Making-Money-Month Is Now!

Finishing your basement can almost double the square foot living space of your home. A finished basement can include new living space such as a recreation room, a game room, a bar and even bedrooms and bathrooms.

Finishing a basement or remodeling a basement is also a relatively inexpensive remodeling job as frequently outside construction is not required. And since it is not a critical living area it can be completed at a leisurely pace. Consequently finishing a basement is a project that do it yourself homeowners can tackle.

Prior to the start of finishing a basement, a do it yourself homeowner should first develop a well thought out finished basement construction plan. To help in formulating a basement construction plan a homeowner should carefully evaluate the condition of their home’s existing basement and what type of living space they want to achieve in the finished basement. Frequently when finishing a basement, the mechanical equipment such as water heaters, furnaces, and water and oil storage tanks will need to be moved. With careful planning some of this movement can be minimized.

When finishing a basement a homeowner should also consider any water or moisture problems that do exist or could exist in the basement. Perimeter drains may be required. In addition the exterior and interior concrete walls of the basement may need to be sealed.

If a bathroom or wet bar is to be installed, then plumbing will need to be carefully considered, particularly if the home is on a private septic system. A pump up waste water system may be required and if so a portion of the existing concrete floor may need to be removed to allow room for the drain lines and pump-up system.

Lighting is another important aspect of finishing a basement. If natural light can be installed, via the installation of windows, then I highly recommend it. Besides letting light in, windows also add character to the finished basement. In addition, ceiling lights should also be included in the finished basement plans, and the more the better. Finally, workspace lighting should be added where necessary and each set of workspace lighting should be controlled separately.

Ceiling height is another major concern when finishing basements. Frequently homeowners elect to go with dropped ceilings; however dropped ceilings can significantly reduce ceiling height if not carefully planned. A drywalled ceiling can preserve more ceiling height and give a better finished look to the basement, however careful planning needs to be made for access points to valves and to kitchen and bathroom plumbing traps.

Frequently finished basements include home theater systems. Particular attention should be given to electrical wiring for basement home theater systems. Besides electrical wiring, there is speaker wire, cable wire, and Cat-5 wiring that is typically required for a quality home theater system.

With a well thought out basement remodeling plan a finished basement can be major plus to your home, both in personal utilization and resale value. Addressing up front key items such as basement water and moisture issues, as well as lighting and ceiling heights concerns, can help to ensure you get the finished basement you have been dreaming about.

For more help on finishing your basement, see HomeAdditionPlus.com’s Basement Remodeling Bid sheet. The Basement Remodeling Bid Sheet will help ensure that your bathroom remodeling project goes smoothly and you get the finished basement you are looking for. In addition it will help to ensure that finishing your basement will be accomplished on time and on budget.

Over the past 20+ years Mark Donovan has been involved with building homes and additions to homes. His projects have included: building a vacation home, building additions and garages on to existing homes, and finishing unfinished homes. For more home improvement information visit http://www.homeadditionplus.com and http://www.homeaddition.blogspot.com

Copyright 2006 The Fitness Consulting Group

In most health clubs the personal training department is viewed as a source of some additional cash flow and is focused on the affluent component of the clubs member base. Typically trainers will offer an assessment to new members and will only impact the club’s bottom line by selling packages to those members who can afford one, two or even three sessions per week training. Unfortunately, this is very shortsighted. A well-structured personal training department can be much more than a profit center impacting only a small segment of your club’s member base, it can be your club’s customer service center, referral and retention center and a source of as much as 25% of your club’s gross revenues all rolled up intro one. You just have to look for ways to maximize your trainers’ impact in your club. Here are four tips to get you started.

1. Generate Higher Usage Rates Among Club Members.

If you’re maximizing the role your personal trainers play in your club, invariably your usage rates will climb. By offering a complimentary personal training and program design session to all new members you will ensure that everyone that joins your club will feel more comfortable and have an initial “game plan” to get the results their looking for. When they feel comfortable in your club and feel they’re on the path to their desired results, regular attendance is a foregone conclusion. And that’s going to result in:

•Increased likelihood of them remaining a member of your club longer.

•Increased likelihood of them referring new members to your club.

•Increase the lifetime value of that member via peripheral purchases like cooler drinks, nutritional supplements, tanning sessions, fitness apparel and services like personal training and weight management coaching.

2. Improve Club Member Retention Rates.

In this market where there are new health club franchises popping up almost every other month, and new clubs opening at a break-neck pace, holding on to the members you already have has to be your first objective.

It’s much easier (and also much cheaper) to retain a current member than it is to gain an entirely new member.

You’ll have a much better retention rate if your members:

•Feel a sense of community in your club, which can begin with the personal trainers.

•Are consistently using your club. We discussed this in tip number one. If they are utilizing the services of a personal trainer or at least using the initial plan laid out during their complimentary session, their attendance will dramatically improve.

•Are getting the results that lead them to join your club in the first place.

3. Improve the Rate of New Referrals From Your Members.

If your members are getting all the things listed above, they are going to willingly provide more referrals to your club. And if your trainers are working with them on a one-on-one or small group basis, they are going to experience great results.

Your trainers can also systematically facilitate referrals by inviting clients to bring a friend, family member or co-worker to a session. This will allow the guest to experience the club as a member would rather than on a tour or by wandering around on their own during a trail membership. The guest will feel comfortable because they’re with a friend and in turn be far more likely to join you club.

4. More Clients = More Money.

If you want to reap the benefits listed previously, you need to have a higher personal training penetration rate among your members. In most health clubs the penetration rate is 2-4%. 2-4% of members utilize a personal trainer, therefore only 2-4% of those members are maximizing their results, being coached to make peripheral purchases and are great “referral champions.”

If you don’t already, begin offering one and two session per month personal training programs to members where the clients will receive monthly program design, body composition testing and goal setting. Consider offering small group personal training to bring the price point down and make it a viable option to more members. By implementing just these two strategies you should be able to push your penetration rates above 10% and start taking advantage of the benefits associated with a well-managed personal training department.

Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list of the numerous ways you can use your personal training department to improve your club’s membership and your profits, only a starting point. Take these tips, modify them to fit your club and add you own ideas to them. Before you know it, you’ll be viewing your personal training department as “control central” in your health club.

Pat Rigsby, President of The Fitness Consulting Group, has helped a hundreds of health club owners and fitness professionals grow their businesses, improve their marketing and dramatically increase their profitability. The Fitness Consulting Group is the internet premier resource for helping members of the fitness industry create and grow multiple streams of income. For more information, visit The Fitness Consulting Group’s site at www.fitnessconsultinggroup.com or get your own copy of their free special report: Health Club Profit Secrets Revealed at www.clubprofitsecrets.com/ .

The difficulties of physically going to a offline betting hall makes it recommendable to drop the idea unless one must go there. Traffic jams, the difficulties, and chores called for are too much to justify the exertion for the prospect of placing your wager at offline betting hall, on the other hand, if you happen to be the sort of guy who lives and breathes card playing then going virtual could be the way to go.

In fact you will not need to leave home to have a go at online gambling as it’s easily accessed from within your household assuming you have a fully functional laptop or pc and a broadband Internet connection. Nevertheless, don’t get too excited yet- there’s more than a few pointers that you need to twig concerning online gambling, the more so should you be a rookie. So damp down that flap to turn over the following. Here’s our compressed blueprint that guides you what to bear in mind if you are localizing an honest online gambling Web site. The topmost thing that your knowing Web gambler is certain to look for is an online gambling web site of the type that can offer high winning odds. Here are a few more instructions concerning singling out your online card-playing web site.

Always take care to make certain the online card-playing web site is legally licensed, such as by investigating the license information as documented on the casino site pages. If it’s impossible to ferret out any license information on your particular online card-playing web site, do not attempt to place a wager there. Following this, you’ll want to deliberate very elaborately the particular promotional deals that the online card-playing web site has decided to offer its members.

Poker Players Flock to Online Tournaments

Moreover, another advice is to risk a game initially in modest amounts rather than squander so much it will hurt off the cuff. First of all, check the health of the online card-playing operation prior to running some serious risk– the more so in regards to money… Finally, mind this vital suggestion concerning online casino gaming. It is never to forget that gambling in an online casino should be about pleasurable recreation and not about high winnings. Betting in online casinos is certainly no regular employment, but, instead, a hobby that ought to let you feel jolly and your overall life fun.

After you have kept to all the recommendations described above, set off to surrender to the attraction of online card-playing!