The ability to communicate and negotiate effectively can set a successful executive apart from a struggling executive. Every businessperson dedicated to achieving real success in his or her career must master business communication skills. Unfortunately, very few individuals are born with these skills. Instead of waiting to learn them by trial and error, motivated executives can take courses targeted at improving communication skills. Such courses can enhance both personal and business strengths, setting the stage for long-term success. Here are some practical skills that for the practical executive.

Basic business communication skills are the backbone of any executive’s success. Understanding how to communicate with shareholders, employees and the general public is absolutely essential. Both written and verbal communication need to be accounted for. Every executive can benefit from mastering action writing. Learning how to write concise and clear emails, letters and reports is absolutely essential. It is important to craft communications so that they encourage a response. Drawing in a reader, communicating essential information and providing an impetus for action is easier than many executives think. Doing so requires some effort but those who are dedicated to improving one’s skills in business communication will understand the impact it makes in the end. Solid action writing skills can lead to results.

Many executives dread making presentations. Some are afraid of speaking in front of a group, while others are worried about how they will be perceived. A thorough Executive Presentation Skills seminar provides businesspeople with the skills needed to give salient presentations. Business executives learn how to identify the key points in their presentations. More importantly, they learn how to present the value of their proposal, product or service to others. Making a value statement is absolutely essential to the success of a presentation.

Successful business executives also understand how to communicate with a company’s internal resources–its employees. Executives who lack strong interpersonal communications skills risk the ability to communicate company goals and policies to employees. They may not be able to deal effectively with performance or discipline issues that may arise in the workplace. This brings the possibility of both financial and legal consequences for business executives.

Training in professional communications gives executives the skills they need to talk effectively with individuals at all levels of an organization. Learning how to deliver pointed messages that are also constructive can significantly improve executive-employee relations. Understanding how to handle emotionally charged or hostile confrontations with employees is also an essential skill. By developing good interpersonal communication skills and understanding how to focus those skills in employee relations, executives are able to prove their true value to superiors or shareholders.

The practical, successful executive is able to exercise strong negotiation skills. Instead of strong-arming through negotiations or sitting quietly in the corner, a successful executive encourages collaboration. He or she understands how to strategize before, during and after a negotiation. Being both organized for and prepared for negotiations helps to ensure success throughout the negotiation process. At the heart of negotiation are good communication skills. Individuals who want to succeed as executives must understand their own communication strengths and weaknesses. They must be able to craft a negotiation approach that leverages their skills.

Every executive knows the importance of creating effective, timely communications. Some executives rely on other employees to take care of essential communication duties. However, in order to truly succeed in the business world, executives must become masters of communication. With dedication and guidance, any executive can improve his or her communication skills. Doing so is a sure way to bolster future success and gain the confidence of employees and clients.

For example, if you were the manager/CEO of a small technology firm that produced a new way of communicating it would be very difficult for you to raise the amount money needed to reach the scale of business you had in mind. That being a global reach, providing the best value to your customers and stakeholders. Walking into a bank and asking for a large amount of working capital would be difficult because there is probably very little in assets that you could pledge a collateral to back the loan. Angel investor or family members would also be difficult not only because of the size but also the limited number of individuals or family members that might have access to the funds you are seeking. Going through the debt market by issuing bonds would also be risky as it would strain cash flows as you need to service the debt through the year and going straight to the equity markets would be even riskier as the street would be looking for quarterly profitable performance measures, which at the infancy of the company may not be the number one concern as things are built up.

So what options would one be left with in the situation. A very good example of the complete financing cycle is illustrated by Ariel Way and their completion of financing with YA Global. In the deal the small secure digital signage company was able to take in capital from the investment group by way of issuing Series A convertible preferred stock, along with a promissory note and some warrants. The company, which has not gone through a full public offering yet, issued stock that paid an interest rate (as opposed to a dividend… common vs preferred stock) to the investment firm and at such a time when the company went public those share would be converted into normal freely trade-able preferred securities. The promissory note was included as a quick way to make up for any additional capital in the deal that the shares did not cover and the warrants were a further enticement to the investment firm, as they would come at no cost and be executed to regular shares at the IPO or whenever the firm deemed necessary.

The article points out that Ariel Way is actually buying back its position from the investment firm as a way to curtail the dilute affect that this particular deal would have on an equity offering. This most likely points to the company seeking a public offering sometime in the fairly near future.

This is only one example of an additionally creative way to help bring capital into a new company. The company was able to get it’s financing and keep control of it’s investors. That is the additional shares of the company are not going to being listed. This means the portion of the company they sold off for the deal is limited to the one investment firm which makes for easier explaining and reconciliation if their were any problems. The investment firm was able to ensure that other investments in this firm were more sound and also was able to lock in a dollar value for its investment in this deal structure.

Note; I say ‘other investments in the firm’ because their is an undertone of the diluting effect these additional shares would have on the already traded pink sheets. I am assuming that YA Global has a position in these pink sheets and did not want to see the value of that investment disappear because of these extra shares that it owned coming onto the market. Literally causing yourself to lose money for no other reason than yourself.

Remember, bankers are always sitting around trying to figure out how to make deals. Just because the money does not appear in a straight line does not mean it is not out there and is not available for your start-up.

The unrest in Syria and Libya, the sovereign debt situations in the Euro based countries and the Japan nuclear disaster and earthquake are all being shrugged off as the cheap money is available. There is a certain amount of ‘worrying about it tomorrow’ in the mentality right now, combined a perception that even more money will be flowing into stocks in the near future. The herd mentality is dangerous as a swing too far in any direction can lead to a dangerous amount of risk for the whole system. We have become to used to seeing great spikes and great drops in market values in our recent history, one can only think that we might be setting up for this yet again.

There is some very technical math that goes along with how the value is calculated but the index’s usefulness as a measure does not require a full understanding. To sum up, the index measures price movement over historical time periods. A deviation from the historical movement of the price will be reflected in a higher VIX index value. We call this movement in the price of a stock its implied volatility. That is how much you expect the price of a share to move on a given day. A stock with a low implied volatility would have an investor who didn’t expect quick substantial gains or loses; the resulting risk from the investment being very low. A stock with a high implied volatility, could turn on a moments notice causing great gains or loses irregardless of the fiscal soundness of the company.

There are countless things that can affect volatility, though the biggest begin global-macro events, such as the ones we are experiencing currently. The instability of the global market can cause otherwise stable stock valuations to move all over the place and the is no clear direction in how things in the global arena will play out and investors try to make sense of the situation. So where is the VIX these days after everything that has unfolded since the beginning of the year? Surprisingly, the index is near it’s historical average something that is out of line with expectations and how the index has reflected global events in the past. Undervaluing, if you will, the fear in the current crisis.

As with everything else, it’s not helpful to study this in a vacuum as there are other events that lead to the index being reflected as it is. Specifically I’m thinking of the cheap money floating around as a result of the quantitative easing actions taken by the Fed. Perhaps this is the simplest explanation and best. Previously, there has not been this type of fiscal policy enacted during a crisis and we should all be on the look out for a more normal reaction to events once the Federal Reserve has turned the tap off on the cheap money.

The stockpiles of corn in the United States dropped to their lowest levels since 2007, while conversely the futures prices of such commodities rose to their highest levels since 2008. Feelings by analysts are summarized as having expectations that prices will only continue rise as there does not appear to be enough supply to ration off demand. At this very moment we see global food costs to reach record levels and even providing the impetus for regime change in some countries.

It is quiet interesting to see the US House of Representative Agricultural Committee chairman (Frank “the Tank” Lucas) speak about bringing conservation lands out of such status and back into production to meet demand for corn. Keep in mind that the government for the most part subsidizes farmers to grow corn, with the idea that this helps in keeping large price swings away from the market and limiting the risk in production. However, agricultural products are no longer strictly used for direct consumption or as feed.

Enter ethanol. Predictions dating back to 2007 saw the diversification in the use of corn to create ethanol as having a dramatic effect on prices. We are now in fact experiencing this very real scenario as less corn is used for food or feed and more for fuel. Reports range from anywhere between 25 and 33 percent of the entire production of corn in the United Stated is used in making ethanol, which while marketed as a new source of green energy has only caused more damage on the whole.

Personally, I have a disdain for global agribusiness and the relationships formed in government and other bureaucracies. The subsidization of commodities markets in order to provide cheap abundant food has had, in my opinion, more negative consequences than positive. As a result we are now in a cycle of business that will be very hard to break away from. The fields of seemingly endless crops that we are all accustomed to seeing no longer make up the items on your shopping list, but rather, are in your car getting you to the store. This is something to keep in mind, when you find yourself standing at the checkout counter having to dig a little deeper for the food that you are used to.

With each event, uncertainty increases and people’s willingness to take risk historically declines. Let’s look at some of these things. In Japan, the third largest economy in the world is dealing with a natural disaster and ever changing nuclear reactor cleanup that looks to have an even more global impact than will ever be reported. There are uprising’s in the Middle East and the NATO civil war being backed in Lybia that are having a direct impact on fuel prices globally. Emerging market economies, specifically China, are trying to battle fast growth and inflation, which only means they are thinking in the opposite direction of ours. And finally a debt crisis in the European nations that will not go away quick enough.

It is for these reasons, that the United States economic growth can longer rest so heavily on growth through exports. Investment in domestic issues and unemployment need to balanced to reach a sustained growth path.

Solving the problem will further be hampered by a largely unemployed workforce that lack the skills necessary to attract the types of industry that are thought to aide a faster economic recovery. Just 28% of the population between the ages of 25 and 64 have finished a high school level of education in Portugal. That compares with 89% in the United States. A workforce that is not able to move away from textile and labor jobs that are being competitively offered by Eastern EU countries make the prospects for righting the sinking ship very grim. A snails pace toward fiscal soundness seems to be the agreed rate.

The resignation of the PM is the first, in what one should expect to be a continued political fallout from economic woes in the small nation. This being the latest in the 17 member Euro Zone to have deep problems that spread beyond boarders with the single currency. We will see how this mounting frustration between members plays itself out in the coming weeks.

While working with derivatives early in my career, I was asked to setup cash flow schedules and automate payment for a nifty arbitrage the partners at this particular business unit in the firm had come up with.

The basics of the trade were as follows:

• The directors were able to find an insurance company that was willing to write policies on the top revenue producing people in the business unit.
• Because these were term life insurance policies the company was willing to guarantee a fixed interest rate paid out annually if the policy need to be rolled for another year (meaning, no one died that year and the policy didn’t pay out).
• Further this fixed interest rate was a federal minimum rate that had to be guaranteed on the policy. So any insurance shop would have to meet that rate, it was just a question of whom would be willing to write the policy.
• At the time, lending rates between banks and sovereign institutions was a full 2 percentage points below the rate on the life policy. It wouldn’t be another couple years before the policy was revisited and the minimum rate would surely be adjusted appropriately.

So this zero risk arbitrage was as simple as borrowing the money to cover the cost of the insurance policy and in fact you would be making money on the difference in interest on the deal.

And that is exactly what we did. We paid for the policy with borrowed money. The rate on the policy would cover the cost of borrowing the money and also give us the a few extra dollars in the meantime. In the event one of the policies had to pay out (re: someone died), we would reap the benefits of the policy. As I’ve always alluded there is no emotion in investing and if there’s money to be made for free, someone will figure it out.

It should be noted that lending rates are also currently at historic lows and the same sort of transaction is most definitely being made.

A number of reports today further strengthened the notion that the US economy might be headed for a double-dip recession. Personally, I do not believe we will hit a second ‘technical’ recession, that is one that can be defined by as a significant decline in the economy for at least two straight quarters, however I do believe the conditions are correct for some continued downward pressure in the economy.

While there is improvement, joblessness continues to drag along, with the actual pool of unemployed workers remaining steady as the newly released workers are joined by those that had given up on looking for employment previously but now have re-entered the search. Housing prices and sales continue to look bleak for the near future as supply still outweighs demand and the ability of those to borrow money remains limited. And recently, surge of issues in other industrialized nations globally has further weakened our prospects.

At issue is a concern by the banks that the public will be able to draw inferences and conclusions, whether justified or not, on the financial health of these businesses at that time. The Fed discount window being the facility that was in place and tapped to provide institutions liquidity in the wake of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. There was no word on when the data would actually be released only that it would be. I am sure you will see almost all institutions taking advantage of the loans that were made available, it will be interesting to see the size each bank was looking for, as it will give us an idea of the actual exposure each had and the risks taken in order to beef up each balance sheet.