Category Archives: Blog

What Do you want to be When You Grow Up?

  By Erica Diamond

That was the question I asked 25 Grade 2 students this morning. And I got a gamut of answers, “A businessman, a lawyer, a nurse, a doctor, a spy like my mom (hmmm okay), an opera singer (yes I laughed too), a celebrity (what career is that exactly?), a baseball player, a hockey player, go into my daddy’s business, a JUGGLER.” OK great answers! Yes, I just left my son’s school for “Parents as Teachers Day.” I volunteered for this once-a-year day last year, and I was excited to return again this year.

The minute I walked into the class, I saw my son’s face. The smile was ear to ear. If he coulda crawled back into the womb, believe me, he would have. Of course he was totally misbehaving and showing off in front of his friends. Up and down, talking out of turn, chatting non-stop. But I let it go because 9/10 times, he’s such a rule follower and an absolute joy. My little son on the other hand, we may have to teach about condom use at 10 years old, but that’s a whole other ball of wax.

Anyhow, after I listened to the kids’ answers of what they wanted to be when they grow up, I put two words on the Smart Board – ENTREPRENEUR and KIDPRENEUR. A few actually knew the word: my son obviously knew the word… he’s lived with an entrepreneur since he’s born, so he understands. But most kids didn’t. When I read the definition of ‘entrepreneur’ (from a kid’s book I will tell you about soon), things like: you are your own boss, you set your own hours, you make your own money and generally, if you want more money, you have to work harder. You don’t have to ask anyone when you want to go on vacation. You make the rules. You have to work as hard as all the people who work for you and then harder. You have to know ALL the jobs in your company, etc… You could have heard a pin drop. They were interested.

What was so cool, was then seeing the sparkle in their eyes. Their brains working. A life of possibility. A future still undetermined, with boundless opportunity. This notion that their whole life still lies ahead of them, and they can pick and choose how they want to live it. And it made me realize that some people I know my own age, or even older, still don’t know what they want to be when they grow up. It made me think of the many people working jobs they hate. Living a life of rut and routine because there are bills to pay and mouths to feed. But that’s life. That’s reality. And it’s tough in adulthood to just press the reset button and get a “redo.” That is what was so pure and exciting to teach these children about the future. And about the now. That it’s never too early to plan… to plan what you want to be, to save your money, to get organized.

As you know, WomenOnTheFence.com is not a Blog with product reviews and endorsements. It wasn’t my vision when I started a year ago. But today I’m going to encourage all of you moms and grandmothers, aunts and sisters, to get the book KIDPRENEURS for the kids in your life. The writers of this book sent me a copy for my kids, as they know that I am an entrepreneur and felt I would appreciate it. As a blogger, I get sent stuff all the time, explaining each and every time, I DON’T DO REVIEWS. But the reason why I chose to Blog about this one, is because YOUR CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE. MY CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE. Why not teach them all the possibilities and avenues, at an age where they are discovering the world around them. Hey, no one ever died of hard of hard work!! I like getting my kids thinking outside the box, and I hope you will encourage yours to as well. Are they too young to start their own business now? Obviously! But as I pointed out to the Grade 2 class, even making a lemonade stand is entrepreneurial. You  have to make good tasty lemonade, sell it at the right price, find customers, understand the costs involved, set a selling price, and decide what you’re going to do with your profits (in our lemonade stands, the boys get to keep $1.00-2.00 each, and the rest put in their bank account, or give to charity). Selling chocolate bars is very entrepreneurial as well. If you’re looking at me like I’m crazy, that’s okay. I simply wanted to point out to you mommies, a different approach. Our kids are never too young to start.

I don’t think we need to shelter them as much as we were sheltered. I think we should expose our kids and then let them make their own choices. My boys know all the swear words, but they don’t use them. They know about where babies come from. They know about death. Not every intricate detail, but if they ask, I answer. Every time. It’s just the way I am. To me, knowledge is power, not danger, if handled with kit gloves.

So, after the 25 Grade 2 students finished their business plans (I gave them handouts from the book), and I told them they can bring their plans home and work on them with their family, I told them one last simple thing before I left:

You can be ANYTHING you want to be if you set your mind to it, and work hard.

And for you, the adults, who maybe also still haven’t figured out what you want to be when you grow up:

You can be ANYTHING you want to be if you set your mind to it, and work hard.

It’s never too late.

What do you think??

xoxEDxox

Have a great weekend ladies, and enjoy this quote…

 www.womenonthefence.com

Suze Orman Shares Investing Common Sense With Women & Money

Photo from Fickr

By Lisa Manyon

Women & Money ~ Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny

Money is a topic you either embrace or avoid. Orman’s book delivers straight talk on investing for women and building individual wealth.

Personally I’ve always known just enough about investing to put some money away each month and I rely on financial advisers to steer me in the right direction.

Suze shares a candid look at her life and how she got to where she is now. Plus she offers a no nonsense approach to making sure women begin to really think about taking care of their own business.

With an uplifting vein of optimism about what is possible throughout the book, Orman successfully illustrates traits and tactics to help women thoughtfully approach investing.

Orman’s 8 qualities of wealthy women have been shared on national talk shows and cannot be stressed enough.

Qualities 1 and 2 are harmony and balance. These are said to be the most important qualities because they are the foundation for all other qualities.

Quality 3 is courage. Orman writes that “Courage gives harmony expression. When your thoughts and feelings are one, courage helps you manifest them in the form of words and actions.”

Quality 4 is generosity. Orman points out that women tap into this almost too quickly. We tend to be overly generous with our time, support, love and money. The true measure of generosity, according to Orman, is being able to allow money to come into your hands and out through your heart.

This was a concept I can relate to. Orman challenges women to look at why and what they give and how it makes them feel. She also offers six rules for giving (but, you’ll have to grab a copy of the book to find out what these are).

Quality number 5 is happiness. According to Orman when you find the courage to live your life in harmony and balance, you understand and practice generosity, happiness will spontaneously appear.

And perhaps the most important point she shares about happiness is this; “Happiness is not a luxury. It is a necessity for true wealth.”

Quality number 6 comes in the form of wisdom. Who doesn’t want to be wiser?

According to Orman, wisdom is more than intellectual and not directly related to education. Wisdom is an express result of tapping into your core beliefs to make the right decisions for yourself.

The 7th quality is cleanliness and is all about the importance of order and organization. A laundry list of situations that subtract from your wealth status include;

– Not knowing where your money is
– Not having a systematized filing system for important documents
– Pulling crumpled bills and receipts out of your purse
– Maintaining a vehicle that looks like a garbage can
– Having closets that are filled with junk and clutter.

I am sure most of us can relate to at least one area we need to work on. I have to admit, as organized as I am, I could relate to a couple of those scenarios. Orman’s philosophy really makes sense and I’ve corrected my personal problem areas. My first order of business was donating clothing I had not used or worn in the past year to charity.

The final quality is beauty. Orman ties all the qualities together by noting beauty is what you achieve when all the qualities are combined.

To some it may seem strange that the qualities of wealthy women are included in a book on investing. However, if you personally don’t possess the qualities it will not be as easy for you to achieve your wealth potential.

In addition to the foundational building blocks Orman shares solid advice on choosing the right investor, the importance of having one personal savings account in your name only and discusses investment options in layman’s terms so anyone can get started right way.

This article may be reproduced in its entirety with the following inclusion: Lisa Manyon specializes in POWERFULLY communicating your marketing messages to increase results. She’s a Professional copywriter and Marketing strategist. Her work has been featured by the National Association of Women Writers, Absolute Write, Copywriting TNT, Lewiston Tribune and more. Manyon works directly with Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero as the Red Hot Communications GOLD Copywriting Mentorship Managing Director, is the first professional copywriter in Idaho to earn Glazer -Kennedy’s Creating Copy That Sells certification and the Copywriting Expert for the Association of Web Entrepreneurs. Manyon specializes in making life easier for business owners and entrepreneurs by knocking one more thing off their “to do “list. She accomplishes this with her copywriting expertise and commitment to long-term business relationships. Get a Free Copywriting Action Plan & discover 7 Power-packed Insider Tricks of the Copywriting Trade to Dramatically Increase Sales of your Products & Services http://www.lisamanyon.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lisa_Manyon

How to Quickly Determine the Value of Commercial Property for Sale

Photo from Flickr

The value of a commercial property for sale is determined by using some simple formulas that are based upon the amount of net operating income that the property produces each year. So when you are looking at a commercial property for sale, one of the first things that you’ll want to ask the broker for is the profit and loss statement.

Some brokers who have listed a commercial property for sale may refer to this profit and loss statement as an IPOD, or income property operating data sheet. Once you get the IPOD, or profit and loss statement, you can then compare the information provided by the broker or seller to your other sources to help determine what the real numbers are. The challenge when looking at any commercial property for sale is that the broker and/or owner will often tend to exaggerate the amount of income that the commercial property for sale produces while also trying to minimize the amount of operating expenses that are reported.

How to Determine the Value of a Property for Sale

The reason for this is simple. The value of any commercial real estate is based on the amount of net operating income the property creates each year. In fact, each additional dollar of annual income increases the value of the property by roughly ten dollars, depending on where the property is located, and how old it is. Note that this extra net income can come from either getting additional revenue in rents, or from reducing expenses by managing the property more efficiently.

Once you understand that owners of commercial real estate will tend to present unrealistic numbers in an attempt to get a higher price for their property you’ll understand better why it’s necessary when looking at any commercial property for sale to get to know the market you are investing in. When you know what the rental rates in an area tend to be or what the typical expense ratios are for a twenty-five year old apartment building then it’s much harder for the broker or owner of a commercial property for sale to attempt to pull the wool over your eyes.

Verifying the Income and Expenses

The first step in verifying the income of a commercial property for sale is to ask for the rent roll. The rent roll is a list of what each apartment, self storage unit, mobile home lot, or office space rents for. Make sure that you get the actual rent roll because the owner or broker of a commercial property for sale may try to give you a Pro-forma rent roll instead of the actual rent roll. Pro-forma means that there is an expectation, realistic or not, of getting higher rents than the property is currently getting. My response to this has always been, “If you raise the rents up to match the pro-forma, then we’ll use the higher income amounts, otherwise we’re going to base our valuation on what the property is currently producing in income.

When looking at the expenses from a commercial property for sale, remember that you’re trying to come up with the actual amount that it will cost you to operate the property rather than what the seller’s expenses have been. So while it’s helpful to know exactly what the seller’s costs have been, I’ve learned NOT to rely on the information provided by the seller when looking at a commercial property for sale because this information is almost always inaccurate.

A Simple Formula to Use for Expenses

The expenses will vary depending on the type and age of the commercial property for sale. For example, if you are looking at buying a Class C apartment building which is at least twenty-five years old, then the expenses will run between 45 to 50 percent of the collected income each month. The collected income, known as the Effective Gross Income, is what’s left after the cost of vacancies are subtracted from the total amount of rents on the rent roll from the commercial property for sale.

The final step in determining the value of a commercial property for sale is to divide the net operating income by the capitalization rate, which varies from about 6 to 12 percent depending on the type of property, the age, and the location of the commercial property for sale. The fastest way to get an idea of what capitalization rate you should be using when looking at a commercial property for sale is to ask another broker who is not involved in the transaction.

Using Escape Clauses to Limit Your Risk

Another way of protecting yourself when looking at any property for sale is to make sure that your purchase contract allows you a period of time to get out of the deal if you are not comfortable with anything that you find. Done properly, you can often tie up a property for 60 to 90 days so that you have time to accurately determine the real value. This makes it easier to look at commercial real estate, because you can get out if you have the right escape clauses.

Learn how to tie up any commercial property for sale for 90 days using a simple addendum when you get your Free Multiple Streams of Income Insider’s Guide at http://RealEstateInvestments.net/free-report

Peter Conti is a Wall St. Journal bestselling author who lives in Annapolis, MD with his wife, kids, and his dog, Snickers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_E_Conti

NBC Today Show: Successful Entrepreneurs with Dyslexia

More and more entrepreneurs are  saying they  had symptoms of Dyslexia in school.  An early  lifetime of difficulties & challenges faced in the classroom by those suffering from Dyslexia  can lead to success later when they learn to compensate with other skills.  Some of those skills are;  developing new ways of doing things, delegating responsibility and problem solving.  These areas happen to be the needed skills of an entrepreneur. 

If your child especially dislikes structured environments, naturally finds their own ways of doing things or is having difficulty with comprehension in school…they may be the next successful entrepreneur later in life. 

Cash-In on your Passion: Gary Vaynerchuk talks business in the 21st Century

“Ask yourself ,  what do I want to do for the rest of my life.”  Words to live by.  Gary Vaynerchuk  is definately irreverent but he says it like it is and some of us that need to hear it..well, need to hear it in HIS way.

His book Crush IT is must read and will knock your attitude into high gear when it comes to profitably and getting things done.

Stop Making Excuses for not being Profitable!

I hear a lot of excuses from people as to why they aren’t profitable or why they can’t get a business up and running online.  It’s the same story different day.  For years people have been guilty of procrastination and excuses.  It’s part of our make-up, it’s in our DNA. 

It’s only when we decide we want more, decide we are fed up and decide we going to take control of our income and our lifestyle that we begin to make progress.   It’s after you hear that first “ka-ching” and make that first sale that you realize you have something to offer that the world wants.  So go give it to them!  There is nothing wrong for getting paid what you are worth.    What are you waiting for?

The first step is the hardest to take.  Just take the first step!

Crystal O’Connor is a single Mother of 3 kids and she can show you how to get started. 

www.moxiemompreneur.com

Tedx Conference entirely for Youth: by Angela Maiers

I am a huge fan of TED, a platform for the nation’s biggest and brightest thinkers to spread their world changing ideas. But adults aren’t the only ones with big ideas and talents. TEDxRedmond was the first ever TED-events arranged for kids by kids with a theme of “Power to the Students.”

Over four hundred youth attendees packed the Washington theater last month for one of the largest TEDx events entirely for youth. I was unable to attend, but feel honored to know both the organizer, former TED speaker Adora Svitak, and several of the students presenting.

After speaking at the annual TED conference in Long Beach, California, Adora, twelve-year-old teacher, speaker, and author spoke about wanting to bring a TED-like experience home to Redmond, Washington. “I had such a great experience during my first time at TED, but I realized that not everyone had such an opportunity,” she explained. “Through TEDxRedmond, I’m hoping to share the magic of TED in an independently organized event.”

I am especially proud of Zoe Sprankle whom I had the honor of coaching as she prepared for this life changing presentation appropriately titled: Small Actions, Large Impact

Zoe, I could not be prouder!
By Angela Maiers

Crystal O’Connor discusses Money and Kids with Sarah Cook of Raising CEO Kids

Teaching kids business skills early will increase their financial awareness.  As we begin to teach our kids these important lessons about business and money it’s important to take advice from others that have been there and done that with their own kids.  Sarah Cook with Raising Ceo Kids shares tips on raising your own kids to be more self sufficient and money savvy.  Listen to the audio below to our 20  minute conversation and leave a comment sharing your own ideas.  We’d love to hear them!

Richard Branson in TED / Dyslexic / ADHD / ADD

 

Richard Branson is yet another successful entrepreneur that indicates he was not a good student.  He goes on to define his learning style as dyslexic and suggests a low IQ score be the result of his assesment.  Intersesting how this pattern continues to emerge in the stories of particularly successful entrepreneurs.  As the need to create jobs increases it becomes more and more important to assess the WAY we educate these students instead of assess them with scores and tests that give little to no clear prediction in regards to success, fortitude or creativity in an individual’s future.  Starting a business is risky and one of the most popular traits and characteristics of an entrepreneur is their high risk tolerance

Small Biz Davids vs. Goliath

Small Biz Davids vs. Goliath

Can’t compete with the big guys? Meet three small companies – a book publisher, a hotel chain, and a doughnut maker – that can.

By Jessica Shambora

From Fortune.com

BLURB VS. RODALE


The challenge: Will established authors embrace Blurb’s online platform over traditional book publishers like Rodale?

What they did: David Kirsch was pretty happy with his publisher, Rodale, which released his two bestselling fitness books. But for his next book he hooked up with Blurb, a self-publishing platform.

What gives? He liked the total creative control, not to mention that after a fee to Blurb, he gets to keep all the profits. Blurb’s social-marketing tools also help build buzz.

As for Blurb, it was launched in 2005 by Eileen Gittins, 56, who couldn’t find a publisher for her photo essay book. So far, so good: Last year Blurb, based in San Francisco, sold 1.2 million books and pulled in $45 million in revenue.


MONTAGE VS. RITZ-CARLTON


The challenge: Can an upstart luxury hotel company rival the Ritz-Carlton’s sterling reputation for hospitality?

What they did: Montage says its edge is offering patrons unique experiences. “There’s no cookie-cutter approach to designing and operating a Montage,” says founder Alan Fuerstman, 53, who has been in the hospitality business for some 30 years.

His guests are registered en route to their rooms. No crab on the room service menu? No worries — the Montage staff will get it for you. At the Laguna Beach resort, an on-staff marine biologist hosts tidal pool tours.

The strategy seems to be working: Sales are up 17% so far this year, and Fuerstman plans to open a third resort in Park City, Utah, next winter.


TOP POT DOUGHNUTS VS. KRISPY KREME


The challenge: With only six Seattle shops, how does this indie doughnut chain compete with Krispy Kreme’s 619-store empire?

What they did: Top Pot co-founders and brothers Mark, 45, and Mike Klebeck, 44, were already known for their old-school coffeehouses. Why not do the same for doughnuts?

They spent months perfecting recipes based on 1920s-style “hand-forged” doughnuts. (Seahawks rookie Golden Tate made news last month when he helped himself to a few maple bars after hours. His defense: They are “irresistible.”)

The shops feature Venetian plasterwork and cabinets the brothers built themselves. Such attention to detail caught the eye of Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbucks, which now sells their creations. Top Pot makes a million doughnuts a week.

–David vs. Goliath update: There must be something about this column. Since we launched in March, two of the three companies we profiled have attracted interest from outsiders: Maverik Lacrosse was purchased for an undisclosed sum by the Kohlberg Sports Group, and Kroger Co. acquired a slew of outlets from the Little Clinic, a health care provider (also for an undisclosed price). Who’s next?

–David vs. Goliath update, part 2: Since this article went to press, Blurb alerted Fortune that they are collaborating on a project with Rodale.