How do you motivate your employees to be more productive? In every organization, there are employees who will do everything to ensure that work is done. They will arrive early and stay long after everyone has left. These are the workers who want to see the company grow even when they do not benefit directly. If you want to get the best out of such people, you have to find a way to award them. You need to show them that you recognize their hard work by appreciating everything that they do, such as giving Crystal Awards. There are many ways through which you can appreciate such employees. Let us look at some of them.

Introducing regular awards

You can introduce an employee of the month award to recognize those workers who perform the best every month. Make sure that you monitor every employee to find out how they perform. For example, you may want to know the volume of work that they accomplish every day. You may also want to know the employees that arrive early and those that work extra hours. Sometimes, you may want to know how much they help their colleagues to do their work. When you do this, you will notice that every worker wants to be more productive, and that is how you increase your company’s earnings.

Recognition in front of other employees

Sometimes, recognizing your employees in front of their colleagues works magic. You may want to mention their achievements during a company meeting. You may also want to talk about the exemplary things that they did during a lunch break or after work. This motivates them to work even more. You will notice that when you recognize them in front of their peers, they gain more confidence and therefore, they will want to work even more. It also makes the other employees want to follow suit because they too want to be recognized just like their colleagues.

Lunch with the boss

You can also award your employees by inviting them to lunch. Find out the workers that have been most productive for the month and invite them to lunch or dinner. Nothing motivates an employee more than a chat with the boss. Use this opportunity to let them know that you are impressed with their performance and so you would like to spend some time with them. It can be lunch prepared in the office or at your favorite restaurant. A drink will also make them happy and, as you will find out, they will want to work even more so that they can get another chance to dine with the boss.

Certificate of recognition

A written award can also motivate your employees to work more. When you issue them with a certificate, they will keep it and they will always look at it and remember how you rewarded then. Such certificates can also serve as testimonials so that whenever they are asked about their achievements, they can produce them. Certificates can be more fulfilling than other awards such as lunch or days off. For instance, long after the award, the employees may forget about the lunch, but they will always have the certificates to show for their hard work.

Shopping vouchers

If you have enough funds, you can award your employees by giving them shopping vouchers. Let them choose anything that they want to purchase as long as it fits in the price range that you have decided upon. You can also add other incentives, such as allowing them an afternoon off duty to go shopping. It may only be a small amount of money, but the motivation that it instills in your workers will be huge. At the end of the day, you will notice that they work harder and, therefore, the amount of money that you spent on the voucher will be recovered in no time. There are many other ways through which you can reward your employees. You may want to find out the things that fascinate them most before choosing an award. People like different things and you should know your employees well before choosing anything for them. You can easily identify the right way to award them by carrying out a small survey. You will be baffled to find out that what you thought was the best for them is nowhere close to what they prefer. Ultimately, the awards should serve as a motivator so that they work even more.

Are you having that one idea and you think that everyone will love it? If you want to find out if your idea will actually work, there’s only one thing you can do: prove it. Building a business is your way to go. However, it must be a little overwhelming for some people to build their own businesses, especially those who don’t have prior experience. There’s a lot of business structures available and will answer some of your needs depending on your budget and how big you want your business to start. The three main types of business structures are a sole proprietorship, partnership, and corporation.

SOLE PROPRIETORSHIP

Sole Proprietorship is the easiest way to get your business running. It requires a smaller capital (it might be bigger depending on the kind of product you’re planning to make) and less legal requirements. Some states, like Pennsylvania, do not even require sole proprietorship to register their businesses. The sole proprietor will be the one shouldering all the hard work, thinking of all the ideas, implementing, and controlling every aspect of the business. This type of business structure is good for people with low-risk ideas who want to do this type of job for a long time while minimizing the tax and other potential problems.

However, sole proprietors will also be responsible for the debts that the business will incur if the business fails. It will also be harder for sole proprietors to gain funding.

PARTNERSHIP AND LLC

The partnership is the space between a sole proprietorship and the corporation. This is formed when two or more people decide to pool resources together in order to form a business. There are two types of partnerships: limited partnerships and limited liability partnerships. A partnership is a better option for people who are practicing professionals like a law firm or an accounting firm. It is better for testing an idea before jumping into a corporation. Partners will decide how they will divide the obligations, profits, and debts among themselves.

A limited liability company will let you get the best options from both the corporation and partnership business structures. This type of business structure will protect the personal properties of partners but will let your profits go to your personal income without corporate taxes.

CORPORATION (C, S, B, Non-Profit, and Closed Corporations)

Corporations are the biggest business structures available. They endure a higher risk, but they also swim in higher profits because of a higher market share and product coverage. Corporations can also get funding easier through IPOs and mergers. There are five kinds of corporations that address five different needs.

A C Corporation is the type of corporation that offers the strongest protection for personal assets. However, there are a lot of requirements and funding needed to build this business structure. C Corporations are known on being taxed twice, first is on income tax for profits, second is for personal tax returns to shareholders that will receive dividends. One of the greatest thing about this form is that it has a separate life from its shareholders. If a shareholder withdrew support, the company can still keep going even after a shareholder leaves.

An S Corporation, on the other hand, is a type of corporation that counters the double taxation occurring on C Corporation. This is done by allowing profits and losses to pass through personal income of shareholders. S Corporations can only have 100 shareholders at one time and all must be US citizens. You need to meet certain criteria to get the S Corporation status.

A B Corporation, on the other hand, works differently from C Corporation but is taxed in the same way. B Corporations are known to have both missions and drive for profit. One of their legal obligations is to give back to their customers via a contribution to public good.

A Closed Corporation is like the B Corporation but has traditions that are usually seen on smaller companies. Unlike B Corps, Closed Corporations are not permitted to partake in public trading.

Nonprofit Corporation is a corporation that does not carry profit as the main driver of existence. They solely exist in order to serve the public via their operations. Because of this, they are usually granted tax-exempt status.

I don’t consider myself to be a seasoned tech and as a matter of fact, my itch for getting my hands on a new smartphone has started just couple of years ago. My very first cellphone was a Sony Ericsson walkman phone specifically the W550i. It was a great phone especially at the time. It’s not monchrome, has good stereo speakers (ehem) and is a music listeners’ phone. I had it for more than 5 years but even before that time elapsed, I already got myself two more Sony Ericsson Walkman phones. I must’ve really loved the brand at the time.

Everything was ok until my last S.E. phone got stolen from me unknowingly during a commute going home. At the time I was already in the corporate world which made it ‘a must’ to replace it asap, and I did! Enter Samsung Galaxy Mini which in essence was my first ever smartphone. Android was still pretty new around the time but it’s clearly booming as most phones even then were choosing Android as the OS of their choice.

I used the phone for a good 3-year period, liked it and really didn’t have much problems. It was February 2014 when I for some reason decided I’d need a new one (couldn’t really remember if my old phone had problems) and the rest is history. I have owned 3 more phones since (Nexus 5, Nexus 6P, and currently LG G6) so I still don’t classify as one of those tech junkies buying phones every 6 months and keeping at least 2 in their pocket. But I’m also not one of  those holding on to a phone for as long as they could.

The Ideal Smartphone

You probably figured by now that I’m just going to be comparing Android phones and if not, yes I’m excluding iPhone X here. Sorry about that. 

Since owning Nexus 5, I have become more observant and at the same time curious about the smartphone industry. I started watching channels that do reviews and everything just started from there.

Now that the smartphone industry is booming (or getting stale depending on who you ask), I thought it’d be interesting to discuss what my ideal smartphone would be based on well, myself, who I am and what I do.

The requirements listed below are obviously in context of the current flagship phones (2018) so I wouldn’t say things like fingerprint sensor (which has been around since 2014) or futuristic features like all screen fingerprint sensor. Basically keeping the list realistic and as much as possible easy to determine if a model has it or not.

• Latest processor
• Decent-sized battery with quick charging
• Good dual camera and front camera
• Small bezels
• Headphone jack (preferably with a DAC/amp)
• Good screen
• Glass exterior
• Not too big (smaller than Nexus 6p in height, thinner than Mate 10 in width)

And some nice to haves but not necessarily a must:

• Resolution larger than 1080p
• Wireless charging
• Face unlock
• More than 4gb of RAM
• Stereo speakers

The list perhaps explains why my current phone is the LG G6.  While LG is really unpopular in the past 3 years or so when talking about flagships, their phones happen to check the boxes as far as what I want. They are actually the only smartphone that equips their headphone jack with a quad DAC, heck most phones don’t even have a headphone jack anymore. But I would say it’s not as big of a deal to me now as it used to. Still important but ‘almost’ not a deal breaker anymore.

Now for fun, let’s have a look at the 2018 flagships announced so far and see which of them fit my requirement and then later see how that could affect my decision-making when choosing a new smartphone.

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First of all, not all criteria have a definite ✓ or ✕ answer. The size for example, is based on what my hand size is so this differs from person to person. I also marked ‘✕’ for Oneplus 6’s dual camera because the second lens is more for depth-sensing and cannot be used as a shooter. The screen is probably where I was most lenient since I figured all of them have flagship caliber screens based on the reviews that I watched.

There’s only 1 smartphone in the list that ticked all the boxes and that is the Samsung S9+. That should be an easy decision for me then right? Well, no and mostly for an unfair reason. I kind of don’t like using Samsung phones because a lot of people are using them. It’s probably the most popular phone next to iPhone and the type of person that I am just wouldn’t allow it to use one that is similar to most people. I also don’t like the edge to edge display and overall grip of the phone. That may or may not change in the future but that’s what it is right now. Sorry Samsung!

LG G7 comes in at second with only 1 requirement, albeit an important one, not checked which is battery. After reading and watching a lot of reviews though, I kinda feel it has weaknesses that are not exposed in the set of requirements that I have. The biggest one would be software as it still lags behind others and some even claiming it’s kinda laggy for a flagship phone on some areas like recent apps and camera. Speaking of camera, I’m still unsure the G7’s camera is a big step up from my current phone, the G6. It retained the small sensor size from last year’s V30 and its processing is still janky. The wide camera is also not as wide anymore which I think defeats the purpose.

The remaining on the list are quite on par with each other as far as check marks are concerned and I quite liked all of them except the XZ2 Premium from Sony (kinda odd since I liked Sony’s phones a lot back in the day). The Oneplus 6 comes in very strongly as it’s the top contender for the price to performance ratio. Though it’s kinda big, I liked its design as it has the smallest chin in the list outside of S9. It has a notch but it looks smaller and in my opinion better than others. It also has 6 and 8 gigabytes of RAM, does  wired charging the fastest and runs close to stock Android which I like as evidenced by my previous use of Nexus phones.

Just like Oneplus, the Mi Mix 2s from Xiaomi is a contender as it’s the cheapest among the list while still sporting flagship specs. It also looks different as it has almost no top bezel in exchange for a slightly bigger chin. I’m on the fence if I like that or not so much but it’s unique nonetheless. The 5mp front camera and very different skin are what I would say its weakest points that draw me away from it.

Huawei P20 Pro is also a good one if not for it using a 2017 processor. I know, I know! But I also have the firsthand experience of owning a phone with a processor (and gpu) from the previous year as my G6 has Snapdragon 821 (835 was the flagship last year). And I can definitely say it hasn’t aged as well as I liked.  Having said that though, it has the best camera and most unique (back) design. I also don’t mind the size as it’s more tall than wide.

Finally, we have HTC U12 which was recently announced. It has solid specs across the board, it has one of the best cameras according to Dxomark, but it’s just too big for my liking, and doesn’t look modern enough with its thicker bezels. Let’s just say I’m really fixated on having those two things when looking for my next smartphone.

And that’s it! I’d love to hear how your perfect smartphone looks and what current flagship is the closest to it. It’d be fun so make sure to hit up in the comments below.

No one ever wakes up and wishes they had less cash flow. In fact, there are so many people who would love to make more money without a ton of effort. Thankfully, this can be your reality. If you have access to the internet, you have access to money. There are a few major keys that you’ll want to implement in order to monetize your business.

1. Passion. Pick a topic that you already talk about on the internet. Find something that you’re extremely passionate about and thoroughly enjoy researching. In the beginning stages of building a presence that’s monetizable, you’re going to need to do some heavy lifting and ground work to get things started. If it’s not a topic you particularly enjoy, it’s going to be harder to lean in to the process. The Internet is such a huge space and there’s so much room for all niches. It doesn’t matter which niche you choose. Just be sure to pick one that you love. It’ll help you feel curiously alive.
2. Discipline. To achieve anything great in life, you’ve got to put forth a certain amount of commitment and discipline. Surprisingly, there are many people who just aren’t disciplined. Discipline is what separates the good people from the great people. Sometimes, you’ll have to spend long hours working. Eliminate distractions, focus on the task at hand and get it done.
3. Home Base. While it’s good to use social media to drum up more excitement and conversation around your brand, you’ll want to maintain a home base that you actually own. Purchase your own piece of online real estate through a website and domain. To start a passive income stream, create digital products and sell them on the website. Set up the shopping section of the website and make sure that you have great web design and development in place. Elements like online shopping cart design and website speed are important to consider and perfect for a streamlined customer experience.
4. Automation. If there’s one thing you’ll want to automate, it’d be your marketing efforts. You can consider hiring a social media manager to take manage the Facebook Ad initiatives and interacting with clients. You can also decide to work on content creation one day each week and put it in a scheduling system that’ll automate the posts throughout the week. Whatever systems you choose to implement, make sure to do so. It’ll save you the headache and frenzy of managing a long to-do list. Lean into the process and be prepared to learn. As you learn more, implement those lessons. The more you commit to the process, the more results you’ll achieve. Before you know it, your efforts will have a compounded effect. Start the process now and one day, you’ll wake up and realize you are experiencing cash flow in your sleep.

I may have been excessively using the phrase ‘new direction’ in my posts as that’s something I seem to be throwing around ever since I got a day job and had less time to write. But the reason why I wanted to touch upon that is because the new layout is very clean and also doesn’t have any sidebar anymore.

Sidebars are synonymous with blogs especially if the blog aims to monetize through ads however this blog hasn’t been really making any money anymore nor is it pressured to do so. In the past I’ve made money through advertisements in general and even when I became less active, I still kinda left a section for ads in the sidebar which was  usually plastered with affiliate banners of products/services that I use if the ad spot is not taken.

Now without a sidebar, coupled with a pretty clean  layout, it becomes even more of a personal blog where I can focus on writing things as they come to mind without any pressure whatsoever of appeasing potential advertisers. It also allows me to focus on the blog as a personal brand where the look can reflect back on me as a person and what I do career-wise.

It’s almost like an online portfolio, but not strictly since I’m not really showcasing anything other than my crappy writing. So it’s quite different than say a portfolio of a graphic designer or a web developer where they can easily showcase their work quite prominently. Mine is really just a blog, a personal one that highlights my personality and perhaps the nature of what I do albeit in a very subtle way.

The layout  forces me to make use of images and photos that blend with the design. I’ve dabbled with photography years ago and maybe this allows me to rekindle and refresh my interest on the hobby. Some of you know that I’m allergic to making use of imagery in my blogs so this gives me an opportunity to change that.

All in all, the design changes mirror my blogging journey and the direction I’m heading to. Majority of my time spent with it was with the aim of making money having started during my college days, scrimping money to pay for a domain name and hosting, and staying up all night writing up content and networking with as many bloggers as humanly possible.

I made some money here and there and enjoyed the whole ride but I ultimately took a more normal path after school. Found a job that allowed me to grow but at the same time still continued blogging with a different goal.

Hope you like the new design and if not, feel free to leave comments with your feedback.

I kinda usually get into groove a little at the beginning of each year so why not take advantage of that and write a little year-in-review and plans for the year blog post.

How’s 2017 for me?

Hate to sound boring but 2017 was just like any other year for me, really. It’s pretty normal, doesn’t mean it’s easy by the way. I work as a breadwinner for the family, I have a lovely girlfriend that I spend time with and I try to spend some of my free time doing what I love doing. But let me elaborate on each aspects below.

Fitness

At the beginning of last year, I wrote about how I wanted to become fit and gain strength. I don’t think I ever come close to being classified as ripped but I’d like to think I have generally improved in both areas.

   
(It didn’t seem like there’s drastic change in my physique when looking at pictures from last year and the year before)

I have increased my muscle mass to more than 2 kg which has allowed me to lift heavier weights. My body fat count did increase a bit I would say but it’s the trade-off since I’m trying to bulk up and gain more mass. I really wish it showed up more aesthetically in the pictures but I’m happy with my progress.

Outside of lifting weights, I was pretty OK with playing basketball at least once a week for  probably the first half of the year. A mix of being a little busy and just losing interest contributed to me stopping playing during the second half of the year. The company I’m working with has also done a great job of creating challenges that we can take part of so that’s an added bonus.

Work

This is probably the most ‘normal’ among all that’s in this list. There isn’t much new really in terms of what I have been doing work-wise. The company I’ve been working with is growing pretty steadily so that naturally brought more work (and stress) to the table.

I also just continued with my mini SEO gig with a single client who’s been with me since 2011. I’m kind of losing interest with this however the client sort of likes my work and I also happen to owe him a lot as he’s quite instrumental during my early days. In the end, I think of this as a way of keeping up with SEO industry, ensuring that I’m not left behind.

Travel

I wrote somewhere that I’m not too fond of traveling until I got to experience some which has changed my stance quite a bit. 2017 was pretty quiet though and it was by design. I wanted to save some more money and obviously traveling can be expensive so I ended up just going on short out of town trips but no international or even just regional ones. That may change this year though.

Other things

Some of you probably know that I used to cook a lot but that has unfortunately taken a backseat in the past couple of years. I still cook when I have to or when there’s a special occasion but I just didn’t have the same passion anymore. That may or may not come back but it was definitely a good experience for me during the time.

I didn’t also dabble with any offline stuff during the year. Depending on how my Uber paperworks go, that may change, hopefully for good. I feel like I’m not business-minded enough to try lots of things and I don’t really see that changing this year. Not a risk-taker here.

2018 Plans

For this year, I’m simply just looking to continue and improve on things that have worked quite well for me last year. Lifting weights more consistently and trying to be more fit by involving myself in more activities would be at the top of my list. I’m crossing fingers but I also wanted to cut down on alcohol this year. Now I’m far from an alcoholic (hopefully), but I get into streaks sometimes which I feel can be avoided. Just want to be healthy overall as I get older.

I’m aiming to travel a bit more this year compared to last year and also do some more things both online and offline. I actually wanted to write more in this blog and as a matter of fact, I quite enjoyed writing this but let’s see how that develops as the year progresses. Aside from this, there’s two other blogs that I have to maintain but outside of that I have some ideas that I’m looking to implement this year and I’ll see where that takes me off.

I hope I have more in-depth plans for the year that I can share with you but that’s really it at the moment. Don’t worry though as my aim is to share them with you as they happen.

Hope you also had a great 2017 and an even better plan for 2018. Good luck to us!

I’ve reviewed a handful of payday loans affiliate programs in the past and one thing that’s always obvious with them is how much full of hype they tend to be. Perhaps it has more to do with how lucrative that industry is but we would still need to know if the network we’re going with is the real deal or just all about hype.

We were approached by T.UK for this review and you can read more about them in this review and see for yourself.

I’ve touched upon how payday loan affiliate networks function in some of my previous reviews so I won’t be tackling that here. I will instead focus on T.UK, their website, and the network as a whole.

Glancing at T.UK’s Website

First of all, I’ve never reviewed a service that has a URL as short as T.UK. A single letter domain name, can you believe that? Moving on to their home page, it is pretty detailed listing down vital information about the company including the address and telephone number while also boasting payday loan brands that they’re working with. It doesn’t end there as it also displays conferences where you can meet the T.UK team. How nice is that!

The overall design appears to be modern yet without losing the simplicity that is important in making sure people stays at the very least to read what the service is all about.

Compliance-wise, there is nothing to worry about for T.UK as they seem to have more than adequately covered that part well. They have a detailed compliance page which tells about how they’re complied with the industry but more importantly, how you can as well as an affiliate for them.

Becoming an affiliate for T.UK

Registering to be an affiliate for T.UK is fairly straightforward. You just fill out a moderately-sized form with the basic details and you’re good to go. A rather unique part of their registration that I’d like to point out is choosing an account representative on sign up. It would seem odd for anyone to select from  a list of people who they surely don’t know yet. Not to mention that accounts have to get approved first before one can begin as an affiliate.

Moving on once you’ve signed up and approved, you can begin promoting payday loans offers from T.UK. All you need to do is login on their website and select offers that you’ll be looking to promote and begin grabbing creatives. Just like any offer, it is highly advised that you review the offer itself specifically the type of traffic it accepts so you don’t end up driving traffic that is non-compliance with the offer.

Once you’re done, you can copy/paste the javascript code to your website and you should be good to go.

Tools and Resources at your fingertips

The goodness of T.UK according to their website doesn’t end with their top-notch affiliate offers. They also provide good resources to their affiliates to ensure that they have all they need to start cashing in.

Aside from affiliate managers (or account representatives as they call them), they also provide their own proprietary tracking software, pre-built templates, free websites, and even some marketing strategies that can help you with your campaigns. T.UK also offers bi-weekly payouts, even weekly for top-earning affiliates who make 1,000 GBP/week. Being a UK-based company, I wish they also do payouts via PayPal as I’m sure some affiliates wouldn’t mind that method. Nonetheless, they can send payouts through wire transfer, BACS and CHAPS.

Conclusion

I should mention that I do not have any first hand experience with T.UK myself since I only learned about this service when I was approached for this review. My findings are mainly based on my experience browsing around their website deeply as well as seeing how it fares with other payday loan networks which are definitely in abundance.

Despite being UK-based, T.UK appears to be a decent payday loan affiliate network boasting some high-paying affiliate offers as well as easily ticking the boxes in terms of what you want in a network, compliance, reliability and transparency. Having said that, I will have no issues whatsoever recommending you to check them out.

If you’re interested, sign up and become an affiliate today!

A little bit of back story first, I started going to gym beginning 2013 after a partnership was agreed between my workplace and Gold’s gym which is a large chain of fitness center worldwide. My main goal was different than most people and that was to gain more weight by adding more muscles. I was going 10-12 times a month (it wasn’t consistent though) and considering it’s not something I have too much knowledge prior, I just followed suggestions from my colleagues with a little of bit whatever I think I should try. In short, I didn’t have any program that I’m following and understandably that result was so-so. That thing as I said ended, mid of 2014 and completely just got fed up with the idea of going to gym.

Last December, another big franchise called Anytime Fitness stormed the country and lots of branches started pre-selling. I was initially not interested or convinced until I learned that the gyms are open 24-hours, 7 days a week. My work is mid-shift so that gives me flexibility to go either before i go to work or late after finishing work.

That alone is not enough to convince let alone the slightly pricey membership fee however let’s just I got into the peer pressure as lots of my colleagues started joining and I guess there’s no harm to try it again.

Strength Training

My physique hasn’t really changed a lot. I’m neither underweight nor obese and judging from my BMI I’m just completely normal. Except that I want to gain some more strength.

So I started last December and began just feeling myself out and preparing my mind for the grind. In the past I’ve always relied with machine isolation exercises and only did deadlift and some dumbbell work. It wasn’t too different when I started again. I would normally perform chest press, lat pulldown and leg press, and then end with dumbbell front raise or what have you. It was pretty good as I increased weight that I’m lifting day after day. I knew though that if I want to be more serious, I have to do less  of these and do more of just plain dead weights.

I knew a program called Starting Strength since 2013 and I really didn’t do it because I was scared of barbell falling on me and injuring me on the process. I still am but I’m now doing it overcoming my fear little by little.

I won’t discuss the program in full length as the link would do that for me. But the workouts are mainly consisting of squats, press (overhead and bench) and deadlift so that’s what I’m mainly doing right now. I wasn’t quite comfortable doing squats and bench press at the beginning but I am getting used to it now. It’s still tough though.

Aside from the actual weight lifting, I’ve also taken an initiative to cut down on fastfood, and consume more protein (bought some protein shakes) and carbs. Remember I’m trying to gain some weight still so I need to have some calories left after I do my workouts so I can gain muscle mass.

Overall, I’d say that it’s not just getting strong but also getting more fit and having a more sound health by eating the right food as much as possible. Another is avoiding not having any activity which is quite common for someone working on a desk. So if I don’t gain much muscle, maybe I can still say I improved my health?

Let’s see if I can have better progress and result this time. And don’t forget to wish me luck!

I use Instagram a lot as it’s as personal to me as my Facebook account. In case you’re not following me yet, I love to post food pictures, headphones and things that I’m up to. Most of the things that I do online outside of my work-stuff are mostly personal so there really isn’t any business purpose or value for the account.

How it all unfolded

Everything started when I woke up one day and realized I have plenty of ‘request to follow’ notifications on my phone from my IG account which was weird since my account is public. I was gobsmacked when I found that the account logged-in became ‘janaehumbert99ft’ having a profile picture of a fat butt and a description that clearly baits perverts to follow the account and click the suspicious bio link.

I panicked immediately since my work Instagram account was also logged-in on the phone and I feared that it might get compromised too so I decided to just log out everything. My worst fears were realized when I found that the email address associated to my Instagram account had read emails about changing the account’s password and email address. This meant the hacker not only changed everything on my IG account through having access to my email, but possibly all other sites where it is the main email address (there’s a lot!).

Like any sane person would do, I changed the password of my email immediately and made sure it’s a tough one. I went back to my Instagram case and wrote them detailing everything through this page. At this point, I didn’t have any ideas as to what happened to my account. The way I explained was I thought my account was replaced with another account on my email address, then changed the email address, and then later on deleted my original Instagram account. So to summarize, my email did not have any IG account associated to it anymore since the hacker successfully was able to transfer it to a different email.

After some hours on the same day I was hacked, the new IG account named ‘janaehumbert99ft’ also disappeared which made me think the hacker might have renamed it to something else anew so it become untraceable for me. Another possibility that I thought of was Instagram disabling the account while investigating the issue.

Painful experience with Instagram Support

It was surprising that Instagram was slow and unhelpful at the beginning, oftentimes not understanding the issue at hand. It took 4 and a half days before I got a reply that made me think I’m not close to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

They made me write a code, my full name, email address and previous username on a piece of paper, then take a picture of that with me holding it. It sounded weird but I understood that it’s how they could really verify me and my claims.

Instagram support replied after a couple of hours saying my account has been reactivated again. Whew! Problem finally solved right? No!

I still couldn’t login, couldn’t reset password since the email was still not associated to any account and I couldn’t do anything! I emailed them back with that and they replied with almost just the same message which is ‘we have reactivated your account again, sorry about that’. But I still couldn’t login!!!

Much to my dismay I discovered that the account ‘janaehumbert99ft’ has been reactivated again and my friends started telling me that they’re seeing my photos under someone else’s account. Two things became clear to me then.

First was the ‘janaehumbert99ft’ account is really my previous Instagram account. It was just renamed but that’s my account. Remember at the beginning that I was under the impression my original account was swapped out and deleted but it didn’t seem to be the case.

Second was they simply reactivated the account using the same credentials, same email which I didn’t have access with! WTF!!! I got so pissed off because that only makes the hacker do more harm since the account has been reactivated again and more importantly, he can access it again. I was under his mercy basically as he can rename it, change the email and make it untraceable, or worse, start posting nude pictures or what have you and start alienating my followers! So stupid Instagram!

I sent successive replies explaining what I explained above but I did not get a reply on the same and the following day. I got a little worried that I might not be doing myself a favor as I might come across as annoying to whoever is handling my case.

I’ve decided to then just write a new report using the page I linked above. There I explained everything again carefully and made sure it didn’t become too long. It’s a little risky since I thought that could essentially restart my case again and then add up another week to it. Urgghh!

When I was explaining, I mentioned briefly that someone was already handling my case but I was not happy with how it’s being handled. I gave the supporter’s name so the new supporter can hopefully coordinate with him. I still summarized my case in my report and included my realizations that were not there the first time I reported the issue. I tried my best to keep everything not too long but still clear.

After more than 12 hours, a new support person from Instagram replied and much to my delight, it was the reply I was expecting to get from their previous support person. I finally got a link where I can change the password of the account and once I’m able to do that, I proceeded with changing the email back to one that I can access and then swapping back my own details like my username, description and website. Finally I changed the profile picture from the fat girl’s butt to my pretty face. I can’t believe I have my Instagram account back again!

What happened next was I unfollowed a lot of people since the hacker’s strategy seemed to be following lots of male accounts and then get  them to follow back or click the suspicious bio link that could get them hacked. I got a minor boost in followers count which subsided down once they realized they’re following an account that was not what they thought it would be.

What to learn from this

There’s plenty to learn from this experience and all of them are unfortunately very basic which we just ignore until we become a victim. I changed all my passwords to a more secure one, enabled two-factor authentication whenever available, and made sure I’m aware what accounts are connected to what emails.

The funny but slightly annoying thing is I could’ve easily just gotten my account back had I not logged out of it on my phone. I could’ve gotten into the settings, changed my password, email and bio and I didn’t have to go through the whole draining process at all.

But if that happened, I’m pretty sure there’s a good chance I won’t change my passwords, make my email addresses more secure, you name them! I would then just be delaying the inevitable.

Not sure I can say right now the learning experience was worth it but hey, my accounts are more secure now, I have my IG back and that’s all that matters!

On average, half the people who register for your online meeting will not pitch.

When it comes to the crunch and your meeting is about to start, many of your registered participants will be too tired from the day, or life will get in the way, or they will have forgotten.

But you can entice them beforehand so that the event will be viewed as fun, unforgettable and coveted. And this will increase your registrations and those who actually attend.

When life’s so short, who wants to willingly and happily attend a boring online meeting? Take the following tips and make your event pop.

Select the Right Online Meeting Platform

Creating an event that rocks can be difficult if you don’t use the right online meeting platform. Do your due diligence.

What’s Your Goal?

Before you can even get to the fun part, you have to be clear on your goal. What is it you want to achieve, and how will you make it happen?

If you’re not clear on your goal, don’t waste your time and that of your participants.

Who’s Your Target Audience?

After you’ve identified your goal, you need to take the time to research the target audience. For certain goals, this will be easier than others. For instance, if you’re planning a meeting to update team members, chances are you’ve already got a good understanding of participants and won’t need to put in much research.

The point of this step is to find out information that helps you deliver a better presentation, so the basic questions you need to answer, are:

• What are their pain points?
• How can you help them?
• How best can you add value to their lives?
• How can you get the information to them in the most effective way possible?

Once you understand your target audience sufficiently, put together a presentation according to the personality types of your participants.

You can only put together an online meeting that rocks if you know how to best present to your audience.

Set Expectations of a Fun Online Meeting

Create a pre-meeting vibe by giving your target audience a taste of what to expect. After you’ve put together the content of your meeting, make sure to consider these aspects:

• Give the title of your meeting punch by making it meaningful and irresistible to your target audience.
• Create a fun sign-up page that engages participants and lets them know what to expect in a way they won’t want to miss out on.
• As you do for the sign-up page, do for the confirmation email, making sure that the look and feel is the same across all pages and forms you send to participants.

The landing page for registration above is beautifully designed, but what makes it stand out is that not only do participants receive free list growth training, but they can also download a mindmap and worksheet. The free gifts give me a perception that the event will offer me value for my time. The organizers are giving me a taste of what to expect.

The example above makes me think this may be an interesting meeting, because the design is fun. The organizer is giving me a preview of an event that looks like it won’t be the same boring run-of-the-mill kind of stuff.

If I’m going to take the time to tune in, this is an online meeting I may be keen to join.

Use Games to Set the Tone

Boring meetings are the number one reason people will abandon your event. Not only will people leave your online meeting prematurely, but boring may even damage your brand.

So you want to make sure your meeting is enjoyable. To set the tone for the rest of your event, use icebreakers and games to loosen people up and keep them engaged and tuned in to what you’re saying, so that ultimately, you can achieve your goal.

Keep Them Hooked

In a face-to-face presentation, people wander off into their own little worlds if they just listen to a voice speaking, so you’ll notice that the best presenters who keep their audience’s attention, will always move around.

Psychologist Alison Gopnik, PhD, says that when you do presentations in front of a larger audience, to keep them engaged, “don’t write your talk, don’t sit down when you are doing it and don’t sit behind a lectern”.

Even more so for an online meeting, you need to find ways to engage the audience who can’t see you, but can only hear you.

Create movement by using polls, online whiteboards to draw on, and avoiding screenshots if you can actually go to a website while your audience watches.

I created this “Hello” text on an online whiteboard that can be used in an online meeting

Make Slides Entertaining

Avoid distracting your audience from what you are saying, but it’s a good idea to create movement with animated slides. Or use a fun, interesting design.

Follow PowerPoint best practices to get the best results.

Keep Q & A’s For the End

Some online meeting organizers suggest including the Questions and Answers in the presentation, but I’ve attended many webinars where participants didn’t listen properly, and then when the time comes for Q’s & A’s, the presenter needs to repeat the same information, so that I want to simply abandon the meeting, so my suggestion is to keep the Q’s & A’s for the end, so that time-obsessed people like me can simply exit without missing any information.