We live in an area that sees the full effect of all four seasons.  The winters can get extremely cold, and the summers extremely hot.  And in between those two extremes – spring and fall can produce some of the most unpredictable swings between the two.  Being outdoors in any of these seasons can present all sorts of challenges with regard to staying dry and warm, or cool and dry.

For many who have to work outside, they learn to adapt reasonably well.  But there will always be those days that no degree of preparation or gear can protect you from the effect of the elements.  Athletes in particular have been subjected to some of the worst of these extremes in the name of sport.  Historically, the weather has even been considered a part of the game – an element of competition – either in favour or against the home team.

These days, technology has begun to eliminate this element of the competition.  We have super domes and covered arenas and indoor parks.  Some may bemoan the loss of the element of the weather in the competition.  After all, everybody likes to have some advantage over their opponents.  Of course, no one likes to have the tables turned either.

Not many may be aware that – just as sporting events have come indoors – so too have certain practice venues.  Some have seen that by taking away the effect of the weather of practice schedules and other intangibles, teams can focus on their game exclusively without the annoyance of mother nature’s fury.

That’s what Florida State University has decided to do for their own Seminoles.  They are currently building an indoor facility to be used by their football team for practicing.  They will thus avoid the hassles of weather which will ideally make their time on the field of practice more productive towards winning.

The Florida State Indoor Practice Facility is going to be a state of the art indoor training facility that will ultimately help make the Seminoles into year-round contenders.

Last Saturday hubby and I went to a show Photo and video imaging expo sponsored by Henry school of imaging and Toronto Star. It’s a first time without the kids with us. My mother was kind enough to babysit my son and my daughter was staying in her friend’s house.

It’s the dream so many are chasing:  To work at home for your business and not have to answer to the man in the big office.   So you are dreaming this too.  What have you done about it?  You say you have an idea.  That’s awesome.  You might even have your own business and your own website already.  But now what are you doing?  It’s relatively easy to get a business started.  But getting paying customers beating down your door in search of your product or service is another thing altogether.

It pays to have a clear marketing message which includes a clear U.S.P. – or Unique Selling Proposition.  It’s critical to having customers and other people recognize who you are and start to connect your name with what you do for them.  But if you don’t already have a steady flow of traffic or customers already, then you’re going to need to get the message out to them first by advertising.

The next step is critical.  You are going to have to decide how you’re going to get your message out in the form of advertising  – and if you are going to do most of the work yourself or use a professional advertising service do the job for you.  Related to that is the warning that there are many so-called professional ad services out there.  Maybe you’ve heard of the adficient scam.  With that in mind, you might want to do your research carefully into who is – or what websites are – doing legitimate advertising work.

Once you get the ball rolling in whatever form of advertising you choose — whether you  pay someone to do it for you or not — the traffic will abound more and more until most of your worries will be in how to keep your existing customers happy and how to leverage those to attract even more customers.