How Does Foreign Exchange Trading Work?

According to Alan Safahi, a leading San Francisco startup founder, advisor, and entrepreneur, foreign exchange trading, also known as forex trading, is a global marketplace that focuses on exchanging currencies against one another and involves the relative value of one specific currency over another.

Research conducted by Alan Safahi of Orinda, CA highlights that forex markets are the largest and most liquid asset markets worldwide due to streamlined trading, commerce, and finance. The foreign exchange market has a colossal amount of liquidity, enabling people to actively trade trillions of dollars every trading day. In today’s article, we will discuss how foreign exchange or forex trading works? Read on!

Currency Value Measurement

A currency value is analyzed and measured through the amount of another currency it can purchase. The process is known as the price quote, which contains two prices: a bid and ask. People use the “ask price” when buying a currency. Likewise, traders use the bid price when selling currencies.

Bear in mind that a financial instrument’s ask price is usually higher than the bid price, meaning a bank purchases your currency at slightly lower prices. In contrast, the bank will sell it at a higher rate. Safahi advises traders to learn the basic and advanced concepts of a bid and ask price to measure currency value.

Liquidity Analysis

According to Safahi, liquidity refers to the activity levels of the market. Traders determine liquidity by analyzing the number of traders who are actively trading and measuring their total volume.

Because forex trading occurs 24/7, it is the most liquid market in the world. More liquidity means tighter spread, which favors everyone. Because trading is ongoing, traders can conduct it smoothly with plentiful liquidity. However, Safahi advises traders to keep an eye on price gaps to evaluate significant price shifts over the shortest periods.

Placing a Buy Order

Traders must focus on forex mechanics. You can trade at the click of a mouse on any trading platform. For instance, you will place a buy order on the USD/EUR currency pair and use a portion of funds from your account to buy the pair’s base currency. For example, you will buy the USD and sell the pair’s quoted currency, the EUR.

You will place the order with the broker, market maker or communicate with the Forex Interbank Market directly. Remember, the interbank market has big players. Safahi states that you can place orders to sell currencies that you don’t own.

Close the Order

Depending on your trading strategies, you will wait until your purchased currency has increased value relative to the sold one. When you are satisfied with the accumulated profit, you will close the order.

Likewise, the broker will perform the opposite transactions – selling dollars and purchasing euros. Bear in mind that you can also place a sell order to reverse the process. Understanding these concepts is essential for beginners to streamline their trading.

Final Words

It is often confusing for beginners to understand the concepts of buying and selling in foreign exchange markets because, in every trade, traders exchange one currency for another. It means there is always a “buy” and “sell” in every trading process.

Should You Own Your Own Investment Bot?

Investment bots are automated trading systems with designs based on machine learning algorithms. An investment bot allows you to establish rules and regulations for trade entries and exits. After programming or owning an investment bot, the computer will execute entries and exits automatically. 

According to Alan Safahi, a San Francisco-based entrepreneur and founder of 6X Startup, over 80% of shares traded on stock exchanges come from investment or trading bots. The question is: should you own an investment bot? We will answer this question in today’s post. Read on!

Advantages of Owning an Investment Bot 

Safahi has conducted substantial research on investment bots and trading systems. Alan Safahi says investors and traders can use investment bots or systems to turn precise entry, exit, and financial management rules, allowing computer systems to execute, monitor, and analyze the trades. Here are a few advantages of owning an investment bot. 

Mitigated Emotions 

The biggest advantage of investment bots is emotion minimization during the process of trading. You can easily stick to the plan when you keep your emotions in check. Because the system automatically executes trade orders after it meets specific trading criteria, you can save time, effort, and avoid questioning the trade. 

Backtesting Efficiency 

Backtesting is a crucial concept that focuses on applying trading rules to previous market data. As a result, it helps you figure out the viability and feasibility of your investment. Because an investment bot can’t make guesses, you need to program it and set specific rules. 

Next, you have to test the system based on historical market data before investing your money in live trading. Backtesting via an investment bot enables you to assess and fine-tune your trading idea, analyze risks, and determine profitability. 

Enhanced Order Entry Speed

Safahi states that an investment bot responds quickly and efficiently to stock market changes. Owning such a trading system means automatically generating orders immediately after the bot confirms meeting the trade criteria. An investment bot gets in or out of the trade efficiently and on time, making a massive difference in outcomes. 

Diversified Investment and Trading 

An investment bot allows you to trade multiple accounts simultaneously, which creates a strong hedge against losing positions. Because you can’t execute or trade multiple accounts manually, a programmed bot can perform the execution within milliseconds. The bot can scan for investment opportunities in diverse markets, generate orders, and analyze trades to keep you updated. 

Disadvantages of Owning an Investment Bot 

Although there are various advantages of owning an investment bot, Alan Safahi’s thorough research shows several downsides of such investment systems. Continue reading! 

Network Failure 

A trade order usually resides on a computer system and not a server. However, this depends on the trading platform. If your investment bot loses connection to the internet, it won’t send the order to the market, causing discrepancies between theoretical trades and real trades. That’s why Alan Safahi suggests investors must expect a learning curve when operating investment bots. 

Over Optimized Programming 

Over-optimization can lead to unsophisticated operations in live trading. Because the bot is programmed or trained and tested based on the historical market data, it may not predict the future trading parameters. In such a situation, you can readjust your bot and focus on other parameters to create a viable plan. However, Alan Safahi says an investment bot is sometimes prone to failure when applied to a live market.  

Final Words 

Investment bots are automated systems that offer various benefits to investors and traders. Alan Safahi argues that investors must not consider bots as substitutes for careful trade executions. Although server-based bots can reduce mechanical or networking failure risk, one must not completely rely on them. 

Best Online Reputation Management Services of 2021

Online reputation management is the collection of services and strategies employed to repair or maintain a good reputation online and prevent a bad one. Small businesses and individuals spend ranging from a few dollars to a hundred, this post by Alan Safahi will analyze some of the best online reputation services management services of 2021.

Some of these online reputation management services work for small businesses based on contracts and almost the same pricing system for all businesses except for a larger work scale because most businesses have the same online reputation management services. Some of the services these companies provide are: 

Content creation. 

Social media management 

Review acquisition and management.

Crisis management 

Online monitoring and reporting. 

To choose your online reputation management services, you have to consider your budget, the type of services you want, the uniqueness of your brand, and a lot of other factors.

Some of these online reputation services provided are listed below:

GRADE.US: This online reputation management company provides best services for professionals, agencies, partners and enterprises. They offer a single command center for all your customer review, so they can all be managed in one place conveniently without any fuss. You can manage all your reviews and amplify the good ones to social media. This is their webpage https://www.grade.us/home/

1SEO.com: This Company offers a good reputation management services, they carry out an analysis of your online reputation needs before they work for you, and after the job is done, another analysis is also carried out. Apart from the online reputation management services offered by this company they also carry out copywriting services, online marketing and web design. This is their webpage: https://1seo.com/

Dadook: The special value about Dadook is that it’s not so expensive and it offers a comprehensive and effective online reputation management services, they also offer a month to month commitment, with the fact that this company is relatively cheap, they offer brand building, brand protection and social media monitoring. Because of the low cost and the high range of services, Alan Safahi believes that Dadook is the best online reputation management service provider. https://gadook.com/ their webpage is available. 

IGNIYTE: IGNIYTE is an online reputation management service provider that works for the big guys that is big businesses and individuals, they help with companies and individuals to deal with defamation, libel online issues, social media customer service and customer review management. This company is very effective and solid, they have a very strong legal team and a very experienced digital marketing team. If you would like to contact them https://www.igniyte.co.uk/ 

PODIUM: This Company deal with online reviews mainly, their main aim is review generation and management, and they help to collate your reviews from different sites and platforms like google, Facebook and the rest into one place. This company has the best team and strategy for review management, Alan Safahi recommends them highly for Review management this is their webpage https://www.podium.com/

There are many other online reputation services provider that are not stated in this post, these are some of the best companies you can trust with your online management needs. 

Are you A business owner or an Entrepreneur?

The world today is, generally, more ripe with opportunities than in the past.. The advent of technology has led to the formation of more industries, companies, and the like than ever before.. As a result, many individuals who never thought they could do business have found themselves in the world of business, perhaps making a great deal of income as well. In addition, the increasing rate of unemployment due to COVID-19 has motivated many people into starting their own businesses.

Many people have happened to stumble upon opportunities and made great businesses out of them, but only a small percentage have the proper orientation and mindset that result in a successful business.

Business

What then differentiates a business owner from an entrepreneur?

1. Motivation:

What serves as the motivation for starting a business goes a long way in deciding whether the owner is just that- a business owner or not. It is not uncommon to find that people start Businesses because a single opportunity opened up and they were available while there are others who first notice a need no one else sees and therefore seize the opportunity to create goods and/or services that meet such needs. The one with the visionary mind that notices what other people don’t, or even when they do, goes a step further to create a solution.

Entrepreneurs tend to listen more to their customers, which is the way things should be, according to an expert, Alan Safahi, a fintech CEO.

2. Passion:

Both the business owner and the entrepreneur have passion. This passion is just placed differently. The major concern of a business owner is usually to make profit for the company, and eventually its shareholders. This mindset goes a long way in determining the way they handle the business, relate with customers, handle feedback and so on. On the other hand, an entrepreneur is first interested in the industry. They go into business because they love that sector of the economy. For instance, an individual discovers they love fashion and enjoy anything that goes along that path. For that reason, they start a business in that line to explore their love for fashion, and share it with others.

It is important to follow your passion while starting a company, Alan Safahi opines. Of course, entrepreneurs would want to make a profit in their business but it wouldn’t be the only reason they start the business.

Business expert Alan Safahi also says that while you may make a lot of money from business, it should not be the goals.

3. Mode of business building:

Many business owners would rather build the business around themselves, concentrating on working in the business and becoming an indispensable part of the business. The entrepreneur is entirely different. They work on the business as much as they work in it and build it in a way that it can run without them. An entrepreneur creates an exit option in the business, so that if they want to leave to pursue other ideas or ventures, they can leave and the business will still be standing.

Why Entrepreneurs Should Plan For Failure and Not Success

A lesson every entrepreneur learns: “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst”, failure is nearly inevitable for many entrepreneurs. It’s just a channel to the route to success. Every successful business has, at one point in time, failed. So tell me why you are scared of failure when you need to focus on using it as a platform to get better, and learn from your mistakes. Alan Safahi, a fintech CEO says, “Don’t view failure as the ending, rather view it as the beginning of your business.”

Always plan for the worst scenario when it comes to doing business. This makes you plan for the potential obstacles that lie ahead, such as intellectually, emotionally, and financially. Planning to fail and thinking to fail, however, are different concepts entirely. Planning to fail is being practical and makes you aware about every possibility that may occur. This will even gear the entrepreneur up to work. Thinking of failure is like conceding without even trying. This might lead to a decrease in growth, discouragement, and give room for doubt, according to Alan Safahi.

Do you wish to understand why it’s necessary to plan for the worst-case? The following tips below explain why an Entrepreneur plans for failure and not success.

It Ensures Progress: Having planned for failure makes it easier to move on with the business. It does not make you take things personally, which might occur if you have not planned, and were faced with sudden news that could be difficult to handle. Entrepreneurs should face situations as they’ve expected because they will be prepared ahead of time, but if he/she has not, it will come as a shock and affect team morale, efficiency, and psychology. I know you don’t want this to happen. That’s why you plan for failure, to ensure the progress of your business. Know that failure is part of the game you opted in, and, who knows, It might serve as a platform for something far more significant and better.

It Helps To Get Rid Of Fear: Most of the time, the fear of failure holds us back from exploring different opportunities and leads us to stick to our comfort zone. Once an Entrepreneur makes a plan for failure, it gives him/her the confidence to make potentially risky decisions.

Sense of Direction: Planning for failure gives you the room to double-check a decision you intend to carry out, thus giving you a path for redirection. Planning for failure provides clarity on issues that might go wrong, or have gone wrong in the past.

Planning For Failure Gives You Strength: Failure can indeed knock you down, but it can also be used as a tool to help get you back on your feet. It makes you feel stronger and builds you instead of tearing you down. This is why Alan Safahi believes that you should plan ahead, and plan for failure as an entrepreneur instead of success.

Conclusion

The journey from success to failure and failure to success is not an easy one at all. At the same time, dealing with failure in the wrong way will also keep you away from success. We need to resiliently accept failure sometimes, to learn from the situation and make ourselves stronger on the road to success.

Planning for failure as an entrepreneur, and not for success, is a plan for strength, a sense of direction, and the removal of one’s fear. Lastly, it’s a plan for progress.

How CRM Analytics Work

Preamble

• CRM analytics tells you whether or not your customers are reached by the sales and customer service team and provides you a better understanding of your customers

• They enable you to understand the behaviors of your customers and the success rate of your campaign(s)

• They provide an indication of the success rate of the business. 

This articles was created for any business owner or potential business owner that wants to know how CRM analytics work:  

Meaning of CRM analytics

CRM provides the data that explains the performance of your company and the effectiveness of the customer service. It also gives excellent data on the behavior of your customer so as to facilitate decision making. 

In practice, CRM software is used to get the CRM analytics and make all the processes of data collection easy and effective. 

Importance of CRM analysis

According to renowned entrepreneur and business advisor Alan Safahi, the main benefits of CRM analytics are to make appropriate decisions in regards to your customers and make changes in the area of customer service appropriately. This can be achieved through:

• Evaluation of customer service: CRM analytics will tell you more about the performance of your customer service. The figures will guide you on how to do that and the right direction to channel it.

• Precise data on the customer: Irrespective of what you will be using your customer data for, CRM analytics will provide you with accurate data. 

• Proficient lead generation: CRM analytics will better outline the efforts leading to sales. It enables you to choose the areas to improve on that are leading to sales and to avoid efforts on the areas that are leading to double sales. 

Types of CRM analytics to track

Alan Safahi believes that, although there are many variables that CRM analytics measure, these are the most important ones:

Before sale CRM analytics

Of course, your customers buy from you only after they have learnt about your product. This means that most of the interactions occur even before sales.

• New leads: The marketing department may likely spend lots of energy sending proposals or calling the prospective customers, therefore tracking such activities will be worthwhile to see which of them leads to a purchase. 

• Prospects: Check the activities of your sales team with the prospects. 

• Website engagement: Most of the CRM programs will tell you who visited the website and the activities they performed. These are great data to use to make an informed decision. 

After-sale CRM analytics

• If you have impressed them and they are buying from you, there is no assurance they will continue to buy. It becomes necessary to get some after-sale information. 

• Problem tracking: Have proper documentation of what your customers said about your product. If they raised any problem, solve them and this will keep them coming back. 

• Additional purchases: if you sell them products and they buy some others from you, then it’s an indication that of product correlation that may come in handy for future marketing efforts 

Other Data to Analyze are: 

• Purchasing patterns
• Segmentation
• Spending
• General project management

Verdicts:

CRM analytics is an efficient strategy to ensure the prosperity of business. It gives reliable data on the success of several efforts and the possible changes and directions to channel them. 

Dos and Don’ts of SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a strategy used to help websites rank high on search engine results pages. 

SEO is a means used by a lot of digital marketers and has proven quite efficient in helping websites to be found easily when contents related to the keywords are searched. 

SEO is also a major part of internet marketing which makes it an essential part of most websites. 

This post by Alan safahi will be highlighting a few Dos and Don’ts of SEOs which helps online digital marketers achieve better SEO results.

Don’t Panic

SEO strategies take time to prove effective and show results.  It is important to be patient and not panic if your ranking is not getting higher results in the beginning.

I know you want results quickly and you might panic and want to unnecessarily stuff your contents with keywords which actually works against you due to the algorithms used by Search Engines.

Do Add Meta Tags

Meta descriptions and tags help to summarize the content of the web page to get the attention of readers when they are conducting a search, so make sure your keywords are present in the Meta descriptions.

Do Use keywords

Make sure you use keywords that are relevant to the contents on the page, and use them in places where they will fit in naturally so as not to destroy the flow of the contents of the page.  Using keywords where they are not necessary will make the page lose its originality and purpose, thus rank lower in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). 

Don’t Abuse Keywords

Digital marketer and SEO expert, Alan Safahi, recommends that you only use specific keywords for pages where they fit in and are necessary in order to prevent your pages from competing against each other for ranks.

Do Use Social Media

Having a social media presence is also very important when it comes to SEO. It allows you the luxury of knowing the trends going round, and it influences the contents you provide on your page in a way. 

Don’t Ignore Reviews

Alan Safahi recommends that you respond to all reviews, good or bad, promptly so as to show that you are active and ready to provide the best services. 

Do Consult with an SEO Expert

When you wish to make significant changes to your website, make sure you consult a SEO expert to help you strategize and put necessary measures in place to drive your webpage ranking up. Making these changes without the help of a professional will do more harm than good, according to Alan Safahi. 

Lifestyle Startup Founder

Starting anything at all is not an easy task, it gets even more difficult when you’re starting a business which is an endeavour that takes a lot from the startup founder. 

A few things are expected to change such as routines, schedules amongst others. Many startup founders do not realize early in their journey how much their new business is going to affect their lives and they are often not prepared for such changes. There are therefore a few things startup founders could learn to improve their lifestyle.

One of the most important things an entrepreneur should learn very fast is time management. More than anything, you would have to spend more time working than you probably have been accustomed to. If that is going to be the case for the next few years, you should be getting prepared for some lifestyle changes.

The first thing you should learn as an entrepreneur is that you could be working round the clock. Many entrepreneurs find out that they are working almost throughout the day. A new idea could pop up in your mind at 2am and it could be 6am before you turn off the lights again. You have to get prepared for more work. You should study the experiences of other entrepreneurs such as Alan Safahi, a six time startup founder to understand what you are up against. 

For a startup founder, learning how to say no could be a life-saving skill. You have to realize that you cannot attend every function, you cannot be at every brunch, you cannot attend every meeting. These meetings are indeed sometimes, very crucial for networking and of course, business growth. That is why you should be able to determine which ones require your physical appearance more than the others. If not, you would find yourself socializing more than you are actually working, which of course, is bad for business.

 On the other hand, you could learn to delegate if you can. If you already have team members or a partner, it would be such a great idea to learn how to transfer some of the work or outings that do not necessarily require your personal touch to them. 

You should also know that stress is likely to set in and you definitely should avoid that as much as you can. Stress is bad for business. Sooner or later, it would start to take its toll on your effectiveness at work. 

A startup founder should learn to be part of a community. There is no need to isolate yourself or your business from other people who are also entrepreneurs. There is so much to be learnt from a community of startup founders who have gone through what you are going through now or even have the same experiences as you at the moment. Apart from experiences, startup founders can access funds when they are part of a community. 

If only for encouragement, apart from the network, being part of a community is good for an entrepreneur. You can join communities where you can learn from business experts like Alan Safahi. 

Also, as startup founders, trying to nurture a new business, there is often the huge temptation of neglecting some other areas of life. Learn to fight that temptation as hard as you can. Connect with the people in your life and do not cease to enjoy life itself. 

Finally, you must be prepared to not get paid for a long time. “To a startup, cash is like oxygen” says Alan Safahi.  “You have to be very diligent with your expenditures including but not limited to what you pay yourself and your co-founders and early employees”.  

Most startups run out of cash and fail while trying to achieve product / market fit.  It usually takes 3x as much time and costs 3x as much as expected so it is very important for startup founders to conserve cash as much as possible.  

This bootstrapping period could last anywhere from 2-3 years so preparing ahead of time and lowering your personal overhead and financial commitments can make this period a lot less stressful. 

SEO for Scaling Companies – Basics of SEO for an Enterprise Company’s Website

It is very common to find entrepreneurs who find it difficult to locate their target audience, or reach out to potential customers. It goes without saying that for entrepreneurs, locating their target audience is  important to the overall success of the business. It is good news then to discover that search engine optimization can contribute majorly to businesses. 

According to expert, Alan Safahi, ‘The new generation of consumers prefer discovery through online digital media using their smartphones or the web’. This said, how do you, a business owner engage search engine optimization in scaling your company. Here are the basics:

1. Featured Snippets:

There is something about other platforms engaging your contents that gives it credibility. Getting your contents used as featured snippets will draw your audience closer to you. Your audience here are most likely to become your customers. To earn featured snippets, you may have to work harder on your contents. This is necessary because this space is competitive. Your contents have to attract the needed attention. You can achieve this by using short paragraphs, diagrams and tables. 

2. Keywords Maximization:

When Search engine optimization is involved, keywords are as important as the contents. It doesn’t matter the quality of the content, if the keywords are poorly used, your page might not show up in search results. Words that are relevant to your enterprise should be generously and strategically infused into the contents of your website. Alan Safahi Entrepreneur believes that entrepreneurs should make use of keywords that generate quality content with low search volume. Entrepreneurs are thus advised to create their contents around the keywords. 

3. Use a Progressive Web App:

While this might seem like an aggressive step, it may turn out to be all the difference your business needs. A Progressive Web App works more like a mobile app. It is user friendly and very easy to access. Users, who are definitely potential customers, can easily click on this app on their desktop’s home page or on their smartphones. They don’t even have to know the address of your website, a single click on their phones and computers could send them straight to your website and of course, your enterprise. 

What’s more amazing about this strategy is that it has the potential of keeping your customers loyal, since they do not have to search all the time to access your site.

4. Avoid Broken links and Other Technical Difficulties:

The least you can do is to make your website easy to navigate. You should make sure that users do not experience difficulties while they are trying to access your site. Such potential difficulties as broken links that lead them nowhere are capable of creating huge question marks on your enterprise’s credibility. 

Also, texts that host your inbound links should be relevant to the link, says SEO expert, Alan Safahi.

5. Make Use of Voice Search Engine Optimization:

This is a cutting edge strategy for good reason. More users are embracing this search mechanism and few websites have adopted it. Adopting this strategy sets you above a good number of competition.

Online Reputation Management and Impact on Your Job Search, Business, Love Life and Well Being

You’ve been having a hard time keeping up with the social media because of that post that recently trashed your services? Or, you’re unsure how to keep customers coming to your space for what you offer after a negative review by a previous client? 

Don’t fret! Digital marketing entrepreneur Alan Safahi is here to help. Find out all you need to know about Online Reputation Management (ORM) in this post!

Online reputation management is fast becoming a principal niche in the world of internet marketing. A fragment of social media marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), ORM is a niche that is critically important for keeping your brand away from a reputational crunch.

Building positive awareness about brands does not come easily. It often requires a lot of time, effort and expenses. You determine how far your business goes by how much you do to generate positive reviews. If customers aren’t satisfied and they flood the internet with  negatives concerning your brand, your case might end up being a sorry tale.

As a business owner, Alan Safahi says you should take your online reputation seriously because, in reality, it is your top marketing priority. It primarily entails building positive feedbacks and providing responses to negative thoughts about your brand in online chats. It also involves minimizing the effect of dissenting publicity by snuffing out detrimental web pages that appear in Google search results.

To start with, negative publicities against your brand are as powerful as your company size. So, you may want to take extra caution if you’re running a large business. 

Although every company has the tendency to be affected by negative publicities on the internet, irrespective of Size. 

Negative publicity goes beyond bad press displaying in Google search results. Social sites too are a battleground for campaigns relating to online brand protection, especially now that online discussions are on the increase. 

If, for instance, a disappointed customer goes up on Twitter and drops a damaging tweet concerning your brand, the chances of losing more customers will definitely skyrocket.

Online Reputation Management helps you get honest reviews from customers and locate every platform your brand is being spoken about on. This way, you can increase the volume of positive reviews and tune down the negative ones. As Alan Safahi puts it, Online Reputation Management is the brand owner’s way to achieve greater success.

What’s more, you stand the chance to appear on the first page of Google search results when your brand review is filled with positive content and a good reputation. This will help you drive more traffic to your site and, of course, this means more customers.