source: http://flic.kr/p/5GJ8c1

Consider having a date with your sweetheart by baking cookies as ornaments for the Christmas holidays. If it’s your first Christmas together, this activity will become a very special memento for both of you.

Here is one simple recipe that you might want to try:

Ingredients: 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt, 1 ½ cup water, food coloring (optional)

Instructions: Mix all the ingredients and knead the dough until firm and moist. Roll out to about ¼ inch thickness and cut into various shapes using cookie cutters. Bore a little hole in the upper portion of the cookie, where you can insert a straw or string later on. Bake at 325 degrees for two hours. Once baked, decorate the cookies with paints, glue, glitter or whatever interests you.

To hang your finished cookie ornament, insert a string or straw into the hole and make a knot. You can now drape the ornaments that you made on the tree.

For additional ideas about creative dates, check out CebuHeart.com, where true love can be a click away. There you could find the beautiful Filipina you’ve been waiting for.

image source: http://flic.kr/p/8mEPyM

Tie-dyeing is fun and easy to do. Just secure two white t-shirts and a handful of different colored dyes. To make a tie-dye, tie off sections of the shirt using a rubber band or string. Separately, pour the dye into a basin of water. Dip sections of the shirts in the dye solution until you achieve the desired color. Once done, let the t-shirts dry.

For more ideas about how to date creatively, visit CebuHeart.com, where true love can be a click away. You can meet Filipina singles and perhaps find “happily ever after” with a lovely Cebuana.

image source: http://flic.kr/p/4WTZBR

I’m sure you have already played Pictionary or Win, Lose or Draw. You can actually make a variation of these games. Instead of doing sketches or drawings in a piece of paper, you can use clay to form something. It’s a blast to be able to create your word by shaping the clay.

You can also play Pictionary through finger painting. Buy some finger paints and put on an old tee. Or play this game with pudding. Make a big batch of different pudding flavors and use it like finger paints. It’s going to be messy, but it’s going to be fun.

To read about more ideas for a creative date, visit CebuHeart.com, where true love can be a click away. It’s a Filipino dating site full of interesting people you can get to know.