The Boomerang Generation

I was watching BBC Breakfast the other day and heard the term Boomerang Generation which refers to kids flying the nest to go to university, getting their degrees and then unable to find a job having to go back to live at home. The news item was headlined ‘Degree of Uncertainty‘… clever stuff.

It really is tough for so many graduates to find work and many are forced to get ‘internships’ which are usually unpaid. And here in the UK, A Level results were released yesterday and provide the dilemma of ever-improving A Level results in a new world of massive public sector cuts… so more and more young people who want to go to University now won’t be able to; and it’s not going to get better quickly.

Interim Career Solutions is becoming more and more relevant, and not just to the Interim Management market which is what I originally started the site for. This new economy is on the one hand tough, however it is a great opportunity to learn new skills and set up a brand new income stream. It’s all about embracing the Internet Age… and I don’t just mean getting your profile on Facebook or Twitter. Fortunes are to be made.

Are you looking for a graduate job, looking for a new career or an alternative to further education?

If you are a part of the Boomerang Generation and you need to earn some money to fly the nest (again), or you’ve been made redundant, or you’re like me and well qualified but over the hill age-wise… or if you just want a new direction I can help.

The first port of call if you are looking for another income or new career is to have a read of my free Residual Magic eBook (see panel on the right). Also have a look at my 2 main businesses which are the culmination of many years of involvement in the home-based business sector:

1. Breeze – a one-stop-shop for businesses and entrepreneurial individuals to make money and save money. Breeze has a phenomenal Internet marketing course which includes the tools you need to be successful. No previous experience needed. The Breeze Internet Package will in any event help you better promote yourself online and add important new skills to your CV. Have a look at www.walltowall.biz/breeze;
2. Amega Global – this is set to become one of the biggest things to happen in the home based business market. If you have an interest in alternative health and/or you know people in pain you need to have a look at Amega. Amega has only recently come to the West and has some powerful and influential people involved. The products genuinely change lives (check out the testimonial videos on our Wand The World website and our www.zeropointselfhealing.com blog).

Finally, if you are one of the Boomerang Generation and you are stuck at home with your parents, twiddling your thumbs, I highly recommend you read Robert Kiyosaki’s new book The Business of the 21st Century. It’ll open your eyes to why these challenging economic times are such a great opportunity for people who are willing to explore new ideas. You don’t even need a degree to become a millionaire… before you reach the grand old age of 25. Then you will be able to buy a big house and maybe even treat your long suffering parents to an upgrade.

If you are in the UK you can buy The Business of the 21st Century for just £10 including P&P and audio CD at Knowledge is King.

I repeat: Fortunes are to be made

Save time with the Windows Quick Launch ToolBar

You are probably already using the Windows Quick Launch Toolbar. It’s very useful and probably looks something like this (I’m on Windows XP but similar in Vista – if you are running Windows 7 search on Google for “Quick Launch Windows 7″ to see how to install):

It’s already there when Windows XP/Vista is installed however you might not know how to add new programs to it. I have a wide monitor which allows me to have a BIG Quick Launch Bar and it saves a lot of time:

This short video shows you how I add a couple of things to my Quick Launch Toolbar… firstly a program and secondly a shortcut. I use it a lot, for programs and even in some cases for documents I use regularly. It’s also a handy way to get back to your Desktop when you have lots of Windows open… just click on this Show Desktop Icon:

(XP)  or  (Vista)

Note: this video was done to show how to add Breeze’s iConference program and the associated Internet Explorer ‘Enter Room’ URL to the Quick Launch Toolbar, however the technique applies to any program or document you want to add.

Any questions? Just drop me an Email to richard [at] interimcareersolutions.com.

Green shoots? Meltdown? Meltup?

Here in the UK we are back to business with the General Election out of the way and a new government. Is the recession behind us? Are things going to start getting better? A lot of people fear that things are likely to get a whole lot worse.

If you are an interim manager or management consultant these times can be good – companies often prefer in the short term to bring in managers on a temporary contract rather than commit to a full-time post. However with budgets being trimmed – especially in the public sector – and more and more highly paid professionals coming onto the job market there’ll be more people chasing fewer assignments.

Do you just ride through it and hope the economy will get better? Watch this extraordinary Inflation.us video called Meltup and you will see that sitting back is not a sensible thing to do; the world’s financial markets and our economy are in for a much rougher ride than we have seen before… it’s just a matter of when:

Our advice? Learn new skills and set up additional income streams independent of ‘convential’ business and investments. If you are concerned about your pension, your investments, your job, your quality of life etc. etc. we can help you. Call or Email Richard Wall for advice and download his free Residual Magic eBook – see the panel on the right.
Scary times or exciting times ahead? Let’s take the latter!

Richard Wall’s Residual Magic Newsletter

Richard Wall here… with a little oversight. I published the January 2010 issue of my Residual Magic newsletter and forgot to update my blog accordingly – what a plonker!

So, a little belatedly here is a screenshot and the link: www.interimcareersolutions.com/web/ezine/201001.html

Residual Magic Newsletter

If you are an Interim Manager, consultant or anyone looking for another income stream or if you just want to learn how to promote your existing business on the Internet you will find some real nuggets in this edition – even if it is just one of the ‘Quotes of the Month”. This one by Mike Dillard is very timely:

“I couldn’t be more excited about this economic upheaval, because times of great change, are times of great opportunity.” Mike Dillard

There’s also a link to a very good 10 minute video by Lee Brower. If you are wondering why inherited wealth often doesn’t survive down the generations Lee has the answer… and a very practical piece of advice for every household:

Residual Magic Newsletter

The economy might have bottomed out (I don’t think so by the way) – and although I agree with Mike Dillard in that for many of us these are exciting times, for a lot of people 2010 is going to be very tough and very stressful. Since I wrote the newsletter I saw that author Dan Kennedy has a new book coming out… I certainly agree with his main message:

“There’s no denying it: the old economy is shattered, and GONE FOREVER. It’s never coming back as it was, and in its place a generally tougher, more demanding marketplace is emerging.”Dan Kennedy

If you need advice please let me know. Call me anytime or fill in the contact form on my website.

All the best

Richard Wall

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.