General

If and when planning to purchase a commercial property, the question often arises, ‘How Can I Find a Reliable and Competent Building Inspectors Melbourne for Conducting a Commercial Building Inspection?’ While one could easily write an eBook on this subject matter, this article offers several tips to help you hire a reliable and competent inspector for the purpose of obtaining a thorough and diligent commercial building inspection. So without further ado, let me begin by telling you ‘What Not to Do’.

Never hire a commercial building inspector who was referred to you by the real estate agent or any other outside party who has a vested interest in and stands to gain from the sale of the property.

Although this statement goes without saying, it’s worth mentioning simply because many of those looking to purchase commercial real estate believe it is standard protocol to rely upon the realtor’s recommendation for hiring an inspector. In reality, this practice poses a conflict of interest that can have dire consequences for the party purchasing the property. Unfortunately, real estate agents who knowingly partake in this practice along with inspectors who continue to burn the candle from both ends know exactly what they’re doing and how to get away with it. While there may be a few exceptions to what I am telling you, I can assure you that the majority of inspectors who rely heavily upon referrals from real estate agents for their business are not going to rock the boat by disclosing any information to the client during the course of an inspection that may later serve to jeopardize their relationship with the broker or real estate company who referred them in the first place.

Never hire a Home Inspector to conduct a Commercial Property Inspection.

As for hiring a home inspector to conduct a commercial building inspection, suffice it to say that in most cases, conducting a commercial building inspection is altogether different from performing a home inspection for reasons too numerous to list in this article. However, the proliferation of home inspectors over the past twenty years (everyone wants to be one, especially in those States where home inspection licensing has become mandatory making it relatively easy for anyone to become licensed), hasn’t helped either as this has spawned an increasing number of home inspectors who are still unable to properly inspect a home, much less a commercial building, even if their life depended upon it. Moreover, given the number of significant and distinct differences between residential and commercial property, while experience in inspecting homes may well serve as a prerequisite, it is by no means a substitute for the vast amount of knowledge and experience required and yet to be learned by most home inspectors before they can even begin thinking about conducting a diligent and thorough building inspection.

Aside from ‘What Not to Do’, there are also other criteria you need to consider or at least be aware of in your quest to hire a reliable and competent commercial building inspector. namely:

Know the fundamental difference between a Commercial Building Inspection and a Property Condition Assessment (PCA).

Although this topic warrants a separate discussion, it’s important to note that the terms ‘PCA’ and ‘Commercial Building Inspection’ are often used interchangeably in the commercial sector. This in turn has resulted in a lot of confusion not only among real estate investors and others looking to purchase commercial property but real estate agents as well who more often than not simply do not know much less understand the difference. To make matters worse, the ASTM (American Society of Testing Materials) has also gotten in on the act by promulgating their ASTM Standards for Conducting a Baseline PCA. What this means is that since they happen to be a nationally recognized organization in the construction industry, in certain respects they’re similar to the AMA in the medical profession meaning anything and everything they write on a particular subject happens to bear a lot of weight. The problem arises in that the Standards for Conducting a Baseline PCA are often misunderstood by many in the profession and seldom if ever read by those buying and selling real estate.

To simplify things, all one really has to know is that the difference between a commercial building inspection and a Baseline PCA is like night and day since the later can be performed in a fraction of the time it takes to conduct a thorough and diligent commercial building inspection. The reasoning behind this is pure and simple in that a PCA is essentially a cursory walk-through of the property that relies heavily upon second hand information obtained through interviews and documentation (that may/may not be readily available let alone veritable) normally obtained through the owner and/or occupants of the property. Hence, my advice to anyone who is seriously considering having a PCA in deciding whether or not to purchase a commercial property is to forget it since in most cases a PCA is a total waste of time and money in providing information contained in a property condition report that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

Try to obtain as much information as you can about the company and the inspector beforehand

This is another statement that goes without saying but I mention it because many people feel uncomfortable in asking questions of this nature especially when speaking with someone they don’t already know. However, if you reflect upon what I’ve just said for a moment, the fact you don’t know anything about the company or the inspector should be reason enough to ask all the questions you can to solicit answers without being embarrassed.

Be sure to ask the company or building inspector for references

Last but not least, do not be embarrassed to ask for bonafide references regarding recent clients for whom they have conducted similar commercial building inspections. If the company or inspector is reputable and if they have confidence in the service they provide, they normally will not have any reservations whatsoever in providing you with this information.

My next article will provide tips as to what questions you need to ask and what else you need to be aware of in looking to hire a reliable and competent commercial building inspector.

The author is an independent and accomplished commercial building inspector and consultant of over twenty-five years, providing commercial property/building inspections in the city of Chicago as well as surrounding and outlaying Illinois suburbs.

Aside from performing an occasional home inspection now and then, the author specializes in conducting commercial property inspections of both small and large office, warehouse, and apartment buildings including retail store outlets and strip shopping centers.

For more information, visit the author’s website at: http://www.inspectabuilding.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Martin_Potokar/145512

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Iowa City, IA – May 8, 2017 – On Earth Day 2017 Iowa Valley Global Food Project had their first meeting with the multicultural families of growers who will be among the first to farm IVGFP land. These families hail from Sudan, Congo, Morocco, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico & Iowa. Together, with these families, the Iowa Valley Global Food Project invites the public to the Iowa Valley Global Food Project (IVGFP) Spring Unity Gardens Event and Picnic, a kick-off celebration for the project’s first gardening season at the Johnson County Poor Farm. We all know that developing a list of fun picnic lunch ideas is the key to using this travel food strategy to save money on the road.

Join IVGFP on Saturday, May 20, 2017 from 2:30 pm to 7 pm (rain date May 21st) , for this celebration which will include singing and gardening activities, ending the day with a picnic dinner and bonfire.

Learn more about this exciting community project, meet IVGFP board members and member families, help do a little gardening, and bring old tools to donate. IVGFP will also be accepting donations of gently used gardening tools needed (ihoes, hand tools, shovels) at the celebration. Participants are encouraged to sign up at iowavalleyglobalfood.org . Please click on the green “Spring Celebration of Diversity” button at the top of the page.

A complete list and schedule of activities is included at the bottom of this release.

More about The Iowa Valley Global Food Project (IVGFP)

The Iowa Valley Global Food Project (IVGFP) envisions a community where local citizens and new Iowans work hand-in-hand to grow and share their preferred and traditional foods, increase access to high quality food, and encourage youth learn about local food and the neighbors around them.

IVGFP aims to lead Johnson County in expanding access to organic, affordable food production, which supports social interconnectedness, sustainability, and learning opportunities.

IVGFP members come from many parts of our community. We come to learn about and from each other around our universal love of growing, preparing and eating. We are active partners with nonprofits and community groups that are working together to make our local food system more inclusive by creating opportunities for immigrant community members— new Iowans— to obtain greater access to food, land, and educational resources.

IVGFP has been granted a lease for 3.7 acres of land at the Johnson County Poor Farm. IVGFP will establish community garden plots for food production on this land, establish test areas for crops new to Johnson County, but familiar to recent immigrants to our area. These culturally relevant foods will help new arrivals to our community grow bridges to their past while proudly bringing new recipes and traditions to our collective present and future.

You gain new clients, increase average spend, save on print costs, introduce an elevated level of energy and vitality, and increase your profits. You have to have a good reason not to use it. Whether you’re a Hotel, Boutique, Pharmacy, Leisure Centre, Car Dealership, Restaurant, or Take-Away, providing clients with eye-catching messages and information is vital. Absolutesignsolutions.com.au provides professional service for all your signage Sydney requirements.

Time to join your fellow SMEs who are tapping into the power of digital signage to attract attention, boost sales and avoid the costs associated with static, non-digital methods for presenting menus and promotions. Discover as many others have, the real benefits, savings and increased sales that exist within those pixels.

Impulse buying behaviour

Where you have a market dependent on impulse i.e. Boutiques, Restaurants and Take-a-ways to name a few, you’ve got it made. Impulse buying disrupts the normal decision-making models in consumers’ brains. The logical sequence of the consumers’ actions is replaced with an irrational moment of self-gratification. Impulse items appeal to the emotional side of consumers. Some items bought on impulse are not considered functional or necessary in the consumers’ lives.

Good signage solutions are designed to trigger these impulses, by exposing promotional messages at the right place and at the right time – you simply nudge consumers’ to spot that something that stirs a particular passion in them – which in turn leads them straight to your tills.

Raise your company’s profile

Many SMEs also realise that not only do they generate a great Return on Investment (ROI). Sure, we know they’re eye-catching and that they can easily tempt passer-by’s with mouth-watering images or up-sell on impulse using carefully crafted messages using the power of motion and change.

But now those screens are also saving money in creating a modernising effect; at a lower cost than undertaking major leasehold improvements i.e. an “eye-catching” 40″ digital screen integrated into the design of your shop front, on display to anyone walking past. You can save a lot of money; Digital Signage can introduce an elevated level of energy and vitality to any shop front, adding a fresh look to your business premises. A more “high-end” appearance, this is easily achieved by any small business with a vision and desire to stand out from its competitors.

Not only does this provide SMEs with a prime promotional space on any busy high street, it also raises their profile. As digital signage becomes more established as a mainstream marketing technique it becomes more accessible to smaller businesses. The days of only seeing digital signage in Piccadilly Circus are over; the age of digital marketing is upon us.

Opportunity to profit from advertising time

These systems can also be used as a tool to generate advertising revenue by promoting other businesses and services; by selling advertising time on your digital display to other local businesses.

Revenue generation by advertising local non-conflicting businesses; a big brand like Budweiser may not get excited about advertising on your one – two screens within your shop, but the local hairdressers or plumbers around the corner might. And with the local community Newspapers circulation falling – similar local retailers would be wise to follow.

Digital Signage can be an active element in anyone’s marketing, unlike those never-changing listings within local directories and printed banners/signs – which when you add all these up – can cost the average retailer a fortune over time, and with a hard to measure ROI.

In tough times, you have to change the way you do business, by stopping the drip of less viable products that provide limited value to you. Digital Signage delivers real and measureable benefits to SMEs – proven business benefits.

Digital Signage = Smart Expenditure

The rising use of digital signage by small and medium-sized companies can be attributed to many factors, falling equipment costs – a 50% drop in the price of LCD displays over the last five years has made previously expensive solutions a realistic proposition for SMEs – increased awareness and a realisation of the competitive advantage that can be gained are all positive drivers. Smart expenditure, on this type of technology provides SMEs with a real affordable advantage in tough times.

The following excerpt from an article “Small businesses should make their technology pay” from SMEWeb.com (The online resource for SMEs in the UK) acknowledges this competitive advantage:

“Digital signage is another area which has seen leaps of progress over the past few years. And far from being a luxury, these screens can save considerable costs and so offer fast ROI – particularly for customer-facing businesses. After all, one way to increase market share is to ensure your customers have the information they need about your company and products at the point of purchase.

Nowadays digital signage is far more than an elaborate poster; used correctly it can provide real-time data; stimulate demand by offering further information surrounding and complementary to products such as recipes or alternatives. Already they are being used extensively in restaurants and hotels – for example, to promote special dishes and update menus without the printing costs and allied transport overheads.

Small businesses need to be more responsive and quicker off the mark than their larger counterparts – there’s no better way to do this than using a digital sign which can be updated, either from a central location or locally, to reflect changing situations.

These are just two examples of the way that making smart investments in technology can make a real difference to the effectiveness of a business today. The challenge, particularly for SMEs, is to know what is available and how to implement them for the best return.

The key is to find a solutions provider that can give reliable advice and has a good relationship with a vendor so they can give you the inside track on the development of the product in future.

Hopefully we are through the tunnel of recession. However, it’s worth coming up for air and taking a look at what there is to help smaller businesses. Far from being mere window dressing, the new electronics equipment just emerging onto the market can really make a difference.” Time to open your eyes to the opportunities that digital signage has to offer.

Innovative Advertising Displays

You need a solution that addresses the fast growing need for digital signage displays in areas within the public eye, providing an effective form of advertising, information, communication or entertainment – you really need to be exploiting this, now.

Your best course of action would be to select one with a built-in media player and scheduling software; allowing for simple plug and play methods for updating content, making them extremely user-friendly. Unlike many of your fellow SMEs, you will not be exploited into having to continually pay out for annual software licences.

Using our Plug and Play displays, you do not need a computer or DVD support as the display has a memory card reader built-in. Simply insert an SD/CF Memory Card and power on. The screen automatically starts playing the images, video and music that are loaded onto the card.

You can easily set the position order and interval time (Breakfast, Lunch Hour Specials and Evening Dining) of each slide giving you complete control over every aspect of your digital signage – take a glimpse as to how easy our Software is at Scheduling your playlists. The screen has a memory card locker to protect the memory card from public access. A wall mount also comes with the screen, so you can fix the screen on the wall without extra cost. Professional installation can be provided which also includes a walk-through of the product and its features.

Commercial grade displays are different from that of a TV purchased from your local electronic shop – these displays are more robust and rated to show content for more total hours, fit for purpose. All displays are designed for 24/7 usage and have special LCD panels so that the colour doesn’t fade over time, as it would with other LCD panels found in TVs and PC monitors.

Their sleek, elegant tempered glass styling, ability to be in constant use (more energy-efficient) and wide viewing angle means that they offer many advantages over using home TVs for commercial display. As well as these benefits the Digital Advertising Displays are also brighter than home TVs and have no buttons or controls on show. By placing a TV in a business environment, you typically lose or limit its warranty.

Additionally they can be easily networked or wirelessly connected to a PC for more frequent updates and even up to the minute RSS feeds.

Digital signage can be one of the most impactful shopper marketing technologies in use in retail today; it can deliver the right message to the right place, at the right time, and in the right format; it has the power to impact sales, build brands and improve the customers’ experience.

Cost of content and who controls it

There are companies that are claiming to be creators of Digital Signage, where the opposite being, there just jumping into the industry simply because it’s hot. And with the analysts promising 33 percent or higher growth this year; this creates plenty of scope for others to follow.

One of their more noticeable mistakes, being content creation, an issue for these resellers, which in turn becomes an issue for their clients – these companies are simply not adept to creating interesting visual content – let alone the need and importance of refreshing content.

These companies often try to sell you expensive digital campaigns with their products – it should be noted that most of these content deals are just simple PowerPoint presentations that can be done by anyone with little experience. Alternatively, most will provide you with contact numbers to very expensive Design Agencies that they have formed partnerships with – all this can be a real put-off for SMEs.

As an SME, you will want to cut costs when it comes to Digital Signage Content, so using in-house resources instead of giving the business to an outside supplier is one sure way of cutting costs. Most of us, have PowerPoint installed on our computers, and with powerful editing features such as adding videos, pictures and animations, you would be crazy not to use it for creating your own Digital Signage Content.

Integrating existing content such as logos, images, animations and video will be less time-consuming and inexpensive – this also ensures compliance with your existing image, portrayed by your company. Many SMEs may have internal/external marketing, printing and web design departments – these are great places to look for existing assets. Inevitable though, new content will obviously be required at some point in time.

Many suppliers and brands that may be part of your on-going promotions can also provide these assets. Existing logos and graphics can be retouched and animated, to provide a more dynamic and contemporary look. There is no reason why an SME cannot produce and deliver a broadcast-quality experience to their clients, using in-house resources.

Small businesses in particular need to control the cost of content, to make their investment in a Digital Signage System, worthwhile. Therefore, when considering your Digital Signage Partner, it is best to choose a provider that will consider your size, budget and needs – one that specialises in designing low-cost media and content for SMEs.

A knowledgeable Partner that has the time and desire to provide you with that one-to-one attention, dedicated to the highest level of customer satisfaction and service – walking you through every step of the specification and implementation process; focusing on three things: improving sales, reducing costs and improving customer relations. A Digital Signage Partner with, a good proposition at good cost.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6362306