Aren’t you tired of letting money dictate what you do, and how you live your life? Many of us get caught up in the rat race, where just keeping up with the grinding treadmill of life’s financial demands seems a never-ending battle. Out of fear or for lack of knowledge, few of us ever stop and question if there is another way. But there is another way, and it does not require an advanced degree or specialized financial knowledge. It simply requires us to RE-EXAMINE our current and desired financial conditions, RE-ORGANIZE what we already have, and CREATE a solid financial structure that supports us to live the life of our dreams.

Through my years of experience as financial consultant, and interviews with numerous successful people who have achieved financial freedom in their lives, I have developed a simple and practical method to help you create financial freedom – and abundance in your life as well. Financial freedom means different things to different people. The steps I am sharing with you will guide you to develop your own roadmap toward the ultimate freedom in your life.

Step 1. KNOW WHERE YOU ARE: assessing your current financial situation.

Where attention goes, energy flows. Do you know how much money comes in every month, and from which sources? How much do you spend on necessary versus discretionary expenses? What are your assets, liabilities, and net worth? Well-run companies use certain financial information to measure their level of performance and financial health. So should you!

Step 2. KNOW WHERE YOU WANT TO BE: setting financial goals to live the life of your dream.

if you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand. What does your dream life look like in the areas of health and wellness, productive work, relationships, personal development, contribution, leisure and free time? What are the ten things or experiences you must have before you die? How do these goals translate in dollar terms: income, expenses, assets, liabilities and net worth?

Step 3. CREATE A GAME PLAN: translating your financial goals into useful products and services.

Know thyself. What are you deeply passionate about? What can you do better than anyone else on the planet? How can you make a life doing what you love and what you are best at? In this step, you will exercise understanding, creativity and discipline to create your platform – generating your first source of income through providing useful products and services that serve an important market need and that are totally fulfilling to you.

Step 4. DESIGN YOUR FINANCIAL STRUCTURE: creating multiple sources of income.

Nurture the goose that laid the golden eggs. What are your core assets, both tangible, such as cash, stocks, bonds and real estate, and intangible, such as patents, trademarks, relationships, skills, knowledge and talents? How can you leverage your core assets to generate multiple sources of income? Evaluate your ideas based on income potential, time commitment, resource requirement and satisfaction factors, and start cultivating one income stream at a time.

Step 5. PAY YOURSELF FIRST: developing financial discipline.

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. You are your biggest asset. How much money do you invest on a monthly basis to grow your asset base, both tangible and intangible? You may consider setting up an automatic savings plan and debit a percent of your income to a Financial Freedom Account solely for investment purposes. Before you pay your bills, pay yourself first.

Step 6. MONITOR YOUR PERFORMANCE: tracking your finances regularly.

Athletes use certain parameters to track their performance and achieve greater results over time. The same applies to your finances. It is important to keep track of your key financial indicators on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Such indicators may include income, expenses, savings, net worth, and performance matrices such as profit per customer, etc. Financial management tools such as Quicken and QuickBooks can certainly make your life easier in this area.

Step 7. PUT IT ALL TOGETHER: linking it up to your life purpose.

He who has a “why” to live can bear with almost any “how.” True freedom comes from within, the freedom to choose our responses regardless of our external circumstances. Knowing who we are and why we are here on earth gives us deep roots on the ground so that we can reach high into the sky. The financial structure we discuss in this article is one of the bricks we lay down for the foundation of our dream house – our life. I have shared with you seven simple and practical steps to create financial freedom in your life:

do what you love, when you want it, and where you want it.

The steps are simple enough. Nevertheless it requires honesty, thoughtfulness, and discipline to design and implement them. When you do, financial freedom is within your sight, and within your reach.

Internet online web marketing service is very highly in demand nowadays as since past few years there has been a very exceptional growth in the online market place. Due to the changes in the standard of living of people, the preferences of the people have also changed with the due course of time. People, who used to spend hours together in shopping outside on the streets, malls or shopping centers, not prefer to save their time and money by shopping online through the online business that give lots of good discounts, good deals and also very good quality and large variety of products and services available.

Because of this reason, the business growth through internet online web marketing service has become much successful and easier as compared to the times before. The internet online web marketing service gives all the different and very effective creative ways for the highly competitive market. To take over the internet online web marketing service, it is very important to have the best website so as to create the best impression of your business to your very potential clients as well as customers.

There are many benefits that you can get once you want to grow your business through internet online web marketing service, which can be seen as given below:

• When you hire internet online web marketing service for your business, you can get very strong online presence designed for your business, with which you can not just get very good business and earn money, but also, you can get more clients for your business.

• The internet online web marketing service experts are so highly experienced and expertised in these fields that they can perform different optimization and online web marketing strategies for your business to get you more business and much better online status as compared to your competitors.

• With the internet online web marketing service, you can easily have the reach of your company at large across the globe to many people, which would not only work out as an internet online web marketing service, but also as a strong contender to the other competitors of yours in the international market.

• The internet online web marketing service with the online marketing campaigns are the most proven way to boost the number of visitors of your website and increase its rankings in the search engine searches by optimizing the websites so that the search engine can read the website better and by running efficient advertising campaigns.

• There are many internet online web marketing service available which can be used as per the requirements of the business. These online web marketing service include the different effective services like Pay-per-click advertising and management, search engine marketing, link building services, content writing experts, affiliate marketing, etc. All these services are very highly preferable and also very effective and work very efficiently as the best internet online web marketing service for your business.

The internet online web marketing service is also a part of the search engine optimization, where the websites are optimized in such a way that they can get better page rankings in the search engines for different purposes. Thus, it is very beneficial to hire the internet online web marketing service for your business, with which you can gain more business and more clients for your business.

Know more about how you can grow your business through internet online web marketing service for your business at affordable prices now!

If you are interested in college jobs, then the best place to find out about these jobs is at a college career fair. The main purpose of a college career fair is basically to bring students and potential employers together so that some of the brightest and most qualified students can secure college jobs that will eventually be of use to them when they start looking for a proper career.

What exactly are college jobs? College jobs are jobs that you work at while still attending college, and they might be jobs that you work while attending classes or they might come in the form of summer internships, where you work during the summer holidays. Whatever the case may be, college jobs are great for gaining much-needed experience about the working world while you are still in college and have the luxury to explore your career options at your leisure.

Most students, even those in college, remain in the dark about their future careers. They typically only have a vague idea of what they are going to do. For example, a student majoring in economics might have some thoughts of working as an economist in a company, but nothing more specific than that. Of course, this is definitely not the right way in which to approach your education with respect to your future career.

This is why your college career fair is so important in helping you find out about available college jobs. College jobs are excellent opportunities for you to see exactly what being part of the working world is like, and providing you with the experience of working in a particular industry. Of the various college jobs available to students, the most coveted and most rewarding are internships.

These are jobs that usually entail doing a lot of work for minimal or even no pay. Yet students fight desperately to secure internships because of what they can do for your career prospects. Internships are basically a method that companies use to test students who are viewed as potential employees. During their internships, these students are put to work just as any other worker in the company would be. The company can then evaluate how the students perform the tasks that regular employees perform as well. Those students who meet the companies’ standards are usually given offers of jobs when they graduate.

Your college career fair is the best way to get yourself noticed and admitted to a company under an internship. At every college career fair, company recruiters are on the lookout for talented students who might be eligible for internships, in the hopes that these students will eventually become valued employees once they graduate. If you are able to impress recruiters at your college career fair, then you stand a good chance of securing a valuable internship as well.

This is a great achievement, especially during these troubled times, as you could very well find yourself with a job offer on your plate before your even graduate – something that many people who have already graduate still do not have.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) recently commissioned a survey to find out how much Americans know about insurance. Understanding insurance is very important when you are comparing insurance quotes to find the best deal to fit your specific insurance needs. The NAIC survey found most people didn’t know quite as much about insurance as they thought. Part of the survey was a 10-question “Insurance IQ” quiz and survey takers averaged only four correct answers. These results contrast with the reported confidence in their insurance knowledge by survey takers. Sixty percent reported feeling “very confident” when making insurance decisions and a mere 15 percent reported insecurity in insurance matters.

To give a quick sample of the NAIC Insurance IQ quiz, here are three questions with answers:

1. Does auto insurance automatically cover a rental car?
2. Can you own a house without homeowners insurance?
3. In general, how much life insurance is recommended in relation to your annual salary?

If you answered, no, yes and 5-7 times your annual salary, you bested the majority of 1,000 American adults who got them wrong in a 10-question quiz designed to test the nation’s Insurance IQ. Indeed, on average, Americans flunked the test with only a 40 percent score — a solid “F” by most U.S. educational grading standards.

If you’d like to take the entire Insurance IQ quiz, head to http://www.insureuonline.org/iiQ_final.htm

The NAIC survey found some interesting information on all types of insurance. For auto insurance it uncovered only 62 percent of Americans know accident history, vehicle safety features and geography are the factors that most impact the cost of car insurance. A lowly 19 percent know the requirement for private mortgage insurance (PMI) on new home purchases is based on the lender and the size of down payment. Fewer than half of survey takers know when the unemployed choose COBRA for health insurance they must cover the entire cost of coverage. Almost 40 percent of survey takers admit to having no idea of how much life insurance to carry based on a yearly income multiplier.

The NAIC does offer some advice for anyone looking for insurance. First is to educate yourself in whatever type of insurance you are looking to purchase and then take that knowledge to shop around and compare insurance quotes from a number of insurance providers. Before you sign an insurance policy, confirm with your state insurance department the insurance provider or agent is licensed in your state. And finally take the time to regularly review your insurance policy so you understand your coverage before needing to make a claim.

Taking stock of your current life insurance policy should be a regular event, but the reality is you probably haven’t given it much thought beyond making your premium payments. If that is the case right now is a great time to evaluate your life insurance coverage for a number of reasons. Economic conditions have put large life insurance providers in the news so it’s a good idea to check into how much protection your life insurance policy has against industry trends, and the life insurance market has fundamentally changed over the last several years.

Life insurance trends

Let’s take a look at that last trend; that the life insurance industry has fundamentally changed over the last several years. If you’ve had your current life insurance policy for five years or longer most likely you can find a much better deal right now. Because life expectancy is rising life insurance – particularly term life insurance – rates are dropping. A good way to take advantage of this trend in term life insurance and still retain access to whole life insurance is to purchase term life insurance with a convertibility feature to eventually turn your life insurance policy into whole life insurance.

Economic conditions and life insurance

Looking at current economic conditions brings two factors into consideration. The first is you want your life insurance provider to remain in business, and if for some reason your life insurance provider can no longer honor your policy you want to ensure you are protected against any loss. To keep tabs on the financial health of your life insurance provider check with all the ratings services such as Standard and Poor’s and A.M. Best on a regular basis. Maybe even weekly. If your life insurance provider’s rating is dropping do take the time to look into the ramifications, financial and otherwise, of leaving your current life insurance provider for a new company.

Is my policy protected?

That becomes a major question when your life insurance provider can no longer honor the policy because of financial problems. The good news is life insurance policies have quite a bit of protection, not unlike bank deposits. If a life insurance company goes under, policy holders get paid before shareholders in the company. Life insurance policies are also backed up by state insurance guarantee associations. It is good idea to find out the limit your state will pay in the event your life insurance provider suffers financial collapse.

Understanding the Effectiveness of Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the best ways of getting your brand message across to a wide range of audience. Email marketing is a useful advertising tool for both online businesses and offline business although the former will benefit more.

Online businesses across the World Wide Web opt for email marketing because of not one but several reasons. A research conducted in 2009 by the Direct Marketing Association reveals that email marketing has actually been able to generate $43.62 worth of ROI for each dollar spent on an email marketing campaign. Experts from the industry believe that the ROI will be around $42.08 on each dollar spent in 2010. But this is not all; according to an Ad Effectiveness Survey conducted by the Forbes Media in the first quarter of 2009 has revealed that e-newsletter and email marketing is now being considered as the second-most effective online advertising tool by customers. The first effective tool is still SEO. The survey also revealed that email marketing is generating huge amount of conversions as well.

Why Email Marketing is Effective?

The effectiveness of email marketing depends on several factors and some of the important reasons for its success include:

• Email marketing allows targeting
• This type of marketing is always data driven
• It is able to successfully drive direct sales
• It is able to build relationships (B2B and B2C) apart from trust and customer loyalty
• It is able to support sales through various channels

Over the years, email marketing has changed in many ways. Today, online marketing services as well as solutions are able to support database integration, database segmentation and other aspects. This is certainly helping the cause because online marketing is getting better and more effective by the day. The advanced methods used today by several online businesses are able to generate “on the fly” emails, which can very well be customized according to the requirements of an individual recipient. You can now target each of your customers separately.

One of the salient points of email marketing and promotions is that it is able to generate immediate or instant action. This can be website downloads, sales, PDF requests, inquiries, request for brochure, registrations, and much more. It has been seen in the recent past that the more informative an email newsletter is, the easier it is to send prospective customers to offline events and stores, create brand awareness, help in increasing brand visibility, strengthen of customer-business relationships, and encouraging trust as well as loyalty.

If you are planning to put together an email marketing campaign for your existing or new clients then here are two important aspects that you need to consider.

Provide valuable information, which is to the point or concise and should focus on customer needs. One more important thing to remember is that your newsletter or e-mailer should be relevant to the product or service you or your business is offering.

Secondly, you should not get carried away. Email marketing will be effective only if you send e-mailers or newsletters once in a fortnight or month rather than every week.

The buying and business habits have undergone a paradigm shift in the past few years. The advancement in science and technology has just added wings to this change. It is not that the traditional models have become extinct but the new methods have just overshadowed them. Online is the buzz word. You will find everyone being attached to the net in one way or the other. Whether it is just to socialize through social networking sites like facebook, twitter etc or looking for business prospects in forums, classified sites and blogs, internet has become a part of our daily chores. Advancement in technology has given an entire new meaning to business. Globalization has changed the way the world operates its business now. All the geographical barriers have been broken and internet has become a necessity.

Technology has taken over the business scenario as well. You will be amazed to know the volume of business generated online these days. Businesses these days have changed their working strategies and are concentrating heavily on online marketing. Online has a huge scope when it comes to doing business. You can sell anything and everything online now. Be it a small thing like a flower, to a expensive thing like a jewelry. All products are available online. Just try to remember the last time you went to the ticket counter to buy a flight ticket. I am sure you cannot recollect that. This proves that power of online business. Hotel bookings, clothes purchase, groceries, mobile phones all can be bought online. There are a number of sites which sell the products. Apart from these you can also offer various services online, like consultancy, financial reports, placement services etc. there are many sites that also propagate the fundamental of online business opportunity.

Just visit these sites and check the opportunity they offer. You will find a few sites that offer you training on how to do online business and also give you the benefit of doing it for them on a commission basis. In this way one can earn a lot by spending a little time on the internet. No would have ever imagined that there is so much scope in online business. Online business opportunities are available in galore and one can earn handsome bucks online. You just need to understand your capability and then go for it. For example there are various portals that allow users to register and offer their services online. Like the sites which have projects of IT and web based applications. There are many companies which run only by generating business online. Similarly there are many firms which sell products online and get a commission on each sale they make. Online business opportunities are galore, one just need to find the right place where they can do it. So why wait and miss out on a life changing opportunity. Get started and experience the magic of online marketing.

Today there is an immense need for the students to resort to career counselors. We all are aware of the growth in the career options available to the students. They have a large menu of options to choose from, however, most of them choose the career which others are taking up or are influenced by relatives or pressurized by friends. However, the true potential of a student can only be realized with professional help. This help is provided by career counselors who give the correct career guidance to the student in accordance his/her career choices with his/her potentialities.

A career counselor is a professional who provides career guidance to individuals irrespective or the age or gender. They are highly trained individuals who give us unbiased opinions and help us making a choice for our career. They not only help us with starting a new career but also include programmes which involve career exploration, personal career development, career change and other career related issues. The main aim of a career counselor is to help us choose a career option which suits our interests, matches our skills and would enhance our personality in the long run.

Many of us our fed up of our job, we do not enjoy the work. This has led to a monotonous life which has stagnated our growth and also affected our personal relationships. The root cause of all these problems is a wrong career choice. However, it is never too late; maybe we still do not realize our potential and are true value. A career counselor can help us short list a few career choices that will not only bring us success but also boost up our confidence level. Young students also seek help from career counselors. They help the students to explore various fields of career by giving the students a vivid picture of all the growing sectors of the world. They conduct personality assessment tests and cognitive ability tests which bring out our areas of strengths and weaknesses and helps us to make a choice. They do no pressurize the students or push them towards a career options, the choice is totally ours, they just guide us to the right path.

In recent times, there has been a strong inclination towards the career counselors by the youth of today. The major reason for this can be the growing competition and the need to achieve the apex of success. With the help of guidance provided by careed counselors, the students can achieve the best to their capability and also render help to the society.

Investing is about making your money work for you.  For many of you the latter part of 2008 and the first five and a half months of 2009 have seen you trying to salvage the funds that you worked so hard to get rather than building your wealth.

Many people in the financial sector have undoubtedly been telling you not to panic. The economy is cyclical. It will recover and over time you will get the money back that you have lost. Look at the charts and graphs. They don’t lie. There have always been high and low cycles and recovery has always occurred. Holding the line probably will get you back to where you were. However, what is going to move you ahead and help you get to where you should have been through the months lost to the recession and recovery?

Loyalty to one’s financial planner, broker or banker is admirable. However, what would you do if you had a job where every payday your employer was to tell you he couldn’t pay you and then asked you to keep on working on the hope that someday you will get all of the money that is owed to you for the work completed? You need to be able to stay in your comfort zone and therefore you need to be proactive whether it is with your job or your investments. Working for someone who doesn’t pay you or having investments that are losing money is not acceptable, especially when there are safe alternatives available.

The corrective action for the employment issue is easy. You change employers. However, the alternatives for the investment issue may not be as easy. What is a safe investment? The best way to illustrate the answer is through an example:

You purchase a revenue property and pay cash for it. You find a tenant who you know will take care of the property, has an excellent income and who will sign a long term lease. You do your due diligence and find that the tenant is financially strong and has an impeccable character. The client moves in and you collect the rent. Because you have no mortgage and the tenant pays the utilities, taxes, and general upkeep of the property you are able to put the net rent in the bank and then use it to invest again and again compounding your return.

Is there risk in the above investment? All investments carry some risk. The strength of the tenant in the above example suggests the risk will be minimal. However, not all people can afford to purchase a revenue property and pay cash for it.

What is the alternative? Consider the following:

You have $1,000 cash each month that basically will be spent and you will have nothing to show for it. You have an RRSP secured by mutual funds totaling $39,000 down from original $50,000. You have been dealing with the same financial planner for years and he is a friend you don’t want to upset. Your total $40,000 is not sufficient to purchase a revenue property free and clear.

This situation presents a few issues that you have to deal with:

1)      How can you invest in safe real estate when you don’t have enough to buy a property outright?

2)      How much of the $1,000/mo. do you want to put to work for you?

3)      How much of the $39,000 should you move to a self directed RRSP and invest in real estate?

4)      How do you invest in something that your financial planner does not offer and still retain his goodwill and friendship?

5)      How do you find an investment you can get out of if you need your money?

The answers for safe investing in this case are simple:

1)      Investing in property has been made easy by syndicators. An investor joins a group of like-minded investors who want to own real estate that has no mortgage. Jointly they have enough money to make the purchase. A debt free private mutual fund trust accomplishes this goal and can have entry levels as low as $1,000. The group owns the building. The tenants pay basic rent and operating expenses with the remaining funds becoming the investors return. The syndicator completes the due diligence and reports to the investors. The challenge may be in finding the right syndicator. The degree of transparency that the syndicator offers will help you make that choice.

2)      The portion of the $1,000 you want to put to work for you is your personal choice. You may not want to give up any of the funds as they represent a lifestyle you want to maintain or you may want to make the full amount productive now which will allow you to spend more in the future. A few private mutual funds allow you to make monthly contributions to your account. It may be as low as $100. Surprisingly,  $100 per month will compound relatively quickly.

3)      There are people in the financial sector who will tell you to invest the whole amount into their investment product. However common sense should tell you that spreading the risk is a wiser choice. Some so called experts suggest that 25% of your investment dollars should be working for you in real estate. Who came up with 25% is anybody’s guess. You should look at your investment portfolio and determine which investments have performed the worst. Those are the ones that you must deal with first. “Stop the bleeding!” Then you should look at the remaining investments and compare their returns to what you will make from receiving your share of the rent in the building your group is purchasing. You may want to move more dollars into that project or perhaps the next building being purchased.

4)      True friendship should never stand in the way of business and investing should be treated like a business. In your review of your existing investments choose the ones that are giving you the best returns and keep them. Your financial planner will appreciate your confidence in his products and will understand your need to move losing funds to something which generates a positive return.

5)      Getting out of an investment in times of need is essential. Many investment companies have penalties if you want to take your funds out of their investment. Be careful when you are investing. Ask about exit strategies and costs for early exit. The bottom line is that it is your money and you should be able to take it back when you need it. However if you do not deal with this issue up front you may have a problem down the road.

Investing safely hasn’t changed over the years. Real estate has made many millionaires and will continue to do so. Recession creates fear. Fear leads to bad decisions. You should never have to play catch up with your investments. You must manage those investments intelligently in both good and bad times. Sitting doing nothing is the worst thing you can do. Making your earnings earn more is the key to becoming wealthy. Recovering what you have lost is really a step backwards.  Consider investing in real estate. Keep moving forward.