The Act of Giving Back

The Act of Giving Back

Dr. J.T. “Dock” Houk is a philanthropic leader and an originator in the field of fundraising. His selfless character and dedication to helping those around him has helped him with all of his achievements throughout his career. Not everyone has the ability or character to become involved in charity work and it takes a special kind of person to help others who are in need.

Charity work can come in all shapes and sizes and is the act of giving of money, goods or time to those who are less fortunate. It is easy for people to get caught up in their own everyday lives and to face their obstacles in life, but taking a step back and helping out those who have far greater problems and less to survive on is an honorable act. The most basic forms of charity work include providing essential necessities such as food, water, healthcare and shelter but it can extended to far greater measures. There is no right or wrong or too much or too little to the amount each individual can give back to another person, family or community. Helping those around you should be something we all practice and do our part in to make our world a better place to live. 

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Starting your own business isn’t easy for anyone and it takes a lot of hard work and effort to reach success. Dr. J.T “Dock” Houk has provided a few tips and information for those individuals who are striving to accomplish their goals and become an entrepreneur.

Whether you’re fresh out of college or have a few years of experience under your belt, there is no age parameter to who can be an entrepreneur. The characteristics of a successful entrepreneur are those innate skills such as hard work ethic, motivation, and dedication which truly make an individual achieve success.

Whether you want to own your own computer software company or sell a product to consumers it is important to have a clear vision and stay focused on your long and short term goals. You have to set clear and defined goals and narrow all of your ideas and values down to create a solid business model and execute it properly.

As an entrepreneur you have to be able to persevere and overcome all of the setbacks that will stand in your way. There are bound to be obstacles that test your ability to handle them and there are going to be times when you don’t think you can make it through, but those individuals who push through it and overcome those hardships will reach success. 

Giving Back

Giving Back 

With so much going on in our day to day lives, we sometimes forget about people who are less fortunate than us or battling life’s toughest challenges. It doesn’t mean we are selfless or don’t want to do our part, it’s that we get so caught up in our own trials and tribulations that we may miss out on opportunities to give back. Charity work is a great way to help others in your community and make our world a better place to live in. Dr. J.T. Houk has dedicated a lot of time and effort into helping those around him who are in need. His passion and drive to remain involved in philanthropic events is honorable.

Charity work can be done in many ways and you have the option of giving as much or as little as you can. Donating essential supplies or volunteering a local organization can make a lot of difference to those around you. Research different problems in your community and you can discover ways to help out and do your part as a member of our society. This kind of work not only reflects the characters of those willing and able to help out but reflects on the people that make up our planet. So many of us take things for granted and it is important to take time to give back and make our world a better place. 

Philanthropic Marketing

Philanthropic Marketing

Philanthropy is an excellent way to give back to others and volunteer in communities that need help. Dock Houk is passionate about his philanthropic efforts and has put together a few tips on how to incorporate philanthropy into a marketing strategy for your business.

Dock Houk believes integrating philanthropic endeavors into a marketing strategy requires creating public awareness of the social need to give back to the community as well as promoting the effort from your organization. This is a great opportunity to not only raise awareness for a good cause but also show that your business is dedicated to striving for a better society. By creating a balanced marketing strategy you can be sure to drive interest to not only your company but towards philanthropy.

You should start by choosing a problem we face as a society and target your philanthropic efforts towards that problem. Find ways to solve this issue at hand and incorporate ways your business can help reach a solution. After you have developed a few solutions, get your customers involved and ask them to donate or help with the cause. This will show customers that you care about the community and in turn increase sales for your company. Supporting different philanthropic campaigns is not only good for our society but can also help your business grow and succeed. For more tips and information, contact Dock Houk.  

The History of the U.S. Open

 The History of the U.S. Open

It’s that time of the year again where the summer months slow down and the tennis courts heat up! The U.S. Open Tennis Championship is a hard-court tennis tournament and is known to be one of the oldest, most recognized tennis championships in the entire world. Dr. J.T. Houk has a passion for tennis and put this together to take a stroll down memory lane to the history of tennis. 

If you are even the slightest bit of a sports fanatic then you know exactly what this championship is, but have you ever questioned its origin? The history of the U.S. Open all began in 1978 in late August through early September over a two-week period. Beginning on acrylic hard-courts located at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, the U.S. Open is owned and operated by the United States Tennis Association as a “not-for-profit” organization. Surprisingly, the proceeds from ticket prices are used to implement a higher knowledge and growth of the sport of tennis across the nation. 

After existing for 9 years, The Grand Slam was developed and The U.S. Open became the fourth and final tennis major worldwide; the other opens consist of the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon. Consisting of five event championships, this tournament is any tennis fanatics dream, even inclusive of wheelchair players, juniors and seniors. With rich history and great intentions, the development of this tournament not only helps the USTA but also the overall development and promotion of the sport nationwide.

How to Market Real Time

With real time marketing, there are certain elements which can take your business to levels it has not been before. Dr. J.T. Dock Houk knows quite a bit about marketing, and will share a few tips to have your real time marketing campaign explode. 

Identify the high level communities that your brand is trying to reach. Once you can identify exactly who you are targeting, you can launch a full out assault on them at every event, convention, and meeting that these people may be at. Also, get your team and your process in place exactly how you want and need before you get started. Have the right people in the right places leading the charge. Finally, monitor everything closely. Do not let pieces fall through the cracks just because you weren’t paying close enough attention. 

Developing Marketing

Companies and businesses need marketing. This is a known fact in order to be successful as a business. The issue is, many business owners think they have a great marketing plan, and expect it to flourish overnight. As Dr. J.T. Dock Houk explains, a great marketing strategy does not happen overnight, and is more of a snowball effect.

 Too many times business owners see another business become successful after using a marketing campaign, and they think they need to follow the exact campaign to be successful. When in reality, every business is different and needs to use their own approach. Trying to implement another businesses strategy as your own could work in some aspects, but to be truly effective it would need to be tweaked to fit your business needs. This will not happen overnight, and trial and error is a large portion of marketing.

 

How to Help Employees Work Harder

Eliciting the best possible work from employees is a goal that many bosses wish to achieve. Increasing productivity and cutting down on mistakes is something everyone can strive for. Being able to do this makes the mark for a great leader. Dr. J.T. Dock Houk of the NHF knows how to motivate employees and can share ways to keep everyone on the right path for your business.

Reinforcing you expectations with employees with set forth a guideline that you expect them to follow. Once a clear path is defined, distractions become less opportunistic. Explain to employees who you are as a business, what you are trying to achieve, and how you expect to get there. This will relay the message of what is expected. Take a personal interest in your employees. Showing them that you care in their work, and personal lives will help them be able to relate to you, and to also see you as more of a human that has the same frustrations and struggles in life. They will be more comfortable and this may help with future ideas, and opinions.

Rafael Nadal Wins Yet Again

This past weekend, tennis great Rafael Nadal won his record 8^th French Open tennis title. He has been dominant throughout his career, and this weekend was no different. He defeated David Ferrer 6-2, 6-3, 6-2. 

He cemented himself as the sport’s greatest ever on clay, and being only twenty seven years old, has many future victories ahead of him. A proponent of the lesser-known double racket tennis, Dr. J.T. Dock Houk recognizes this outstanding achievement of single racket tennis.

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are two of the tennis’ most polarizing athletes and the debate on who is better is never ending. Roger Federer is more accomplished overall with 14 major titles, but he is also older. Nadal is not far behind with 12 major title wins. It will be interesting to see how the future of these two rivals pans out.

The Events with NHF

While there is a series of unfortunate events that occurred to NHF several years ago, the “news” stories and blogs found on the web are blatantly misleading to completely false. Dr. J.T. Dock Houk

would like to set forth some of the history of this charity.

In 2006, NHF was sued by a family in Texas over an insurance policy the family donated to NHF. The Mancillas family lived in Texas and retained a lawyer known for attacking companies with “deep pockets”, meaning companies with large asset base and insurance. NHF had to appear in the Brownsville Texas courts to fight this case. NHF tried to get its insurance company, Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Company, to indemnify NHF in this case which was clearly a covered claim. The insurance company declined. NHF made every effort to resolve the case amicably, including making efforts to settle with the Mancillas family, but they turned down all efforts. In the summer of 2008, the court in Texas, presided by Judge Abel Limas, tried our case. (Note that the Judge was voted into office, that the Mancillas family were personal friends with the judge, and that critical evidence in our case was suppressed.) NHF lost and a very heavy judgment was levied.

With the Mancillas case, NHF needed to post a bond to appeal the Texas judgment in the amount of the judgment which was $7 million dollars. Bond insurers would not allow NHF to secure a bond with stocks because of the volatility in the markets at that time – stocks were fluctuating by thousands of points daily. The insurers required cash. NHF had to liquidate millions of its stock accounts very quickly to post the bond. This resulted in having to file for bankruptcy.

NHF reorganized in the fall of 2009, paid off the annuitants and other creditors, unfortunately with donated funds, because it was required to by the bankruptcy courts to do so. Since the fall of 2009, NHF has restored nearly $2M in lost funds to donor’s accounts from its own assets held in more illiquid form. There was no court mandate to do this, NHF has voluntarily done so.

In 2011, NHF sued its insurance company for failure to cover and for bad faith in denying coverage in the Mancillas case. NHF won a settlement from Philadelphia and has used those funds to restore even further its donor advised funds, to pay tremendous legal bills in the bankruptcy and ensuing insurance.

What is Socially Responsible Investing?

Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is sometimes referred to as “sustainable”, “socially conscious”, “mission,” “green” or “ethical” investing. In general, socially responsible investors are looking to promote concepts and ideals that they feel strongly about.  

They accomplish this in 3 ways:

1-    Investment in companies and governments that the investor believes best hold to values of importance to the investor. These include the environment, consumer protection, religious beliefs, employees’ rights as well as human rights, among others. These areas of concern can be summarized as “Environmental, Social and Governance” and is referred to as ESG investing. In addition, SRI includes shareholder advocacy and community investing.

2-    Shareholder advocacy is exactly what it would seem; socially responsible investors proactively influencing corporate decisions that could otherwise have a large detrimental impact on society. The various goals of shareholder advocacy is to pressure those entities into improving practices and policies and acting as a good corporate citizen, while at the same time promoting long-term value and financial performance. The goals are accomplished through various means including dialogue, filing resolutions for shareholders’ vote, educating the public and attracting media attention to the issue, which generally garners support and puts additional pressure on the corporation to do the socially responsible thing

3-    Community investing has become the fastest growing segment within SRI, with some $61.4 billion in managed assets. With community investing, investors’ capital is directed to those communities, in the U.S. and abroad, which are under served by more traditional financial lending institutions and gives recipients of low-interest loans access to not just investment capital and income but provides valuable community services that include healthcare, housing, education and child care.

To Read Further Visit – Source Article – Forbes

Video Marketing Tips

Use of the internet and online tools for everything from schoolwork, to entertainment, to advertising, is commonplace among many people. It is only natural that businesses would take to the internet to reach out to more customers and create a larger web presence. In correlation with this, video marketing is an extremely effective tool for businesses to use.

Dr. J.T. Dock Houk has some tips to share for the use of video marketing. Understanding business goals. Define the targeted audience that the videos are intended to reach. Define the promotional strategy and how to go about creating awareness. Define the audience demographic that will be viewing the video. Create a video which matches the business goals and are related to the business needs. Following these tips will help with the success of an online video marketing campaign.