Invest in your mind at the expense of... everything

One of the greatest benefits of being young is that you have a lot of time to recover from any mistakes you make. It provides a great opportunity for you to attempt to learn all that you can, even at the expense of your lifestyle, money, credit, etc.

There is definitely something of value in learning from other people that have gone through similiar experiences, but too often people never make the jump to trying something that may seem "risky" because they want to make sure everything is "right". The truth is there will always be a reason not to do something, so what the heck are you waiting for?

Now I'm not saying jump into just anything, you should calculate your risks to some extent, but too often we never get out of the calculating stage! And there are definitely a lot of bad directions (see posts on multi-level marketing). But sometimes you have to go to a MLM rally in order to realize it is madness despite what everyone says.

:Example:

I want to: Open a coffee shop

Obstacles:
I've never worked in a coffee shop
I don't know how one operates
I don't have the money to start one
What if I lose my money
How will I pay my living expenses?

Solutions:
Get a job in a coffee shop, try to absorb as much info. about the business as possible
Read as many resources as you can about coffee shops!
Research success stories like Starbucks, Bigby
Budget how much you would need to barely survive and then set EVERYTHING else aside for the business

Results:

• Best/Least Likely: You open a coffee shop and it does well, you continue to make it operate more efficiently and look into opening others
• Average Result/Very Likely:You open a coffee shop and it fails, you reflect on your journey and what you did wrong/right. You don't have the money to try again, but you vow to do so. 9/10 Business start ups fail in the first 1-3 years, so you just need to try 10 times to make it happen (odds are if you are moderately intelligent that you will hit success earlier, but other factors may prevent this from happening). You learned a hell of a lot at the cost of your investment, but that knowledge will pay off eventually.
  
• Worst Result/Don't Do: You open a coffee shop and it fails, you say it was never a good idea and give up. You lose your money, learn nothing. What are you investing in here? NOTHING!

Okay so this doesn't cover every possibility but you get the idea. Of course you could discover that you hate running a coffee shop and instead want to run an ice cream parlor. Well you better believe the business knowledge is going to be relevant for that too.

Resume Tailoring in a Down Economy

Resume tailoring is simply the art of tailoring your resume to the job you are applying for. I thought I'd post briefly about this because a lot of people just need A JOB regardless of what it entails. Some people may think of this as immoral because you may be competing for a job that someone else genuinely wants, but when times are tough everyone has to do what they can to survive.

• So obviously the first step is to have a resume if you haven't already put one together. There are a lot of resources out there for putting one together but the basic idea is to present yourself as clearly and concisely as possible. Remember to make it sound professional and accomplished without going over the top. Stick to action words like "Managed, Organized, Maintained, etc" as the start of your job duty bullet points under each job. Make sure you have an appropriate email address preferably using your name like First.Last@gmail.com. Avoid potentially offensive addresses unless you think it will actually give you a better chance of getting hired lol.
  
• Refine your job duties and eliminate those that do not apply to the position or industry. Focus on duties you may actually be performing for that specific job. You risk sounding over qualified if you boast about your management experience for a job that requires no managing. But don't over simplify it or downplay your valid experience either.
  
• Don't limit it to strictly your work experience either. If you have done a lot of maintenance work but never held an official job title or worked on a lot of side-jobs, simply use the name of the person you worked with as a company name and add the type of projects you worked on. Bob Smith Auto Repair, Bob Smith Carpentry, Plumbing, etc. You can even put your own name if you were working alone and use that to your advantage as an experienced entrepreneur.
  
• Research the company, the industry and the job if you aren't sure what the job would entail. You can do even better by targeting your resume to one specific company and make it stand out that much more, but this process takes a lot of time and research (which you may have a lot of if you don't have a job!). By tailoring your resume to the job and industry you already have an advantage over your competition, why not add more?
  
• Last but not least, don't give up! Take your resume a step further and call in or stop by the company offering the job! You will stand out in their memory when they are looking through resumes. You may even get offered the job on the spot (I've seen it happen). Don't take no for an answer and if you do get denied, ask them why! Then use what you learn and change your resume/behavior for the future! Don't let failure defeat you, learn from it and improve yourself!
  

Job Opportunity Scams - The Team

I've talked to a lot of people lately that are either thinking about joining or frustrated and leaving all of these scams that are out there. You know what I'm talking about: Pyramid Schemes, Multi-level Marketing, etc. The bottom line is, all of these organization make ridiculous promises to desperate people and end up wasting their time and money.

Specifically I have been hearing a lot about one particular organization, The Team.

It really frustrates me that these organizations go out there and talk about "opportunity and leadership" while at the same time not mentioning how their program actually works. What they do is they try to win you over on principle. Ironically, the team actually claims to be a Judaeo-Christian organization which helps them infiltrate community events. Their entire business model is based off of selling via personal relationships. That means convincing the lower-level people to go out there and sell to all of their friends and family (typically ruining their relationships).

Members are also encouraged to purchase numerous cds, books and other useless add-ons that they make even more money on. This is in addition to ordering through "The Team" catalog for all of their personal items.

Here are some first person accounts on how The Team is a scam: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/169/RipOff0169625.htm
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/100/RipOff0100532.htm
7 Years: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/172/RipOff0172129.htm

So please, warn your family and friends of this empty promise, show them these websites and save them (and you) the headache!

I invite you to check out some resources on the subject:

http://skepdic.com/amway.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing

Funny Comic #2

I found this one amusing, how much of our book knowledge is actually put to use? I'm surprised she didn't use a graphing calculator, isn't that what we were trained to do?

Investing in the Stock Market

Seeing as how the stock market has been taking a hit lately, I bet a lot of you are considering picking up some stocks that have gone down. I personally do not see this as a terrible idea, but I think it is a serious decision and you should watch out for a couple of things:

Stocks go Up and Down
This is an easy thing to acknowledge when the market is pretty flat, but when it becomes more volatile people tend to panic. This is exactly what a lot of people are doing now. The thing is even if you buy stocks for cheap now, they make go down even more before they go up. Does that mean you shouldn't buy them? Well not necessarily, but you need to be patient and control your reactions.


Balance is Key
By having a diverse stock portfolio you can rest assured that even if some of them are going down, the loss is minimized because it stretches across the boards. Since most companies are not planning on going out of business, it is a safe bet that your stocks will level out EVENTUALLY

Do not "Hope and Pray"
The biggest mistake people can make is just blindly putting money into any stock. You want to do your research about a company to make sure it is in financial shape. An easy way to track general info. is through news sites like Yahoo Financial.

There are a lot of other things I could mention, but these are a good place to start. Remember to ask any questions you may have.

Starting a Business

While I was in school I started a business to earn some extra cash, it also looks good on a resume to say you were responsible enough to do it.

Starting a business is not as difficult as one may think. While there is a lot of work involved with the various aspects of marketing, cashflow, etc; actually filing the forms to start a company is pretty easy. This varies, of course, depending on the structure of the business you select. That is why to keep things simple, I'm going to talk about an LLC with only one owner (you!). Before you file your documents you really need to ask yourself a couple things:

1) What you are going to do or sell?
This can be a product or service. I have heard services fixing computers, selling on ebay, cutting hair, help writing papers/studying, etc. You could also try to sell something; maybe a unique item that you can make or a web page you can design.

2) What your name is going to be?
A good rule of thumb is to pick a name that describes what you do and what you stand for like "Friendly Computer Repair" or "Fast Hair Cuts". Of course these are simple and you could probably come up with something better, but you get the idea.

Now that you have the preliminaries done, you actually need to do it! Here is how:

1) Find the form

Once you are done with these you can head to your state's website and search for the forms section. You are going to be looking for "Articles of Organization". Do a little research about your state and make sure it is a state that is good for LLCs. Most are, but sometimes states have a history of treating various types of companies poorly.

2) Print and fill out the form and mail!
Not very complicated here, just make sure you spell everything correctly and sign! Usually there is a filing fee, so make sure you write a check!

Tadah!!!!

In a few days or weeks you will be sent back the same form stamped, approved, or what have you. You have now done the basic steps required to create your company!

In the future you will have to worry about:
Tracking Financial Info for your business, Taxes, etc. Feel free to ask me about these now, but I will be posting about them more in the future.

Paying Down Debt vs Investing

I think a very common quandary that people end up in is deciding whether they should pay down their debt or invest in their future (typically retirement accounts like 401(k)s. Although I intend to address this topic more thoroughly later I think there are some specific situations that have easier answers and I will attempt to sift through the main ones.

The Credit Card Rule: Alright, first and foremost you always want to pay your credit cards down. Having high revolving balances on credit cards is the most damaging to your credit score and usually your wallet (credit cards typically have higher interest rates).

The Private Loan Rule: Private college loans do not have nearly as many benefits in terms of taxes and interest rates as due federal loans. Because of this it makes sense to pay them down as much as possible. Ideally you don't want any debt, but private loans are generally worse than federal.

Always Plan Ahead: In general it is a good idea to at least invest some portion into an IRA, 401(k), etc. Even if it is only $50, for most people this is the easiest way to invest. Since it is pre-taxed dollars you save double time. Once your cashflow starts to really improve you may look into real estate investing or some other method where you have more direct control over your money (instead of leaving it up to the company and its management). You may even be interested in starting your own business!

Like I said, I will attempt to explain more of your options in future posts, but for now hopefully this helps you out!