Most of us were brought up to study hard, get good grades, choose a “practical” college major, and strive for a “good job.”

Talk to a stranded midlife career-changer and you realize the game has changed. Yesterday’s rules prepared us to be passengers on a large ocean liner that promised a smooth voyage. Today we realize that ocean liner turned out to be the Titanic and we need to keep ourselves afloat on a small life raft if we want to survive.

Here are some tips to help your child learn not only to survive, but to thrive and grow in a chaotic world.

1. From the first day of kindergarten, encourage your child to build on strengths rather than focus on limitations.

Does she spend hours studying models of cars for the last twenty years? Maybe she’ll become an auto mechanic — or maybe she’ll parlay her ability to classify detailed information into a career as a biologist or pharmacist.

2. Encourage your child to choose a field of study based on his or her natural abilities and passions, not “what will get me a job.”

Claudia Kennedy, the Army’s first female three-star General, majored in philosophy. In her book Generally Speaking, she claims philosophy prepared her to become a top-level intelligence officer. Carly Fiorino, famed CEO of Hewlett-Packard, studied medieval history. And Michael Lewis, financial writer and best-selling author of Liars Poker, was an art history major.

3. Assure your children that few mistakes are fatal.

Did your child fail a course? Face rejection from a first-choice college? Most of us can’t avoid an occasional failure, but we can learn bounce-back attitudes as soon as we can talk.

Yolanda Griffith, WNBA basketball star, dropped out of a premier program due to pregnancy. She returned to a lower-ranked college program, baby in tow, and now plays for the Sacramento Monarchs.

I once taught a student who had flunked out of junior college following a close call with the legal system. After a four-year stint in the US Navy, she returned to college, maintained a dean’s list grade point average, and went on to a top law school.

4. Encourage your child to experience success in any area of her life.

Did she make the honor roll? Get selected for a play, a club, or athletic team? Win an election for competitive office? Survive a strenuous application process for a summer job? Once your child has tasted success, he will know how it feels and will act like a winner when he enters the job market.

Cecilia, a shy twelve-year-old, blossomed when she won the lead in a school play. “We want you to improve your grades, not spend time in rehearsal!” fumed her worried mother.

To everyone’s surprise, Cecilia’s grades improved and she made new friends with the “good kids” who were also achievers. Most important, no matter what happens, Cecilia can return to that feeling of success whenever she gets discouraged.

5. Getting into a top university — or any university — will not guarantee success.

I’ve met Ivy Leaguers who have experienced unemployment, bankruptcy and even homelessness. I’ve met high school drop outs who flourished on their own initiative.

In my own small town, a couple with graduate degrees dropped out to pursue artistic careers — and they clean houses to pay the bills. Recently a minimum wage job was posted by a nonprofit — and several unemployed lawyers applied.

Career-changers who face the future with an attitude of “I can handle anything” are the ones who win today. Tossed into the ocean, they’ll improvise a set of oars and keep up their spirits till they figure out what to do next. Those who feel betrayed (”I thought I was set for life”) flounder around for weeks, months, even years.

Entitlement is over Those who have a positive outlook, who can seize the unexpected opportunity, can count on reaching the shore. And they realize that only they can transform a resting place into a safe harbor.

I offer one-to-one consultations on career strategy.

About The Author

Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and career/business consultant, helping midlife professionals take their First step to a Second Career. http://www.cathygoodwin.com.

“Ten secrets of mastering a major life change” mailto:subscribe@cathygoodwin.com

Contact: cathy@cathygoodwin.com 505-534-4294

Web Site Blues? Need one, don’t know where to start? Got one, but aren’t getting enough sales?

If you need a Web site soon you may be wondering where to start and who to trust. All Web masters are not equal. Some do not know the marketing languagewhat I call “Passion Copywriting.”

Most of us would like to be better communicators. As leaders, co-workers, team members and in all of the other roles we play both professionally and personally, we know that communication is a major key to success.

When we are frustrated or stymied by something, often better communication would have improved it.

Consider the new executive or manager who walks into their first meeting. Every movement is watched. Where they sit is analyzed. What they say is discussed later. Did they make declarative statements or ask questions? Did they smile? Were they quiet or too quiet? What about their tone of voice?

Or consider seeing an old friend with a new business partner. You’ve not spent much time with the new partner before. You care about your friend and so you are trying to build an informed opinion of their partner, so you observe them very carefully.

Of course not every situation is this obvious, but in every situation we are all being observed as people try to truly understand our message. Yes, communication certainly is important - and valuable. And guess what? As these two examples clearly show, we can’t not communicate.

Think about it.

We communicate with our words, of course. Our eyes and our facial expressions convey many things. We communicate with the tone of our voice, with our movements and hands. We even communicate when we are silent.

The Paradox

So it is a paradox to think that we are always communicating and yet we still want to improve our communications skills.

Just because we do something all the time, doesn’t mean we think about it all the time. And if we are doing something without thinking about it, we are operating from habit.

Habits are our helpers. They allow us to get through all of the many tasks we encounter each day - many of which we do subconsciously. And while habits help us, sometimes they don’t serve us in the ways we would most like. In those cases, we can adjust those habits.

Making a Change

If we want to think about improving our subconscious communication, it helps to think about the ways we communicate. I mentioned a list above. Others have split up the communication components into these segments:

What we say

How we say it

How we look

While I agree with those components I think it is also important for us to consider a fourth component too- what we don’t say.

Keeping these components in mind, I believe that there are at least five things that you can do if you want to do a better job of communicating during all those times you aren’t thinking about communicating.

Be aware. The first step to improving our subconscious communication skills is to be aware of how pervasive our communication is. Awareness helps us bring things out of the subconscious and up to a conscious level. It is at the conscious level we can work on them.

Be vigilant. Once we have decided we want to improve these skills and are aware of the factors involved, we have to pay attention. Begin to more carefully notice how people react to you. Confirm your observations by restating your points if you feel you are miscommunicating. Being vigilant means taking more care and paying closer attention to your communication style and results.

Get feedback. I have learned over the years that in some cases the tone of my voice is too strong - that even when I’m not upset or frustrated by something, the tone of my voice sometimes sends a different message. Without this feedback I wouldn’t even be aware of this issue. With the feedback I can improve. Of course, you may receive positive feedback too - about things you are unaware of that serve you well. It is important to receive both the encouragement and the corrective ideas.

Make a plan. Work on the areas you have noticed. Work on the things you received feedback on. Practice new or different techniques. This step is all about modifying and reforming your habits into more successful ones.

Continue the loop. Awareness, vigilance, feedback and practice are the steps in a learning loop that you can apply over and over to continue to improve your subconscious communication skills.

Summary

The grammar isn’t great, but the logic is perfect - you can’t not communicate. All of our actions, words and non actions send a message to those around us. To become more effective and better understood, we first need to recognize this fact, then take action to change our communications habits so we are communicating what we want to communicate, more of the time.

Kevin Eikenberry is a leadership expert and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group (http://KevinEikenberry.com), a learning consulting company. To receive a free Special Report on leadership that includes resources, ideas, and advice go to http://www.kevineikenberry.com/leadership.asp or call us at (317) 387-1424 or 888.LEARNER.

I’m feeling good. Actually I’m feeling great.

My three weeks of dealing with neurotic computer systems had a happy ending.

I’ll briefly explain - but first a sidebar.

In my last newsletter, When Your Stress Meter Makes You Want To Scream, I recapped my frustration with the technology stuff I was dealing with.

Since this letter is dedicated to No-Brainer Selling Tips I shared four tips on how to handle stressful situations. Obviously, selling can be stressful.

So what happens - I got dozens of e-mails from you. All but one shared similar experiences, words of encouragement, and some of you even said you changed your plans to buy a new Dell computer.

But one angry dude sent an e-mail saying he didn’t want to hear about my computer - he wanted selling tips. He was so angry it made me angry. Sorry, but I can’t stand being associated in any way with negative people. So I attempted to delete him from my list. He’s not even a subscriber.

Life is too short to be negative. That’s a simple truth. Many of you know my background, but in case you don’t. My first wife Louise died battling cancer in 1982. My brother John lost his battle with brain cancer in 1994. My brother Ray, a NYC firefighter, was killed September 11, 2001. I’m a diabetic taking four shots of insulin a day, and a good friend has a battle with liver cancer. Think about all the people who lost everything from Hurricane Katrina.

I have no time and zero tolerance for negative behaviors in people - and excuse me neither should you! Life is fragile and it’s too short to be spewing negativity.

Send me all the e-mails you want, and I do try to respond to all of them, just make them positive - even if you want to complain about something.

Your life will change forever as soon as you think positive thoughts, use positive words, and do positive things.

Now ………..as I was saying.

I thought I would share some technology tips with you. I hope you find them useful and helpful.

When you order a Dell computer and it doesn’t work you can ship it back - I oughta know because that’s exactly what I did. Then I ordered another one. Skip the wireless keyboard and wireless mouse. Once they go you’re fried.

Now this is a big tip especially if you have just ordered a new computer. My second new Dell developed a case of the hiccups - soon after we plugged it in. Long story made short and after two hours of troubleshooting we discovered the problem was vaporized as soon as we un-installed Norton AntiVirus 2005. My computer consultant reloaded a more friendly Norton 2003.

My new system is working very well now. I’d like to share some website addresses that may help you in your business.

Here are 11 sites and a Windows XP tip.

www.connected.com - for a small fee you can have complete peace of mind. Every day they will download all new and all changed files.

www.Maps.Google.com - seems a lot quicker than mapquest.com.

www.ToolBar.Google.com - you gotta have this tool bar.

www.Desktop.Google.com - allows you to search your desktop using Google technology.

www.PCToday.com - a great site for technical support.

www.microsoft.com/downloads - check out their antispyware.

www.support.microsoft.com - get all the support you need.

www.alexa.com - download their tool bar and you can see rankings for sites you visit.

Use this link if you want to try a talking search engine. It’s pretty amazing.
www.speegle.co.uk.

www.martindalecenter.com - 20,000 calculators to compute almost anything.

www.zoominfo.com - people information summarized.

If you’re using Windows XP and want to eliminate the messages asking if you want to transmit an incident report go to your control panel, click on system and then Advanced Tab, then Error Reporting button then select Disable Reporting Button.

One more thing. Jerry Rice said adios to the NFL this week. He leaves with 38 NFL records.

Apparently he was a “slave to details.” A master of precision. He was one of the good guys on and off the playing field. He was also a workout fanatic.

Jerry Rice was the ultimate professional for 20 seasons.

How about you?

How do you measure up to other sales professionals in your industry.

How many industry sales records do you own?

If you would like to run for the GOLD and learn how to become the BEST you can become - please keep reading.

If you’re an EMERIL kind of person and interested in “Kicking it up a notch,” take a look at my October 5-6 Advanced Selling Skills Boot Camp. New topics and exercises to help you take your business to the next level.

See complete details along with 9 special bonuses here:
http://meisenheimer.com/sales_training/sales_bootcamps.shtml

Let’s go sell something . . .

Jim Meisenheimer publishes The No-Brainer Selling Tips
Newsletter, a fresh and high content newsletter dedicated
to helping you grow your business and multiply your income.

If you’re looking for proven ways to overcome obstacles
and increase your sales, this newsletter will change your
life for the better.

Use this link to sign-up for Jim’s F-R-E-E No-Brainer Selling Tips Newsletter and to get your copy of his Special Report titled, “The 12 Dumbest Things Salespeople Do.”
http://www.meisenheimer.com

An attractive woman has a decided advantage as sales representative over her male counterpart. This “selling edge” is primarily due to the existence of the “glass ceiling” found in most business organizations today. The glass ceiling (women are still arbitrarily held back from leadership positions) means that there are many more men in decision-making positions in businesses than women. Therefore, when cold calling, an attractive woman has a better chance of getting an appointment for a sales presentation, than does a man. Women are also given more attention in their presentations and less resistance up to a point, than a male sales representative or service industry professional (accountants, attorneys, consultants, bankers, etc.). This advantage has everything to do with sex and the physical appeal of a woman. It is clear to me as a sales trainer, coaching sales representatives and service industry professionals in the field, that male decision-makers often use a different part of their anatomy than their head to make their buying decisions.

The female advantage in obtaining sales opportunities is tempered, however, by most sales women experiencing a greater difficulty in closing sales. The male ego gets in the way of the final decision; because many men can’t allow themselves to, as they see it, “lose” to an attractive woman. Therefore, female sales professionals need to execute a selling process that counters this knee jerk reaction experienced by many of the male prospects, customers or clients they try to sell.

A selling system like the one taught in my Sales Success Strategies self-directed learning manual http://www.TheSellingEdge.com/manual1.htm can help any sales woman to flip switches in a decision-maker’s brain and easily move around the roadblock to closing her sale. I have seen research on this subject that says that an attractive women who effectively implements a step-by-step consultative selling system, can achieve a 30 percent higher closing ratio than a male representative using a similar selling process. Sex sells!

To obtain a free Sales Myths e-training course go to:
http://www.mcssl.com/app/contact.asp?id=32989&afid=&formid=&preview=

VIRDEN THORNTON is the founder and President of The $elling Edge

Whether you market online or offline, you already know the shot-gun approach to marketing brings few results. You will sell more products and services when you step back and set up a strategy to reach your targeted market.

Approaches That Set you Up to Pull Customer Orders

One: Develop a Specific Customer Profile

It’s good to know whether your customers are primarily women or men. Remember, women buy 70% of the books published. Then, figure out the age range of your customer. One 25-year-old male coaching client

One of the most powerful offers you can use in your advertising is the word Free.

But, you may well ask how can I make a profit giving my products and services away without charging for them?

Which is the exact reason why you need to understand the ‘LVC Formula’ which stands for the Lifetime Value of a Client!

Here’s how it works. Let’s imagine for a moment you own a beauty salon. Now if you get a new customer, they may pay you $80 for their first treatment.

But how much is this $80 client really worth?

After all, most clients will continue to buy off you for many years to come.

For instance, let’s imagine your average client returns for a beauty treatment 8 times a year and remains a client for 2 years.

$80 (price of consultation) x 8 (purchases a year) x 2 (number of years)

Now if you have a calculator handy, you’ll work out the value of this client as $1280.00.

And if your profit margin is 40% this calculates to a $512 profit per client.

Let’s imagine we sent a letter to all the nearby businesses offering women a free manicure valued at $30.00 (I’m not a beauty therapist, so please forgive me if all these figures are way out).

And if the manicure costs you $7 in products and 30 minutes of your time (which if you’re not busy you’d just be sitting on your butt anyway!)

So effectively the $7 investment could have just made you $512 in profit.

And how easy is it to give away a free manicure?

Or for other industries

Communication is vital for survival in an age of information that is undergoing a “shock-wave” of changes. Nationally and globally, we remain in a crisis in traditional literacy. Literacy, according to most dictionaries, is an unmoving term — the ability to read and write.

According to National Institute for Literacy:

American businesses are estimated to lose over $60 billion in productivity each year due to employees’ lack of basic skills — translated, means — reading, writing, math and interpersonal skills all need radical improvement.

The number of companies reporting skilled worker shortages more than doubled between 1995 and 1998, from 27 percent to over 47 percent.

A survey of more than 300 executives found that, while 71 percent reported that basic written communication training was critical to meeting their workplaces’ changing skills demands, only 26 percent of companies offered this kind of training.

In order to stay competitive in the global economy, employers need workers who can read, write, compute, solve problems, and communicate well. Virtually everyone recognizes the emergence of computer-technology literacy and has ignored the counterpoint that is just as important, for navigating our way through the new world of communications — oral communications.

Oral skills necessary for survival and success, goes beyond traditional literary communications — to mastery of communications. Those who understand and become word merchants will be the winners of the future.

We mistakenly think that “great communicators” were born with a magical or god given ability to get across their messages with such command, influence and eloquence. Just as the language of computer-technology is, a learned language, so must the language of the spoken-word learned.

Spoken-words that influence and grab the listener’s attention — focus the listener’s attention, interest, and compel the listener to take-action — both greatly increase the suggestibility as a form of conversational hypnosis. Conversational hypnosis is ethical, effective and a leaned skill demonstrated by masters, such as our late president, John F. Kennedy, Ted Kopple, and Lee Iacocca.

Iacocca moved a nation with words: “If you can find a better car, buy one!” “Chrysler must be given a chance.” During the Chrysler crisis, Iacocca made a riveting statement “My heart bleeds for those guys.” All statements are very powerful and hypnotic.

Mastering mesmerizing conversation hypnosis will lead to maximizing your career because your communications will turn negative thinking into positive thoughts. Here are five steps to mastering conversational hypnosis:

1. Organize your thoughts and learn how to use vivid word pictures that free up the human imagination and activate creativity in the mind of your listener.

2. Listen carefully to the dreams and desires of your listener. Communicate the benefits of your products, service or ideas that help support their innermost dreams while connecting to each person in a real flesh and blood way.

3. Use the power of repetition in your communications. Example: “You’ll love this program and it will absolutely change your life.” “You’ll love the way this program will change your life for the better.”

4. Master the art of using metaphors and stories. Stories reduce banal communication, reduces tension and your listener becomes less critical when getting information in a relaxed and entertaining way.

5. Hone your communication skills — your voice, articulation, tone and learn how to relate to you listener, talk with them and not at them. Deliver your message with heart, truth and cutting emotion.

Don L. Price: Speaker,Author, Sales/Marketing & Positive Change Solution Provider–Coaching Minds To Succeed
http://www.donlprice.com Join Seminarsonline: http://www.donlprice.com/dare2win.html
Put a Voice to your message:http://tinyurl.com/73n27

Design is a very subjective thing, therefore, if you ask me how to come up with a first class design for your marketing collateral or publishing mediums, it would be very unfair for me or anyone else to tell you what is a good design and what is a bad design. But there are certain elements and principles that we should look for in a design to determine whether the design and layout of the material will be able to carry the message across effectively to the readers and your potential market. The main aim of every design material related to advertising or promotion is either to sell something, promote something or brand a company.

Keep the design and layout simple and clean
The more cluttered or messy the layout and design is for your marketing collateral, the harder it would be for your customers to find the important stuff. So, don’t overcrowd the design of your marketing materials. First and foremost, it should be kept clean and very simple. Yes, we all want to fit as much information as we can into the design but hey, keep the purpose of the design of the marketing stuff in mind. You want to design a novel or design something that sells.

Design Colors
If you have a set of corporate colors (like the colors that you use on your logo, letterhead, envelopesetc), keep to the same colors in your design. You should present a very simplistic, unique, corporate, professional, consistent image, not a haphazard one. How can anyone rely on you when you have that kind of image, right? It’s best that you not use too many colors for your design. And another important point about designing marketing materials is this; avoid using all the colors of the rainbow in one design! You’re not trying to confuse your customers, you’re trying to make it easy for them to find information, attract them and urge them to buy something from you! I would say using 2 or 3 main colors from your corporate color for the design is good enough.

Fonts
There are tons of free fonts (quite incredibly attractive ones at that) that you can find off the Internet for the design of your marketing stuff - but the sad news is that it’s not always possible to use all of them. Keep to one single font for the content in your design, and if you wish to, you can use a different (a bolder and louder font) for the headings and titles in your design.

Images in your design
Unlike web publishing, using images in the design of your brochures, flyers, menus, company profiles is always a good idea. Enticing your customers with useful pictures or diagrams that illustrates your point or including pictures of your products in the design of your marketing stuff is encouraged. Be careful and weary of using stock photos from the web for your marketing material. One, the resolution of such images (those that you can get off the Internet) is never good enough for printing purposes. Two, you’ll get in trouble with the people who actually owns the rights to those images. So, if possible, if you want to use pictures or illustrative images in your design, it’s best to either get the pictures for the design yourself (with your digital camera) or you should just purchase it.

© 2005, Marsha Maung
Email: marshamaung@yahoo.com
Site: http://www.marshamaung.com

Feel free to reprint or publish this article on your website, ezine, magazine, newsletteretc. Please include the bio, links and credit intact.

Marsha Maung is a freelance graphic designer and copy writer who works from her home in Selangor, Malaysia. She loves nothing more than blowing bubbles in the park with her 2 kids, Joshua and Jared. She designs apparel and premium items at http://www.creativejooz.com and is the author of “Raising little magicians”, and the popular “The Lance in freelancing”. More information can be found at http://www.marshamaung.com

Last week’s question from Anthony R. on how to choose the franchise that would best fulfill his life-long dream of owning his own business sparked a number of emails from other readers wanting to offer their two cents on the subject.

Some folks offered helpful insights and suggestions on how to pick a franchise and a few things to watch out for, while other emails came from current franchise owners asking me to help them sell their operations to Anthony R.

Hmm, sounds like it’s time to update the old business card once again. Tim Knox: Franchise Broker At Large Who knows, maybe I can franchise the concept.

Last week I promised we’d take a closer look at a few of the things you should look for when considering a franchise opportunity. Keep in mind that there are thousands of franchise opportunities that range from the low end opportunities available for a few thousand dollars to the high end franchises that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The difference in price is reflected in many ways: the viability of the opportunity, the level of training and support offered to the franchisee, the track record and financial stability of the franchisor, the success rate of the franchisees, and a dozen other factors.

All a lower end franchisor might offer is a training manual and the right to use their company name. Many also have very little interest in weeding out potential franchisees. The truth is many are in business just to collect franchise fees. They have little interest in whether or not a franchisee actually succeeds. If you have a pulse and a checkbook, you can become their franchisee. And your pulse does not have to be that strong.

The higher end franchisors have very strict franchisee requirements and will not allow just anyone to become a part of their franchise system. They also go to much greater lengths to ensure the success of their franchisees. They offer complete hand holding from start to finish and remain heavily involved in the business even after the doors open. Yes, you do pay dearly for their assistance, but as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for.

Here are a few things to look for in a franchise opportunity:

Turnkey operation

This is the most appealing feature of many franchise systems. Many of the top franchisors will scout the best location for the business, build and equip the facility, hire and train employees, put you through an extensive management training system, then toss you the keys. Furthermore, they will work closely with you for the first few months to help make certain that you know what to do with the keys once they’ve been tossed to you.

The majority of franchises don’t offer such complete turnkey packages, so be prepared to do much of the upfront work yourself. Often it is up to you to find a location, negotiate the lease, build out the space or erect a building, install the equipment, hire and train a staff etc.

Proven track record and management system

As mentioned earlier, many of the lesser-known franchise systems offer you a training manual, maybe a training video, and a few hours of telephone support. Not the best way to learn how to run a business. A good franchisor will provide you with thorough management training, either at their facility or onsite at yours. Since one of the reasons for buying into a franchise system is to tap into their expertise and know-how, thorough training should be a foremost consideration.

Customers waiting for the door to open

I don’t have the statistics in my pocket to back this up, of course, but I’d bet the farm that every time a new McDonald’s opens its door, it’s a mere matter of minutes before the first Happy Meal is sold. Many franchisors spend hundreds of millions of dollars on national ad campaigns to promote brand awareness. This works great for the franchisee who can literally have customers waiting for the doors to open on the first day of business.

Always consider the downsides

There are downsides to franchising. Foremost is the high cost of entry. The top franchise opportunities require considerable investment on the front end, usually more of an investment than if the entrepreneur started a similar venture on his own. You could open an independent hamburger fast food restaurant for a fraction of the McDonald’s franchise fee, but you probably won’t sell as many hamburgers. What you’re buying from McDonald’s is not just a fast food restaurant that sells hamburgers. What you’re buying is a brand, a reputation, and a proven business system with ready to eat customers. Be prepared to pay a premium for it.

Another downside is that when you buy into a franchise system you often have to pay a percentage of your revenues back to the franchisor. You might also be required to buy supplies from the franchisor, including inventory, paperwork, software, computer systems, and anything else the franchisor decides that they should supply to you.

And there in lies the biggest downside of all. When you buy into a franchise system you don’t control your business, the franchisor does. You have very little say-so in running the business. You must follow their processes and procedures without variation. And should you decide to get out of the business you may not even be allowed to sell the franchise to just anyone. The new owner would have to be approved by the franchisor before a deal could be made final.

The bottomline, Anthony, is to do your homework and make sure the franchise you choose fits your personality, your lifestyle, and your pocket book.

We asked 58 Top Internet Money Makers: If you lost is all tomorrow and had to start from scratch, what would you do to be back on top in the 30 days?

http://www.prosperityandprofits.com
http://www.smallbusinessqa.com
http://www.30dayblueprint.com