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Plantation shutters are a classic and timeless window treatment that can add value to any home. They not only provide excellent light control and privacy but also enhance the overall aesthetic appeal of a room. However, choosing the right style and color of plantation shutters can be a daunting task, especially if you are trying to match them with your home decor. In this article, we will discuss how to style your plantation shutters to complement your home decor, whether your style is modern, traditional, or somewhere in between.

Modern Style: Choosing the Right Color

When it comes to modern decor, the key is to keep things simple and minimalistic. For a clean and contemporary look, choose plantation shutters in neutral colors such as white, gray, or black. These colors will create a crisp and clean backdrop, allowing other elements in the room to stand out. If you have a specific color palette in mind, you can also opt for custom-colored shutters to match your decor.

Traditional Style: Adding Warmth and Texture

If your home decor leans towards the traditional side, you might want to consider adding warmth and texture to your plantation shutters. Wooden shutters in warm tones such as mahogany or cherry can add a touch of elegance and sophistication to any room. You can also opt for shutters with decorative moldings or traditional louvers to enhance the overall look.

Transitional Style: Blending Modern and Traditional Elements

If your style is somewhere in between modern and traditional, you can blend the two by choosing plantation shutters that feature both modern and traditional elements. For example, you can opt for shutters with clean lines and neutral colors, but with decorative moldings or traditional louvers. This will create a balanced and cohesive look that complements any decor.

Choosing the Right Material

When it comes to choosing the right material for your plantation shutters, there are several options available. The most common materials are wood, vinyl, and composite. Wood shutters offer a classic and elegant look, but require more maintenance than other materials. Vinyl shutters are more affordable and require less maintenance, but can warp or fade over time. Composite shutters are a durable and low-maintenance option that can mimic the look of wood.

In conclusion, plantation shutters are a smart investment for any home's resale value, as they not only provide excellent light control and privacy but also enhance the overall aesthetic appeal of a room. When styling your plantation shutters to match your home decor, consider your style and color preferences, as well as the material of the shutters. By choosing the right combination of these elements, you can create a cohesive and stylish look that complements your home decor. For Australian-made plantation shutters, contact AAA Plantation Shutters, a trusted retailer for quality plantation shutters.

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Connect Social was born at a meeting of like-minded entrepreneurs in a coffee shop in the spring of 2019. Tired of the ever-growing dominance of Amazon in the retail sector and seeking to find a way to better utilize social media for enterprise purposes, the idea behind Connect was formed. A revolutionary new, free of charge, social network ecosystem where users would be paid for their data. Merchants would, in turn, have Connect Social consumers shopping with them, and be provided with a low cost trackable and result-driven advertising method, with which they could market directly to the exact consumer they want. Consumers and merchants will transact in a brand new, never been done before, a centralized economy driven by a freely distributed and exchanged currency (a loyalty token) – truly revolutionary!

So, in the fall of 2019 Connect Social started testing in a single city with merchants and consumers, offering discounts to consumers from local merchants while trying to develop the software necessary to integrate those consumers and merchants in a synergistic economy. Progress was being made when the pandemic struck in the spring of 2020. All development of the Connect Social model ground to a halt due to the financial constraints caused by the strangulation of economic development that was caused across so many sectors. One thing the pandemic made apparent was how much a model like Connect Social was needed to keep small businesses alive. The pandemic proved to be tough financially for our growth, but thanks to others seeing our vision, we were able to obtain enough funding to continue building.  We created a new, improved model that allowed everyone to benefit from Connect Social’s growth.

In 2021, with the economic constraints of the Pandemic waning, Connect found new footing as investment capital once again became available. Software development was started in earnest, with the long sought-after user-integrated platform being developed and eventually Beta tested in the spring and summer of 2022. Phase 1, (The Ambassador Platform) was officially launched on October 1, 2022 with a party to celebrate. Since that time, our user base of Ambassadors has grown steadily into the thousands.

We are currently moving into Phase 2 (The Merchant Platform) and pre-boarding small businesses into our database, offering them unique opportunities to become our Founding Merchants and provide them with a distinct advantage over their competition. Connect Social will drive customers to these shop at our businesses and will become a priceless tool for all businesses in this competitive economy.  We are excited to see the launch of the full platform in the coming months.

Connect Social is the future – a self-sustaining, digital, virtual economy with a currency that will circulate through it and grow in value in sync with that economy AND THAT FUTURE IS NOW! Both our Ambassadors and our Merchants can be proud to be a part of Connect Social and benefit from our growth for years to come! 

Are you a small business? Connect Social is offering a free listing - no strings attached! Register at www.ConnectSocial.net.

 

 

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Great ideas do not always come from the top down. As a matter of fact, some of the most transformative ideas that have gone on to change the world have been from a lower- to mid-level employee. From the iPod at Apple to the Happy Meal at McDonald’s—both digital and physical innovations in all industries have often stemmed from collaborative creativity at all levels.

As a low- to mid-level employee, your ideas are likely important to you, but will they be perceived as great ideas to the CEO, CFO, board of directors, or other integral decision makers at your organization? Most likely, at first the answer will be no, but you can change that! By mastering the concept of selling up your ideas, your intrapreneurial spirit will shine brightly, giving you the chance to take the organization you work for to stratospheric levels.

And as a C-suite executive or a business leader of any kind, how receptive are you to employee ideas as they pertain to transformative innovation? Allowing for intrapreneurial innovation demonstrates faith in your employees and staff as a team, and can even foster a more unified, productive, and positive Futureview® than ever before.

I want to explore both sides of the coin so that the avenues of communication in intrapreneurship are seamless for all involved.

What Are Some Company Pain Points Innovative Employees Can Solve?

Every company has specific pain points. From both the perspective of an employee looking to be a bigger asset to the organization with innovation and higher-ups and managers seeking a way to further transform the industry, identifying common company pain points unlocks potential.

Employees looking to sell their ideas need to understand the dynamics of the company’s most common pain points and how their ideas solve them. These could be internal pain points with business operations or external pain points customers face.

Southwest Airlines has a notable history with both intrapreneurship and solving both internal and external company pain points creatively. Prior to any flight I’ve ever been on, the safety instructions are read in monotonous fashion. But at Southwest Airlines, an internal employee named Marty Cobbs decided to take passengers by surprise by livening up the safety instructions with humor.

Believe it or not, this creative touch was observed by the higher-level decision makers at Southwest Airlines, and Marty Cobbs presenting how having personality during mundane tasks for both employees and customers led Southwest Airlines to a bump of a cool $140 million dollars a year in loyal customer revenue.

Once you understand a pain point of any kind, knowing how to position your idea and its ability to lessen or eliminate company and customer pain is the next step. With Southwest Airlines, demonstration was everything, as this innovation was not something physical but a mere change in customer experience and employee performance. Imagine Marty Cobbs going into a corporate boardroom at Southwest Airlines and saying, “I’d like to perform stand-up comedy during in-flight instructions.”

Odds are, he would have been laughed out of his job as a flight steward!

As an Intrapreneur: Prepare for Objections and Have Answers

No matter how you present ideas as an intrapreneur, know that objections will arise. This is why it is so important for you to step into the other person’s shoes and fully understand what the objections could possibly be. If you can understand what manager and executive objections to your ideas might be, you can prepare for them and address them.

For example, many ideas come with added costs. If your idea comes with costs associated with it and you are pitching it to the CEO, make sure you can address any cost-associated questions. This may mean talking to the CFO beforehand and getting approval, as money will always be the CFO’s pain point!

Google’s famous email application was created by an internal employee, but this intrapreneurship example and overcoming potential costs to innovate runs deeper than launching an email platform. Google accounts for employees to work on personal projects at their expense. This led to the creation of Gmail and has paid the company back two-fold.

Properly Use Certainty to Your Advantage

After addressing pain points and answering any possible objections, the next step is addressing potential risks and knowing what is certain. All business decisions and innovations involve some sort of risk, whether it is financial risk, reputational risk, or personal risk.

This section is more for the managers and executives that are being sold to by an intrapreneur. You already know the risks of business, but what are you certain about? Using my Hard Trend Methodology to make risk taking less risky benefits both the internal employee selling their idea to you and your collaboration with them to bring it to life.

For instance, knowing that the original iteration of Amazon Prime was not drawing in the customer base that Amazon hoped for, they turned to one of their bright employees who pitched an idea of having an exclusive membership to outpace eBay’s benefits program chipping away at the online shopping industry.

Understanding certainty is the responsibility of managers and business leaders, and this ultimately leads to low-risk innovation for all. Next, discover and envision how your intrapreneurial employee’s idea will affect the strategic initiative of the company. Does it improve your mission as a business or organization? If it isn’t all the way there, help them with the strategic insights you have.

Communication and Anticipation in Selling Ideas Internally

When selling ideas to top-level executives and managers, many employees tend to focus on their excitement and their passion for the idea rather than the practicalities of it. The leaders are always more focused on the risks of an idea, the viability of it, and the profitability of it.

Truth be told, most internal ideas that are shot down are due to a lack of successful communication between the leaders and the intrapreneurial employee. When questions or objections are raised about a new idea, the idea maker focused on their excitement tends to not know how to answer and the idea falls through.

Through some of these insights in today’s blog, managers, executives, and leaders should have better tools to prepare for working with and adapting ideas from employees, not to mention embracing them to begin with. Give your employees the opportunity to find new opportunities as intrapreneurs. Likewise, if you are an employee with great ideas, take some of the insights from this article and use them to put a solid strategy behind your ideas to ensure they are taken seriously.

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