Jobs

Despite What They Say

Garth Beyer

Now is NOT the best time to become a Financial Adviser.

I have always loved hearing “Now is the greatest time to be doing *insert any career here.*” Simply because, if you believe it’s the greatest time, then it is. If you go into something thinking it will be easy, chances are it will be…hard. BUT, it will be much easier than if you go into something thinking it will be hard.

Zig always said, Positive thinking won’t let you do anything, But it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.

Lately the biggest reference is that Now is the greatest time to start a business in this down economy. I however, have been mentally fixed on an echo of “Now is the greatest time to become a Financial Adviser!” Why? Simply because of World Financial Group/Transamerica Financial Advisers which I mention in my post The First Hand Fails: This Is How The Second Hand Succeeds In Sales

It wasn’t until the second time that I watched and listened to WFG/Transamerica’s introduction-presentation that I noticed a flaw. The flaw was in their backing of their statement, “Now is the perfect time to become a financial adviser, there has not been a more perfect time.” They began their backup of the statement by introducing a timeline of the baby boomer generation, first explaining how when the baby boomers began popping that the baby food business rocketed, then the car dealership business sky scraped when all the baby boomers started to turn 16, then real estate shot straight up when they wanted to buy their houses, and now they are saying that financial advising is going to explode because all the baby boomers are turning 65+ and need to have advisers to make sure their money lasts them until their deathbed.

Do you see the flaw? I could not stop thinking how slow minded WFG/Transamerica was in their sales presentation to not catch both their worst and biggest selling point. If you are reading this, then you know that very few baby boomers are going to seek financial advice this late in life. They have gone their entire lives without it, earned and worked hard and will not spend money to have someone else tell them how they should manage their money. With that, baby boomers are the most stubborn people on the planet . Not to mention, the baby boomers will be dyeing off soon, so how does a dead persons money get to you as a financial adviser? It doesn’t. This was one of the biggest mistakes of WFG/Transamerica.

The second biggest mistake was that they used the wrong example to really persuade people to take up a Financial Adviser career. Give me a shot, and if I don’t have you agreeing with me in just a few sentences, tell me so.

Maybe you have read that the baby boomers will be  inheriting over 11 trillion dollars over the next 20 or so years, by the time they have this money they will either definitely not want advising on it, they are going to live out their last days in glory or they won’t end up getting what they expected with the lack of funds for pensions, the failing of social security, the fact they will work until “the day they drop”, etc, the list goes on, or the last option, they will be dead by the time they receive the extra money. Which leads me to my next reasoning.

In the world of financial advising, baby boomers are a lost cause, but not my generation (Y) and the generation after (Z). They are not. They are the hot button of financial advising. We are looking at two generations of poorly money management educated groups of young adults. Plus, you take the 11 trillion dollars baby boomers are getting and roll it over the second exchange of wealth to generation Y and Z and now you will have over 22 trillion dollars being handed down.

Even more so, my generation and generation Z are scared out of our freaking minds that the economy is going to blow up and become the next great disaster – the great depression’s depression. It is in that idea (fear) that Financial Advising will be the most prominent and income enriching career in the next 5 to 15 years. For once in time, Financial Advising will be looked on as a necessity and will receive the spotlight for its educating purposes. Financial Advisers will be able to teach those who will be handling the 22+ trillion dollars how to manage it for the next 50+ years instead of teaching 65 year old’s how to manage it for 5 years.

And I will end with, So what if teaching the youth how to manage money only earns Financial Advisers a large income for 5-10 years until money management becomes a part of the learning process in school and at home? With the average rate of people only staying at their jobs for 5 years before getting a new job, I see it as a perfect way to make big $$$ in a short period of time, teach the next generations money management so the world can prosper, and move to the next career path you want to try!

Final breakdown,

  • Now is NOT the best time to be a Financial Adviser
  • In 5-15 years will be the BEST time to be a Financial Adviser which includes being a teacher, a world changer, an economy improver, and all the other hats you get to wear
  • In a world that is set on fast pace, Financial Advising will make you money quick and allow you to move on to other things that you may really be passionate about.

 

Stay Positive and Do What YOU Think Is Best, Not What Someone Else Thinks Because It Will Always Be The Perfect Time

Garth E. Beyer

 

 

 

 

It’s Better To Love and Not Know It

Garth Beyer

It’s a terrible tragedy when you realize that you love something. So don’t. (This excludes people).

Excludes people? Yea, when you recognize that you love something, you doubt you deserve it and begin searching for its faults.

Maybe that is why you loved your job at first and then you began liking it less and less. Onto the next one,

you find the learning experience of a new job amazing. I sure do, I am sure we all do, it’s in our nature. We love learning new things, love challenges, love accomplishments and that is exactly what new jobs offer. THEN we reach the level of “love”. This level is right around the point that we know enough to rock out a day at work, but we still don’t know enough to not ask any questions. But this bliss is momentary because it is at this time when we realize that we love our jobs.

Something begins badgering our brains and tugging our hearts. I call it “doubt”, doubt that you deserve what you are getting. Doubt that you deserve to love your job. Why we immediately begin doubting why we deserve something so great? I do not know. I do know that when we begin to doubt, we look for our/the jobs faults.

We begin to nitpick and find anything to use as a reason to not love our job. And from there, it is all downhill. When we get in the mindset of looking for faults and surrounding ourselves with negativity, the only way is down.

And until we can truly accept that we deserve the best and we deserve to love our jobs, we are all better off making sure that we do not realize that we love our job in the first place.

 

Stay Positive and Ignorant, For It Is Bliss

Garth E. Beyer

 

 

Slap In The Face Elevator Speech

Garth Beyer

For everyone who does not know, an Elevator Speech is like taking an entire encyclopedia book set and turning it into a one page slap in the face. I call it a slap in the face race because those who can summarize themselves or their business to get their listener to act the quickest, wins. The typical elevator speech summarizes

1 everything you do*

2 everything you are made of*

3 everything the listener should consider

4 everything you envision*

5 everything you achieved*

5.5 every reason the person you’re talking to should quit whatever job they have and come work for you

*Note: I always remind people that an elevator speech should encompass both your business and yourself because the listener may love your business but not like you and vise-verse. It is not only about getting someone to fall in love with your business — winning them over and having them fall in love with your purpose is just as important.

How To Start Writing An Elevator Speech

Molly Gordon advises you to jot down words and phrases that stand out most to you and promote yourself and your business. She then has you pick two of the words or phrases and reflect upon them to create part of your elevator speech. Almost the same as breaking down an encyclopedia isn’t it? Just as you, if I were given enough time to use a thesaurus to find words that made my blog sound as if it were rated #1 in all countries of the world, I could. Unlike Molly, I don’t want you to choose two out of the hundred words you think of. I want you to choose two words that encompass the hundred words you wrote down and the thousand you didn’t. Once you have accomplished this, you have the basis of your elevator speech. Now you can do the same for the 5.5 variables of an elevator speech that I provided above. Make a list for each variable and then finding two words or phrases that encompass everything on your list, do not use the best two achievements. Why not? Because you can gloat about specifics after your elevator speech is up.

How To Get Off The Elevator… With Your Investor

Personally, I do not have an elevator speech, not because I hate time limits and restrictions. I think having time restrictions on everything in life allows you to live it to the fullest (Pareto Principle). I do not have one because I do not see an elevator speech as being a pitch to sell an idea. I do not see it as a challenge which the only reward is getting a chance to have a longer conversation at a later time. The true point of an elevator speech is to get your listeners to forget about the thirty seconds. What I bring to the table with every new idea is the goal of forgetting the time limit. Every meeting I go to, especially the ones with a time limit of 15 min, 30 min, or an hour, I make it a goal to be there longer. Whether I am with there along with the other members, or just the boss — I am there after the meeting “ends”.

At one job interview I had, I was told that I had 30 minutes because they were meeting others to interview as well. Before the day of the interview, I told myself that I was going to be there for 45 minutes. I told other people as well because I know the power in telling people that you are going to do something. (Fear of disappointing the ones you love is a strong motivator) The next day I checked my phone for the time as I left the Coffee shop where the interview was held… 45 minutes exactly. I promoted myself and connected with the employer enough to get them to forget about the time limit. Success

Why Bother Having An Elevator Speech

If it does not make sense to you yet, an elevator speech is “one of the most effective methods available to reach new buyers and clients with a winning message”, says Bloomberg BusinessWeek. You might be thinking how you are going to work hard for everything in life and there are no easy rides to success like an elevator. I was once told that the elevator in life is always broken — I was going to have to take the stairs. How true is that? We will always have to work for our success, hence the “stairs to success” or “steps to success”. Although I look up to the one who told me that, I have to argue that the elevator is always there but someone is always on it already. You can’t argue that you wont get your chance to take the elevator at a hotel no matter how many people are using it. Your time will come. I am positive that each and every one of us gets at least one chance to use the elevator..

Will you be ready to go on?

Stay Positive and Prepared

Garth E. Beyer

Read This If You Feel That You Can’t Save Money

Garth Beyer

I have experience with a budget. I know various formats that can be used for a variety of people. I am 19 years old and have written at least 10 different budgets for myself alone and 20 with someone else. In addition I have reviewed others’ budgets and studied the art of budgeting intensely. When a person passes the point of giving themselves excuses to not write a budget, the next thing I hear is that they are not saving any money.

They write a budget and at the end it shows that they will be saving at least 200 dollars. Yet at the end of the month they are negative 20 dollars. Of course there were life changes during the month and as I always say about budgets, they are not constant, but they are a constant process. No budget will work two months in a row perfectly unless you do absolutely nothing with your life, make no income, and no expenses. Not the most sought after life.

After another attempt at adjusting the budget for the following month, the same results occur. They just can’t save any money.

As I corrected budgets, for a long time I would find ways to lower expenses and cut back. A little about my story, I moved to Madison WI with someone in Aug 2011. Being young and in love, you can guess that we did not have much money. We had saved enough to last seven months living at the lowest amount of expenses possible. We quickly got jobs. (Check my LinkedIn and you can know why, but don’t judge a book by its cover. I actually got the jobs I have because of what is NOT on my résumé) Now that we were set with employment, our goal was to keep saved what we had and save more from our paychecks. Hell no it’s not easy! Can you imagine spending 55 dollars a week on groceries for two people? We do it. We minimize every other expense as much as we can as well. Yet at the end of each month, we only save about 50-250 dollars a month.

Last month we sat down with the budget and tried to make more adjustments so we could save more. It just couldn’t be done unless we wanted to sacrifice all of our happiness. Then it hit me, kinda like a master craftsmen would slap his apprentice over his head once he figured out how to accomplish something he thought could not be done. It was almost as if the slap had a voice and said “You idiot, of course that’s the only way. Why are you spending all of your time on limiting yourself to save money!”

What I learned — If you can’t save money, EARN MORE

I and so many others are doing the right thing with creating a budget but were so focused on making the current monthly income we have work properly. If we could just take all that energy and focus on making more money… You can only imagine how much life would change and the money you would save.

We are a perfect example, we now save 300-450 a month and have only just began our approach at earning more since we couldn’t save more.

Stay Positive and Know Where Your Energy Is Going

Garth E. Beyer

It PAYS To Be Early

It PAYS To Be Early

Garth Beyer

Do you know that feeling of seeing the sun rise? How aesthetic and life-energizing it is? The sight of it transports you to a realm of endless peacefulness. It nearly makes you feel as warm as the sun itself. It reminds you the world is a beautiful place.  What if I told you that you could have a similar reaction by getting to work earlier than usual? What if I shared with you an idea that you would consider skipping watching the sunrise to partake in? Read On.

We generally don’t get paid for arriving at our jobs early. Or do we?

We never realize the perks and rewards for arriving to meetings, our jobs, or even friendly get-together’s early. We just think “I’m lucky I got a seat” or something of the sort.

Something so simple gives such greater rewards than a good seat. Do you notice them? Do you realize the difference between arriving early and arriving just on time?

Say… you have a meeting to attend this Friday and you already know your boss is going to be there early to set up the presentation. Are you one of the few that sees this as an opportunity? Or are you thinking “I have to make sure I am on time, I can’t let my boss catch me being late again”?

What you should be thinking is the next step to work, relationship, and financial progress. You may consider asking your boss if he or she needs help setting up. Don’t be a suck up.  Despite what movies suggest, successful CEO’s are not surrounded by suck-ups. They are connected with activators and those who take matters into their own hands and form them into successful creations. Don’t ask if your boss could use some extra help getting things ready, put yourself in the position. YOU can be the reason that the meeting went effortlessly and efficiently. A good deed never goes unnoticed. Whether you can see that your actions had a positive impact or not, your boss will be mentioning your name when talking to other CEO’s because of your simple contribution of time and energy. — And to think, all it took was getting to work 20 minutes earlier.

Just a thought,
In order to be first, you need to be first!

Stay Positive and remember the alarm does not go off to punish you. It goes off to let you know that an opportunity to succeed -further than you have already- is awaiting for you to grab hold of it.

Garth E. Beyer

Knowing People and The “Informal Credential” Fallacy

Garth Beyer

Though “time” is the only constant in life, it is also the largest change we must adapt to. It’s a bit of an oxymoron isn’t it?

The farthest back that I have experience with the job market is when people walked into a business, asked for an application, filled it there, called them to check up on the application in a week, got an interview, and then got the job if their first impression and behavior was acceptable.This is just one process that was “the right way” at the time.

Though there are hundreds of different processes to acquire a job, job seekers are being grenaded with two specific processes.

1. Know Someone – No one cares about the olden days of apprenticeship and working for your parents. Kids grow up usually wanting to do the exact opposite of their parents. That leaves the fact that to get a job in an area of your interest, you have to know someone in the department. I don’t know why companies bother asking for references on the resume, the only reference they care about is word of mouth. The only opinion they care about is that of someone who they work closely too or that is already in the department. Your focus needs to be on people who love you and could talk about you all day THAT IS IN YOUR AREA OF INTEREST.  How do you do this? Well, I can answer that with a couple of options.

  • Don’t have the bachelor’s degree that’s required for the job you want? Apply free. Send the application in requesting that you would like to be the assistant to the person who gets the job you are after. Make sure that it is clear that you will work for free and help with whatever tasks that are assigned to you to help the person fulfilling the position. You are only after experience — to begin.
  • Anyone who types or writes a word can call themselves a journalist. So go to the business that you want the job at and request an interview with the owner or highest ranked person. You simply want to write a report on the company for your blog, school, website, etc. Sweet, you got your interview. Don’t let others tell you that your first impression is everything. It’s not. What you want to do is take your 15 minutes you got and turn it into a 30 minute interview. (Have enough questions prepared, but you should be having more of a conversation than an interview). You can talk about your interest in the field, but do not state your education or interest in a job. After you write your article and send it to the business, you can wait a week and call them back for a follow up interview. All of your visible or invisible readers want to know more and were interested in your content and the business itself. You are already on a friendly level with the owner and now you can focus the interview to bring out your knowledge of the business in question. Before you leave, have a card or contact information ready to give to the employer and bring up the idea of working for them for a pay check or for free. If you do not feel you are acquainted enough to accomplish this you can ask that you would like to interview some of the employees. Instead of winning over “the big-man”, win over the employees so they can put a good word in about you. They will only reassure “the big-man” of your qualities and abilities

2.  Informal Credentials – Who cares about a piece of paper, a few letters before your name, or how hot it is to be called Doctor “Smith”. What you can do to get a job without a degree is to surprise the employer with a list of different experiences related to the field. In the “education” area of your application write “Check out my experience in my Resume”.

  • The only way to get a job this way is to step out of your box and travel the world and to go after every experience in the related field. If you are into working for an Environmental group, start traveling to Australia and Ireland to see how they use their green bags and the politics around the topic there. Get acquainted with all angles of your interest from all the different parts of the world. An employer wont turn you down. Better yet, you may end up creating your own business instead.
  • For more on how to gain informal credentials, I will push you towards Tim Ferris http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/09/29/8-steps-to-getting-what-you-want-without-formal-credentials/

My question to you is, why is it not pushed to do these two processes IN ADDITION to getting formal credentials? I’ll help you with the easy questions here..

The only way someone is going to be successful in helping others find jobs is if they focus on a niche area of getting people employed. I have just shared with you the two largest ones. People share these concepts with others because no  one will listen unless it is quick and specific. We have since passed the era of receiving all the information on one topic. We only receive all the information on one small piece of the grand topic.

I am not saying that this information is unworthy and not should be followed, I am proposing that you combine these topics to create the original knowledge base that they were taken and separated from. Only then can you truly achieve absolutely any job you want at the same time as being surrounded by incredible people with the same interest and traveling the world.

A person walks into a job interview with a master’s degree in the field required from an Ivy league.

The next person that will be interviewed has the same degree from Australia, has worked in a similar company in London, and created another similar company in Hawaii which made just enough money to make it self-sustaining.

Which one gets the job?

Stay Positive and Self-Credentialed

Garth E. Beyer

I say, ” If you can’t get out of your box, at least take it with you when you travel the world to get your informal and formal credentials.”