As an entrepreneur I often wonder what my path would have been had I taken the traditional college route. Would I be successful ? More importantly would I be happy ?
Or about now would I be heading back to school for my masters degree ? This infographic tells a pretty amazing story about unemployment and why people are heading back to school and what the best masters degrees are! Check it out.
Courtesy of: Graduate Degree Program
If you’ve got an open position at your company, you probably feel spoiled for choice. Now, more than at any other time in recent history, the job market is awash with highly qualified and capable job seekers who will be keen to seize upon any opportunity. But this can also be a negative, as it creates more work for the employer. How many emails and phone calls will you get from candidates wishing to appear enthusiastic? How many CVs will you need to throw out before you can form a manageable shortlist? Thankfully, the growth of the internet means that it’s not only easier for job seekers to find a job – it’s easier for business to recruit, too.
The online world features a number of massive job boards with thousands of daily users, and most employers will make use of these. They are useful for ensuring that as many candidates as possible will see your post. However, you should bear in mind that the online recruiting world is much wider than the big name sites. Niche job boards and discussion forums provide a fantastic opportunity to target candidates for specialised positions and industries, as well as a means to generate trust. Potential employees are more likely to apply to you if they see that you are actively posting on a forum which they visit; and you are more likely to get a better employee due to the fact that they are so active within the niche. Do post on the big sites, too, but be careful to spread your advertising over different sites and areas.
The first things to think about when writing an advert that is to be put online are keywords. These are the search terms used by potential candidates who might be interested in your post. For example, if you are trying to recruit a French translator, don’t entitle your advert ‘Translator needed’. Instead, make sure that you include the word ‘French’, so that when candidates conduct a search using their skills as keywords, they will be taken to your ad. Try to reflect your corporate ethos or culture in the tone, too – this will increase your chances of finding someone who will fit in well. Above all, don’t make the mistakes mentioned here – be sensitive to your audience.
Make a new account with your favourite free email provider specifically for this recruitment drive. Have all candidates send their CV and cover letter to this address only. This helps massively with efficiency, as you no longer need to sort through regular messages, or create a new folder to put CVs in; they’re just contained in one separate account. Once you have all the applications you need, you can easily download their contents and read at your leisure.
Victoria Barrio is a recruitment consultant and amateur writer who loves to blog about her work.
Maybe you are like me and you struggle with consistency at work ? And by work I mean working for myself. I have days when I get so much done and I have days when I get nothing done it seems. Distractions tend to be the number one reason I don’t get things done.
I’ve started a new daily routine. I don’t check email first off. I don’t check social media.
Instead. I think about the most important thing that needs done that day.
I then do it.
As a reward, I allow myself to check email for 20 minutes.
Then I set out on the next most important task of the day.
I then accomplish it. As a reward I can check Facebook, or Twitter.
I repeat this reward based system throughout the day until I’ve gotten more done than I had otherwise.
It works for me. Maybe it will work for you!
This is a guest post from Lissa Boles from Soul Map TV
On a dare 3 years ago, I ‘outed’ my astrology-loving self & went public with the fact that I do this kooky but jaw-drop-ing-ly accurate thing called Soul Mapping.
Know how I found the nerve to make the (gulp) leap?
T’was a happy ‘accident,’ or that thing many like to call synchronicity, depending on how you look at it…
When the ‘darer’ (a dear friend & coaching client I’d reluctantly outed the astrology thing to, on the off-chance it might help) told me how life-changingly clarifying & valuable the experience was for her, it literally stopped me in my tracks.
For the first time, I really heard the value in the process, and stopped hearing the “people’ll think I’m loony toons” litany that’d been ricocheting round my brain.
And started to get the deeper truth about marketing.
Within my client’s needs & wants had been a call. And in my offer to map, a response.
Think about that for just a second: marketing’s really a call & a response.
A need needs filling. A purpose needs fulfilling. And marketing? It exists to facilitate the Yin/Yang connection so both sides of the calling equation are served.
Are there things we need to learn about the ‘how to’s’?
YES BUT, if you don’t get the real listening down first, you’ll likely find you’re talking to yourself more than anybody else.
UPDATE: fast-forward a year or two, and its likely you’ll hear a new call comin’ thru.
People evolve. Needs change.
And that means the way you’ll be called to respond’ll have to evolve & change too. It’s part of the cycle.
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About the Author
Lissa Boles is a business astrologer who helps entrepreneurs discover their SoulMap- the underlying purpose of their business and their true calling. Learn more about her online TV show and what she teaches at http://thesoulmap.com/soul-map-tv/
This is a guest post by Hiro Boga. One of my personal favorite entrepreneurs, and combines everyday alchemy with creating passionate, powerful, liberating businesses.
To grow your business, you must grow yourself. Business growth is anchored in personal growth the way a tree’s roots are anchored to the ground that nourishes it.
Business expansion brings increased creative risk and complexity as well as the potential for outstanding rewards – and it requires an expanded version of you to shape and hold it.
The most successful of my clients are those who understand this.
They willingly cultivate a loving relationship with their soul and with the essence of their business. Their business flourishes, serving them and the people and causes they love, while shaping a world that works for everyone.
Much of the work my clients and I do together is about building capacity – the capacity to handle creative risk; to ride the waves of uncertainty without losing focus and commitment to their deepest desires. The capacity to reshape identities, transform beliefs, and evolve into the inner pattern of their being. The capacity to partner effectively with the soul of their business and to manage increasing complexity in their business relationships.
You grow your business by developing a deep relationship with its soul – the essence qualities that you and your business are here to bring into the world. Those qualities of essence are intimately connected to your own soul’s deepest purposes. They also emerge from your gifts, talents, genius and heart – from the purposes of your incarnation.
The soul of your business is a living being whose pattern of perfect unfolding already exists in the subtle energy realms. You co-create your business by anchoring this pattern to your concrete intentions,
and partnering with the soul of your business to bring its pattern into the world.
By tethering the pattern of your business – or of a particular project in your business, like creating a product or launching a program — to your clear intention, and then by taking consistent, concrete, daily actions towards the fulfillment of your desires, you help to grow your business organically and sustainably.
You do this most successfully when you keep the anchor of your intention steady no matter how choppy the seas around you become. As you take creative risks in your life and in your business, you
run up against the shoals of your own anxieties, fears, doubts and unconscious beliefs about the way the world works.
As you deepen your commitment to your business, you feel — in the queasiness of your belly, in the pounding of your heart — the sway and chop of all your unresolved feelings about desire and
commitment.
Those patterns you have developed in response to your history will surface. You’ll want to run away to Bora Bora, or escape to some other Eden of simplicity and avoidance.
You’ll abandon your deepest desires — for creative fulfillment, for experiencing and expressing your truth, your love, your genius.
You’ll exchange these sources of true nourishment for the slithery comforts of food or drink or exercise; driven, mindless work, or fiery relationship dramas or other self-generated obstacles to your
heart’s desire.
You’ll do this, not because you’re weak-willed, undisciplined, self-destructive or lazy, but because saying Yes to your deepest desires activates tremendous power. Your desire, anchored to a concrete intention, summons the powers of the universe to your side.
And, like most people, you have probably spent a lifetime learning how to create an illusion of safety by fitting in, getting by, getting along – by avoiding your power to actively co-create your world.
In the Pacific Northwest, where I live, the sea shapes everything that grows along its shores. Those trees that inhabit cliffs and bluffs – arbutus, Garry oaks, scrub pines – are twisted into fantastical shapes by the daily pounding of wind and rain, sea spray and salt.
These same trees, when they grow inland, reveal the inner pattern of their being – straight, tall, their majestic trunks smooth and even-grained, their branches a haven for birds and insects, they are
the rulers of a benevolent ecology that blesses the air with oxygen, animals and humans with shade, birds with a home for their nests.
But here, in the arms of the sea, these trees grow stunted, arthritic. Their bark stripped by wind, their branches distorted, they lean out over the cliff’s edge, their roots nourished by the thinnest skiff of soil, salt spray riding their backs.
We, too, are profoundly shaped by our environment.
Those of us who are fortunate enough to grow up in homes and families, neighborhoods and schools that support us in being fully ourselves, grow tall and magnificent, according to the inner pattern of our being.
The rest of us grow up doing the best we can to become who we are. We grow around the obstacles that we encounter. We do still grow – and we create, because creativity is the nature of our souls. But
our growth is distorted because it is only partially supported by the world around us.
This isn’t because our parents and families do not love us – though some do not. Nor is it because our schools and teachers do not care. Mostly, this spiritual malnourishment happens because the beliefs
and habits, patterns and programs that shape us are ubiquitous, and therefore largely invisible. They are so much a part of our common culture, our shared, inherited or acquired world view, that we are collectively blind to their effects.
We believe that this is just the way things are; this is the best we can hope for – the job that leaves your heart empty; the relationship that leaves you parched and yearning for more; the business that doesn’t make enough money to support you; that takes every ounce of you without giving you ground under your feet, or the steady stream of nourishment you need to flourish.
So we grow up longing for something we vaguely remember, but that feels like a dream. We grow up not knowing that we are meant to be great and glorious sources of shelter and belonging in the ecology
of our world. We grow up not knowing that we are powerfully creative, sovereign beings.
We don’t know, or honor, our own desires because we have never been shown that desire is the call of our souls. We don’t trust our inner sense of what’s right for us because our own truth has been drowned
out by the Voices of Should so many times that we no longer hear Truth’s quiet certainty.
We don’t believe that we have the right to be ourselves.
We don’t know — and aren’t taught — the basic skills we need in order to serve our own beautiful unfolding:
How to connect with your soul’s purposes.
How to form a clear intention and follow through with it.
How to tether the pattern of your being to your desires and intentions, so you can become your radiant, flourishing self.
How to co-create your life in partnership with the powers of wholeness, which are invested in your success.
How to work skillfully with boundaries and limits to shape a life and business that truly serves you and your world.
How to transform obstacles into sources of success and fulfillment.
How to work compassionately and skillfully with the fears that inevitably surface when you declare your intention to grow yourself and grow your business in harmony with the pattern of your being.
These fears are what stop you in your tracks, what cause you to waver in your intentions.
Fears that you will lose your place in the hearts of your family and friends. That you’ll lose your existing clients and customers when you raise your prices or change your offers so they serve you and
your world more fully. Fear of what will happen when you become more radiantly visible.
They all boil down to the fear of being sovereign — of being the ruler of your inner world; shaping it as a potter shapes raw clay into something both beautiful and useful.
—————-
About the Author:
Over the past thirty years, I have taught thousands of women and men how to live a sovereign life. How to grow themselves, so they can grow their lives and businesses with ease, joy and creative power.
These energy alchemy skills and tools work – powerfully, effectively.
My mission is to offer everyone who wants them the skills and energy technologies to shape a truly joyful, prosperous, creatively fulfilling life and business.
Learn more at http://HiroBoga.com
This is a guest post by Mark Silver. Mark is one of my favorite bloggers. He consistently challenges us to create businesses that are authentic and match up to our values, our passions, and dreams.
If you’re a heart-centered entrepreneur your business may, at times, feel more like a mission, a movement, than just a business. Business advice about niche and marketing can sometimes fall flat because it doesn’t really capture the sense of activism you have around making the world better.
And reading corporate mission statements that try to capture that sense of oomph usually fall way short. “It is our job to continually foster world-class infrastructure as well as to quickly create principle-centered.. oy gevult put a pie in it!”
There came a point, a few years ago now, in my own learning that I got tired of reading business books. Instead I began to wonder “What have spiritual leaders done to effect change on a global basis?”
I started reading auto and biographies of folks like Martin Luther King, Jr, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Paramhansa Yogananda, Mohandas Gandhi, among others. And I started to see a pattern of spiritual transformation arise.
Here’s one piece of the pattern that has to do with vision.
So much of what passes for a vision is not something you can actually, y’know, see. Like with your eyes. Imagine a theatre stage, could your vision be produced on it?
Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I have a dream” speech typified this type of vision. “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.”
Sure, there’s metaphor there. But it’s a vignette. People sitting down at a table together. You can see it. The people of that era (today it might be great-grandchildren instead of “sons”) could probably think of actual living people who could, in some idealized world where that vision was achieved, sit down together and have a meal.
Can you see your vision? What’s the setting? But before you go sketching it out, there are a three more points to consider in creating it.
1. Who Are the Players?
Who is involved in your vision? For Dr. King, it was the offspring of slaves and slaveowners. For Mother Theresa it was the “poorest of the poor.” How about you?
2. What conflict or struggle did they have to get through to arrive on this stage?
For Dr. King, they had to overcome racism and bitterness. For Mother Theresa, to see Christ alive in the poor, people who weren’t poor had to see the poor literally as God, to serve them in humility.
What conflict, struggle or reality are your players needing to overcome? Note that it may only be held implicitly in the vision.
3. Is it simple enough to happen at a very small scale, and then scale up by being repeated?
The problem with really big visions is that they can be very far out in the future, seemingly unattainable. And it’s hard to celebrate successes when you’re not there yet.
On the other hand, every time Mother Theresa cradled one of the dying poor in Calcutta, and gave them hope and food and shelter, her heart lit up with joy.
She wouldn’t rest until all the world’s poor were cared for, and yet she could honestly and beautifully celebrate each time an individual was cared for.
Is your vision like that?
What’s your vision? What’s the stage, who are the players, what’s the conflict, and is it simple and small, yet scalable?
And does it set your heart on fire?
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About the Author:
Mark Silver is a spiritual business teacher who helps holistic businesses grow in size and service. Get more spiritual and practical business wisdom (and free gifts!) when you sign up to receive his widely acclaimed newsletter. Learn more and sign up at: http://www.heartofbusiness.com/new-here
This is a guest post by Philippa Willitts. Philippa is a British freelance writer who writes in particular about social media, SEO and internet marketing. Visit her website at www.socialmediawriter.co.uk to find out more and to commission writing work such as blog posts, eBooks and email autoresponder series.
Every Twitter user wants more followers. Whether that is to look good to their friends, to have a wider audience to promote their business to or to find more interesting people to follow themselves, it is a common theme and one which is much discussed. There are easy ways to get many thousands of followers with little effort, and there are more complex ways to build followers gradually. While the former may seem like the obvious option, the latter is in fact a better choice for long term, engaged followers rather than spammy, vanity followers.
The Easy Way
It is possible to buy Twitter followers. On certain websites many thousands of followers can be bought for just a few dollars, and those who want to impress by having 20,000 followers, compared to their friend’s 160, can do this easily, quickly and inexpensively. However, many of the accounts which will follow you in the hours after your purchase are spam accounts, fake accounts and accounts with no real person behind them. It may look good on your statistics but it will bring no added business your way and no interesting people to talk to.
The More Difficult Way
The alternative way to gain more followers is actually a good lesson in how to get the most out of Twitter. Look at your tweets f the last few days. If you were a stranger checking out your stream, which you honestly follow yourself? Have an honest look at your own account. Are you engaging with other Twitter users? Responding to others’ tweets? Re-tweeting others? Or are you just blasting out your own marketing message with no regard for the people who already follow you? Looking at your account in this way will help you to see whether or not you are an appealing prospect for other Twitter users to follow.
If you are confident that you are are engaging well with others and providing an interesting stream of information, you will have a lot more success in gaining new followers. If, on the other hand, you see that your tweet stream is predominantly self-promotion or auto-tweets then rather than starting to try and find new followers straight away, instead spend a few weeks focusing on improving the way you use the site. Talk to others, don’t self promote more than once in every 10 tweets and don’t be serious 100% of the time.
Once your account is looking better you can then start to court new Twitter prospects.
Make Conversation
One way to do this is to chat to more people on the site. This includes people who already follow you, as well as those who you would on your follower list. When people see how interesting and helpful you are they are more likely to follow your account.
Follow
Another trick is to follow more people yourself. Don’t do this in a mass, spammy way. Instead, choose people carefully who would enhance your account and people who your account will appeal to. If they get email notifications every time they get a new follower they may well check out your account straight away and follow you back.
Group Chats
Join in tweet chats. These are usually held at specified times, once a week or once a month, and they involve like-minded people having a discussion which is curated by the use of a relevant hash tag. So if your website is about freelancing, look out for Twitter chats for freelancers and make sure you participate in the next one. There is often a specified topic for each chat so make sure you will have interesting things to say and others will undoubtedly follow you as a result.
Search
Use the Twitter search function to find other people who are discussing your favourite subjects. If you are passionate about wrestling, search on the Twitter website for the term “wrestling” and you will find all the recent tweets on the subject. Say hi to the people who seem to share your interests, follow them and see if they follow you back.
Clearly, all these ways are far more time-consuming than buying followers, and you will not gain thousands of followers overnight, but the people you to find and make connections with will be far more relevant to your own Twitter account, far more interested in what you say, and far more likely to engage with you. This is a much richer way of gaining new Twitter followers than simply giving someone a fiver and waiting for your numbers to fly high. It is, after all, a social networking website. It works best when people are sociable and networking with others. While buying followers is an easy ego boost, it requires no effort and is neither fulfilling nor useful.
By Sharon McCarley @ Teach Me How To Make Money
Blogging has become very popular nowadays and one of the leading web blogging platforms is WordPress. The reason for this is that WordPress is so easy to navigate, you can immediately start blogging as soon as you install it.
WordPress is easy to use, practically anyone can do it, whether they have advance programming skills or are neophytes in internet use. Another big bonus is that it is a free to install and use for one’s site.
While some people blog as a hobby, many have found that they can monetize their WordPress blog with their personal domain name and hosting facility. And with plenty of people out there doing this day in and day out, there will always be those who want to personalize their blogs to make it different from the rest. Others may want to revamp or enhance it to benefit their online business, or even start a new one.
Bloggers can customize and personalize their WordPress blogs with a new theme that reflects the topic of their site and even their personality. To make their WordPress blog truly stand out from among the thousands, if not millions, of blogs out there, getting a custom WordPress theme can be the answer. Basic and custom WordPress themes can make blogs look great and bring its design to a whole new level.
While WordPress itself has some themes that its users can apply to their sites, chances are these have been used by other people in an undetermined number of times. It could also be that the themes are not in keeping with their topics, or simply do not appeal to them. And while they can develop their own themes, they may lack the creativity and skill to do so.
If you are keen on designing WordPress themes, this is where you come in. Be one of those people who make money designing and building basic and custom WordPress themes. To do this, you need to have an eye for style and the creativity and skill for design.
Some know-how on HTML andCSSis a big advantage, as well as a working knowledge of WordPress, especially if you already have a WordPress blog where you can showcase your skill and creativity through your site’s theme.
You need to have your own website from which potential clients can find you online and where you can showcase the different themes you have created for clients/bloggers to choose from. You earn money by offering bloggers a wide range of styles and designs they can select from, and charge them a fee for downloading and using any of your created themes.
Build up your stock of basic themes to a dozen or so and continue to develop more themes when you launch your website. For the general market, you can offer basic themes that anyone can download and pay you for it.
But for those who want a unique, one-off design, especially those in the niche market, you can offer custom WordPress themes to help them achieve their goal of having their own unique look that cannot be found on other sites. It goes without saying that this can fetch you a bigger amount of money, and to make more money, you can later specialize in building custom WordPress themes instead of just the basic themes.
Describe the themes you develop using relevant keywords as these will bring more traffic to your site. You can also create more sites for different categories, allowing you to reach a wider market and helping you make more money with your WordPress themes.
Before launching your website, test each theme to ensure there are no errors or glitches in it. This helps arrest customer complaints and possible refunds, and protects your reputation as a reliable designer of WordPress themes.
To get a bigger chance of selling your designs on your website, do some research using keyword tools and find areas of interests that you can base your themes on. Search for theme types that are popular and in demand. Go for diverse topics to make your design appealing to a wide base of clients, including novice bloggers and those engaged in different niches.
Initially offer your themes at an affordable rate, and slowly build up your rates as you gain more experience and more clients. Develop more intricate and fascinating themes that can fetch a higher price. Come up with a price based on the amount of time and work you put into building the themes, considering at the same time current market rates to make your prices competitive.
Soon you will have an up and running website that makes money selling WordPress themes. While enjoying the fruits of your labor, continue to be vigilant about taking care of your business by enhancing your skills and creativity, and developing more custom WordPress themes which you can sell for a premium. This way you can be assured of a good stream of income for a long time to come.
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Sharon McCarley is a freelance writer & researcher for the popular “Teach Me How To Make Money” blog. For more creative ideas and ways to make money, whether you’re looking to earn money online or offline, or to get in touch with Sharon, check out http://www.teachmehowtomakemoney.com now.
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It’s another Monday. Mondays are days I embark on creating something new. Usually on the weekends I find myself with a dozen new ideas. And Mondays are the days I take one of them and turn it into a reality.
Whether it’s a blog post…a new website. An infographic. A video.
Mondays are days of creation, and days of action.
Do you know what you are creating ?
Many people remain in a world where they truly aren’t happy in their jobs. They aren’t happy with their relationships, aren’t happy with much of anything but waiting for Friday to arrive. But how many people can say they are happy for Monday to come around so they can create something amazing ?
For me that’s what a Freedom Business is all about.
Having the freedom to liberate Mondays from a day I dread into a day of creation.
If you are stuck in the cycle of dread maybe it’s time to take action. Find a way out of the rat race.
Can you think of a way without changing jobs or increasing your current income, which you could afford to work for a 6 months less each year? The answer is simple really. And adopting the solution can open many doors for you professionally and personally. It’s called living frugally, and below your means.
Most people respond to the idea of living below their means in one of two ways. Or they’ll say “I know, I know I should save more”, or they just make fun of the concept. Both these are both unhealthy responses.
Think about this: all teachers tend to be frugal and live on less during 3 months of the year. Fortunately for them, they are only paid 75% of their salary so they can afford to spend 3 months of vacation each year. If they are paid their full salary most people probably spend your entire salary and then be forced to work every summer. Too many of you may simply be caught in the cogwheel of consumerism. It’s a horrible problem that if you realize, and free yourself from then you can truly have freedom and luxury.
Do you really need an apartment or house that they now have, or will something smaller and cheaper work ?
Imagine freeing yourself from consumerism and focussing on just living below your means but having more free time to do things that make you come alive. That’s what it means to truly live luxuriously. It’s not about WHAT you have, its about HOW much time you have.
You can live well below your means and you can take an extended vacation. It also means you can leave work to pursue your dreams. Whether starting a business, go back to school, becoming an artist or anything else you can dream, living below your means will give you the freedom to do so.
For those of you who have jobs which can not take vacation time months at a time, here is another option. Live on 2/3rds of their income for three years. At the end of that period, you will have saved enough to live for a year without worry. So quit your job and pursue their dreams for 9 months, leaving a three-month cushion to find your next income opportunity.
Good luck and live large.