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  • Concierge Medicine – Is it For You?

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    The last time you called your doctor’s office, how long did you have to wait for a reply? How long do you usually have to wait to get an appointment or wait for a prescription to be called in? When you get to the office, how long do you spend in the waiting room and how much time does the doctor spend with you?

    Did you get all your questions answered? How many seconds do you have in the beginning of your appointment to explain your symptoms before you are interrupted? Do the nurses and doctors seem to be more interested in their computers or their charts than they are to you?

    If your experiences are like most people, your answers to these questions are not very flattering to the medical profession and to the health care system in general. Most doctors don’t really want their practices to be like this, but they don’t have much choice. They have to have a high volume of patients in order to make ends meet financially. The high volume makes the clinic a very busy place and most patients don’t feel like they get much attention.

    In 1996 in Seattle, a doctor named Howard Moran thought there should be a better way to do this. He pioneered the concept of having a lower volume practice with highly attentive medical care provided as a service for patients in return for a retainer fee, much like many attorneys or accountants use. This fee may be in addition to, or in lieu of, the regular office fees that are billed to insurance companies. This concept allows the practice to remain financially solvent while providing better, more attentive medical service to its low volume of patients (usually keeping the patient count down to about one tenth of the number in a typical traditional primary care practice).

    Unfortunately, health insurance companies currently don’t pay for this type of service, so that means the patients have to pay this out of pocket, but if the service is good, it may be worth it. Patients who join these practices are encouraged to keep their usual insurance which they will need for visits to other specialists, laboratory testing, radiological testing and/or hospital services if needed.

    Many concierge practices offer same or next day appointments, no long waits for appointments or prescription refills, direct access to your personal physician day or night, house calls if necessary, continuing care if hospitalized, complete physical examinations, audiometry screening, cardiovascular and cancer risk screening, more attention to preventive care, unrushed appointments, all questions answered, family meetings if needed, coordination of care with specialists, provision of personal health records on CDs or flash drives, etc., etc.

    Depending on the type and number of services that are provided, the flat retainer fee can vary widely from one area to the next ranging from $100 to $20,000/ year, most probably averaging around $1500-3000/year. There were only a few hundred of these physicians a few years ago, but there are over 5000 of them now all over the country. Many of them, but not all, are listed at the main website for the American Academy of Private Physicians – http://www.aapp.org/. Patients may be able to find a concierge physician in their area on this site.

    There has been some controversy surrounding some of these practices because some authorities feel the growth of concierge medicine will lead to a 2-tiered medical system in this country – one for the wealthy and one for the not-so-wealthy. Also, with the current shortage of primary care physicians (PCPs), with increasing numbers of concierge practices, the number of PCPs available for traditional offices will be even smaller, and access to care for patients served by those practices will suffer. On the other hand, more medical students may become interested in primary care if opportunities in concierge medicine are available to them when they finish their residencies.

    Some of these practices have come under fire from insurance companies who say that concierge physicians are basically providing an insurance plan for their patients without having an insurance license to do so. The practices must therefore be legally and financially structured in such a way that avoids this criticism.

    Overall, the concept of concierge medicine provides a good alternative to the currently unsatisfying traditional model of medical practice. The fee may seem high to some, but in most instances, it probably isn’t much higher than the cost of the local cable or telephone bill, or about the same as what a family would spend eating out at a restaurant once a week. 

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    Source by Greg Warth, M.D.

    Views: 0

  • MLM As a Business Tool

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    Multi-level marketing or MLM for short is one of the fastest -rising star in business. It is easy to set up, fast to do and not very difficult to manage as long as you manage a tight ship and create a structure without the holes. These reasons, however, are also the ones that made multi-level marketing as a business tool notorious. People who are out to rob other people of their hard-earned money, used the business structure to create scams. I am sure you have heard of the pyramid scams. The models they used are similar to multi-level marketing except that they are not legitimate business with no legitimate products.

    As a business tool, MLM is ingenious. Instead of creating stores and distributing through the usual channels, MLM makes use of ordinary people and their wide range of contacts. It actually takes advantage of the fact that communication now is so much better than before. This means that people you have not even seen in decades can easily be contacted. And the more contacts you have, the better for multi-level marketing because in essence, you will be using their contacts too.

    To make you understand MLM much better, here is how it goes. A company with products recruits distributors that will help them sell their products to people. Usually what big companies do is look for big companies who can put their products in the market. The same concept is applied to multi-level marketing except that people act as distributors and not companies. It’s the marriage of distributorship and the legendary Avon way of selling, direct to consumers. This actually gets the best of both worlds.

    With this business tool, multi-level marketing companies recruits people who can directly distribute their products to consumers. These people however do not just sell the products, they can also recruit people who can help them sell their products. Thus, increasing their total sales. When a lot of people are already part of one person, this is already considered as a group and group sales are often rewarded with commissions. In fact, the more people you have, the bigger sales you will naturally have. This is the principle of multilevel marketing.

    The beauty of this business tool is the fact that products are sold directly to people and yet you have people under you to help you do it. To earn a commission, you don’t need to actually sell the products yourself. You can recruit people to do it for you and then have them do the work. This is ideal for people who have a lot of contacts and network that they can use. Some people do not even have to meet in person to strike a business deal. This is especially true if the MLM company has offices in different states and countries.

    One word of caution though when thinking of joining a company that engages in multi-level marketing is to see if they have legitimate products that they can actually sell. You should also see if the company is also a legitimate one. This means it needs to have some manufacturing plant and a main office and business structure to qualify as legitimate. This separates companies that uses it as a business tool and companies that are out to just scam people. Knowing the difference can make save you a lot of effort and of course hard-earned money.

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    Source by Terez Dunn

    Views: 0

  • Affiliate Marketing Tips – How to Earn Your First Dollar With Affiliate Marketing!

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    Do you want to know how to earn $10 to $20 per month with affiliate marketing? The very first thing you want to do is to make your first dollar. It seems obvious, but many beginners try to make thousands of dollars at their first try.

    It doesn’t really work like this. Do you know that those who are earning several thousands per month started from scratch? Most of them have spent month to build their business. So what you should do when you are just getting started? There are many ways to get started, but all you need to do is start somewhere.

    You can write articles and submit them to directories. Why would you write articles and submit them for free? Good question. In fact, you should do this to drive traffic to your site and build a list of subscribers. Many beginners think that it is better to send the potential buyer to the merchant site, but this is not the way to do it because when you do this, you will never have another chance to promote your affiliate product to this prospect. When he leaves your site, he is gone for good. But look at this scenario now. When you build a list of prospects and send them valuable information, they will start to trust you and later on, they may buy from you.

    So if you want to make your first dollar online, write articles, and add a link in your bio box for visitors to go straight to your own website.

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    Source by Jamian Surenjav

    Views: 0

  • Overcoming Mindset Challenges

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    We all have those days, we drop our heads and get down on ourselves; you might even let out a few expletive words for good measure. Our pickleball play is just not up to our, or the USAPA player rating standard. It’s frustrating. I’ll let you in on a secret I learned long ago from a coach who pushed us to achieve; your state of mind or your mindset, plays an enormous role in your successes and failure.

    Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, identifies 2 types of mind-sets; fixed and growth. The fixed mindset has shaped you from birth, it is what you are and has defined your belief in your potential. An innate conviction fashioned from external influences and internally interpreted. A fixed mindset, sees obstacles when faced with change and challenges and therefore will interpret failure as self-defeating in the lack of abilities. It’s like looking on the other side of the court and thinking that the grass is greener – your opponents seem to have all the right moves and it’s your lack of something that is keeping you from winning.

    On the other hand, the growth mindset is one that is embryonic. Here is where belief in ourselves can help us adapt and grow in the ways we want by developing our talents through hard-work and dedication. Learning to love our development playing pickleball and also developing a resilience to loss is the key.

    Hear Those “Voices”

    Learning to overcome a fixed mindset challenge begins with learning to control your emotions and then you can achieve optimal performance during competition. First, you need to pay attention to those negative voices; you know the one’s – from family members that expressed failure or the one’s from coaches that uttered a lack of talent. There may have even been laughter from classmates or club memberships. A mentor who would snap when you hit a setback. You may have developed a reactive “habit” – automatic response to an emotional stimuli. Pushing those old suppressed buttons will give you a release and an understanding but despite their best intentions, this can also trigger an emotional upheaval, easily sweeping you away. Fortunately there is one way to stop the spiral of uncontrollable emotional reactions – refocusing. Consciously stepping back to draw your focus into your senses and the physical effects they may manifest; elevated heart rate, sweaty palms, nausea, tight or tense muscles, anxiety, and shallow breathing.

    Acknowledge and Accept

    Staying in the present moment, acknowledging that these physical effects are poignant, so you can process the information as if you are a doctor observing a patient. Comprehend your emotional arousal as an imaginary threat, and your intensified state of mental stress or physical excitement is a normal response that can be reduced by controlling your emotions. Slow down. Accept that you can help your brain learn to process new “habits” to effectively stay grounded; stretch and breathe, visualize or focus on energizing cues that epitomize how you want to perform or transfer negative energy to positive energy.

    Choice

    You have a choice; interpret negative challenges or setbacks from a lack of talent fixed mindset or from a positive aptitude growth mindset. When you doubt your talent, change your focus – with time and effort, believe you can learn a particular skill or achieve a goal. If you hit a setback or face criticism, keep learning and persevere.

    When the grass on the “other side” draws my attention, I stop and reframe – finding the courage in myself to think of the “water”, or successes that keeps my grass green. I still find myself under stress, and I still hear the “voice” of my fixed mindset. I have learned to face the criticism; sometimes old responses rear their ugly head and I get angry – hitting the ball without thinking and making unforced errors. Other times I am able to put those voices in their place. I interpret my challenges, and setbacks then regain my emotional control. It’s all very personal.

    Over time, learning to take on the pickleball challenge wholeheartedly, gaining wisdom from setbacks, and acting on the criticisms you face by embracing the growth mindset can make it work for you.

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    Source by Patricia H Kuhnen-Beaver

    Views: 0

  • Herpes Genitalis Cure

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    You’ll be glad to hear that, despite the so-called medical ‘facts’ you’ve probably heard or read, which say there is no cure for Herpes Genitalis, there is another more positive view.

    There is evidence that it is possible not just to find effective natural treatment for viral infections such as Herpes & even AIDS, but even to experience a complete cure.

    So far medical research has found no way to eradicate Herpes.

    So if you’ve tested positive for the virus you’ve probably been told there are now drugs to treat the symptoms and shorten the length of the acute attack – but that you can never get rid of the Herpes virus altogether.

    That would mean that even when you are over the first attack and you are no longer showing any symptoms the virus is still in your system and later you will probably have a flare up intermittently and need another course of treatment.

    However – it seems there are other much better possibilities than those offered medically.

    I certainly believe there are more effective ways to deal with the virus than you will be offered medically.

    The first time I saw someone successfully use a natural health method to prevent any recurrence of Herpes Genitalis was in someone who took large amounts of Tahitian Noni Juice for natural healing and then continued to take it on a regular basis over many years – and never had a recurrence of the virus after the first proven infection.

    Though she was convinced the Noni juice had saved her from further problems it is of course impossible to say whether the result was due to the Noni juice or to some other factor – such as her absolute belief in this natural treatment, for example, or perhaps some other factor in her diet or in her life – including perhaps her own healing powers that she was not at that time aware of.

    In fact it is always impossible to be certain in human beings what is the cause of a cure when it does occur – whether the person used medical or natural treatment – because there are always so many other factors that could have been involved. Even when someone takes a drug and gets better for example we cannot be certain it was the drug that produced the healing – for the same reasons.

    However – the point is – this girl was cured – by something – which shows that healing is possible.

    Over the years I have studied and used various forms of natural healing – from diets and supplements – to energy healing, laughter therapy and mind training – in an attempt to help patients who were not getting results with medical treatment or who wanted to avoid the side-effects of various medications. And although not everyone was cured there have been many cases where the healing results have been far beyond medical possibility and medical explanation.

    While still running my own medical practice for example I saw some amazing results with natural treatments. One lady was cured completely of pancreatic cancer. Another – who had been suffering severe infected psoriasis all over her body for many years – despite all medical treatments – was completely clear within a month of starting a natural treatment.

    And early in 2011 I modified my own already successful natural healing techniques after learning about university laboratory studies in which a 100% cancer cure was produced in mice – using only natural healing.

    You can learn about home remedies, experience free natural healing for Herpes Genitalis or learn how to do natural healing for yourself at Jersey Natural Health.com.

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    Source by Dr Anne Curtis

    Views: 0

  • How to Build a Structured Sales Pipeline

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    Following on from my earlier article “Developing a structured pipeline – The Issues” this article describes how to build the all too elusive, structured sales pipeline.

    So to recap: what should a structured pipeline report aim to achieve?

    Firstly, it should enable you to view each sale in a consistent manner.

    Second, it should clearly identify if a sales opportunity has progressed or stagnated.

    Thirdly, it should contained a factoring index which will more accurately reflect the true value of the pipeline

    Fourthly, it should provide sales and/or company management with a consistent and reliable prediction of business that should be closed in the forthcoming period.

    Fifth, it should be simple and relatively easy to complete (salespeople as a breed are poor at filling in reports).

    Sixth, it should be focused on numbers rather than opinion.

    To build a consistent view of each sales opportunity take the sales cycle in your business and break it down into discrete milestones.

    So for example,

    – Milestone 1 is a lead or an enquiry who has identified desire to purchase your product or service.

    – Milestone 2 to progress the sale you need to demonstrate the product

    – Milestone 3 they have the budget to pay for your product

    – Milestone 4 you have submitted a proposal

    – Milestone 5 you’re on the shortlist

    – Milestone 6 you have a verbal order

    – Milestone 7 you have a written order.

    The next step is to put percentages against these milestones for example,

    1) 5%,

    2) 10%,

    3) 20%,

    4) 25%,

    5) 50%,

    6) 90%,

    7) 100%.

    This approach allows you to build a factored pipeline i.e. the value of the opportunity time the percentage milestone. Don’t get hung up about whether the percentages should be this or that number what we are building is something that will give you a consistent view across all your sales opportunities and not something which reflects the precise chance of winning per opportunity. The progress of the sale can be shown in any way you like; this could be as a table, a graph, or a set of traffic light colours going from red to green as you move along the sales process. Other information you need is simple the prospect name, if it is a new or existing customer, the value of the opportunity and a projected win date.

    By constructing what I have described you’ve gone a long way to getting a grip on your sales performance, you’ve now turned sales reporting into a set of numbers which over time you can analyse. For example you’ll see which sales have stagnated because they wont have moved along the pipeline for a period of time, you’ll be able to identify how overoptimistic you sales force are by comparing the projected win date with the actual win date. Most commonly this is between 3-6 months.

    Now that you have a factored pipeline you can start to build up metrics on the relationship between the size of your pipeline and your monthly sales. It also now enables you to look forward because as your factored pipeline rises and falls to will your sales, thus you can act early as soon as you see your pipeline numbers dip.

    You’re now at last starting to get some sensible numbers to enable you to plan your business and you have moved from a jolly nice chat to a shorter focused and more effective sales meeting. As the Meerkat would say “simples.”

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    Source by Laurence Ainsworth

    Views: 0

  • Pat Meseti – Millionaire Mindset

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    Pat Meseti describes himself as a gnome on steroids. If you have heard him speak you would think he is much more than this. I was gifted tickets to an event that Pat recently spoke at and I was hooked.

    The following weekend Pat held a seminar on the Gold Coast and I changed my schedule to be able to attend. Falling ill meant I did not reach the end of the three-day seminar, but as I lay in bed, I read the Millionaire Mindset and it changed my thoughts.

    The main thing to hit me was when Pat explained that you should not take financial advise from people who are poor. Wow! Who doesn't listen to family and friends about money? Are those friends wealthy? No, of course not, but we still listen to them. It is seriously worth thinking about. We must emulate those who have been successful before us.

    The other message that hit home was to keep learning. As a massive fan of Anthony Robbins (also known as Tony Robbins), I understand this and it is great to hear the same amazing information from someone else. It brings home the fact that you are already on the right track.

    You can learn from those who have walked before you or those from another path. I work in real estate, however I feel I can learn a lot from those who work in other professions. I have recently spent time with trainers, speakers as well as a marriage guide, and I learned something new from everyone. It is amazing what you can take away if you are truly willing.

    Looking to some of the world's entrepreneurs will guide the way for those who choose this path, but Pat's words are not just for those in business for themselves. If you choose to work for others, for whatever reason, you can take these teachings to your workplace with you. If you want to be the best at whatever you do, look to those who were great before you. Simple stuff right?

    The last thing that I will share, without ruining the whole book is that we all have a different view on success and wealth. I might think that to earn $ 200,000 a year is success. You might feel that working just enough to be comfortable, but able to get to soccer practice with the kids is success. Whatever you choose is really up to you. Remember to enjoy the ride and celebrate your success, however that looks to you.

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    Source by Brenda Lee Mitchell

    Views: 0

  • I’m Afraid My Husband Has Moved On And That It’s Too Late To Get Him Back: Insights That Might Help

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    I often hear from wives who want to know when it’s too late to get their husband back. Some tell me that, in their minds, it is too late because their husband has seemed to “move on.” I often hear comments like “We’ve been separated for six months. I think my husband has started seeing someone else. I’m starting to think that this is the end and that it’s too late for us. If someone has moved on, does that mean the end of the marriage?”

    Another example is something like: “My husband keeps telling me that we’re over and that it’s too late to do anything to save this marriage. Yesterday, he told me that he was moving on and that I should do the same thing. But I’m not sure how I can do this when it’s never going to be over for me. What can I do?”

    The common denominator in all of these questions and comments is that what the person asking really wants to know is when is it too late to save your marriage. Do you reach that “too late” point when your spouse tells you they have moved on? Do you have to take their word for it?

    Of course, I can’t definitively answer these questions for anyone because the answer depends on the specific people involved and the situation that they are in. But, I can offer you a perspective from my experiences and observations, which I’ll do in the following article.

    Sometimes, Couples Do Reconcile After One Of Them Has “Moved On”: If there’s anything that I know for sure in this situation, it’s that it is possible for things to change. Feelings change. Perceptions change. Situations change also. Just because someone is proclaiming or insisting something today, this doesn’t mean that they can’t do a complete about face tomorrow.

    I have seen divorced couples reconcile. I’ve seen couples who have been remarried to other people (sometimes for decent periods of time) decide to get back together. This doesn’t happen in every case, of course. But it most certainly can happen. Sometimes, there’s a change in circumstances which bring about a change of feelings. Other times, it happens spontaneously. But, much of the time, it’s part of a master plan meant to bring about small, gradual, and yet dramatic changes.

    Why Hanging On Too Tightly Can Sometimes Backfire: Wives in this situation often tell me that they just can not accept that it’s over or that he has moved on. I do understand this as I was in these shoes and I know how frustrating and painful this whole process can be. However, I can also tell you that I hear from husbands in this situation too and it’s my experience and opinion that clinging too tightly or “refusing” to accept what he’s telling you will often make him feel less loving or receptive toward you rather than more so.

    I know that it can be difficult to take step back or to pause when you’re so afraid that the second you do, he really will be gone. But sometimes, you just have to ask yourself if clinging so tightly has been working for you. Take a long look to see if your previous methods have really gained you anything.

    Sometimes, if you are honest and can maintain a little distance, you can see that actually, you’ve only been making things worse. It’s really important to ask yourself if the attempts you’ve been making have been bringing him closer to you or improving things or if they’ve been pushing him further away and deteriorating things. If this is the case, sometimes, you come to realize that trying something new isn’t as risky as it may have first appeared.

    Backing Off Or Taking Pause Is Not The Same As your Moving On: I sometimes have wives tell me things like: “maybe he’s moved on, but I will never be able to. I just can’t give up on our marriage or let go no matter what he says.” Another example is: “his moving on doesn’t mean that I have to.” All of these points are valid, but nothing says that you have to broadcast this to him. Because, when you’re asserting that you are absolutely not going to move on, then sometimes he will come to oppose you even more and think that he needs to ratchet up his efforts to change your mind. This of course, makes him move further away from you.

    So, there are times when you are better off just telling yourself that, although you know full well how you feel, you’re no longer going to keep repeating this to him when he already knows it anyway. There’s nothing wrong with appearing to back off when you know all along that your plan is to gain some ground. And, sometimes you need a pause to gain some perspective and calm.

    Taking time for yourself and taking a break from all of the drama can sometimes actually improve the situation. And sometimes, when you are suddenly silent or absent, your husband suddenly becomes interested again. This is what happened in my case, although it wasn’t by design.

    No matter which way you chose to go, it’s my experience that you are almost always better off if you are able to maintain your respect and dignity. You want to portray yourself in the strongest way possible and this often requires you to act “as if” when you just aren’t feeling it or aren’t all that confident. Sometimes, it helps to remember the person your husband loved once upon a time and to show him that person when the opportunity genuinely presents itself.

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    Source by Leslie Cane

    Views: 0

  • The Health Benefits of Indoor Plants

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    When you think of a house plant, you probably think of a green plant that you water occasionally right? But did you know that those pretty green leaves can actually be beneficial to your health? Having indoor house plants can boost your physical, mental and spiritual health.

    Many people thing growing indoor house plants is too much trouble so they turn to the silk variety for green foliage in their homes. But there really is a different in how your home feels when the plants are real. Did you know that living plants can actually improve the air we breathe? Green plants are known for removing carbon dioxide from the air, but they can also filter harmful toxins and pollutants as well. This will make the air in your home healthier for your family, which in turn can help to keep your family healthier as well!

    In addition to helping to purify the air, having house plants in your home can actually help prevent allergies in children. If children are exposed early in life to things that typically cause allergy issues they will begin to develop a tolerance and immunity to the allergen. It works similar to custom allergy shots that people get from their allergist. The allergist does an allergy test then makes a serum of the things that the person is allergic to. The person gets weekly shots of this serum to help them build a tolerance. Exposing your family to house plants can work in the same way, by helping them build a tolerance to the plants in your home. It is important to note that if someone in your family has severe allergies you should talk to their doctor before introducing house plants into their environment.

    In addition to the physical health benefits of house plants, they help with mental health as well. When someone is depressed or lonely, caring for a living thing can help give them a purpose in life. Many people live in places where pets aren’t allowed, so a house plant is a good choice. The person becomes involved in watering, fertilizing and trimming the plant when needed. This is a great therapy for people with mental health issues.

    Being surrounded by living things is good for the soul, so having house plants is good for your spiritual health. Caring for another living thing and being exposed to the beauty can make you feel at peace with the world or at the very least your little corner of the world.

    There are so many advantages to having house plants. However, there is no health benefit in a sick or dead plant. Make sure you water your plants regularly and mix slow release fertilizer in the soil about every three months. If you care for your plants, they will give you years of beauty and the added benefit of clean air, better mental health and calming peace.

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    Source by Piper Cox

    Views: 0

  • Stopping Employee Theft in Your Coffee Business

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    Regardless to how good of an employer you are, and even if you treat your employees well, understand that employee theft is a reality, and you need to control it. While it may only be a very small percentage of your staff that might steal from you, it can have a significant financial impact on your coffee business. If it goes unnoticed, employees will usually become even more brazen in their activities.

    When it comes to theft, your employees are likely to fall into one of the following four categories:

    Mr./Ms. honest – these are people who would never think of taking anything if it doesn’t belong to them. If they happen to go home with one of your ballpoint pens, they’ll bring it back the next day, and feel guilty that they took it home, even though it was unintentional.

    Incidental theft – these are people that will take home your pen by accident, and will keep it. And, they may scarf a piece of cheesecake occasionally when you aren’t looking, even though they know they shouldn’t. Because these items have minimal value, they have no great sense of guilt related to their activities.

    Theft because of need and opportunity – this is when you have an employee who is perhaps living on the edge financially, and because they have the need, and because your security may be lax, they’ll take advantage of an opportune situation to take something.

    Compulsive theft – this is the person who is always looking for something to steal, and they have absolutely no conscience about it. They typically rationalize the theft in their own mind. They consider you to be the rich, fat cat, and feel that they are over worked and under paid, so stealing from you is justified.

    Employee theft probably exists to some extent within your operation, whether you are aware of it or not. You can most likely live with incidental theft, provided it doesn’t get out of control. Theft related to need and opportunity is, in reality, your fault. These people would probably not steal from you normally, but a lack of security procedures has created the temptation and means for them to do so. Compulsive theft must be discovered, stopped, and you must eliminate the person(s) responsible.

    Losing product due to theft:

    Your employees may have no desire or need for a sleeve of 12oz. paper cups, Java Jackets, or a roll of toilet paper… but they might like a frozen cake, gallon of chocolate sauce, 6-pack of beer, or a bottle of wine.

    There are some simple things you can do to greatly reduce the chance of being ripped-off. First, don’t allow your employees to store their jackets, backpacks, and purses near where you store products. This makes it incredibly simple for someone to slide something into their bag or jacket pocket when no one is watching. I always had my employees store their personal belongings in the cabinet under the cash register (where someone would always be watching), or in my office, under lock & and key.

    Second, keep the back door of your store locked with a key at all times (you or your supervisor being the only ones having a key). If customers regularly enter through your back door, this may not be an option. If your back door is an emergency fire exit (and it probably is), you’ll need to install an alarmed breaker-bar. The whole point is that you don’t want your employees to be able to flow in and out of the back door without you knowing about it. Carrying product out the back door to their car, a hiding place for later pick-up, or an awaiting friend, is one of the most common ways products will exit your store.

    Once you have made it more difficult to stash things in their personal belongings, or carry them out the back door, employees may resort to hiding items in the trashcan. Of course you will unlock the back door to let them take out the trash. If they have hidden something in the trashcan, a dumpster-diving expedition will certainly be planned for after-hours to recover their treasure.

    Periodic trashcan checks should eliminate this problem, or make it a far less appealing option to anyone considering this method to smuggle things out of your store. Buy a long handle 3-prong garden rake. When employees ask to take out the trash, accompany them, and have them hold the can up on the edge of the dumpster while you rake out the trashcan contents. What you are looking for are things that might have been hidden in the trash, but you can tell your employees that you are merely making sure that small wares aren’t being accidentally thrown away. During the 15-years I owned and managed restaurants, I discovered everything from six-packs of beer, bottles of wine, and packages of steaks hidden in the trash!

    Another situation that will create an ideal opportunity for employees to steal from you is having only one person working in your store. If your baker comes in each morning a hour before you or the next employee, or if one person is left to clean and lock-up the place at the end of the day, opportunities for theft abound. As the old saying goes: when the cat’s away…

    Always try to have at least two people in your store at all times. If there is not justification for having a second employee on the clock, then you will need to be that second person. If this requires you going from a 60-hour workweek to 80-hours, then this may not be a tolerable option. If this is the case, then at least invest a couple of hours more each day for a week or two to do some detective work.

    During those times of day when only one employee is working, park at the far end of the parking lot, or across the street, so that you will reduce the chance of being noticed by your employee. If they are familiar with your vehicle, use your spouse’s or friend’s vehicle for a few days. Watch carefully (with binoculars if necessary). I know this all sounds a little CSI – like, but better to rest-easy, feeling fairly assured that your employee isn’t carrying away your store when you’re not watching. If I had the time, I could tell you countless stories of my experiences in catching employees red handed, loading the trunks of their cars.

    If you suspect that theft of product might be occurring, but you’ve seen no direct evidence of it, then conducting a daily key item inventory may shed some light on the situation. Write down a list of 15 to 20 products that you think would be most appealing for someone to steal. In your coffee business, this might include items such as coffee, syrups and sauces, smoothie puree, biscotti, cookies, and desserts, sandwich meats & cheeses, and of course beer & wine (if you serve those from your operation). Then take an inventory of these items every day. Your employees don’t need to know what you are doing, and if they ask, simply tell them you are taking an inventory for ordering purposes.

    What you are looking for are anomalies in usage. For example, let’s say that from your daily inventories you assess that you use about half a gallon of chocolate sauce per day. Then, one day you notice you used 1 1/2 gallons of chocolate the previous day. This should send up a red flag! Why did you go through an extra gallon of chocolate? Were you significantly busier yesterday, or did you featuring several drink specials which contained chocolate sauce? A quick review of individual item sales from yesterday’s cash register report should provide you with the answer. If you average one ounce of chocolate per beverage, then using 1 1/2 gallons means you should have sold approximately 192 beverages containing chocolate (128 oz. per gal. x 1.5 = 192). If this was the case, no problem. But, if you discover that you only sold 64 beverages containing chocolate, then 128 oz. (or 1 gallon) is unaccounted for and missing! A good indication that it probably walked out the door. If this happens, keep track of who was working on the day of the shortage. If this happens continually, eventually you will discover that the same person or persons were working every time.

    Theft of money by employees:

    Hopefully, none of your employees will have the desire to steal products from you, but some will be tempted by the lure of cold, hard, cash. Everyone could use an extra $20 a day. Employees who steal money from you will definitely hurt your bottom line, and must be eliminated.

    The first way to reduce cash theft is to have a cash handling policy in place that will discourage theft. If multiple employees are using the cash register, and no one person is responsible, then I can almost guarantee that your cash drawer will keep coming up short on a regular basis. The fact that no one person can be held responsible for the shortages, will make grabbing a bill or two easy and appealing.

    Implement a policy that one, and only one person is responsible for the cash register for the entire shift. They should count the drawer at the beginning of their shift to verify that they are starting with the designated change bank. Then, they should be the only person to ring up sales and make change. Even you, the owner/manger, should keep your hands out of their cash drawer. Finally, at the end of their shift, they should set aside the amount they started with in the change drawer, and total all the remaining cash, checks, and charges, and balance against what was rung up on the register. If they started with the right amount of money in the cash drawer, rang everything up, took all the money, counted back all the change, and they end up short… who’s fault is it? It can only be theirs. By implementing this simple policy, I once took an operation that was coming up $100 a day ($3,000 a month) cash short, and reduced it to $3 a day, in just 30 days! That’s over a $2,900 bottom line improvement, (in case you didn’t do the math)!

    The other common method that a cashier might use to steal money from you is by using a method called, building a bank. This is the process of not ringing up items on the cash register, while still taking money from the customers, and then pocketing that money. Typically, they will obscure the view of the cash register display on the customer’s side with something like a flower, retail merchandise, or by turning the display so that it cannot be easily seen. Then, they will pretend to ring up an item, but will hit the no sale key instead, popping the drawer open so they can take the cash and make change, but in reality, they haven’t rung up anything. The other thing they might do when it is busy is to just not shut the drawer between transactions. They simply convey verbally the cost of items ordered by customers and take the cash, but once again, nothing has been rung up.

    A cash register that prints out the order on a remote receipt printer to the person who will be preparing the item, can eliminate this problem. Quite simply, if the item isn’t rung-up, it won’t print out. If your barista or cook won’t prepare anything without a receipt (and they shouldn’t!), it will force your cashier to ring everything up.

    If you observe that the cash register’s display has been blocked from the customer’s view, or there are an excessive number of no sale indications on your cash register’s detail tape, or notice that your cashier is not shutting the drawer between transactions, beware! While these may not be indisputable proof that your cashier is stealing from you, they should certainly heighten your vigilance to find out if something is going on.

    If your coffee business only warrants having one employee working at a time, perhaps because you own a cart, kiosk, or low volume drive-through operation, then how do you go about keeping your employee from building a bank and stealing from you? The best solution I’ve seen is to turn your customers in to watchdogs. Affix a sign to the front of your cash register, in plain sight of the customer, that reads: If you don’t receive a receipt with your order, it’s FREE! This will force your cashier to hand each customer a receipt for their purchase. If they are building a bank, this means they will have to hand the customer a receipt that says – NO SALE; something they probably won’t fell comfortable doing!

    The financial impact of theft of money can be extremely damaging, for example: Let’s say you have a cashier who is skimming off $20 a day by not ringing things up, and then pocketing the money. Not only did you loose the stolen $20, but the $7 of ingredients that were probably used to produce the ordered products; ($20 x 35% ingredient cost = $7.00). So in reality, you lost $27, and it will take an additional $41.54 in sales, to recover this loss; ($41.54 x 65% gross profit = $27). $27 a day lost to theft, X 21 days worked by the employee = $567 lost cash & product per month; $872 extra sales required to offset this loss. (Annual loss, $6,804; $10,468 in additional income required to offset loss.) You must stop theft of money!

    Theft of money management:

    If you have a manger running your operation for you, this can really create an opportunity for cash theft. Just about anyone who has ever run a food service operation (self included), probably felt that they were over-worked and under-paid. Some are tempted to grant themselves an unapproved raise. Your manger has the control key to the cash register, which means they have the ability to back off items that were sold. You would be wise to check your cash register detail tapes on a regular basis. If you see multiple items backed off in groups, or more worrisome yet, all backed off at the very end of the shift, beware!

    A good way to keep this from happening is to establish a policy that no over-rings are to be backed off of sales on the cash register with the management control key. Instead, when the cashier makes an over-ring, they should take the receipt, write over-ring on it, sign it, and put it in the cash drawer. At the end of the shift, the total of all over-rings should be manually backed off of the sales total indicated on the cash register report.

    Many years ago I had a manager that was stealing money from me in another creative way. This manager, who opened the store each day, would reset the cash register by Z-ing it out after the first half hour of business. He would then pocket the proceeds earned during that first half hour. Because additional sales were generated during the second half hour, the cash register hourly sales report would always show sales for the first hour of operation, thus eliminating any suspicion that something might be going on.

    It wasn’t until I was doing a routine audit of cash register Z tapes that I noticed something wasn’t right. When you run a Z report, which resets the cash register at the end of each day, a multi-digit number will usually be printed somewhere on that tape. The next time you Z the register, that number will advance by one digit. I noticed that even though the tapes were sequential in date, every other number was missing. This tipped me off that the register was being Z-ed twice a day! When I confronted my manager with the tapes, his look of panic spoke volumes.

    If you are doubting the honesty of any of your employees or managers, one way you can verify or eliminate your suspicion is by baiting the cash drawer. Slip an extra $20 bill in the drawer sometime during the day when they aren’t watching. If they don’t end up reporting at the end of their shift that they were $20 cash-over, I’ll do it a second time (just to make sure). If they don’t report it a second time, you should have no doubts that they are indeed, dishonest.

    NEVER accuse an employee or manger of stealing unless you catch them red-handed (actually stuffing money into their pockets). Even though the circumstantial evidence may be overwhelming, unless you actually catch them in the act, they are likely to deny your accusations, and will probably file a complaint against you with the department of labor! The brief moment of satisfaction you will gain from letting them know you are aware of what they’ve been doing, will be quickly overwhelmed by the legal predicament you will find yourself in. You will be far better off to not make accusations. Simply terminate their employment. In many states, you do not need to provide a reason as to why you are letting them go. When they ask for an explanation as to why you are firing them, simply say: I don’t need to give you a reason, I’m just letting you go, goodbye!

    Finally, don’t over look technology to help you with security. Surveillance cameras linked to a DVR (digital video recorder) can provide you with peace of mind, or evidence of theft. These systems have become very affordable, and many are easy to install. The value of these cameras go beyond having a video record of operations. The mere fact that employees understand that their activities are being video recorded, will usually discourage them from doing things that they might not think twice about, if no one was watching.

    I think it’s important to not be paranoid about employee theft. Certainly, you don’t want to be constantly obsessed with the suspicion that everyone is stealing from you. In reality, the majority of your employees are probably honest people. But, you would be wise to establish some simple safeguards, and maintain a watchful eye.

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    Source by Ed Arvidson

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