OUT OF WORK?

That question is being asked more often in recent months. If your answer is “yes”, then in addition to seeking your next job opportunity, you might consider working on future opportunities in general.

In “Fortune & Freedom” I talk about the need to accumulate “necessary skills”, whether you intend to become an entrepreneur or simply to improve your future job performance. Those skills include selling, learning how our political system works at the grass roots level, and others. (Take a look at the Table of Contents on the www.furtuneandfreedom.biz web site for the list of the five key skills I think are important).

So between job interviews volunteer in a political campaign (yes, they are going on even now), get a job selling on commission, or take a course in accounting. My book has a lot more detail on what I recommend. So go for it!

Jim

Let me make a couple of points. First, a credit crunch arises in an economy when a meaningful number of people come to believe that they might not get their money back from their bank, stock investment, etc. Given this, repeatedly telling people that they are likely to lose their investments and then jobs if they do not support a candidate or vote for bailout legislation, is the height of lunacy. No wonder we are seized by this credit crunch.

Second, people pay $3 million for a 30 second super bowl ad because by and large advertising on television works. Wouldn’t you thus think that several years of media bombardment telling us how poor the economy is might have a similar effect? We used to call it Bush bashing, then election politics, and now bailout, but it is all media advertising, and the message has been the same.

Who is surprised by where we have come to?

Jim

A Writer’s Budget Take a look at the attached Word file link. It contains a budget worksheet for a self-published book. This information was no where to be found when I embarked on my writing project. Perhaps you will find it helpful.

“Almost everything we do involves making a sale.”

This point I make in Fortune and Freedom is never challenged. Interviews, presentations to supervisors, employees, parents, and community groups all require us to articulate a message and present benefits of doing something within a specific timeframe.

Yet selling to potential customers frightens people more than death.

Many firms have even decided that sales departments should not be referenced on their respective org charts.

“Business development” and automated systems designed to avoid contact with other human beings are popular. I find the most successful companies and business leaders still acknowledge that sales is a learned skill. Respect for this skill usually follows.

Jim Hirshfield

Author

www.fortuneandfreedom.biz

As the political season heats up I find it helpful to address the connection between politics and business. In Fortune and Freedom I refer to government as an entrepreneur’s silent partner. I discovered this early in my career as I encountered a series of political partners that had a sizable financial interest in my endeavors.

All business owners discover over time that governments generally take more from your business in dollars than you make after taxes.

Of course regulations that demand experts like attorneys and accountants sometimes cause even more headaches.

How should one deal with the overwhelming task of understanding how government works?

My recommendation is to volunteer your time to a campaign. Few people offer their time and they miss out on the strategy sessions and perspective that political candidates and their handlers showcase.

You might come away jaded, confused, or excited but at least you will have the opportunity to learn about the process and how politicians perceive their “partners” in the business world.

As a close friend of mine once said: “Politicians and regulators find it much easier to nail people they do not know rather than to nail someone who is a friend.”

Jim Hirshfield

Author

www.fortuneandfreedom.biz