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Improve Your Personal Presentation in Five Easy Steps

1. Get your hair cut – regardless of how well you are dressed, unkempt and out of control hair will make you look untidy. 30 minutes and £10 well spent! Make sure you have any facial hair under control too.

2. Wear a suit – so many people these days go suit-less, and this gives you a great opportunity to stand out and look professional and more presentable. However just any old suit will not do. It must be 100% wool (please, no polyester) and preferably in dark navy or charcoal grey. You may even have something suitable in the wardrobe already; however if you bought it ready to wear IT DOES NOT FIT YOU!. A poor fitting suit is worse than no suit. Go to a good alterations tailor and get it fitted; It is not expensive! By the way, you really do need two suits so you can alternate each day. If you are really skint look on eBay or in a nearly new shop.

3. Wear a proper shirt, and one that fits – so many people wear casual shirts to work and usually with the wrong length arms and neck. Go to a store that sell shirts in various arm lengths and reasonably constructed to look good with a suit. If you are on a budget T.M. Lewin often do 4 shirts for £100 which are more than adequate, and will be enough to get you going – I suggest two each of white and light blue plain as a minimum.

4. Wear a tie – why, oh why do so few people wear a tie? A man is not completely dressed without one; a suit is not casual so why dress casually underneath it? The silk of he tie (and do ensure it is silk) offers a contrasting texture to the matt of the suit and shirt and is a great opportunity to express your personality through colour.

5. Shoes – So many people wear a suit and then finish it off with totally inappropriate shoes. Wear some black traditional, welted shoes in an oxford style. These will last a lifetime if looked after so don’t skimp.

These five simple steps can make you look more professional and presentable.

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Past & Present Multifamily Utility Sub-Metering

Submetering and Ratio Utility Billing System (RUBS) have been around in one form or another for over 40 years. For most of that time it was limited to a few small companies providing gas & electric sub-metering services to individual owner/operators of apartment buildings. This all changed in the mid nineties and was driven by three events. The first was the decision of United Dominion Realty Trust and Equity Residential Property Trust to pass water costs through to residents through a company they helped create for this purpose.

With several hundred thousand units between them their decision to pass through these costs was followed over the next few years by most of the large owner/managers. The second event was Inovonics introduction of a wireless transmitter suitable for sub-metering applications. This technology allowed the installation of non-proprietary equipment and soon became the industry standard allowing easy installation and remote reading that could be read by every company. The third event was the widespread use and acceptance of RUBS (Ratio Utility Billing System). With RUBS an owner could get many of the benefits of metered services with no equipment costs.

By the late 90′s there were over a dozen sub-metering/RUBS companies with at least 60,000 billable units and dozens more with smaller bases. By 2004 there were over 110 billing companies serving the industry. Consolidation over the last several years has reduced the number of companies providing these services to around 70. Most of the companies are little more than mom & pops without the financing or management to grow beyond their present size.

The market is huge. There are over 30,000,000 multifamily units, a similar number of manufactured home communities, 150,000 utility & water districts, 700,000 units of military housing and 15,000,000 federal facilities. Even with all the growth, it is estimated that less than 15% of the multifamily properties are presently passing all utility costs through to residents.

So far no one company has put all the pieces together and the industry is ripe for continued consolidation. The company that can install equipment efficiently, bill correctly and provide superior customer service could corner a significant share of the emerging market.

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Focus on the Present – How to Get and Stay Mentally Focused on Now

How can you stay in the present (mentally) – or get to the present? Here are 5 strategies:

  1. Breathe. The idea is that you breathe in. Then you breathe out. This helps you to get centered – and somewhere I read that the space between breathing in and breathing out – that’s the present. So actually, right now, breathe. In. Out. In. Out. It’s amazing that we need to be reminded.
  2. Stand up straight or sit up straight (if you are physically able to do so). Just pull your head up, straighten your spine, pull in your stomach, and of course, breathe. It’s interesting how making sure we are doing all of these behaviors just pulls us to the present. Apparently there is no chance of multi-minding when we are focused – just for a moment – on standing up straight, pulling our head up and our stomachs in – and, oh, yeah…breathing. Those four tasks take all our concentration and are sometimes enough to break us out of whatever past tense, future tense, or too tense thinking we were in just before.
  3. Say, “One thing, right now.” It’s a calming phrase. It helps you to get centered again. “One thing, right now.” “One thing, right now.” “One thing, right now.” Say it over and over as needed. Let people around you know that if/when you get into a “state,” they might help you by saying, “One thing, right now.”
  4. If you have an object that helps you focus on the present – then use that. It might be something physical, it might be a picture, it might be a quote. It’s whatever will calm your mind enough to focus on now – just now.
  5. Make marmalade. This recommendation comes from D.H. Lawrence’s suggestion: “I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It’s amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor.” The idea, of course, is to take up an activity where you need to be focused. Making marmalade, doing repair, engaging in some kind of intricate work….all of these activities require your focus and that you be present. Figure out what your marmalade activity is.

I promised that these were simple – and they are. Yet, we often don’t apply simple solutions. Give one or more of these a try when you need to bring yourself back to NOW – and see if you aren’t more focused and much more peaceful, too.

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