How fast is your broadband?

I’ve had big problems with my broadband speed. We live in a village – Skelton-on-Ure – about two and a half miles from our nearest BT exchange, Boroughbridge. Hardly ‘in the sticks.’ We have 2 BT lines into our property, one to the house and one to the home office. Both lines have broadband and the office one gets up to 2Mbps on a good day, however the house line struggles to get 512Kbps – a quarter of the speed and about as slow as broadband can get.

So, broadband speed is clearly not just down to how far you are away from the exchange. I checked with BT and it’s apparently also down to the quality of the BT line… we have one good one and one bad one. And not a lot we can do as there are few spare lines in the village.

If you have a broadband speed problem I have found a very good free tool to see what speeds – both download and upload – you are getting. I’ve put the broadband speed checker on our new HarrogateLocal.com website: www.harrogatelocal.com/pages/broadband-speed-checker.html.

Click here or the above image

Did you know? Video

The current economic downturn is the catalyst for many professionals in the corporate world to have a career break, add new skills to their portfolio or even retrain for something new. The pace of change in the corporate world is accelerating and it’s bringing with it huge dissatisfaction and stress for so many people.
If you are looking for a way to get more work, set up additional income streams or change careers you need to position yourself.

Are you ready for the future?

If you are an interim manager, management consultant, in a job or have your own business you can’t afford to be left behind. ‘Did you know?’ is one of those cool viral videos doing the rounds at the moment. If you are not sure just how huge an impact technology is having on your job and career prospects this is 4 minutes of essential viewing:

Just how do you jump on this money making machine called the Internet? If you are like me and in the over 50 bracket it can seem daunting… where do you start and who do you trust? It’s not difficult once you know what to do however it’s not simply a matter of setting up a Facebook or Twitter account, sitting back and watching the money roll in. And it’s also very easy to do the wrong things.

Interim Career Solutions can help steer you through the Internet marketing hype and get you up to speed quickly. You can learn how to better promote yourself and your business on the Internet (or even turn your hobby into a profitable Internet business) and start seeing results within a few hours. Did you know if you would like any advice you can give Richard Wall a call or drop him an Email?   

Why do most people hate MLM?

If you are in between jobs, looking for a work at home opportunity or even looking for a career change, it won’t be long before you are presented with a Multi Level Marketing – also known as Network Marketing – opportunity.

It started for me when I left the rat race as a Chartered Accountant / Finance Director and became an interim manager and consultant. I wasn’t working every day and it just seemed a great idea at the time to fill in the gaps by building a team of people selling a Chinese herbal drink and diet cookies. OK… maybe not the smartest move in my career. I then realised my mistake and moved onto selling skin care and vitamins. My family and friends thought I had a screw loose and it took a few more mistakes before I found one that worked.

There’s always been a stigma surrounding MLM… our neighbour said when he heard about the Chinese herbal drink business “it’s not bloody Amtrak is it?” It wasn’t Amway so I could say no. Lucky escape.

Why is it that the very letters MLM strike fear into people? It’s because they’ve either experienced it firsthand or they’ve heard MLM / network marketing horror stories:

- Weird or suspect products (Himalayan wonder berry juice etc.)
- Expensive products (£1 a chunk for so-called ‘healthy chocolate’, £20 for washing up liquid etc.)
- Selling to your friends (having them round for dinner and after the first course having to whip out a whiteboard from behind the curtains)
- Filling up your friends’ (soon to become your ex-friends) garages with water filters or intruder alarms
- Pyramid selling, gifting schemes etc. (no product, just a money game…when the music stops the last people in lose their money)
- Outdated products (e.g. telecoms/broadband/utilities which in the UK was a great opportunity in the early days of deregulation but is getting ‘tired’ now.)

And for business people there’s another reason. Let’s say you are a printer and someone comes along and says “would you like a secondary income stream?” In these challenging economic times you might well say “yes”, however when you find out that the opportunity is based on selling cheap imitation perfume or a unique miracle drink from deep in the Amazonian rainforest, it probably won’t strike a chord with you. You’re finding it hard enough to make money as a printer and this would be a big distraction. No wonder business people have mainly steered clear of MLM.

I’ve been around the MLM industry for more than 10 years. The above reasons for the ‘cringe factor’ are bad enough, however from an insider perspective there is another reason why even I dislike most MLMs: there’s too much hype and too many lies. Many opportunities are run by ‘crooks’ selling a very expensive health product which, when independently analysed, does you no more good than grape juice (and you are encouraged to buy lots of it.)

It gets worse… without mentioning names there’s a good example going around at the moment whereby a big health and nutrition company – where just a few months ago the leaders were proclaiming the best product ever and best ever opportunity ever – has seen many leaders and most of their downline jump ship into another health and nutrition company. Why would they do that? Simple really: they were enticed to move their downlines into the new company with a whopping transfer fee of a million dollars or more. MLM is rarely to do with product and often to do with greed.

There’s another major flaw. Even if you find a health and nutrition MLM company and product you love you will make some of your money retailing the product however the big money will come from building a team of ‘opportunity seekers’, the vast majority of whom would not normally be allocating $100-$200 of their stretched monthly family budget on expensive pills, potions and lotions. However good the products are most of these people will quit after a couple of months of spending more than they are making. This huge attrition rate and the resulting bad feeling is largely what creates the bad feeling.

It’s not all bad news though. If you find the right company and products, MLM is a very powerful business model which has been endorsed by people like Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki and Richard Branson. I’ve recently added an MLM to my business portfolio which is attracting many of the world’s top personal and business development trainers and authors; it doesn’t have any negatives for business people because the products are all about helping them be more successful. And because people like billionaire Bill Bartmann and top speaker/author Brian Tracy are directly involved in an MLM for the first time it has instant credibility. So, if you are looking for another income stream get in touch with me or at least have a look at what Bill and Brian say on our eLearning page.

Are you planning your future or your dinner?

I’ve been a subscriber to Brian Tracy’s daily newsletter for a few years now… it’s one of the only regular Emails I always make time to read. In today’s Email he said this:

‘Have you ever heard people say “when my ship comes in, I’ll probably be at the airport?” Turns out it’s not such a crazy notion after all. Many people, maybe even you, fail to plan their future beyond what they’ll have for dinner tonight.’

Wise words… especially in this New Economy. If you want to plan a better financial future for yourself and for your family, I can help you learn how to set up a secondary income stream on the Internet and quickly.

Your ship has come in - phone or Email me and I’ll help you get down to the port.

Fake it till you make it?

In the New Economy more and more of us are looking to change career or at least supplement our income. Maybe you are an ex professional like me who have lots of talent and experience but you are ‘over the hill’ to get a job, or maybe at the other end of the scale you’ve just left school with good A grades or university with a good degree and you can’t get a job. A gap year is a great idea but what happens after that?

There is an alternative to getting a ‘JOB’ (Just Over Broke or Jump Out of Bed?)

The Internet is where all the excitement seems to be: the thought of setting up a website and then sitting back and watching the money roll in is very appealing. Or maybe multi level marketing (MLM) is the answer? MLM doesn’t have to be just about selling pills, potions and lotions to your friends… you can also sell them intruder alarms, water filters and healthy chocolate

I’ve been around the MLM industry for a number of years… it can and does work. Spectacularly well in some cases. However, for most of us there is still a ‘Cringe Factor’: trying to make money from your friends with overpriced and/or embarrassing products. Even worse… how do you get over the problem of trying to sell someone on a ‘great millionaire opportunity’ when you have been involved for a few months and they ask the dreaded question “how much are you earning?” Well, I picked up some advice in my early days of MLM – this video might give you a few ideas.

Cringe Factor? I’ll let you be the judge:

Is a recession a good time for interim managers and management consultants?

High-end interim managers and management consultants thrive in economic downturns. Many interim management appointments are for company turnaround work and clearly in a recession this is in demand.

Many companies finding it tough in a recession might not necessarily need a turnaround specialist or company doctor however maybe they do need to appoint an interim manager or consultant before committing to a permanent position. In economically challenging times short term contracts make a lot of sense.

So, many interim managers are benefiting from these troubled times; indeed a lot of interim management agencies and recruitment consultants will tell prospective candidates “trade is brisk – come onto our books, we have lots of jobs.” That may be true but it’s not all good news. There are now more and more interim managers and management consultants who didn’t choose the independent route – they just found themselves on the scrap heap due to redundancy or even old age (over 40?!) As more and more talented and experienced managers move from the permanent job market to the temporary market the pool of talent gets deeper which is only great if you are an employer.

I spoke to an executive recruitment consultant recently who said that there are indeed a lot of temporary executive jobs and interim positions available, however whereas a couple of years ago they would put forward to a client 3 or 4 strong candidates, now there are 10-20. And all 10-20 are top quality. It’s getting very competitive out there.

It gets worse for management consultants at the ‘discretionary expenditure’ end of the scale – for example training and development consultants where company training budgets are often one of the first things to be cut in a recession.

So, what do you do while you wait for your next interim management or management consultancy assignment? The Internet gives us all a golden opportunity not only to find that next job but also to turn our talents and experience into money while you wait. You might even want to do what I have done and carve out a new career for yourself and be one of the next wave of Internet entrepreneurs.

Come and join me – it’s fun!

 

Richard Wall set up Interim Career Solutions to help interim managers, management consultants and other professionals promote themselves and set up additional income streams on the Internet. If you are suffering from the downturn or you fancy another income stream, Richard’s Residual Magic eBook will help get you started, free download link available here.

Our Residual Magic Newsletter has moved

One of our key aims is to help interim managers, management consultants – indeed anyone in between assignments, in between jobs, or wanting a career change – promote themselves on the Internet and set up additional income streams.

Richard Wall’s Residual Magic newsletter has useful tips and links to help you. From August 2009 we have moved the newsletter from our Wall to Wall Potential Ltd. company website walltowall.biz to this interim career solutions site. We hope you find it helpful.

Here are the contents of the August 2009 issue:

  o Welcome

  o Quotes of the month

  o Are you making the most of the Internet?

  o Oprius Contact Management Software – free 30 day trial

  o Video of the month – Five Rights by Brian Tracy

  o Guest article – The Lamest Success Secret Ever… by Mike Dillard

  o Technical nuggets

  o Book of the month: Residual Magic by Richard Wall

If you are looking for more work – either as an interim manager, management consultant or someone looking for another job - the 5 page ‘Are you making the most of the Internet’ PDF document will show you how Breeze can help you promote yourself or an existing business or start something completely new on the Net.

You should find a nugget or two this month – even if it is just you are experiencing slow broadband / ADSL connection speeds the free broadband speed checker tool will help… or if you are looking for a contact management, autoresponder system there’s an excellent free trial, or if you are just anxiously looking for a way to make money on the Internet and don’t know where to start there’s a link to my updated Residual Magic eBook. If you are actively looking for another income stream there’s an excellent 2 minute video from Brian Tracy about what to look for.

Millions of people are struggling with the economic downturn. For you and me these are very exciting times if we are prepared to learn new skills and jump aboard the Internet bandwagon… it’s only just begun and there is opportunity everywhere.

Click here to see the August 2009 issue of the Residual Magic newsletter and don’t hesitate to phone or Email me if you need any advice.

Richard Wall – Interim Career Solutions. North Yorkshire, UK.

How to do a MS Word Mail Merge to Email

If you want to promote yourself online – either as an Interim Manager, Management Consultant or maybe as someone in between jobs and wanting to add another income stream while you are waiting – one of the golden rules is you need to build an Email list. That means getting autoresponder and list management software like aweber, getresponse.com or the excellent new Oprius system (free Oprius 30 day trial here). It means getting people to opt-in i.e. give permission for you to send them information.

However in many cases that can be over the top – what if you just want to send out a personalized Email to your friends, family or contacts without them having to ‘opt-in’ to a list?Maybe you want to tell all your contacts you have changed Email address and you want to put ‘Dear Fred, Dear Sue…’ to make it personal? Or maybe you want to send out personalized party invitations. Or maybe you are wanting to send your CV to a number of Interim Management Agencies or Recruitment Consultants.

Well, if you use Microsoft Office (or at least Microsoft Word) you can do a Word Mail Merge, linking up to your names and Email addresses in Microsoft Excel and outputting individual personal Emails to Microsoft Outlook. This short video by Richard Wall shows you step by step what to do:

Interim Career Solutions will be producing many more Technical Nugget short videos like this to help you be more productive with your computer… stay tuned!

Are you an interim manager or just a part time manager?

A few years ago I was a full time Finance Director. When I left and was in between jobs I did some management consultancy work here and there and called myself an Interim Manager.

Actually I wasn’t really an interim manager, I was a part-time Finance Director. There’s a big difference: an interim management position is full time, usually filling in for the person who is no longer doing the job, either through illness, leaving, maternity, company turnaround etc. Or maybe the interim position is for a permanent job that hasn’t yet been filled. Interim management is a career in its own right. Being out of work, in between jobs or working for a company for 2 days a week because that’s all they can afford is not being an interim manager.

It sounded good to call myself an interim manager. In one interim period of my career (or ‘mid life crisis’ a lot of friends and family called it) I left the rat race completely and went into Multi Level Marketing (MLM). When people asked me what I did for a living I had a choice of answers:

1) “I’m in Pyramid Selling” or
2) “I’m an Interim Manager.”

It was a tough choice.

Whether you are an interim manager, management consultant, part time manager, MLMer or even pyramid salesperson I can help you market yourself and set up multiple income streams on the Internet. Let me know how I can help you.

Do you want more work as an interim manager or management consultant?

If you are an interim manager or management consultant you have probably experienced ‘feast or famine.’ You’re either turning away work or you’re not busy enough and waiting for the phone to ring. And when you’re working flat out you don’t have the time to market yourself and line up your next assignment.

So you need more work – where do you look?

If you are an interim manager you can try interim management agencies – just do a Google search and you’ll find there’s lots of them out there. Don’t rely on an agency though – most good interim managers are good because they have a reputation and most of their work comes from referrals i.e. people they know. Almost all of my interim assignments and the temporary accountancy jobs came from my ‘warm market’.

What else can you do? Well the really exciting news is you can now promote yourself 24/7 on the Internet. As a first step it is essential you register on business and social networking sites such as Ecademy, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (if you click on those links it’ll take you to my profiles… do connect with me!)

Even more exciting is you don’t have to restrict yourself to getting more interim manager and management consultancy work… the Internet now gives you the ability to get multiple income streams, which can be completely unrelated to your day job. You can ‘monetize your hobby’ – maybe you are passionate about steam trains, fly fishing or art collecting. Well you can now turn that passion into an Internet business, if – and it’s a big if – you know what you’re doing and you can clear a way through all the get rich quick hype.

It could even lead you to do what I’ve done and change your career… I’ve recently hung up my Chartered Accountant hat and am now full time on the Internet. It’s a lot more fun than being a bean counter, I don’t have the commuting or the office politics and I can earn far more than I could in the rat race.

Don’t be worried about the economic downturn or recession. Those of us who jump aboard this New Economy – who learn the right skills and find the right vehicle – will make a fortune.

Where do you start? Well, although I’ve been marketing on the Internet for a number of years I’ve had to throw a lot of my experience out of the window because I recently got hold of the ‘Breeze Academy’ online course. Things have moved on so much that many of the so-called Internet marketing gurus are now ‘old hat’ and many of the other ones don’t teach this stuff. Breeze is not just about training and also give you the tools you need for your online business all wrapped up in a three year package. Before recommending Breeze I decided to set up a brand new project with a brand new domain name their claim that I would start seeing results on Google within hours was valid. It’s very affordable and works out at less than a dollar a day (or for those of us in the UK that’s less than 60p per day.) Check out the Internet page of our website for more information.

If you need advice don’t hesitate to drop me an Email (richard [at] interimcareersolutions.com) or phone me (+44 1423 325090). And finally, don’t forget to download my free Residual Magic eBook (link on the right) which will help get your multiple income streams flowing. Good luck!