http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
With the thousands of network companies out there. It is important we find the company that we can call home. Our future depends on it.
Here is the second of five pillars to look for in any network company.
Pillar 2: Has the company passed the "early failure" Time Line? Are the company's Products timed with the beginning of a massive trend of consumer demand?
• Beware of "ground floor opportunities" and start-up companies.
• There should be no rush to get in on the "ground floor".
• 99% of companies don't last two years.
• If the company is good today, it will be great tomorrow.
• Most people don't make money in the first two years while the company is dealing with start-up issues.
• Profit comes AFTER two years. Join then.
• Avoid companies which have passed beyond their "momentum phase" and have become household names.
(The realistic potential for big growth in gone)
• Do not join a company with a product that has no profit margin!
(i.e - a long distance service or a vinyl record company)
Look at all the start ups that are offered every day. Most of these start ups never get off the ground. Most of these are just scams to build an email list to sell.
If a company is going to make it, they will be around in two and why do you want to be apart of the growing pains every company goes through. If the company is good now, it will be great in two years.
To get all five pillars now and more detail into each one, get your free ebook,
http://waynepetty.successin10steps.com/?mad=49209
Wayne Petty
Mentoring for Free
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Ecclesiastes 3 9-13
- 9. What does the worker gain from his toil?
- 10.I have seen the burden God has laid on men.
- 11.He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
- 12. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.
- 13. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil--this is the gift of God.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
From Michael Dlouhy first of 5 pillars
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Network marketing can pay your children’s children for the rest of their lives. If the company is still around and they don’t steal your check. Michael Dlouhy has developed a simple method to measure a company.
A company may have the greatest products and the best pay plan on the planet, but if it is lacking any of the Five Pillars, you could lose everything overnight. Your income and reputation are a stake.
This is the first of 5 pillars.
Pillar 1: Does the company management have personal experience building their own network organization? Have they done it with Integrity?
• Search Google for the owners of the company.
• Do the owners have Integrity? Add the word 'Scam' to your search.
• Do the owners have a Corporate background or an in-the-field Network Marketing background?
• Read your "Policies & Procedures" and "Terms & Conditions";
both are part of your Legal Contract.
• Look for the word "Ongoing".
• Look for policies that strike you as "Unreasonable". Like "Termination, with or without cause".
• Ask yourself "Does this contract protect me or the company?" "Is it clear which way it leans?"
• Does the company charge you for training or a company web site?
• Does the company charge you for each paycheck they send you?
• Rules of Thumb:
• The longer the contract, the greater the possibility that the policies important to you are being hidden in "Legalese"!
• If it's a "Cash Only" business...It's a Scam!
• If you can buy a position at the top...It's a Scam!
• If you are offered a "Special Deal"...the playing field isn't level for all.
• If the products are sold on eBay at a greatly reduced price...Buy there instead.
• If a company is publicly traded, Financial Decisions Will be made in Favor of the Stockholders at the Expense of the Distributors.
• Check these two websites: www.MLMwatchdog.com and www.MarketWaveInc.com.
Too many people spend years building a business then have it taken away with no recourse. Protect yourself and do a little research to make sure the company and the management are sound.
I will be doing the 2nd Pillar next week. If you want to learn more of the truth and how to become a success at network marketing go to http://waynepetty.successin10steps.com/?mad=42403
Wayne Petty
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Network marketing can pay your children’s children for the rest of their lives. If the company is still around and they don’t steal your check. Michael Dlouhy has developed a simple method to measure a company.
A company may have the greatest products and the best pay plan on the planet, but if it is lacking any of the Five Pillars, you could lose everything overnight. Your income and reputation are a stake.
This is the first of 5 pillars.
Pillar 1: Does the company management have personal experience building their own network organization? Have they done it with Integrity?
• Search Google for the owners of the company.
• Do the owners have Integrity? Add the word 'Scam' to your search.
• Do the owners have a Corporate background or an in-the-field Network Marketing background?
• Read your "Policies & Procedures" and "Terms & Conditions";
both are part of your Legal Contract.
• Look for the word "Ongoing".
• Look for policies that strike you as "Unreasonable". Like "Termination, with or without cause".
• Ask yourself "Does this contract protect me or the company?" "Is it clear which way it leans?"
• Does the company charge you for training or a company web site?
• Does the company charge you for each paycheck they send you?
• Rules of Thumb:
• The longer the contract, the greater the possibility that the policies important to you are being hidden in "Legalese"!
• If it's a "Cash Only" business...It's a Scam!
• If you can buy a position at the top...It's a Scam!
• If you are offered a "Special Deal"...the playing field isn't level for all.
• If the products are sold on eBay at a greatly reduced price...Buy there instead.
• If a company is publicly traded, Financial Decisions Will be made in Favor of the Stockholders at the Expense of the Distributors.
• Check these two websites: www.MLMwatchdog.com and www.MarketWaveInc.com.
Too many people spend years building a business then have it taken away with no recourse. Protect yourself and do a little research to make sure the company and the management are sound.
I will be doing the 2nd Pillar next week. If you want to learn more of the truth and how to become a success at network marketing go to http://waynepetty.successin10steps.com/?mad=42403
Wayne Petty
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Network Marketing Brings Out Women’s Entrepreneurial Spirit
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
By Leslie Dinaberg, Noozhawk Contributor | Published on 07.06.2010
http://www.noozhawk.com/
Having more control of your financial well-being, flexibility in your schedule and command over the amount of time you spend working are desires shared by many people. Women, in particular, are looking for “financial independence while raising a family,” as well as opportunities to strengthen leadership skills and “connect with a sisterhood of like-minded females,” says Bonnie Ross-Parker, CEO and founder of the The Joy of Connecting, a group designed to support women entrepreneurs, business owners and other professional women.
Network marketing, sometimes called multilevel marketing, is a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry that relies on direct selling. From well-known mega-companies such as Amway, Shaklee and Mary Kay to up-and-comers such as Pampered Chef, Silpada and Xocai, the basic business model is the same: It’s a direct-selling process where independent agents sell goods and services and are encouraged to build and manage their own sales force by recruiting and training other people.
Most women are familiar with the home-party drill. A friend or acquaintance invites you into their home for nibbles, frequently accompanied by cocktails and some kind of product demonstration. You are then urged to (1) buy the product, (2) have a party/production demonstration at your home, where you can then receive free product or buy it at a considerable discount, and (3) become a sales representative.
Many women dabble in this type of business motivated primarily by product discounts and/or the desire to do some type of low-key work outside of the home. About 80 percent of network marketers are women, according to MLM Advantage, a site that provides tips and training for network marketers. The failure rate for network marketing is estimated to be 97 percent to 99 percent — a daunting statistic until you consider the number of hobbyists who don’t really treat it like they would another type of job.
However, people who approach this type of career with the same time of discipline they would in the corporate world can be quite successful.
“There are pros and cons to network marketing businesses. The right person can be very successful. Most women I feel want to run their business like it’s a hobby, yet they expect to make a ton of money doing it,” said Kimberly Reddington, a business growth and marketing coach who specializes in working with women. “Almost every single mother in my neighborhood has tried a networking marketing business at least once in the 10 years that I have lived here. Some have tried multiple ones. I feel that you really need to have a passion for the business in order to be a success. Network marketing businesses do not make money if you run them like a hobby. I have seen so many women dish out money, time and energy to get their business started and it goes nowhere.”
“I believe the profession works if there exists a supportive environment, for example, a spouse who is his wife’s cheerleader and family and friends who offer encouragement,” Ross-Parker said, adding that another important factor for success is a woman who has “flexibility in her life — to lead parties, network, go to trainings and she believes in her product or service and knows that it takes time to build an organization.”
As a graphic designer, Christine Flannery already had a fair amount of independence in her work, but she wanted to make some additional income. She said she did her research and thought long and hard before associating herself with Xocai, a line of health-enhancing chocolate products. A neighbor introduced her to the company.
“I thought, ‘Hey, this is wonderful.’ I love the health benefits of it and the nutrition, and I love that it’s chocolate and it’s simple,” Flannery said. “It’s not as much to learn as some of the other health products I looked at. Still, it took me a while to make my decision.”
Her thoughtfulness will help her be successful, Ross-Parker said, adding that it’s important that “a company has a strong track record, great training and support and offers products or services that have lasting value.”
“I read things about it, I looked into the company. I went to the headquarters in Reno. I met the owner, Jeanette Brooks, the lady that came up with this idea,” Flannery said. “That made me realize that this is a family-owned business and I really like their excitement, their enthusiasm about everything. So I thought, ‘OK, I’ll try this.’”
“A woman has to work it to be successful,” Ross-Parker said. “I always say, ‘Full time or part time but never some time. Some time never gets results and leads to discouragement,’ and lastly she must extend beyond her family and friends. Nothing is more disheartening than exhausting a warm market and then having nowhere else to go. The key to network marketing is networking.”
So far, the response to the product has been positive, Flannery said.
“The fact that it’s chocolate means most people are willing to listen,” she said. “If it were something complicated, I think it would be a lot harder for people to pay attention. I think you find out right away if someone is interested or not, or whether they are interested in starting a new business or just buying some chocolate. So that’s pretty easy.”
The company also set her up with a Web site and provided extensive training on both the product and how to market it.
“I’m not a salesperson,” Flannery said, “but I don’t really think of this as sales as much as referral, because if it’s something that you really like, like a restaurant or a movie, you just tell people about it, and that’s kind of what this is.”
“The appeal is the fact that women can host parties and do what they do well — socialize,” said Patricia Kagwiria Makhulo, author of The Little Black Book of Home Party Plan Business Secrets. “It is supposed to be a pressure free, stress free, personalized selling environment, simply because women do not like to be sold under pressure, but we do love to buy.”
— Noozhawk contributor Leslie Dinaberg can be reached at leslie@lesliedinaberg.com.
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Network Marketing Brings Out Women’s Entrepreneurial Spirit
By Leslie Dinaberg, Noozhawk Contributor | Published on 07.06.2010
http://www.noozhawk.com/
Having more control of your financial well-being, flexibility in your schedule and command over the amount of time you spend working are desires shared by many people. Women, in particular, are looking for “financial independence while raising a family,” as well as opportunities to strengthen leadership skills and “connect with a sisterhood of like-minded females,” says Bonnie Ross-Parker, CEO and founder of the The Joy of Connecting, a group designed to support women entrepreneurs, business owners and other professional women.
Network marketing, sometimes called multilevel marketing, is a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry that relies on direct selling. From well-known mega-companies such as Amway, Shaklee and Mary Kay to up-and-comers such as Pampered Chef, Silpada and Xocai, the basic business model is the same: It’s a direct-selling process where independent agents sell goods and services and are encouraged to build and manage their own sales force by recruiting and training other people.
Most women are familiar with the home-party drill. A friend or acquaintance invites you into their home for nibbles, frequently accompanied by cocktails and some kind of product demonstration. You are then urged to (1) buy the product, (2) have a party/production demonstration at your home, where you can then receive free product or buy it at a considerable discount, and (3) become a sales representative.
Many women dabble in this type of business motivated primarily by product discounts and/or the desire to do some type of low-key work outside of the home. About 80 percent of network marketers are women, according to MLM Advantage, a site that provides tips and training for network marketers. The failure rate for network marketing is estimated to be 97 percent to 99 percent — a daunting statistic until you consider the number of hobbyists who don’t really treat it like they would another type of job.
However, people who approach this type of career with the same time of discipline they would in the corporate world can be quite successful.
“There are pros and cons to network marketing businesses. The right person can be very successful. Most women I feel want to run their business like it’s a hobby, yet they expect to make a ton of money doing it,” said Kimberly Reddington, a business growth and marketing coach who specializes in working with women. “Almost every single mother in my neighborhood has tried a networking marketing business at least once in the 10 years that I have lived here. Some have tried multiple ones. I feel that you really need to have a passion for the business in order to be a success. Network marketing businesses do not make money if you run them like a hobby. I have seen so many women dish out money, time and energy to get their business started and it goes nowhere.”
“I believe the profession works if there exists a supportive environment, for example, a spouse who is his wife’s cheerleader and family and friends who offer encouragement,” Ross-Parker said, adding that another important factor for success is a woman who has “flexibility in her life — to lead parties, network, go to trainings and she believes in her product or service and knows that it takes time to build an organization.”
As a graphic designer, Christine Flannery already had a fair amount of independence in her work, but she wanted to make some additional income. She said she did her research and thought long and hard before associating herself with Xocai, a line of health-enhancing chocolate products. A neighbor introduced her to the company.
“I thought, ‘Hey, this is wonderful.’ I love the health benefits of it and the nutrition, and I love that it’s chocolate and it’s simple,” Flannery said. “It’s not as much to learn as some of the other health products I looked at. Still, it took me a while to make my decision.”
Her thoughtfulness will help her be successful, Ross-Parker said, adding that it’s important that “a company has a strong track record, great training and support and offers products or services that have lasting value.”
“I read things about it, I looked into the company. I went to the headquarters in Reno. I met the owner, Jeanette Brooks, the lady that came up with this idea,” Flannery said. “That made me realize that this is a family-owned business and I really like their excitement, their enthusiasm about everything. So I thought, ‘OK, I’ll try this.’”
“A woman has to work it to be successful,” Ross-Parker said. “I always say, ‘Full time or part time but never some time. Some time never gets results and leads to discouragement,’ and lastly she must extend beyond her family and friends. Nothing is more disheartening than exhausting a warm market and then having nowhere else to go. The key to network marketing is networking.”
So far, the response to the product has been positive, Flannery said.
“The fact that it’s chocolate means most people are willing to listen,” she said. “If it were something complicated, I think it would be a lot harder for people to pay attention. I think you find out right away if someone is interested or not, or whether they are interested in starting a new business or just buying some chocolate. So that’s pretty easy.”
The company also set her up with a Web site and provided extensive training on both the product and how to market it.
“I’m not a salesperson,” Flannery said, “but I don’t really think of this as sales as much as referral, because if it’s something that you really like, like a restaurant or a movie, you just tell people about it, and that’s kind of what this is.”
“The appeal is the fact that women can host parties and do what they do well — socialize,” said Patricia Kagwiria Makhulo, author of The Little Black Book of Home Party Plan Business Secrets. “It is supposed to be a pressure free, stress free, personalized selling environment, simply because women do not like to be sold under pressure, but we do love to buy.”
— Noozhawk contributor Leslie Dinaberg can be reached at leslie@lesliedinaberg.com.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Business to Consider: Direct Selling/Network Marketing
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
http://www.successmagazine.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Business to Consider: Direct Selling/Network Marketing
Brenna Fisher May 28, 2010http://www.successmagazine.com/
In its simplest form, direct selling (aka network marketing) is nothing more than one person promoting or selling a product or service directly to another. Today, an endless variety of products are distributed using the direct selling business model, including vitamins, weight-loss aids, cleaning products, clothing, jewelry, home décor, cookware, legal insurance, travel services, financial products,
books, toys, educational and motivational products… and the list goes on. If you have an interest in a particular industry, chances are there’s a direct selling company that supplies products in that category.
Rather than paying for massive advertising efforts and retail outlets, direct selling companies rely on an independent sales force to spread the word about them and their products. Many companies have added social media, print and broadcast advertising campaigns, but most advertising is done person to person, face to face… or Facebook to Facebook.
Perks of becoming a distributor include deep discounts on products and compensation for helping the company attract other distributors. Those who develop a network of independent representatives can leverage their time and maximize their earning potential. Not only are they paid for their own sales, they’re paid a percentage of the sales made by members of their organization (or downline). The more people a direct seller brings into the company, the greater his or her earning potential.
Other benefits can include bonuses and prizes for a job well done. These can include luxury travel, fine jewelry, cash or cars. Beyond the tangible rewards, direct sellers gain other benefits, such as communication and sales skills, greater self-confidence and leadership capabilities.
Getting started as a direct selling representative involves signing on with a company and purchasing a startup kit with brochures, access to online resources and product samples. In many cases, free local training, webinars and teleconferences are available to help representatives learn more. Many companies also hold annual conferences where they offer additional training and recognition.
The Bottom Line
You will need to purchase a startup kit and sign an agreement to become part of a direct selling company. To receive full commissions, you may be required to purchase products on a monthly, bimonthly, quarterly or annual basis, depending on the company.
This type of business can be done in as many or as few hours a week as you choose, which makes it ideal as an income supplement or for building up to a certain level of earnings before leaving a full-time job. That said, to earn a substantial regular commission check, you must commit to treating this opportunity as seriously as you would any other job or business endeavor. You are the boss… your hours are flexible, but not optional.
Is It Right for You?
Recommended skill set: People skills, consistency, self-confidence, drive to grow and market business, belief in the product or service you are promoting.
Risks: With some companies, representatives are expected to stock inventory or receive regular shipments of product. If you do not use or sell the products consistently, you could end up with a garage full of boxes. False expectations are one of the greatest risks.
Potential income: Varies greatly (from $0 to $10,000 or more per month), depending on your level of effort, skill and the company’s compensation plan.
Pros and Cons at a Glance
| 1. Minimal investment | 1. No guaranteed income |
| 2. Easy to fit into an already busy schedule | 2. You may have to regularly place orders to receive commissions |
| 3. Residual income | 3. Overcoming misconceptions about the industry |
| 4. Maximum control over your time and income | 4. It may take months to build to a substantial level of income |
| 5. Built-in personal growth opportunities | 5. Products or services without a unique selling position may be difficult to sell |
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing Becomes Title Sponsor of the Bluegrass State Games
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
FORTUNE HI-TECH MARKETING BECOMES TITLE SPONSOR OF BLUEGRASS STATE GAMES
LEXINGTON - The Bluegrass Sports Commission (BSC) is pleased to announce that its signature event, the Bluegrass State Games, has a new title sponsor. Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing (FHTM) has agreed to a one-year deal with the option for a multi-year agreement with the Games.
This commitment to the Bluegrass State Games helps strengthen the organization and its mission to promote amateur athletics and healthy lifestyles, while injecting more than $6.5 million into the Central Kentucky market each summer. The Games continue to grow in participation with more than 16,500 entrants in 2009.
FHTM President and founder Paul Orberson, whose company specializes in relationship marketing and improving the lives of Kentuckians, knows this sponsorship of the Bluegrass State Games was a perfect fit for his company.
"As the old African proverb says," stated Orberson, "alone you can go faster, but together we can go further." "The Bluegrass State Games has a similar mission and focus. At Fortune, we are proud to support this event which has been a rich tradition in the state of Kentucky for more than 25 years."
"Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing is one of Kentucky's best kept secrets," said Alan Stein, Chair of the BSC and BGSG. "Their mission, like that of the Bluegrass State Games, is to improve the lives of Kentuckians, one person at a time. Through this wonderful partnership, both FTHM and the Games will be able to reach out to all our citizens of the Commonwealth. This is a true win-win, especially for Kentucky. We salute Paul Orberson and his team and look forward to a long and fruitful relationship."
Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing, Inc., is a team of highly motivated and dedicated individuals working together toward a common goal: achieving success with integrity. FHTM provides an opportunity for thousands of FHTM independent representatives, regardless of education, experience or current financial situation, to reach their goals through hard work and successful sales efforts. FHTM strives to provide its representatives with the support, encouragement and guidance they need in order to become the best possible advocates of its quality, name-brand products and services. FHTM has become a leader in the relationship marketing industry and with the help of its representatives, loyal customers and fantastic employees, will continue to break barriers for years to come.
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing Becomes Title Sponsor of the Bluegrass State Games
May 25, 2010
By iHigh Staff of Bluegrass State GamesFORTUNE HI-TECH MARKETING BECOMES TITLE SPONSOR OF BLUEGRASS STATE GAMES
LEXINGTON - The Bluegrass Sports Commission (BSC) is pleased to announce that its signature event, the Bluegrass State Games, has a new title sponsor. Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing (FHTM) has agreed to a one-year deal with the option for a multi-year agreement with the Games.
This commitment to the Bluegrass State Games helps strengthen the organization and its mission to promote amateur athletics and healthy lifestyles, while injecting more than $6.5 million into the Central Kentucky market each summer. The Games continue to grow in participation with more than 16,500 entrants in 2009.
FHTM President and founder Paul Orberson, whose company specializes in relationship marketing and improving the lives of Kentuckians, knows this sponsorship of the Bluegrass State Games was a perfect fit for his company.
"As the old African proverb says," stated Orberson, "alone you can go faster, but together we can go further." "The Bluegrass State Games has a similar mission and focus. At Fortune, we are proud to support this event which has been a rich tradition in the state of Kentucky for more than 25 years."
"Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing is one of Kentucky's best kept secrets," said Alan Stein, Chair of the BSC and BGSG. "Their mission, like that of the Bluegrass State Games, is to improve the lives of Kentuckians, one person at a time. Through this wonderful partnership, both FTHM and the Games will be able to reach out to all our citizens of the Commonwealth. This is a true win-win, especially for Kentucky. We salute Paul Orberson and his team and look forward to a long and fruitful relationship."
Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing, Inc., is a team of highly motivated and dedicated individuals working together toward a common goal: achieving success with integrity. FHTM provides an opportunity for thousands of FHTM independent representatives, regardless of education, experience or current financial situation, to reach their goals through hard work and successful sales efforts. FHTM strives to provide its representatives with the support, encouragement and guidance they need in order to become the best possible advocates of its quality, name-brand products and services. FHTM has become a leader in the relationship marketing industry and with the help of its representatives, loyal customers and fantastic employees, will continue to break barriers for years to come.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Self-employment thrives as economy stabilizes
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Self-employment thrives as economy stabilizes
By Ebony Horton Published: April 21, 2010
http://www2.dothaneagle.com/
Perryion Griffin Jr. knew as a kid that he wanted to be self-sufficient.
Five years after opening up his own barber shop in Daleville, 31-year-old Griffin is still among those calling their own shots after one of the worst economic crises the nation has seen.
“It’s been tough, like any business, but instead of worrying about losing a job or making big people millions by me making chump change, I might as well put the change in my own pocket and work for myself. People will always need haircuts, so I’m meeting a demand,“ said Griffin, who owns Fadez 4 Dayz barber shop in Daleville.
Residents throughout the country have invested in their own businesses since the economy appeared to turn for the worst two years ago.
Some of those businesses in the Wiregrass remain secure, and more self-owned businesses in fields like healthcare, farming, sales and service are expected to rise even more in the state through year 2014, according to the state Department of Industrial Relations.
Earl Eutsey, who owns The Crab Shack in Ozark, said he opened up shop last year as an opportunity to do better for himself.
“When you know how it feels to lose a job and then you find something where you can do better for yourself, it’s good. Times have been hard sometimes, as with anything, but this has been my dream,“ Eutsey said.
Phil Holland is the founder of http://www.myownbusiness.org, a resource for entrepreneurs seeking to start their own businesses.
Holland said traffic to the Web site over the last two years has increased monthly to as many as 400,000 visitors, some of which may have had no other option but to start their own career.
“This country hit a time for some of these people where there was not the alternative of a job. They had to find something, whether it was a business from home in addition to their career,“ said Holland, who founded multiple businesses in California.
Holland said some key basics to starting a business would be to start small with a minimum investment and build over time, as well as establishing some kind of web traffic to market the business.
“The basics of business are spelled out pretty clearly. You don’t make mistakes. Our Web site has 16 different sessions that show you mistakes in any one of those can blow up a business. But if educated, you can have an understanding of where the pitfalls are,“ he said.
Some other opportunities for self-employment include participating in larger corporations.
Alfred Alexander, a retired Army command sergeant major and a business owner who sells products and services for Fortune Hi Tech Marketing, said he became a part of Fortune because of its income potential.
“This is a business model that an individual can do without regard of education, experience or current financial situation and can help them reach their financial goals,“ he said.
Alexander’s business partner, Marilyn Jinks, agreed.
“Fortune’s compensation plan afforded me the opportunity to build residual income over time and the ability to make a substantial income while the residual income is building. This has been my sole focus for a year,“ she said.
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Self-employment thrives as economy stabilizes
By Ebony Horton Published: April 21, 2010
http://www2.dothaneagle.com/
Perryion Griffin Jr. knew as a kid that he wanted to be self-sufficient.
Five years after opening up his own barber shop in Daleville, 31-year-old Griffin is still among those calling their own shots after one of the worst economic crises the nation has seen.
“It’s been tough, like any business, but instead of worrying about losing a job or making big people millions by me making chump change, I might as well put the change in my own pocket and work for myself. People will always need haircuts, so I’m meeting a demand,“ said Griffin, who owns Fadez 4 Dayz barber shop in Daleville.
Residents throughout the country have invested in their own businesses since the economy appeared to turn for the worst two years ago.
Some of those businesses in the Wiregrass remain secure, and more self-owned businesses in fields like healthcare, farming, sales and service are expected to rise even more in the state through year 2014, according to the state Department of Industrial Relations.
Earl Eutsey, who owns The Crab Shack in Ozark, said he opened up shop last year as an opportunity to do better for himself.
“When you know how it feels to lose a job and then you find something where you can do better for yourself, it’s good. Times have been hard sometimes, as with anything, but this has been my dream,“ Eutsey said.
Phil Holland is the founder of http://www.myownbusiness.org, a resource for entrepreneurs seeking to start their own businesses.
Holland said traffic to the Web site over the last two years has increased monthly to as many as 400,000 visitors, some of which may have had no other option but to start their own career.
“This country hit a time for some of these people where there was not the alternative of a job. They had to find something, whether it was a business from home in addition to their career,“ said Holland, who founded multiple businesses in California.
Holland said some key basics to starting a business would be to start small with a minimum investment and build over time, as well as establishing some kind of web traffic to market the business.
“The basics of business are spelled out pretty clearly. You don’t make mistakes. Our Web site has 16 different sessions that show you mistakes in any one of those can blow up a business. But if educated, you can have an understanding of where the pitfalls are,“ he said.
Some other opportunities for self-employment include participating in larger corporations.
Alfred Alexander, a retired Army command sergeant major and a business owner who sells products and services for Fortune Hi Tech Marketing, said he became a part of Fortune because of its income potential.
“This is a business model that an individual can do without regard of education, experience or current financial situation and can help them reach their financial goals,“ he said.
Alexander’s business partner, Marilyn Jinks, agreed.
“Fortune’s compensation plan afforded me the opportunity to build residual income over time and the ability to make a substantial income while the residual income is building. This has been my sole focus for a year,“ she said.
Friday, April 09, 2010
Your Job In 2020
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
http://www.forbes.com/
Your Life In 2020
Your Job In 2020
04.08.10, 6:00 PM ET
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
http://www.forbes.com/
Your Life In 2020
Your Job In 2020
04.08.10, 6:00 PM ET
The greatest economic challenge the United States faces in the coming decade will be reversing its dismal unemployment situation. The past decade has been an unmitigated disaster for job creation.
To keep pace with population growth and prevent the unemployment rate from rising, the economy needs to consistently create between 1 million and 2 million new jobs per year. Yet private-sector employment has actually fallen over the last 10 years; the U.S. now employs at least a million fewer people than it did in 1999.
What are the prospects for turning things around by 2020? Some analysts are sanguine. A recent report sponsored by the MetLife Foundation predicts that due to a gradually aging workforce, the U.S. may in fact actually face an overall worker shortage as early as 2018.
What this type of demographic analysis misses is the extraordinary acceleration we are likely to see in information technology. Already job automation technology has had a dramatic impact on employment over the past decade. In the manufacturing sector factories that continue to operate in the U.S. are able to survive only by automating the production process as much as possible.
In the service sector automation often comes in the guise of self-service: ATMs, automated checkout isles and online banking are just a few areas in which technology allows customers to do the jobs that once required workers. Meanwhile, advances in information and communications technology have accelerated the globalization of corporate workforces--in particular the trend toward offshore outsourcing, or "offshoring," where jobs are transferred to low-wage countries.
While the technological progress over the past decade has been dramatic, it's nothing compared to what we can expect in the next 10 years. Historically, advances in computing power have followed Moore's Law, which stipulates that computing capability roughly doubles every two years. There will always be the natural inclination to assume we will witness the same degree of progress in the next 10 years that we saw in the last 10--but that view is deceivingly simple. It fails to account for the exponential nature of technological advances.
If Moore's Law holds throughout the next decade, we can expect that the power of computing will increase by a factor of approximately 32. That's 32 times the technical capability we have now--and there is every reason to expect that dramatic increase in computing power will be leveraged to drive down costs by automating jobs.
Automation technology will continue to hit hardest in the areas where we have come to expect it: the manufacturing sector and low-wage, unskilled jobs of all types. Yet the reality is that by 2020 we will also see increasing penetration of automation into occupations that require significant training and college degrees. The six-figure knowledge workers who now inhabit oceans of corporate cubicles will be heavily threatened by software automation and specialized artificial intelligence applications that can perform many of the routine tasks and analyses that occupy their days.
Where technology is not yet sufficient for full automation, businesses are likely to turn to offshoring as an interim solution. Advancing software tools--in some cases enhanced by technologies such as machine learning--will continually upgrade the capabilities of low-wage offshore workers. As both job automation and offshoring become cheaper and more accessible, both practices are likely to be employed increasingly by the small businesses that have historically been responsible for the bulk of U.S. job creation.
Many dismiss this rather pessimistic view by pointing to the fact that, while technology eliminates jobs, it also creates new industries and employment sectors. This argument glosses over the fact that new technology-based industries tend to be capital intensive: they do not employ large numbers of people. Compare
Advancing technology may indeed create more Googles, but the same progress is almost certain to eventually have a highly disruptive impact on employment in the more traditional, labor-intensive industries that employ the bulk of the workforce--potentially eliminating entire job categories by 2020.
The economy of 2020 may well be characterized by substantial, broad-based and ever increasing structural unemployment, as well as by stagnant or plunging consumer spending and confidence. Mainstream economists, content to rely on quantitative models built in the last century, are largely oblivious to and ill-equipped for the reality of the next decade.
If 2020 finds us on the brink of an age in which our workers are becoming increasingly superfluous, any solutions to the problem will likely be radical and, by 2010 standards, politically unthinkable. By 2020 solutions will have to be found. Ultimately the viability of capitalism and of our democratic institutions will demand it.
Martin Ford is the author of The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future and blogs regularly at econfuture.wordpress.com.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Home businesses on the upswing in tough economy
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
- photography / Maegan Burr" title="Tim Smith points out areas on a bicycle that need new grip tape Monday afternoon. Smith runs a licensed bike repair shop out of his garage. So far in 2010, Tooele City has approved 78 home business licenses, up from previous years.
- photography / Maegan Burr" style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; max-width: 250px; float: none; margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; text-align: left; ">
Chris and Rebecca Busico, of Tooele, both worked at Deseret Chemical Depot until 2008. When they were getting ready to have their second child and knew layoffs were on the horizon, they decided to re-evaluate their employment situation.
“We were both making pretty good money, but we didn’t want to both get laid off at the same time,” Chris said.
So with the help from his uncle, Chris started a lawn care company that focuses on fertilizing, weed control and pesticides. The business is now in its second year, and has doubled its customer base, he said.
“My uncle gave me a bunch of customers to get going,” he said. “We’re doing better than we expected.”
Busico’s story is more common today than even two years ago, when he launched the business. Tooele City has seen an increase in home-based business applications this year as more residents turn to self-employment as a way to weather a difficult economy. By mid-March of 2008 and 2009, the city had processed 56 and 59 applications, respectively. So far in 2010, the city has already seen 78.
“I think people who may have lost their job are going with a home business,” said Tooele City Deputy Recorder Lisa Carpenter. “They’re trying to come up with creative ways to bring in an income.”
But sometimes those creative ways run counter to established laws and codes — such as the need for a business license.
That’s why Carpenter scans the newspaper these days to make sure advertising home businesses have their city paperwork in order. She also occasionally pounds the pavement, as was the case last Friday when she noticed two men selling hand-made beaded bugs, coins, mugs and vinyl records at Vorwaller Homestead and RV Park. They didn’t have a license.
“I told them, ‘You should be grateful it was me who came by and not a cop,’” Carpenter said.
As part of Tooele City code, any resident offering a service for compensation needs a business license. This includes daycares, tutors, any sellers of merchandise, freelancers and home repair services. There are exceptions, including yard sales, kids’ lemonade stands and teenagers mowing lawns. Non-profits must also get licensed, but for them the city will waive the $40 fee.
“Anytime you’re making money, you should be licensed,” Carpenter said. “We’ll work with them, but it’s always good to be informed and ask regarding all types of businesses.
Tooele County also requires licensing for home businesses, although county officials haven’t noticed the same uptick in startups as city officials have.
The county approved 58 home occupation applications in all of 2009, and has approved eight so far in 2010. Most applications are for general home offices or various consulting ventures. But the county also receives applications for hair salons, flower shops, candle stores, dog treat productions and even belly casting for pregnant women.
The home occupation application is used to gauge how many deliveries or pickups will be made at the home, how many customers will be visiting the residence regularly, what type and how much product will be stored on site, and what the hours of operation will be, regardless of the type of business.
“It’s more about the impact on the property and the neighbors,” said Kent Page, Tooele County senior planner. “We don’t want to have the character of the residence or of the neighborhood changed. We don’t want unusual noise or traffic.”
For most entrepreneurs, licensing is a minor hurdle to overcome compared to the uncertainty of starting a home-based business.
Abe Patterson, of Stansbury Park, had been thinking of opening up a business in his home for a few years, and was recently approved for a property maintenance operation. His work will focus on repairing rental properties in between leases and tenants.
“I just saw a possible niche,” Patterson said. “I know a lot of unemployed contractors, and would like to get people working and get them a little extra money.”
His home would work as a central office where he could dispatch people for work and do general bookkeeping.
“I would like the added income,” he said. “But more so lately, I would like to help people out.”
Brenda Marquette of Lake Point took early retirement from Alliant Techsystems two months ago after 30 years of working for the aerospace and defense contractor. She started the paperwork for her own home business before she retired, and is in the process of finishing it. She plans to do part-time contract work in line with her expertise.
“Larger companies are looking for contract help, rather than hiring new employees they may have to train and then lay off,” Marquette said. “I see it as an opportunity to still utilize the skill set I have.”
For others, a home business is a chance to turn a hobby into a little extra spending money.
“I’m a cyclist, and there’s no shop available about here,” said Timothy Smith, who runs a bike repair shop out of his Stansbury Park garage in his spare time. He works full time as a radiologist at Mountain West Medical Center.
He’s considered opening his own bike store some day, but doesn’t anticipate being able to get a loan from the bank. In the meantime, he’s content with working on whatever bikes he can.
“I’m not as busy as I’d like to be,” Smith said. “It’s an interesting adventure. And it’s not an easy one.”
Page feels starting a home business is a good option for many county residents.
“It seems like that’s the first step. Try something at home, without investing a whole lot of money into it, and then build it from there,” he said. “We’re trying to be sensitive to the economy. We want to allow an individual to do what he wants with his property, as long as it doesn’t affect his neighbors.”
The county is currently considering different zoning options to help home businesses, Page said. They feel a new zoning category, something between residential and commercial, may help.
“The code is here to serve us — not us to serve the code,” he said. “But we haven’t put anything in writing yet. We’re just brainstorming.”
Scott Spjut: scottspjut@tooeletranscript.com
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
Home businesses on the upswing in tough economy
Mar 18, 2010 | 661 views
- photography / Maegan Burr" title="Tim Smith points out areas on a bicycle that need new grip tape Monday afternoon. Smith runs a licensed bike repair shop out of his garage. So far in 2010, Tooele City has approved 78 home business licenses, up from previous years.- photography / Maegan Burr" style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; max-width: 250px; float: none; margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; text-align: left; ">
Tim Smith points out areas on a bicycle that need new grip tape Monday afternoon. Smith runs a licensed bike repair shop out of his garage. So far in 2010, Tooele City has approved 78 home business licenses, up from previous years.
- photography / Maegan Burr
- photography / Maegan Burr
“We were both making pretty good money, but we didn’t want to both get laid off at the same time,” Chris said.
So with the help from his uncle, Chris started a lawn care company that focuses on fertilizing, weed control and pesticides. The business is now in its second year, and has doubled its customer base, he said.
“My uncle gave me a bunch of customers to get going,” he said. “We’re doing better than we expected.”
Busico’s story is more common today than even two years ago, when he launched the business. Tooele City has seen an increase in home-based business applications this year as more residents turn to self-employment as a way to weather a difficult economy. By mid-March of 2008 and 2009, the city had processed 56 and 59 applications, respectively. So far in 2010, the city has already seen 78.
“I think people who may have lost their job are going with a home business,” said Tooele City Deputy Recorder Lisa Carpenter. “They’re trying to come up with creative ways to bring in an income.”
But sometimes those creative ways run counter to established laws and codes — such as the need for a business license.
That’s why Carpenter scans the newspaper these days to make sure advertising home businesses have their city paperwork in order. She also occasionally pounds the pavement, as was the case last Friday when she noticed two men selling hand-made beaded bugs, coins, mugs and vinyl records at Vorwaller Homestead and RV Park. They didn’t have a license.
“I told them, ‘You should be grateful it was me who came by and not a cop,’” Carpenter said.
As part of Tooele City code, any resident offering a service for compensation needs a business license. This includes daycares, tutors, any sellers of merchandise, freelancers and home repair services. There are exceptions, including yard sales, kids’ lemonade stands and teenagers mowing lawns. Non-profits must also get licensed, but for them the city will waive the $40 fee.
“Anytime you’re making money, you should be licensed,” Carpenter said. “We’ll work with them, but it’s always good to be informed and ask regarding all types of businesses.
Tooele County also requires licensing for home businesses, although county officials haven’t noticed the same uptick in startups as city officials have.
The county approved 58 home occupation applications in all of 2009, and has approved eight so far in 2010. Most applications are for general home offices or various consulting ventures. But the county also receives applications for hair salons, flower shops, candle stores, dog treat productions and even belly casting for pregnant women.
The home occupation application is used to gauge how many deliveries or pickups will be made at the home, how many customers will be visiting the residence regularly, what type and how much product will be stored on site, and what the hours of operation will be, regardless of the type of business.
“It’s more about the impact on the property and the neighbors,” said Kent Page, Tooele County senior planner. “We don’t want to have the character of the residence or of the neighborhood changed. We don’t want unusual noise or traffic.”
For most entrepreneurs, licensing is a minor hurdle to overcome compared to the uncertainty of starting a home-based business.
Abe Patterson, of Stansbury Park, had been thinking of opening up a business in his home for a few years, and was recently approved for a property maintenance operation. His work will focus on repairing rental properties in between leases and tenants.
“I just saw a possible niche,” Patterson said. “I know a lot of unemployed contractors, and would like to get people working and get them a little extra money.”
His home would work as a central office where he could dispatch people for work and do general bookkeeping.
“I would like the added income,” he said. “But more so lately, I would like to help people out.”
Brenda Marquette of Lake Point took early retirement from Alliant Techsystems two months ago after 30 years of working for the aerospace and defense contractor. She started the paperwork for her own home business before she retired, and is in the process of finishing it. She plans to do part-time contract work in line with her expertise.
“Larger companies are looking for contract help, rather than hiring new employees they may have to train and then lay off,” Marquette said. “I see it as an opportunity to still utilize the skill set I have.”
For others, a home business is a chance to turn a hobby into a little extra spending money.
“I’m a cyclist, and there’s no shop available about here,” said Timothy Smith, who runs a bike repair shop out of his Stansbury Park garage in his spare time. He works full time as a radiologist at Mountain West Medical Center.
He’s considered opening his own bike store some day, but doesn’t anticipate being able to get a loan from the bank. In the meantime, he’s content with working on whatever bikes he can.
“I’m not as busy as I’d like to be,” Smith said. “It’s an interesting adventure. And it’s not an easy one.”
Page feels starting a home business is a good option for many county residents.
“It seems like that’s the first step. Try something at home, without investing a whole lot of money into it, and then build it from there,” he said. “We’re trying to be sensitive to the economy. We want to allow an individual to do what he wants with his property, as long as it doesn’t affect his neighbors.”
The county is currently considering different zoning options to help home businesses, Page said. They feel a new zoning category, something between residential and commercial, may help.
“The code is here to serve us — not us to serve the code,” he said. “But we haven’t put anything in writing yet. We’re just brainstorming.”
Scott Spjut: scottspjut@tooeletranscript.com
Thursday, March 18, 2010
John Zogby: What American Dream?
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
The Way We'll Be
What American Dream?
http://www.forbes.com/
John Zogby, 03.18.10, 12:01 AM ET
A year ago there was real concern that the U.S. economy might fall into what economists consider a depression. That type of depression did not happen, but our polling finds strong evidence of another kind of depression: a loss of faith in the American Dream.
Zogby International has been testing the public's beliefs and definitions of the American Dream for more than a decade. Our latest Zogby Interactive survey shows a significant decline in believers from a year ago and an even bigger drop from 10 years ago.
On the basic question of whether "it is possible for you and your family to achieve the American Dream," 57% said it is possible in a Feb. 17 Zogby Interactive poll of 2,031 likely voters. That is a 10-point drop from a similar survey conducted immediately after the 2008 elections. When we asked that question in July 2001, less than two months before the Sept. 11 attacks, 76% said they could achieve it.
As some readers may know, I've studied people's attitudes about the American Dream at length. It served as the subtitle of my book, The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report of the Transformation of the American Dream. I have found the American Dream evolving and enduring. In that book, I wrote:
"The American dream still exists; it's not going anywhere. But in so many ways, it's being refashioned and repackaged to reflect the new circumstances of so many of our lives ... The new American dream, I've found, is far more textured because the American experience at the start of the 21st century is so different from what it was just a half century ago. We still dream great things for our children, but today we do so within the context of the new limits in our own lives."
Our standard set of questions about the American Dream measures those "new circumstances" and "textured" ideals. From these questions, I've formulated four categories of American Dreamers: Traditional Materialists who define it as material success; Secular Spiritualists, who see it more through spiritual fulfillment; Deferred Dreamers, who believe their children are more likely to attain it than they are; and finally the Dreamless Dead, who say neither they nor most middle-class Americans can achieve it materially or spiritually.
Compared with November 2008, the first three categories remained stable. The percentage of Dreamless Dead jumped from 12% to 20%. We found this pessimism increasing across all demographic groups. Predictably, the jump was greatest among those earning the least (annual household income below $25,000), going from 19% to 44%. Other groups that also had higher increases of Dreamless Dead included women, political independents and those without college degrees.
Clearly, a very weak job market is the prime cause for this loss of hope. A poll released this week by ABC World News found 28% of middle-income Americans and 39% of lower-income earners say someone in their household has been laid off or lost a job in the last year. In a recent ABC/Washington Post survey, 57% of middle-income Americans and 68% of lower earners said the U.S. economy is in "long-term decline."
It certainly seems as though people see the current recession as more than just a down period in the normal business cycle. Last month I wrote here about the deep loss of confidence in our major institutions, especially in big business, banks and government. Actions taken by leaders in both the business and political realms have given people in the political center, left and right very good reason to lose faith. Each can cite their own litanies of what they see as failure and even contempt from the nation's most powerful people.
More alarming may be the self-fulfilling prophecies that this skepticism cultivates. For the economy, people are more likely to hunker down and diminish any chance that consumer spending will restart the economy. For government, cynicism moves people away from the process, pushing political discourse further to the extremes and making government even more dysfunctional and less responsive that it already is.
None of this can be separated from rapid and all-encompassing technological change that is altering both our personal and institutional relationships. Inevitably, our institutions must change to keep up.
I am an optimist; in this case about America and its dream, and about those who will sort through and find solutions, the under-30 generation I call First Globals. What Winston Churchill said in 1947 is still true: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." It may take some time, but the generation that has grown up wired, connected and open to the world will make our institutions responsive again, and perhaps create new ones.
They will also keep the American Dream, and continue the path that defines it not as material, but as personal and spiritual fulfillment. Carpe diem.
John Zogby is president and CEO of Zogby International and the author of The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream. He writes a weekly column for Forbes.
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
The Way We'll Be
What American Dream?
http://www.forbes.com/
John Zogby, 03.18.10, 12:01 AM ET
A year ago there was real concern that the U.S. economy might fall into what economists consider a depression. That type of depression did not happen, but our polling finds strong evidence of another kind of depression: a loss of faith in the American Dream.
Zogby International has been testing the public's beliefs and definitions of the American Dream for more than a decade. Our latest Zogby Interactive survey shows a significant decline in believers from a year ago and an even bigger drop from 10 years ago.
On the basic question of whether "it is possible for you and your family to achieve the American Dream," 57% said it is possible in a Feb. 17 Zogby Interactive poll of 2,031 likely voters. That is a 10-point drop from a similar survey conducted immediately after the 2008 elections. When we asked that question in July 2001, less than two months before the Sept. 11 attacks, 76% said they could achieve it.
As some readers may know, I've studied people's attitudes about the American Dream at length. It served as the subtitle of my book, The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report of the Transformation of the American Dream. I have found the American Dream evolving and enduring. In that book, I wrote:
"The American dream still exists; it's not going anywhere. But in so many ways, it's being refashioned and repackaged to reflect the new circumstances of so many of our lives ... The new American dream, I've found, is far more textured because the American experience at the start of the 21st century is so different from what it was just a half century ago. We still dream great things for our children, but today we do so within the context of the new limits in our own lives."
Our standard set of questions about the American Dream measures those "new circumstances" and "textured" ideals. From these questions, I've formulated four categories of American Dreamers: Traditional Materialists who define it as material success; Secular Spiritualists, who see it more through spiritual fulfillment; Deferred Dreamers, who believe their children are more likely to attain it than they are; and finally the Dreamless Dead, who say neither they nor most middle-class Americans can achieve it materially or spiritually.
Compared with November 2008, the first three categories remained stable. The percentage of Dreamless Dead jumped from 12% to 20%. We found this pessimism increasing across all demographic groups. Predictably, the jump was greatest among those earning the least (annual household income below $25,000), going from 19% to 44%. Other groups that also had higher increases of Dreamless Dead included women, political independents and those without college degrees.
Clearly, a very weak job market is the prime cause for this loss of hope. A poll released this week by ABC World News found 28% of middle-income Americans and 39% of lower-income earners say someone in their household has been laid off or lost a job in the last year. In a recent ABC/Washington Post survey, 57% of middle-income Americans and 68% of lower earners said the U.S. economy is in "long-term decline."
It certainly seems as though people see the current recession as more than just a down period in the normal business cycle. Last month I wrote here about the deep loss of confidence in our major institutions, especially in big business, banks and government. Actions taken by leaders in both the business and political realms have given people in the political center, left and right very good reason to lose faith. Each can cite their own litanies of what they see as failure and even contempt from the nation's most powerful people.
More alarming may be the self-fulfilling prophecies that this skepticism cultivates. For the economy, people are more likely to hunker down and diminish any chance that consumer spending will restart the economy. For government, cynicism moves people away from the process, pushing political discourse further to the extremes and making government even more dysfunctional and less responsive that it already is.
None of this can be separated from rapid and all-encompassing technological change that is altering both our personal and institutional relationships. Inevitably, our institutions must change to keep up.
I am an optimist; in this case about America and its dream, and about those who will sort through and find solutions, the under-30 generation I call First Globals. What Winston Churchill said in 1947 is still true: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." It may take some time, but the generation that has grown up wired, connected and open to the world will make our institutions responsive again, and perhaps create new ones.
They will also keep the American Dream, and continue the path that defines it not as material, but as personal and spiritual fulfillment. Carpe diem.
John Zogby is president and CEO of Zogby International and the author of The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream. He writes a weekly column for Forbes.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Outlook for job market is grim
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Outlook for job market is grim
Updated 1/8/2010 8:13 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/
By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY
As they scoured the job market and counted down the days to graduation last spring, most of Christopher Hutchens' friends at Johns Hopkins University decided the transition to real life could wait: They'd seek sanctuary in graduate school until the economic thunderclouds cleared.
Hutchens' prospects were sunnier. His coursework at Johns Hopkins had prepared him for one of the nation's hottest careers: biomedical engineering. He landed a good job at a Philadelphia maker of medical devices — though even he didn't get the offer he wanted until the last day of classes.
Hutchens is one of the lucky few. Prospects for most job seekers are expected to be grim for years, no matter what Friday's government report on payrolls and unemployment shows.
Barring dramatic changes in economic policy, "We're going to have high unemployment for the next few years," says former Labor secretary Robert Reich, now professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley. "Even when the jobs come back, they're not going to be very good jobs."
Even as economic growth recovers from the deepest recession since the 1930s, many U.S. jobs will continue to move overseas or be replaced by technology. And consumer spending, which fuels economic and job growth, is likely to remain weak as households continue to sober up from the credit card, home-equity loan binge-spending of the past decade, economists say.
"It's going to be a long slog," says Steven Cochrane, managing director of Moody's Economy.com.
Moody's expects the unemployment rate — 10% in November — to remain high. The past couple of decades, joblessness has hovered around 5%. In the next decade, Cochrane expects it to stay closer to 5.7%.
"All signs point to a rocky recovery," says economist Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute. "We will likely see elevated unemployment for at least the next five years." She reckons joblessness could still be stuck at 8% in 2014.
The economy must clear some imposing hurdles, Shierholz says:
•State governments, their tax revenues eroded by the recession, are slashing programs and jobs to meet balanced-budget requirements.
•The Federal Reserve, having pushed short-term interest rates close to zero, doesn't have many tools left in its economic fix-it kit.
•Consumers, whose spending accounts for 70% of economic activity, are exhausted after years of piling up debt and splurging on everything from iPods to vacation homes.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects consumer spending to grow 2.5% a year from 2008 to 2018, down from average annual growth of 3% in the previous two decades. Spending on durable goods, excluding autos, will grow 4.9% a year through 2018, down from 8.1% annual growth from 1998 to 2008. Sales of cars and light trucks won't reclaim the heights they reached in the mid-2000s, when they surpassed 16 million a year: Government forecasters expect auto sales to hit 14.4 million in 2018. Foreign competition and automation will continue to kill manufacturing jobs: The government expects factories to cut 1.2 million manufacturing jobs by 2018.
"If you work in a textile mill, the days of your job are numbered," Moody's Cochrane says.
Still, the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the overall economy to generate 15.3 million new jobs (not counting replacements) from 2008 to 2018 and forecasts 5.1% unemployment in 2018.
Where will the new jobs come from?
Depends on how you measure job growth. On a percentage basis, the fastest-growing occupations of the next decade tend to pay well and to demand highly skilled workers.
Computer network and data analysts (median wage: $71,100) will see their ranks surge 53% from 2008 to 2018, the government predicts. And financial examiners, who ensure that companies are complying with financial laws and regulations, will grow in number by 41%. Their median earnings: $70,930. (The median wage figures — half earn more, half less — are from May 2008.)
A 'cool' future for some
Seeing the fastest job growth at 72% through 2018 are biomedical engineers (median wage: $77,400). "I can see myself staying in the medical device industry," says Johns Hopkins grad Hutchens. "It's only growing. There are going to be a lot of cool projects to work on."
Johns Hopkins' undergraduate biomedical engineering program turns out about 100 graduates a year. They find a wide range of employers, says Julia Galeazzi, associate director of the university's career center: private companies seeking to design medical devices; the Pentagon looking for ways to counter bio-terrorism; the U.S. Patent Office hiring engineers who understand the latest medical gadgets. One recent graduate was dispatched to study whether cellphone frequencies pose any health risks. "The opportunities are so vast," she says.
The trouble is, the top-paying occupations are a minuscule component of the labor force: Biomedical engineers, for instance, will account for just 12,000 of the more than 15 million new jobs expected to emerge through 2018.
Measured by sheer numbers, the new jobs of the next decade don't look nearly as lucrative: The number of home health aides, for instance, is expected to expand by 461,000. But their median earnings come to just $20,460 — well below the median U.S. wage of $32,390.
Sonia Ortiz, 47, has been working in home health care for two decades in Los Angeles. She feeds the elderly and disabled, does their laundry, helps them take their pills, drives them to the doctor. She earns $9 an hour.
"It's very difficult to get by," she says. "You have to think twice about how to pay rent, buy gas, set aside a little money."
Spokane, Wash., home health aide Susie Young, 61, who's been in the business 22 years, says she sometimes thought: "I can go to McDonald's and make more money than I do now." She says wages and working conditions have improved since workers at her agency joined the Service Employees International Union in 2003.
Untransferable jobs
The economy will also demand 400,000 new customer service representatives, an occupation with median earnings of $29,860 a year; and 394,000 workers who prepare and serve food, including fast food, earning $16,430.
"These services have got to be done in person and so cannot be easily done, as so many manufacturing jobs can be done, by low-wage workers abroad," former Labor secretary Reich says. "They normally involve providing personal attention that can't easily be done by computers and software."
More than two-thirds of new jobs won't require any education past high school. For several decades after World War II, high school graduates could find decent-paying manufacturing jobs. But factories are shedding workers or closing altogether.
"It's much harder for someone who has a modest set of educational credentials to find the equivalent of an auto industry job," says Gary Burtless, senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. "You can't just have a diploma and six months of on-the-job training, and expect to get wages and benefits equivalent to $18 or $30 an hour. Those kinds of jobs are much harder to get than they were in the '60s and '70s."
One bright spot: nursing. The country is expected to need 582,000 new registered nurses — a profession that pays a median $62,450 a year. Hospitals and doctor's offices in southwestern Indiana, southern Illinois and western Kentucky snap up nurses as fast as the University of Southern Indiana can turn them out, usually at starting salaries in the mid-$30,000s, says Ann White, assistant dean of nursing. But nursing isn't for everyone, she says. The university exposes nursing students to real clinical conditions as early as possible to weed out the squeamish and uncommitted. "You've got to want to be a nurse," she says.
Overall, the jobs market is stuck in an awkward place, says Daniel Stelter, a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group and co-author of the forthcoming book Accelerating Out of the Great Recession: How to Win in a Slow-Growth Economy. Old industries such as auto and steel manufacturing are shedding jobs; and promising new industries such as solar energy and biotechnology aren't mature enough to make up the difference. "Old industries are under pressure, and new industries are not yet big and strong enough."
He expects the U.S. government will attempt to salvage manufacturing jobs by promoting new industries and by exploiting a weak dollar, which makes U.S. exports more competitive overseas. Already, he notes, Germany's Daimler, citing the weak dollar, last month announced plans to boost production of C-Class Mercedes cars at its plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
For all the forecasts, no one really knows what the labor market will look like in a few years. In 2003, a quarter of U.S. workers were in jobs that didn't show up in government occupational listings in 1967, a report by the White House's Council of Economic Advisers noted last year.
"We don't know what technologies will be developed or what is going to happen on a national or global level," says Galeazzi at the Johns Hopkins career center. "Nobody can really predict what the job market will look like in 10 years. ... What we're trying to do is prepare our students to go out and be flexible."
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Outlook for job market is grim
Updated 1/8/2010 8:13 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/
By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY
As they scoured the job market and counted down the days to graduation last spring, most of Christopher Hutchens' friends at Johns Hopkins University decided the transition to real life could wait: They'd seek sanctuary in graduate school until the economic thunderclouds cleared.
Hutchens' prospects were sunnier. His coursework at Johns Hopkins had prepared him for one of the nation's hottest careers: biomedical engineering. He landed a good job at a Philadelphia maker of medical devices — though even he didn't get the offer he wanted until the last day of classes.
Hutchens is one of the lucky few. Prospects for most job seekers are expected to be grim for years, no matter what Friday's government report on payrolls and unemployment shows.
Barring dramatic changes in economic policy, "We're going to have high unemployment for the next few years," says former Labor secretary Robert Reich, now professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley. "Even when the jobs come back, they're not going to be very good jobs."
Even as economic growth recovers from the deepest recession since the 1930s, many U.S. jobs will continue to move overseas or be replaced by technology. And consumer spending, which fuels economic and job growth, is likely to remain weak as households continue to sober up from the credit card, home-equity loan binge-spending of the past decade, economists say.
"It's going to be a long slog," says Steven Cochrane, managing director of Moody's Economy.com.
Moody's expects the unemployment rate — 10% in November — to remain high. The past couple of decades, joblessness has hovered around 5%. In the next decade, Cochrane expects it to stay closer to 5.7%.
"All signs point to a rocky recovery," says economist Heidi Shierholz at the Economic Policy Institute. "We will likely see elevated unemployment for at least the next five years." She reckons joblessness could still be stuck at 8% in 2014.
The economy must clear some imposing hurdles, Shierholz says:
•State governments, their tax revenues eroded by the recession, are slashing programs and jobs to meet balanced-budget requirements.
•The Federal Reserve, having pushed short-term interest rates close to zero, doesn't have many tools left in its economic fix-it kit.
•Consumers, whose spending accounts for 70% of economic activity, are exhausted after years of piling up debt and splurging on everything from iPods to vacation homes.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects consumer spending to grow 2.5% a year from 2008 to 2018, down from average annual growth of 3% in the previous two decades. Spending on durable goods, excluding autos, will grow 4.9% a year through 2018, down from 8.1% annual growth from 1998 to 2008. Sales of cars and light trucks won't reclaim the heights they reached in the mid-2000s, when they surpassed 16 million a year: Government forecasters expect auto sales to hit 14.4 million in 2018. Foreign competition and automation will continue to kill manufacturing jobs: The government expects factories to cut 1.2 million manufacturing jobs by 2018.
"If you work in a textile mill, the days of your job are numbered," Moody's Cochrane says.
Still, the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the overall economy to generate 15.3 million new jobs (not counting replacements) from 2008 to 2018 and forecasts 5.1% unemployment in 2018.
Where will the new jobs come from?
Depends on how you measure job growth. On a percentage basis, the fastest-growing occupations of the next decade tend to pay well and to demand highly skilled workers.
Computer network and data analysts (median wage: $71,100) will see their ranks surge 53% from 2008 to 2018, the government predicts. And financial examiners, who ensure that companies are complying with financial laws and regulations, will grow in number by 41%. Their median earnings: $70,930. (The median wage figures — half earn more, half less — are from May 2008.)
A 'cool' future for some
Seeing the fastest job growth at 72% through 2018 are biomedical engineers (median wage: $77,400). "I can see myself staying in the medical device industry," says Johns Hopkins grad Hutchens. "It's only growing. There are going to be a lot of cool projects to work on."
Johns Hopkins' undergraduate biomedical engineering program turns out about 100 graduates a year. They find a wide range of employers, says Julia Galeazzi, associate director of the university's career center: private companies seeking to design medical devices; the Pentagon looking for ways to counter bio-terrorism; the U.S. Patent Office hiring engineers who understand the latest medical gadgets. One recent graduate was dispatched to study whether cellphone frequencies pose any health risks. "The opportunities are so vast," she says.
The trouble is, the top-paying occupations are a minuscule component of the labor force: Biomedical engineers, for instance, will account for just 12,000 of the more than 15 million new jobs expected to emerge through 2018.
Measured by sheer numbers, the new jobs of the next decade don't look nearly as lucrative: The number of home health aides, for instance, is expected to expand by 461,000. But their median earnings come to just $20,460 — well below the median U.S. wage of $32,390.
Sonia Ortiz, 47, has been working in home health care for two decades in Los Angeles. She feeds the elderly and disabled, does their laundry, helps them take their pills, drives them to the doctor. She earns $9 an hour.
"It's very difficult to get by," she says. "You have to think twice about how to pay rent, buy gas, set aside a little money."
Spokane, Wash., home health aide Susie Young, 61, who's been in the business 22 years, says she sometimes thought: "I can go to McDonald's and make more money than I do now." She says wages and working conditions have improved since workers at her agency joined the Service Employees International Union in 2003.
Untransferable jobs
The economy will also demand 400,000 new customer service representatives, an occupation with median earnings of $29,860 a year; and 394,000 workers who prepare and serve food, including fast food, earning $16,430.
"These services have got to be done in person and so cannot be easily done, as so many manufacturing jobs can be done, by low-wage workers abroad," former Labor secretary Reich says. "They normally involve providing personal attention that can't easily be done by computers and software."
More than two-thirds of new jobs won't require any education past high school. For several decades after World War II, high school graduates could find decent-paying manufacturing jobs. But factories are shedding workers or closing altogether.
"It's much harder for someone who has a modest set of educational credentials to find the equivalent of an auto industry job," says Gary Burtless, senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. "You can't just have a diploma and six months of on-the-job training, and expect to get wages and benefits equivalent to $18 or $30 an hour. Those kinds of jobs are much harder to get than they were in the '60s and '70s."
One bright spot: nursing. The country is expected to need 582,000 new registered nurses — a profession that pays a median $62,450 a year. Hospitals and doctor's offices in southwestern Indiana, southern Illinois and western Kentucky snap up nurses as fast as the University of Southern Indiana can turn them out, usually at starting salaries in the mid-$30,000s, says Ann White, assistant dean of nursing. But nursing isn't for everyone, she says. The university exposes nursing students to real clinical conditions as early as possible to weed out the squeamish and uncommitted. "You've got to want to be a nurse," she says.
Overall, the jobs market is stuck in an awkward place, says Daniel Stelter, a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group and co-author of the forthcoming book Accelerating Out of the Great Recession: How to Win in a Slow-Growth Economy. Old industries such as auto and steel manufacturing are shedding jobs; and promising new industries such as solar energy and biotechnology aren't mature enough to make up the difference. "Old industries are under pressure, and new industries are not yet big and strong enough."
He expects the U.S. government will attempt to salvage manufacturing jobs by promoting new industries and by exploiting a weak dollar, which makes U.S. exports more competitive overseas. Already, he notes, Germany's Daimler, citing the weak dollar, last month announced plans to boost production of C-Class Mercedes cars at its plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
For all the forecasts, no one really knows what the labor market will look like in a few years. In 2003, a quarter of U.S. workers were in jobs that didn't show up in government occupational listings in 1967, a report by the White House's Council of Economic Advisers noted last year.
"We don't know what technologies will be developed or what is going to happen on a national or global level," says Galeazzi at the Johns Hopkins career center. "Nobody can really predict what the job market will look like in 10 years. ... What we're trying to do is prepare our students to go out and be flexible."
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Retirees Trade Work for Rent at Cash-Poor Parks
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http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
http://www.beavergreenway.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
http://www.beavergreenway.com/
Retirees Trade Work for Rent at Cash-Poor Parks
ROMA, Tex. — A cold wind whipped down the Texas plains on the night last month that Sharon Smith, 68, and her husband, Bill, 73, arrived here to be work-campers.
In the dark, they had trouble setting up their camper. But Ms. Smith, a former teacher’s aide from Sioux Falls, S.D., said she looked up at the starry sky, shook off a few of the burrs she had picked up lying on the ground working on their truck, and told herself it would get better.
It did.
The life of a work-camper, volunteering in places like Falcon State Park in deep South Texas in return for free rent, is not without its bumps. But as Ms. Smith also quickly discovered, the rewards can be deep as well — like making cinnamon rolls as part of her job at the camp recreation center, where she and Mr. Smith are working as hosts through the end of March.
“We’re here for three reasons,” she said, as she spread sugar on the dough. “No. 1, we like to travel. No. 2, we like people. And No. 3, we’re on a budget.”
An itinerant, footloose army of available and willing retirees in their 60s and 70s is marching through the American outback, looking to stretch retirement dollars by volunteering to work in parks, campgrounds and wildlife sanctuaries, usually in exchange for camping space.
Park and wildlife agencies say that retired volunteers have in turn become all the more crucial as budget cuts and new demands have made it harder to keep parks open.
Work-campers come together in one place — leading nature walks or staffing visitor centers, typically working 20 hours to 30 hours a week — then take off to their next assignments. As they move about, they keep in touch with one another through cellphone numbers, e-mail addresses and Facebook postings, creating virtual communities filled with the people they meet.
Camp life, especially in this bird-watching hotspot, revolves around the great outdoors: picking up trash, guiding visitors and, with luck, perhaps spotting the rare roadside hawk that has been reported in the Rio Grande Valley. Night brings a round of socializing: wine around the picnic tables out by the bird feeders, an open-mike sing-along at the recreation center, an evening walk through the South Texas scrubland.
Estimates of the number of work-campers nationally vary, but a spokesman for Kampgrounds of America Inc., a private company that franchises camps, said that 80,000 or so might be a good guess, based on KOA’s percentage of the camping market and the number of its work-campers.
“It attracts a certain kind of person,” said Wendy R. Forster, 70, a retired biologist who lives alone in her motor home and has been leading bird-watchers’ walks here since January. “There’s a lot of companionship and security.”
Recession has cut a fierce crosswind through the subculture, recreation experts and campers say. Some parks in California that once needed volunteers have closed, for example, as the state’s budget crisis has intensified. Many campers are also trying to stay longer in one place to cut travel expenses.
But other recreation managers say they have become more dependent than ever on a national network of volunteers, partly because of spending cuts and partly because remaining staff members have to prioritize what they can do.
“Basic trail maintenance, for example — picking up trash,” said Nancy C. Brown, who coordinates volunteers for the South Texas Refuge Complex, which includes three large wildlife areas. “It’s important for wildlife purposes, but when you’re faced with a choice of dealing with oil and gas permits or maintaining a trail, the trail is the first thing to go.”
In the last decade, Ms. Brown said, the number of campsites set aside for volunteers in the complex, including those at Falcon State Park, has risen twentyfold, to 65 from 3.
In some places, the retired volunteers are about the only staff members left.
“We did a state park in Arizona this year that had laid off so many people, we basically ran it,” said Carolyn Miller, 71, a former small-business owner from Colorado who has work-camped from Alaska to Maine with her husband, Warren, 73.
For many work-campers, the appeal of a nontraditional retirement was also linked to a life-changing event — the death of a spouse, a divorce, money trouble, a midlife reassessment of priorities. For whatever reasons, they said, staying put became an unappealing or unavailable option.
And for some, there is romance to be found. Sandra Noll, 65, a retired nurse who has been leading canoe trips for bird-watchers on the Rio Grande since early January, met her partner, Erv Nichols, 66, three years ago.
Mr. Nichols, a retired photographer from Big Bear Lake, Calif., had set out to downsize his life. With Social Security as his only income, and two previous marriages that ended in divorce, he was so sure of a solo life, he said, that he ripped out the front passenger seat of the little motor home that a friend had given him as a gift.
Ms. Noll, who was reassessing her own life after a divorce and a move back West, where she grew up, found Mr. Nichols’s zeal in tossing aside his possessions appealing. “You wanted to simplify your life,” she said, glancing across the table at him in their little trailer. “That drew you to me.”
Ms. Forster, the retired biologist, became a volunteer partly out of grief. When her husband died of cancer 17 years ago, in his 50s, she immediately set off, she said, continuing the motor-home life they had imagined together, but now on her own. She has led bird-watching trips all over the country and has already made plans to come back here next year.
“We’re nomadic,” she said. “But a lot of us are coming back next year, so that will be a reunion.”
Other campers are moving down the road. Ms. Noll and Mr. Nichols, for example, are headed next to Nebraska, to work as guides along the sandhill cranes’ migration route. Starting in June, the Smiths, from Sioux Falls, will work on an island in Puget Sound. Ellen Lawson, 66, of Evansville, Wyo., will head for a dulcimer festival in Mississippi. She said she was already dreading the goodbyes when she and her husband, Ron, 67, leave here in March.
“I cried when I left home to come here,” Ms. Lawson said while raking leaves at Falcon State Park’s Butterfly Garden, “and I’ll cry when I leave.”
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
College Grad Jobs Finding Opportunities in MLM and Direct Sales
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http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
College Grad Jobs Finding Opportunities in MLM and Direct Sales
February 8th, 2010 | 
Author: Recent gollege grad students looking for a job this year don’t need a dismal report from the National Bureau of Economic Research to tell them the United States is officially suffering through a recession. They’re living it.
A recent report by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State paints an especially troubling picture for those who will graduate this school year.
As the job market gets worse, it affects a wider range of people as skilled workers push less-skilled workers out of the running for lower-level jobs.
The unemployment rate for college graduates is typically about half the rate of the overall population. But in October, it was up by more than half a percentage point — to 3.1 percent nationally for grads over age 25.
Where are recent college grads finding an abundance of opportunities?
“Starting a business in MLM and Direct Sales”, says Brent Vanderstelt of Fortune Hi Tech Marketing, a direct sales opportunity which offers products and services from Fortune 500 companies, such as Dish Network, Sprint, Verizon, Travelocity, GE Home Security and 20 other products.
There are many great reasons and real life experiences gained from starting any business, but MLM and direct sales offers the least expensive option. Choosing to start a business is a step that exudes confidence, planning and optimism and requires a certain amount of skill, including networking, management, sales, time-management, planning and money management.
Even if you start a business as a part time enterprise, the simple fact that you’ve taken that step speaks volumes about you as a person. Take a look at these benefits:
Small amount of risk: There is a certain amount of inherited risk involved when you become an entrepreneur, but with a MLM or direct sales business your loses can be limited to just a few hundred dollars.
The income potential: There is no cap on how much money you can generate. In my corporate jobs, my big limitation was that regardless how hard I worked for these companies; my income was tied to a “market standard” for someone with my skills.
Residual income: I am sure that you pay your gas, your electricity, and your phone bill every single month. These are the types of services that for the most part provide an ongoing stream of residual income for these companies.
Taxes: As a small business owner you can take advantage more than 12 tax reduction strategies to lower your tax liability. Don’t think of taxes as a burden, but an opportunity to partner with the government to help your business grow.
Enjoyment: You have immiadiately have a career in MLm and direct sales. You will not have to sit through dozens of interviews with countless number of job seekers. Your can climb the corporate ladder” with your own business and make more money working for yourself than working for “the man”.
Growth: Personal growth is an area that many small business owners don’t realize they have entered. Hardly anyone is an expert in their field from the get go, so starting a business allows you to grow your skills.
Skills that you grow don’t have to be limited to your business area. You’re going to pick up other skills like public speaking, decision-making and other soft skills.
Community/Networking: You found your way to this site, which is an extended community. You can also find your way to other communities whether they are online or offline. As a small business owner you have something in common with a larger group of people.
Direct selling is a growing industry.
Sales in the U.S. have more than doubled in the last decade to more than $30 billion and are now more than $100 billion worldwide.
People from literally all walks of life, of all ages, are successful in direct sales. About 75 percent of those working in direct sales are women, 10 percent are African American, six percent are Latino and three percent are Asian, Native American or other. Many people start part-time, and later leave their other careers when direct selling becomes more lucrative.
Anyone can do it.
There are no required levels of education, experience, financial resources or physical condition.
People of all ages and from all backgrounds have succeeded in direct selling.
Direct sellers are independent contractors. You’re your own boss, which means you can:
- Work part-time or full-time – you choose when and how much you want to work.
- Set your own goals and determine yourself how to reach them.
- Earn in proportion to your own efforts. The level of success you can achieve is limited only by your willingness to work hard.
- Own a business of your own with very little or no capital investment.
- Receive training and support from an established company.
Fortune Hi Tech Marketing is seeking recent college grads interested in becoming business builders and starting their own successful home based business. Visit the Fortune Hi Tech Marketing website or the Fortune recruiting websiteTime4Fortune.Com, or contact the Fortune Representative nearest you.
Brent Vanderstelt
http://www.articlesbase.com/recruitment-articles/college-grad-jobs-finding-opportunities-in-mlm-and-direct-sales-747634.html
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Kids can't count on auto jobs anymore, mom says
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
http://www.beavergreenway.com/
February 7, 2010
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
http://www.beavergreenway.com/
February 7, 2010
FIXING MICHIGAN'S SCHOOLS
Kids can't count on auto jobs anymore, mom says
BY LORI HIGGINS
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER
http://www.freep.com/article/20100207/NEWS05/2070508/1322/Kids-cant-count-on-auto-jobs-anymore-mom-says
Laura Cronyn constantly lectures her son Louis about the importance of doing well in school and being prepared for college.
"I talk to him every day and tell him it's going to be a real wake-up call. I tell him how difficult college will be."
Cronyn of Detroit had the auto industry to fall back on years ago, when she left college after three years "because I really didn't know what I wanted to do" and then spent 10 years waitressing.
"I knew it was a way to make a stable living," said Cronyn, 46, who works at Detroit Diesel.
That's not what she wants for her two sons. People entering the auto industry for similar jobs today aren't commanding the kind of salaries that were available years ago. She knows that her children -- ages 19 and 15 -- will need a different kind of skill set to succeed.
"Now you get hired in at $12 to $14 an hour. I don't think you can take care of a family on that," she said.
Her oldest son, Malcolm, graduated from Allen Academy in Detroit. He completed a program at Specs Howard School of Media Arts last July and is looking for a job. Her youngest, Louis, is a sophomore at Allen.
She has stressed to both that college -- or some kind of educational training after high school -- is necessary.
"High school is not enough for anything. You have to have something," she said.
College or educational training after high school is necessary these days, Laura Cronyn of Detroit stresses to her boys, 15-year-old Louis and 19-year-old Malcolm. She makes a living in the auto industry but knows her sons may not be able to. (RASHAUN RUCKER/Detroit Free Press)
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Downturn leaves men in recession depression
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
by Michaela L. Duckett, For The Charlotte Post
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
| Downturn leaves men in recession depression |
| Inability to work and support family becomes a health issue |
| Published Thursday, January 7, 2010 7:02 am |
http://www.thecharlottepost.com/index.php?src=news&srctype=detail&category=News&refno=2282
 |
| FILE PHOTO |
| Urban League of Central Carolinas CEO Patrick Graham leads the organization’s job development program, which helps clients build competitive workforce skills. |
Dontavious Clyburn said being without a job made him feel like less than a man. “I was a high school dropout with no skills. I was tired of struggling, begging for help and facing my children without feeling any pride about myself,” he said.
Clyburn’s experience isn’t uncommon among African American men. According to a study conducted by the Urban League, 30 percent of black men are unemployed, and for many the effects are emotionally devastating.
Urban League of Central Carolinas CEO Patrick Graham said being unable to provide for a family is “psychologically damaging” to a man.
“You begin to view yourself as less than human when you are not able to provide for your family,” he said.
For many men, the stress leads to depression. An estimated 6 million men are living with depression. Many experts believe those numbers are much higher because it is so underreported, especially in men. Men are less likely to talk about it or ask for help.
“There is a very strong aversion or apprehension for men to speak about depression,” said Dr. Steven Gilchrist of Blakeney Family Physicians Steelecroft.
Gilchrist said men often internalize their feelings, which is one reason why suicide rates for men are nearly three times higher than for women.
“With the African American population, particularly in Charlotte, there is a high rate of depression among men, and again most of it goes undiagnosed,” he said. “Sometimes there is even more of a stigmatism among African American men as far as going to the doctor’s office versus any other race. And they are typically more chronically and severely depressed by the time they reach our doors.” he said.
Gilchrist said extensive studies have linked unemployment to increased levels of stress and depression.
“If you break that down into communities certainly the African American men will rate pretty high on that totem poll,” he said. “Within the (black) community there is a strong stigmatism against not being able to provide for the family.”
Clyburn sought help through improving his situation. He enrolled in the Urban League’s Youth and Professional Empowerment Program, earned a GED, and became a certified technician with GTI Communications. He also married the mother of his two sons.
“I got my dignity back,” he said.
Men and women experience depression differently. Common symptoms include crying spells, feelings of hopelessness, change in mood, loss of interest in daily activities, weight loss or gain, or decreased communication between loved ones. Sometimes there are even physical ailments and pain.
“The number one symptom that you will probably see in men is insomnia or a lack of sleep or sleep disturbances, where they may go to sleep but there are frequent awakenings throughout the night,” Gilchrist said.
“Fatigue is another huge symptom, and sometimes instead of lack of appetite, you will see an increase in binging or overeating.”
“The things you have to recognize are a change in behavior. Especially if the change is long term, for four weeks or greater,” he said.
Gilchrist said that if a man experiences these symptoms he should talk to a doctor, but the misconception that depression has to be treated with prescription medication deters many from seeking help.
“That is not the only treatment,” he said. “Most of our job is therapeutic. One thing that is highly important is for the spouse or at least one member of the family to contact the physician and actually go in and talk with the physician to help facilitate what the real problems and issues are. That shows a strong sense of support. It also gives the person a confidence level that they can open up.
“Another thing I recommend for families is that exercise and diet are so important during a very stressful period of your life,” he said.
Gilchrist said there are a lot of resources online about depression.
“It is important to recognize the signs and symptoms, and once those signs are recognized, even if it’s not true depression, it’s probably a good idea to contact a physician at that point,” he said.
“Other things that I find to be helpful include talking to someone that you trust such a friend or a pastor to provide some type of support. It is important for people who are depressed to have a good support system. That is one of the ways that we initiate therapeutic treatment. The more people that show compassion, the better the outcomes are for most patients.”
Is it just stress?
Stress and depression have similar symptoms, but they have very clear distinctions. Knowing how to determine the difference is key in treating the problem successfully.
“Stress and depression sort of overlap many times. But you really want to make a distinction,” said Gilchrist. “Most of the time with stress, people are able to handle it and it does not affect their daily routine. This is typically a temporary situation. But with depression it is typically always going to be greater than four weeks. Typically it will affect the lifestyle of that individual whether it that’s the workplace environment, whether it’s the home environment or whether that’s the person’s health in general. So if that stressful situation or stress is present throughout an extended period of time and it starts to affect other facets of that person’s life, certainly this needs to be evaluated further for depression and I recommend that be done by a medical profession.”
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
America's Workforce Blues
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
Off Shore
America's Workforce Blues
Robyn Meredith, 01.06.10, 12:01 AM ET
HONG KONG -
The good news is that the global economy seems to have stabilized, stock markets worldwide have been on a tear and the U.S. unemployment rate has dropped.
The bad news is that the jobless rate remains in double digits--one in 10 Americans is unemployed. Most of those who still have jobs have experienced years of sluggish income growth at best. And many people fear that the economic comeback won't bring back nearly as many jobs as America needs.
While the explosion of the Great Recession was set off by Wall Street, it came at a time when a number of powerful forces were in the midst of reshaping the global economy. Populous poor countries--India and China--embraced globalization. Technology connected low-paid Asian workers to the West even as globalization created demand in those nations for some highly skilled U.S. workers. Increased automation, immigration and the decline of America's unions weakened the hourly pay rates in the U.S. for lower-skilled workers.
All of those factors and more have produced widening income inequality.
McKinsey & Company's internal think tank, the McKinsey Global Institute, has delved into the question of why there is such a vast and growing gulf between America's top earners and its poor and middle-class earners, and the results are sobering--for all Americans.
"Seventy-one percent of U.S. workers are in jobs for which there is low demand from employers, an oversupply of eligible workers, or both," McKinsey warned in a June 2009 report, "Changing the fortunes of America's workforce: A human capital challenge."
In other words, nearly three-quarters of American workers could find themselves with stagnant or declining incomes going forward, unless they drastically improve their competitiveness. The root cause, McKinsey concluded, is that "too few have the skills for attractive jobs and, as a consequence, too many workers are employed in industries and occupations where demand has been falling, incomes have stood still, or both."
The silver lining, McKinsey found, is that globalization has helped many workers. Those at the top of the food chain thrived as the global economy transformed. "Incomes and employment for the top-earning 22% of workers grew fast, mostly because new technologies and new opportunities in global markets ramped up demand for advanced skills."
So how can the United States funnel more of its workers into the group that can hold its own in today's global labor market? With better education and training. Not just for Kindergarten through 12th grades--although that is deeply in need of improvement.
McKinsey said those already in the workforce need retraining. Companies and community colleges and other adult training programs will be crucial to building the skills of Americans who are no longer competitive. "U.S. labor market policy coming out of the recession would do well to focus on redeveloping America's human capital, not only for students in schools and colleges but across the current workforce."
Rather than fight to keep jobs at failing companies, or in sectors that are shrinking, the U.S. needs to focus on giving uncompetitive workers the skills they'll need in sectors with job growth.
As the U.S. economy pulls out of the recession, the nation's standard of living is at stake. American labor policy must "upgrade the skills of the U.S. workforce as rapidly as possible," McKinsey concludes.
Robyn Meredith is Hong Kong bureau chief for Forbes and the author of The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What it Means for All of Us. She writes a biweekly column.
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net/
Off Shore
America's Workforce Blues
Robyn Meredith, 01.06.10, 12:01 AM ET
HONG KONG -
The good news is that the global economy seems to have stabilized, stock markets worldwide have been on a tear and the U.S. unemployment rate has dropped.
The bad news is that the jobless rate remains in double digits--one in 10 Americans is unemployed. Most of those who still have jobs have experienced years of sluggish income growth at best. And many people fear that the economic comeback won't bring back nearly as many jobs as America needs.
While the explosion of the Great Recession was set off by Wall Street, it came at a time when a number of powerful forces were in the midst of reshaping the global economy. Populous poor countries--India and China--embraced globalization. Technology connected low-paid Asian workers to the West even as globalization created demand in those nations for some highly skilled U.S. workers. Increased automation, immigration and the decline of America's unions weakened the hourly pay rates in the U.S. for lower-skilled workers.
All of those factors and more have produced widening income inequality.
McKinsey & Company's internal think tank, the McKinsey Global Institute, has delved into the question of why there is such a vast and growing gulf between America's top earners and its poor and middle-class earners, and the results are sobering--for all Americans.
"Seventy-one percent of U.S. workers are in jobs for which there is low demand from employers, an oversupply of eligible workers, or both," McKinsey warned in a June 2009 report, "Changing the fortunes of America's workforce: A human capital challenge."
In other words, nearly three-quarters of American workers could find themselves with stagnant or declining incomes going forward, unless they drastically improve their competitiveness. The root cause, McKinsey concluded, is that "too few have the skills for attractive jobs and, as a consequence, too many workers are employed in industries and occupations where demand has been falling, incomes have stood still, or both."
The silver lining, McKinsey found, is that globalization has helped many workers. Those at the top of the food chain thrived as the global economy transformed. "Incomes and employment for the top-earning 22% of workers grew fast, mostly because new technologies and new opportunities in global markets ramped up demand for advanced skills."
So how can the United States funnel more of its workers into the group that can hold its own in today's global labor market? With better education and training. Not just for Kindergarten through 12th grades--although that is deeply in need of improvement.
McKinsey said those already in the workforce need retraining. Companies and community colleges and other adult training programs will be crucial to building the skills of Americans who are no longer competitive. "U.S. labor market policy coming out of the recession would do well to focus on redeveloping America's human capital, not only for students in schools and colleges but across the current workforce."
Rather than fight to keep jobs at failing companies, or in sectors that are shrinking, the U.S. needs to focus on giving uncompetitive workers the skills they'll need in sectors with job growth.
As the U.S. economy pulls out of the recession, the nation's standard of living is at stake. American labor policy must "upgrade the skills of the U.S. workforce as rapidly as possible," McKinsey concludes.
Robyn Meredith is Hong Kong bureau chief for Forbes and the author of The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What it Means for All of Us. She writes a biweekly column.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Detroit's youth look to the open road
http://www.charlesprimas.com/
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
http://www.detroitbusinesstoday.net
Detroit's youth look to the open road
By Jennifer Agiesta and Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 2, 2010; 9:01 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/02/AR2010010201983_pf.html
The weight of Detroit's economic downturn is particularly heavy on the area's young adults, with those under 30 suffering job losses, cuts in pay or hours and difficulties trying to find new jobs in greater numbers than their elders. More than four in 10 area residents aged 18 to 29 say they plan to seek their fortunes elsewhere, according to the new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation-Harvard University Detroit poll.
Two-thirds of young adults in the area have been hit by the sagging job market, compared with less than half of older adults. About half say they or someone in their household has lost a job or had a cut in work hours or pay in the past year, and nearly three in 10 say they or someone they live with has given up looking for work because of a lack of good jobs. About one in five live in households experiencing all three setbacks.
Looking ahead, young Detroiters in the labor market express concern about their ability to succeed in the job market; more than four in 10 say they lack the skills or education to compete and more than six in 10 worry about finding a good job.
Brandy Murdoch, a 19-year-old Macomb County resident interviewed for the poll, said she's become more discouraged about her future in the region.
"You have to go to school for a long, long time if you want to find a decent career and stay in Michigan," she said. "There are no opportunities here."
While a broad majority of young adults, like those ages 30 and up, are optimistic about the future of the Detroit area, their take on Detroit's current state is less rosy. Just 6 percent of young Detroiters use a positive word when asked to describe the area, compared with 15 percent among older residents. And a scant one in eight says they are completely satisfied with their lives, a figure that stands at two in 10 among older Detroiters.
Murdoch and a friend plan to move to Georgia this fall in search of good jobs. She says her mother approves: "My mom says to me, 'Hey if I was 19, I would move in a heartbeat, too."
Jenae Chinn, a 26-year-old customer service representative who lives in Wayne County, has a similar outlook: "I just don't see things getting better here in metro Detroit. There aren't any real, good, long-term opportunities here that seem stable."
Overall, 43 percent of Detroit's younger residents say they plan to leave the area amid a widespread sense that the region is not a good place to raise a family and the area's neighborhoods are declining.
Just 39 percent of young Detroiters call the area a "very good" or "good" place to raise a family, with about a quarter calling it "not good at all." A third say their neighborhood has become a worse place to live in the past five years.
The region's economic difficulties strike the young more emotionally and in their wallets. Almost three-quarters say they are stressed by the economic situation, and many report having trouble keeping up with basic expenses in the past year; About a third had trouble paying credit card debt or medical bills; a quarter struggled with housing costs and two in 10 had a hard time affording food. All told, more than half of those under 30 have had financial difficulties in the past year, far outpacing the rate among those aged 30 and up.
Some, but not all, of these differences stem from the fact that young adults just starting out in careers typically have lower incomes than those with more years in the workforce.
Housing is a particular concern for the young in the Detroit area. About a quarter say they fell behind on their rent or mortgage, a similar proportion had to change their living arrangements as a result of the downturn and nearly half worry about being able to find or afford a decent place to live.
Despite these concerns, younger Detroiters are an optimistic group, especially when it comes to their own lives. Nearly all expect their personal standard of living to rise over the next decade, and nearly six in 10 say the best years for America's workers are yet to come.
Katrina Robinson, an 18-year-old college student from Macomb County who also responded to the survey, said she is "very, very frustrated" with the auto industry and Michigan economy after watching her parents struggle to make ends meet. "I'm a freshman in college now," the aspiring teacher said, "so I hope things are going to pick up by the time I graduate."
More than three-quarters of young adults say they think the auto industry will recover, but nearly a third say the region's economy can recover even if this doesn't happen.
Agiesta reported from Washington, Hedgpeth from Detroit. Polling director Jon Cohen in Washington contributed to this report.
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