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10 ways to prevent being burgled this Christmas

10 ways to prevent being burgled this Christmas

10 ways to prevent being burgled this Christmas

It’s Christmas! Let the Thievery Begin!

Even though New Zealand’s crime figures are better than many, most business owners worry about burglary.

It’s the holiday break, and I’m sure you’re looking forward to some family time and a bit of rest and relaxation. You’ve worked hard all year and you’ve earned a rest. Maybe you’re off to the beach for a week or two?

The reality in New Zealand is that many homes and businesses are empty for a few weeks after Christmas, And given these timings it probably also means all the Christmas presents you got on the 25th – the new iPhone, the expensive laptop, or maybe that big screen TV and Playstation – are all sitting in your house!

Here’s a few simple little tricks can make your place reasonably secure and help minimize the likelihood that they’re going to run off with your new toys.

1. Get a decent Contents Insurance policy – shop around as there’s plenty of brokers out there.

2. Check that your door locks are all working properly.

3. Jam some wood into your window frames – easy to remove from inside, but it prevents your windows from being opened from the outside.

4. Install a dummy video security camera at your front door – these are readily available online and help deter a criminal.

5. Get some fake Security System stickers online and stick them to your windows.

6. Leave some lights on in your place (and outside) while you’re away. Buy some light timers online – about $10 each.

7. Don’t close all the curtains – that’s a dead giveaway – even teenagers don’t sleep in all day every day!

8. Don’t leave expensive things like laptops and mobiles lying around that can be seen through a window. Put them away in cupboards or hide them in wardrobes.

9. Leave a cheap, crappy old fashioned TV in your living room that CAN be seen through the window!

10. Let the neighbours know you’re going away and ask them to collect your mail while you’re away.

Here’s to enjoying a more relaxing break over the holiday period.

managemyproperty is an independent Property Management company based in Wellington,
New Zealand.
Visit the website at www.managemyproperty.co.nz

Check them out online

Smash your Mortgage

Smash your mortgage!

Smash your Mortgage

Online Mortgage BrokersWith house prices reaching record-high levels, the amount of debt that homeowners are taking on is a lot higher than previous generations which means we need to pay extra attention to our own personal finances.

NZ has had low-interest rates for a while now and while these rates are low, it is the best time to take advantage and make significant gains in reducing the amount of your mortgage. How do we do this? I hear you ask, well read on for a few simple tips.

Review your loan Structure

Is your entire loan fixed into one interest rate? Do you have the ability to make extra payments? Have you thought about using your savings or day to day accounts to reduce the amount of interest you pay? The way you structure your lending is pivotal to how quickly you are able to pay off your debt.

Minimising interest and being smart will literally save you thousands of dollars, probably hundreds of thousands.

Lump sum repayments

A lump sum repayment can make a significant difference to the amount of interest you are required to pay on your mortgage. If you’re fortunate enough to finish each month with a surplus, can you use some of that money to put towards your mortgage? Will you receive a bonus or expect a tax refund at the end of the financial year? If so, can this be put towards your mortgage?

Has your income & expenses changed and do you have a plan?

We would recommend reviewing your personal finances at least every year. If your situation or lifestyle has recently changed, perhaps a new job, child, or you want to plan a holiday, then now is a good time to review your income and expenses.

Check that your existing mortgage still meets your needs and is competitive – both in terms of the interest rate you’re paying and the amount of flexibility you have in making additional repayments. You need to ensure that you are in charge of your mortgage and not vice versa!

Wiremu Patrick
Mortgage and Insurance Advisory
Authorised Financial Advisor

Online Mortgage Brokers

Find out more

Three Reasons to use Presentation Folders

Three Reasons to use Presentation Folders

If you’re not using a presentation folder, then you’re likely to be missing out on an easy opportunity to win more business.

Presentation Folders

Here are three reasons to use Presentation Folders:

#1 LOOK ORGANISED
Using a presentation folder makes you look organised and your business look really slick. It sends out messages about how you like to do a job well, you care about going the extra mile – you don’t cut corners and you invest in yourself and your business. It would be easy to staple some pages together, but you’re better than that, right?

#2 CUSTOMER FOCUSED
Putting everything into a presentation folder keeps it all in one place so it’s much easier to present – you’re not scrambling about in your bag for various elements. It also means that all of your collateral is in one place – handy when a potential new client wants to refer back to it at a later day – your quote, your business card and sales collateral are all in one place.

#3 PERCEPTION
Spending money on print makes your business stand out so much more than simply emailing with a PDF attachment. The latter might be useful, but the former makes a statement about how important their business is to you. In this day and age – that’s important. Invest a little in print, and see your sales conversion numbers increase.

At printing.com we offer a broad range of presentation folders at great prices. Our local studios can help you with copywriting, design and print.

Download our free folder guide!

Find the right style for your business, this guide includes all our folder styles, sizes and layout options.

Game changer for engaging today’s tech-savvy audiences

Pdf to MobilePeople want to engage with brands in ways that are faster and easier than traditional channels. They want their communications delivered via platforms that are smarter more efficient and convenient.

We now offer a revolutionary publishing platform that can take PDF content and convert it into a user-friendly, mobile-friendly website.

From annual reports, magazines and newsletters, to brochures, course guides, prospectuses and so much more. Corporate and business collateral is no longer limited to print or digital PDF attachments and downloads.

We believe that print is here to stay as a vital piece of marketing communication. However, to keep pace with how the market consumes information, digital and mobile solutions WILL become critical elements in businesses.

Print to mobile responsive website takes a PDF and separates all the elements of the PDF into individual segments such as headline, subheadings, text, photos, captions breakouts and reformats it as a website.

Simply put, it is a cost effective way is to transform your printed publication into a responsive mobile website.

Our PDF to responsive website solution works on all devices (desktop, tablet and mobile), it looks just like your printed product, you can easily distribute your issues and your readership is fully tracked. We can even include advanced interactivity such as videos, interactive Google maps and calls to action.

Take a look at a recent example we created for the just some of our customers:

ProPrint NZ Printer Magazine CanTalk

Interested yet? Text message redshift to 4899 to see how this newsletter looks on your mobile.

Future-proof your business with PDC.

Top 5 Tips for Business Cards you need

business cardswapFor most people, one of the first things they do when they meet someone in a business environment is shake hands and then hand over a business card. It’s an age-old tradition and even with the rise of mobile phones and email we still can’t seem to get away from this format. In many Asian countries, the giving of business cards takes on an almost ceremonial stature. Not so much here in New Zealand where we’re typically a little more chilled about everything. But the humble business card still has it’s place, even if some people simply immediately scan it in with their phone!

So let’s take a look at what you should think about when getting your business cards produced.

Here are our 5 Top Tips.

  1. Use a designer and really own your brand and your card design. You’re an individual and you want to be seen as different to your competitors so hand over a card that says the same.
  2. Be really careful that the information on your card can actually be read by business card reading apps – it’s an easy trap to fall into and it’s really annoying to anyone that scans in cards with their phone, to get new acquaintances into their address book, easily and efficiently.
  3. It might be ‘different’ and ‘cool’ to go small, but will your customers thank you for it? Will your card get lost in the pile? Thinking about the size of your card is important – it needs to fit in a pocket and often it needs to fit into a wallet or into one of those card carrying wallets on the back of a phone.
  4. Rounded Corners or straight? That really depends on how conservative your business is. Personally, I like a rounded corner but it’s subjective, so choose what you like.
  5. Card finishing is the final consideration and it’s a really important one. If you’re a premium brand then spend a bit extra and step up the finishing on your card – it’s subtle but it makes SUCH a difference. If you think your card is going to take a battering, then include a matt laminate and increase the card weight to make it last longer. If you need to write on your card then think about having a matt laminate on one side and then keep the back uncoated so you can write on your card. If you think you have an awesome logo, or that you are Mr Important then get make these pop right out of the card with a spot gloss addition.

The humble business card deserves a little more attention. It warrants some more thinking. Talk to one of our studios about the choices available to you, and make the right decision – first impressions count, so let us help you make the right impression each and every time.

The other first impression that really matters is what you wear and your shoes – bet your Mum always told you that too! Sorry, but there’s some things we can’t help with. We’ll leave the clothing choices to you!

Bringing the world together through Google fonts

Google fonts around the worldLet us rewind to the dawn of the modern Internet before Google fonts. 1996. If you were a web designer back then the only typefaces you could select were the ones that you could be sure every Personal Computer (PC) owner already had installed on their machine. Variation just got thrown out the window!

Microsoft, being the only big league player at the time, decided to do the internet a favour by distributing a selection of these fonts for free including the expansive list of fonts like Arial, Times New Roman, Comic Sans, Impact and Verdana. This increased the selection of typefaces for web designers to use. In a very short time period, the web space started to stretch its new found font muscles, but you would still see the same typefaces over and over, and if you did come across anything unique it was probably an image file.

If we now fast forward to 2010 when Google first launched Google fonts, this was a great new platform to provide web fonts free of charge. Over the next 6 years, it grew considerably, becoming very popular with web designers for the obvious reason of affordability and variation.

Google fonts are now universal across multiple platforms and through offering an intuitive and robust directory of open source designer web fonts we are seeing a huge shift in the world of typography. The now extensive catalogue means from a design perspective you can share and integrate typography into any design project seamlessly no matter where you are in the world.

Showcasing individual type designers and foundries whilst being able to provide valuable information about the people and their processes including analytics on usage and demographics has seen an increase in the shared use of unique yet available fonts.

All the fonts in the Google catalogue are free and open source making beautiful type accessible to anyone for any project. You can share favourites and collaborate easily with friends and colleagues. Google Fonts take care of all the licensing and hosting, ensuring that the latest and greatest version of any font is available to everyone.

Thanks to Google, discovering great typography is now easy, inviting users to explore, sort and test 818 font families for use in more than 135 languages worldwide.

So thanks to Google slowly the world is coming together, replacing one Comic Sans character at a time.