Meaning<ul><li>Sunk costs have already been incurred and cannot be recovered by any means</li><li>Opportunity costs represent forgone returns of alternative opportunities</li></ul>Implicit or Explicit<ul><li>Sunk costs are explicit as they are the result of actual cash flows</li><li>Opportunity costs are generally implicit as they are notional in nature and do not come in the form of cash outflow</li></ul>Estimation of Cost<ul><li>Sunk costs can be accurately estimated as they have actual purchase prices that have been incurred</li><li>Opportunity costs are harder to estimate as they are often notional and their value is more subjective.</li></ul>

The Difference between Sunk Costs and Opportunity Costs: Meaning and Estimations

It is important to note that while all sunk costs are fixed costs, not all fixed costs are sunk costs. Sunk costs are, by definition, those which cannot be recovered by any means. Some previously incurred costs can be sold on for their purchase price and therefore are not considered sunk.

Challenges with Sunk Costs

One trap managers should be aware of when it comes to sunk costs is the sunk cost fallacy. The Sunk Cost Fallacy describes our tendency to follow through on an endeavor if we have already invested time, effort, or money into it, whether or not the current costs outweigh the benefits. Economists tell us we should avoid falling into this trap in the decision-making process that justifies a bad decision based on previously incurred costs that no longer bear relevance to the decision at hand.

Sunk Cost Fallacy

Reporting<ul><li>Sunk costs have already been paid for and are reflected on balance sheets and financial statements</li><li>Opportunity costs are not shown on financial statements, though they may be included in managerial reports</li></ul>Role in Decision Making<ul><li>Sunk costs have already been incurred and are therefore no longer relevant to future business decisions</li><li>Opportunity costs are very important to future business decision-making as they represent the potential benefits a business misses out on when choosing one alternative over another.</li></ul>

The Difference between Sunk Costs and Opportunity Costs: Reporting and Role in Decision Making

The main challenge with opportunity costs is that they are hard to accurately calculate. Returns on investments are often estimated rather than hard-set figures. It is also not always easy to define non-monetary factors like risk, time, skills, or effort. This is not to say trade-offs should not be estimated and considered in business decision-making, but rather that it is only after a choice has been made that managers will have the hindsight to see how each investment decision is compared.

Challenges with Opportunity Cost

A sunk cost refers to a cost that has already occurred and has no potential for recovery in the future. Given that sunk costs have already occurred, the cost will remain the same regardless of the outcome of a decision, and so they should not be considered in capital budgeting.It is easy to get hung up on sunk costs, especially when they are explicit costs. Explicit costs are direct payments made to others in the course of running a business, such as wages, rent, and, materials. <ul><li>Explicit costs which have already been incurred are sunk and are irrelevant to future decision-making. </li><li>Explicit cost<warningtag>s which will occur in the future, however, are relevant to business decisions as they will be direct costs to the company that could be avoided.</warningtag></li></ul>

What is a Sunk Cost? 

An Opportunity Cost is the loss of other alternatives when one option is chosen or no action is taken. Opportunity costs are unseen, not included in financial reports, and can often be forgotten about in capital budgeting. Part of the reason opportunity costs are unseen is because they consider Implicit Costs. An implicit cost is any cost that has already occurred but is not necessarily shown or reported as a separate expense. These costs are much harder to measure as they are not always quantitative. Being aware of trade-offs will allow managers to make better-educated investment decisions.

What is Opportunity Cost? 

Learn to evaluate life and business choices via the lens of Opportunity Costs

problemsolving

Problem Solving

business

Business

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

What Is Opportunity Cost

Sunk Costs are explicit and appear on financial statements so it is understandable why these costs are honed in on. Opportunity Costs are implicit and unseen, so they are often overlooked.

Consider sunk costs and opportunity costs as part of your business strategy to help cut costs, make better investment decisions, and set your business up for success. Unsure what these are? Read here to learn more.

Sunk Cost Vs Opportunity Cost: What's The Difference?

Sunk Cost Vs Opportunity Cost: What’s The Difference?

Freelancing has been around for centuries.References to the word “freelance” date back to the early 19th century. Thomas N. Brown first used the term in The Life and Times of Hugh Miller (1809). Freelancing really picked up steam in the 21st. In 2017 Upwork reported that freelance workforce growth is accelerating and has outpaced overall U.S. workforce growth by 3x since 2014. It was also anticipated that freelancing was on pace to account for a majority of the U.S. workforce by 2027.

Freelancing: A Brief History

As companies struggle to find qualified staff, they increasingly rely on contractors to complete tasks that require specialized skills. Data analysts, big data experts, AI and machine learning specialists, software engineers, and IT security analysts will be in high demand for the foreseeable future.The availability of contract work creates a lot of opportunities for freelancers with these skills to pick up contract work to fill in gaps and choose which companies to work with and how they spend their time.

Qualified Staff, Hired Temporarily

In 2020, a<a href="https://www.calendar.com/blog/https-www-calendar-com-blog-how-to-get-rid-of-brain-fog-caused-by-the-covid-19-pandemic/">s a result of the pandemic</a>, the freelance revolution has now truly arrived. It’s currently being forecast that by 2028, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/921593/gig-economy-number-of-freelancers-us/#:~:text=Growth%20projections%20assume%20that%20the,will%20be%20freelancing%20in%202027">there will be over 90 million freelancers in the U.S. alone</a>, making up over half of the entire workforce.It is almost impossible for today’s businesses to fulfill all their technological needs with just a few employees or with one. As technology advances, freelancing will become more commonplace. Because of this, a wide variety of workers, skills, and jobs are available.

The Freelancer Explosion

<ul><li>Contena and Freelance Writing Gigs for writers.</li><li>For designers, there are 99 Designs and Behance.</li><li>Developers should check out Codeable.</li><li>The Creative Loft is perfect for photographers.</li><li>What about marketers? Remotive and People Per Hour are worth exploring.</li><li>If you’re in sales, check out ZipRecruiter or CommissionCrowd.</li><li>Belay is a sold choice for virtual assistants.</li><li>Customer support jobs can be found over at We Work Remotely</li></ul>

Niche Freelance Sites

Hybrid and remote aren’t going anywhere even as the world returns to somewhat normalcy. In fact, by shifting their talent model to include both full-time and freelance employees, 90% of companies surveyed predict that they will gain a competitive advantage in the future.Workers have more freedom these days to live wherever they want while still having access to various job opportunities. Further, a number of non-technical workers such as marketing consultants, insurance brokers, and financial workers are demanding permanent work-from-home opportunities.

Hybrid and Remote Work Is Here to Stay

Freelancing is growing. And, it’s also never been easier to land freelance work.Apart from referrals, it may also be beneficial to join trade or industry associations where you will be able to meet others who share your interests.You can utilize social media. By joining groups, building connections, and publishing content on their platform, you could reach potential contacts. And, you definitely need to tap into the hundreds of freelance job websites out there. There’s Upwork, FlexJobs, Freelancer, Indeed, and Fiverr for general freelance work.

How to Land Your Next Freelance Gig

<ul><li>Freelancers are in high demand in almost every skill area that can be done in front of a computer.</li><li>Seventy percent of respondents said their desire to be a freelancer is related to seeking a better “rhythm” between their career and personal goals.</li><li> 62% of survey respondents said that the flexibility of work schedules was a significant factor in their decision to freelance.</li><li>56% of respondents said that having the freedom to work on their own terms is a huge reason to freelance.</li><li>The flexibility to work anywhere and move without fear of losing their job was highly regarded by 55% of respondents.</li></ul>

People Are Choosing to Freelance

Freelancers have many opportunities to develop their creative skills. Accessing diverse cultures and approaches for all fields is facilitated by exposure to international markets and various industries. Freelancers can therefore adapt their activities and projects to different markets, thereby expanding their business.Likewise, employers can tap into a deeper and more innovative and diverse talent poo, regardless of location.

Creativity Boost and Deeper Talent Pool

Unlike having a full-time or in-house team, employers can save money by hiring freelancers on an as-need basis. For example, they can outsource a web designer or IT specialist when building their website or troubleshooting. As a result, they can dedicate this money to other aspects of the business.On the other hand, the freelancing lifestyle allows freelancers to save money by not having to commute to work or by not buying expensive clothes, meals, and so on. What’s more, most freelancers only require internet access and a computer.

Reducing Costs

What’s the first thing that pops to mind when you hear &#8220;freelancing&#8221;? Perhaps you think of someone working from the comfort of home with their laptop and smartphone close by....

career

Career

Freelancers Today Have More Options Than Ever Before

Bullying is unpleasant, but it happens; and working out what’s going on, and going deeper into our own roles and our children’s roles, is a character-enhancing exercise. Whether your child is the bully or the target, the bystander or the wingman, they can learn from it, and they can come through. Being on the receiving end of bullying is a traumatic situation, and like all trauma, you can come out of it stronger, especially if you have good support. It can make a bigger person of an individual. It can give them a view of the human condition that they didn’t have.

The Bottom Line

The upstanders are the ones that weigh in. They’re wired to weigh in – even when it’s nothing to do with them. To some, they can be really annoying people, actually.But upstanders deflate the bully or bullies and the important thing to realise, and to make sure your child realises, is that it can be a very subtle role. It's a good idea to embrace the role of the upstander – in schools in particular, nurturing an upstanding culture would make a huge difference.

The Upstanders

Sometimes you come across a family where everyone is a bully: the parents, the older siblings, who bully the younger kids, and the younger kids, who bully others at school. These families are very difficult to help, but they’re also quite rare. What’s much more common is individualistic behaviour by parents that could set their child up to be a bully.

A Bully Family

The truth about tricky people is this: they’re all around, and they’ll continue to be all around, right through your life. One of the biggest gifts a parent can give their child,  is the skills to handle tricky people. It’s not about being big; it’s about being clever.It’s about your strategy, it’s about how you deal with these people. If you teach your kid that some people are pure evil, and will beat you, it’s not empowering. But if you teach them to recognise the tricky person, to be wary, to work things out around them: that’s empowering. You’ve taught them something massive.

Tricky People

Pay attention to your child, so you can work out what their vulnerabilities are. You know your child better than anyone: what are their emotional needs? Do they need love and belonging, or crave power, status and recognition from others? The first of these could be a passive, gentle child who might be more vulnerable to bullying, or to being recruited by a bully to be one of their supporters.

What Parents Can Do

Bullying in the digital age is the same as the old but there are important differences. First, the digital world has created a much quicker path to the dehumanisation of the target – and dehumanisation is the horror we are trying to avoid.It’s very hard to bring a child back from being dehumanised. If you feel it’s happening to your child in any setting, and if the school or authorities aren’t working with you urgently to tackle it, you need to get the child out quick.

The Digital Age And Bullying

Bullying is a sustained pattern of aggression by a person with more power, targeting someone with less power. The key  is that it’s repeated behaviour. But beneath this simple definition lies a complex, multilayered situation that can be exceptionally tricky to unpack. What is the power, and where does it come from? With children, it’s often that they have more social status, or have been led to believe they do.

Bullying In Youngsters

Not to speak is to speak; not to act is to act.

If your child needs power and recognition – and that’s a great cocktail for success in many sectors – it can easily trigger bullying behaviour, and as a parent, you need to be aware of that, and active in how you manage it.If you can nurture a sense of kindness in that child, help them understand how others are feeling, you’ll be combatting their bullying tendencies. Every child, every human being, has their flaws. it’s relatively easy to help a primary-school-age child out of being a bully. They’re primed to be told how to behave, and they can learn to be different.

What Your Kid Needs

Kids with a supercilious presumption that they’re better than others can get into the bullying mindset.Make sure your child isn’t that child: the idea that your offspring is inherently smarter, better looking and more skilled across the board, is, in fact, a facet of your own dark side – and transmitting it to your child will lead to big problems.

The Kind Of Kids That May Become Bullies

Bullying is always about more than what’s going on with two people: the bully and the target. What about the  “wingmen”, the bully’s supporters, the kids who think the bully is the bee’s knees and want to stay in their favour? What’s happening with the kids watching silently – the bystanders? Who is seeing what’s happening, when it all starts to kick off, and getting out fast? Who’s calling out the injustice? To understand bullying, you have to see the whole picture.Bullying is about absolutely everyone; even the bystanders – those who do or say nothing when bullying is taking place.

Bullying Is About More Than Just Two People

Arm your kids with the right tools, and you’ll empower them against bullies – and stop them becoming one themselves

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

parenting

Parenting

How to bully-proof your kids for life

The global youth employment crisis has implications for social stability and equality that exceed anything we have experienced in our history.1.3 billion youth are about to attempt to enter the workforce. As more entry-level jobs are automated, businesses and policymakers need to work together to ensure young people have the skills they need.

The global youth employment crisis

Creating a global or national verification system enables employers to identify the most useful skills for their current employees and set up new hires for success by indicating what additional training they should consider.A national system built on a technology platform such as a distributed ledger or Blockchain will help employees track and store their skill base and provide employers with a trusted and easily verifiable assessment method.

Build a national digital skills verification trust

Insight, access, and trustThese are informational problems that can be addressed by concerted, large-scale investments in skill mapping, measurement, verification, prediction, and development enginesThe means for building out these platforms are all at hand, and much promising work has already started

Philanthropic investments and layouts help, but do not address the core problem

<ul><li>Build a pipeline of workers suitably trained for the future labor market that requires both digital and relational skills.</li><li>National skills maps should include standardized definitions and methods that measure whether or not a skill has been learned.</li><li>Leverage corporate training outside of corporations.</li><li>By pairing elements from best-of-class corporate programs with a government-led national policy framework, stakeholders can jointly help establish a high-quality national skills development program that is germane to national and local populations and efficiently achieves scale.</li></ul>

Understand what skills your organization or country needs

<ul><li>36% of CEOs said they were focused on improving productivity through technology and automation.</li><li>Nearly one-quarter of youth ages 18 to 24 stopped working during the pandemic, and many others had their hours and income slashed, likely because they were working in highly affected sectors.</li><li>Four high-impact actions governments and businesses can take to reverse the trend.</li></ul>

Jobs historically held by the young are at risk of being automated

As more entry-level jobs are automated, businesses and policymakers need to work together to ensure young people have the skills they need.

education

Learning & Education

4 Ways to Bridge the Global Skills Gap

When you have done some writing practice, you can get a feel for the niche you want to pursue. Pick a role you want to own.<ul><li>Emails / Sales funnels</li><li>Social media / Community management</li><li>Search engine optimization (SEO)</li><li>Digital advertising (PPC)</li><li>Blog posts / Articles</li><li>Video / Podcast scripts</li></ul> To find your target market, ask yourself:<ul><li>What industry are your prospective clients in?</li><li>What are their services?</li><li>How do they use copy currently?</li></ul> For example:<ul><li>Email funnel copywriter for SaaS companies</li><li>Social media manager for nonprofits</li><li>Blog posts for personal finance websites.</li></ul>

Find your copywriting niche

<ul><li>Focus on the reader. Great copywriters write about what their readers care about.</li><li>Focus on learning more. Good copywriters invest in themselves. They read books on copywriting and marketing. They invest in courses and read other copywriters' stuff to stay in the loop.</li><li>Be humble. Good copywriters are always looking for feedback as it can improve their writing.</li><li>Use simple words and stories that read the way people talk when they feel relaxed.</li><li>Write to your reader. Don't use "my" and "I" Instead, use "you".</li><li>Use specifics to bring your writing to life.</li></ul>

Tips for improving your copywriting skills

Learn how to write persuasively. You can learn this by studying others who've done it.<ul><li><a href="https://growthlab.com/copywriting-books/">20 copywriting books you need on your shelf</a></li><li><a href="https://growthlab.com/how-to-write-copy/">How to write copy</a></li><li><a href="https://growthlab.com/best-sales-pages/">The 6-part outline every good sales page has in common</a></li><li><a href="https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/guides/ultimate-guide-to-remarkable-content/part-0/">The Ultimate Guide to Remarkable Content</a></li></ul>Practice writing, and build your portfolio.<ul><li>Write the copy for your newly-formed copywriting business.</li><li>Offer to write for your friends or family if they have small businesses that need copy.</li><li>Offer your copywriting services on sites like Upwork and Fiverr. </li><li>Write a pitch email to your dream client.</li></ul>

How to get into copywriting

There are four main pricing models:<ul><li>An hourly rate is ideal for the beginner. It prevents clients from piling on work without paying you and help the client to mitigate their risk.</li><li>By project. You'll know exactly what you're getting paid with concrete deliverables.</li><li>By retainer. Your client will pay you a set amount monthly.</li><li>Commission/bonus. This model can work in conjunction with the other ones. For example, your client promise an added amount for attaining X amount of leads.</li></ul>

Define your price as a freelance copywriter 

You don't need any formal education to become a copywriter. The most sought after copywriters never took a writing class. Copywriting salaries vary depending on the work setting.<ul><li>In-house. Working for a company or marketing agency.</li><li>Freelance. Working as a freelance copywriter.</li></ul>

Copywriter's education and work setting

Finding your first client may be somewhat tricky, but once you find your first few clients, they're likely to refer you to their network. Go where your clients spend time online, such as message boards, forums, and websites your client might frequent.<ul><li>Are you a writer for a niche industry? Start answering questions on Quora regarding your niche.</li><li>If you're a video editor, find online groups for bloggers wanting to expand their content media.</li></ul> Consistently provide value at these places to develop a steady reputation.

Find your first copywriting client

Anyone who is paid to write content that encourages readers to take action is a copywriter. Copywriters write the words used for marketing products or services for things like sales pages, email funnels, landing pages, blog posts/articles, social media posts, white papers, case studies, advertisements, and video scripts. Copywriters are also salespeople and behavioural psychologists. A good copywriter learns to master all these elements.

The copywriter

Becoming a copywriter can earn you a lot of money. This post will help get you there FAST (+ show you how much you'll make)

Sunk Cost Vs Opportunity Cost: What's The Difference?

Freelancers Today Have More Options Than Ever Before

How to bully-proof your kids for life

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

4 Ways to Bridge the Global Skills Gap

CURATED BY

Sunk Cost Vs Opportunity Cost: What's The Difference?

Freelancers Today Have More Options Than Ever Before

How to bully-proof your kids for life

It's time to Read like a Pro.

4 Ways to Bridge the Global Skills Gap

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.