The Link Between Education and Wealth Part 1 – Education and Money

As a good citizen who worked hard all of my life, last year I started wondering what happens to all of my money. I was constantly digging in to my overdraft and couldn’t remember the last time I didn’t have a personal loan. Sure, I had normal expenses. I am the only worker in our house and we run a car along with the usual stuff, mobiles, Sky TV etc.

However what I did not realise was how much was stolen from me by the government. It seemed I had been sleepwalking through adulthood not realising what was happening. I was part of the biggest cash heist in history and I wasn’t the only one! My money, which I work hard for was been stolen from me via taxes, inflation, debt and my diminishing pension. WOW! But what could I do to prevent this?

One thing is certain and it is that there are winners and losers when it comes to money. 96% of us are in the losers bracket, herded around like sheep, happy and content if we have a small amount of money at the end of the month. There are however an increasing amount of people who are experiencing too much month at the end of the money!! When I say increasing I should say cascading.

The last 2 governments have told us untruths about the “global recession”.

Try telling parts of Asia we are in a global recession, I was visiting my best friend in Singapore earlier this year and the future was looking very bright. The massive growth taking place in China and India is all over the press. Sure, they have a long way to go but they are moving in the right direction.

Try telling emerging countries like Brazil that they must tighten our purse strings and save for a rainy day. The truth is that 88% of countries have a higher growth rate than the UK. These are countries like Poland, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Uganda. Nigeria and Ethiopia to name a very few. These countries are managing their growth perfectly well during this “global recession.”

But what can we do now?

The answers will divide opinion but my own view is we have to become more entrepreneurial. We can no longer rely on the government of the day to look after us. We have to start listening to the right people, we have to change our mindset to adapt to a changing world. Simply put, we have to start to look after ourselves.
We have to change the way we think through education. Schools have 2 types of education, academic and professional. These are very important but they do not teach us financial literacy so we must learn this for ourselves. When we learn it we must start to educate our children and encourage them to educate theirs. Financial education has nothing to do with how academic you are or how much money you make, but more so what you do with the money you make.

Last June InvestUS attended the National Achievers Congress at The Excel Arena on the bank of the River Thames. There were 3500 entrepreneurial minded people at the congress. Most of the people attending were very successful and considered the £250 ticket price, a bargain. The energy created was incredible, the education was mind-blowing and the speakers were some of the most inspiring people you could ever meet.

During the afternoon of day 2, a straw poll was taken. Attendees were asked a series of questions and had to remain sanding if a particular statement applied to them. The net result was staggering! Out of 3500 attendees at this congress, only 7 people went to university, got the grades they studied for and were now working in their field of study. Of those 7 people, all were investors so they were excused by the other 3493 bewildered delegates. The average student leaves University with good grades and £23 000 of debt. If we take the conference, around 2000 people were still standing at the “did you go to university stage”. 2000 people will create £46 million of debt. Many of them will struggle for successive years to pay this money back, this is no way to start your working life. I will leave it to you to work out the relationship between £46 million of debt vs 7 people working in their field of study. My brain is scrambled trying to comprehend it.

I often look at the people who didn’t go to university. In many cases, these were labelled stupid at school. The disruptive one at the back. We all hear stories about how well these “thickies” did in their working life. Most were not bright enough to go to university so they were forced out of education and became entrepreneurial thinkers educating themselves in the real world. We are all aware of the merits and success of high profile entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Bill Gates who decided for what ever reason that they preferred the education of life as opposed to studying “industrial age theories”. There are however, thousands of people you will never have heard of, for example:

Robert Braithwaite left school with no qualifications at the age of 14. he is now worth £130 million.

Charlie Mullins runs a plumbing business and is worth £14 million.

Lawrence Graff left school at 13 and is now worth £2 billion.

I could list hundreds of these people but you can find them for yourself. We need to have successive generations thinking like entrepreneurs to once again become a progressive nation. Entrepreneurs are not bothered about market forces, they don’t lose their jobs during a recession, they don’t mind who is in government because they position themselves to make money and create jobs whatever happens. They take the good with the bad and move on. They solve financial problems by constantly searching for new answers and we must all be encouraged to take their lead. Sounds like a great job to me!!

I am not advocating that education is a waste of time. I am all for encouraging people to be the best they can in terms of education. What I am stating here though is some areas of the education system have to change. We need educating in finance and free thinking and not in how to become “good employees”. Being good employees will simply put you in the hands of the state, surely this is not what you work all of your life for?

Postage Meters For Small and Home Based Businesses Save Time and Money

How Home Business Can Take Advantage of a Pitney Bowes Postage MeterHome businesses are expanding throughout the world and with this evolution, a postage meter, such as those from Pitney Bowes (who produces 90% of the postage meters on the market) can add a dimension of professionalism. The Internet has given just about anyone who wants to, the opportunity to operate their own business from the comfort of their own home. Still, although these home-based businesses do not have the same overhead as traditional businesses, each one still needs to monitor its expenses and eliminate unnecessary ones when possible.Home businesses do not necessarily have to be web-based businesses. A hair stylist can run her operation out of her home as can a music instructor. When this happens, though, one factor is almost inevitably overlooked as a way to cut expenses and that has to do with postage. A postage meter offers many advantages to home business owners.When a home business owner needs to communicate with clients, sometimes this requires letters or invoices or any number of forms of paper transactions. Advertising that is mailed also requires stamps. This requires postage – and usually trips back and forth to the post office. Many home business owners claim they do not mind these trips, as it gets them out of the house. When one trip per week becomes two or three, then you are not only detracting from the time you have to promote your business, but you are also spending money on gas to get to the post office and back home.It is easy to overlook just how much a small business spends on postage. A Pitney Bowes postage meter, however, has the ability to track the number of letters and the amount of postage that was spent in a given period of time. When it comes time to track these expenses at the end of the month, there will be no more need for guesswork.A postage meter also eliminates the need to wonder how much postage to place on a given letter or package. A postage meter can weigh the parcel and determine, based on the destination zip code, how much postage is needed. Right down to the penny. How many times in the past have you thrown an extra stamp on a letter because you did not want it returned due to insufficient postage? When you run a business out of your home, the temptation to do this increases dramatically.Another advantage for home business owners that a postage meter offers is the look of professionalism. It is bound to have happened where you receive a letter from a business that was handwritten with a traditional stamp. The look and feel of the letter speaks of being unprofessional. By adding a metered stamp, your home business will look like any seriously professional business operating today. After all, image does mean a lot in the world of commerce.People want to feel that they are doing business with someone who is professional. A postage meter, such as those from Pitney Bowes, will not only save you money and time, it will also add that aura of professionalism people respond to in a positive way.

A Guide on Successful Product Creation and Internet Marketing

Product creation in Internet marketing is getting stiffer and stiffer nowadays owing to tough competition between Internet-based businesses. Putting up a new product requires plenty of brainpower and finances along with an ability to take risk. With that, even if you have the product well-set already, you have to position it strategically in the Internet landscape for others to notice. You should get the interest of Web users and turn them to actual customers. Aside from the usual physical products, many different products that thrive well on Internet marketing include E-books, membership sites, and video lectures.

The long and difficult process of product creation begins with ideas. They are easy to get – compared to the effort that comes with analyzing the market for that idea. Before the idea turns to a product, businesses often spend money, even amounting to millions of dollars, to ensure the success of the new product that emerges from an idea. Businesses undertake many types of market research and surveys before releasing their products to the public. Now, you may think that because your business is small, you can’t afford research or you don’t have to do research; you can and you should. The Internet allows you to disseminate materials needed for your market study to many people at once without your having to spend a cent.

It is a common maxim in business: Look at your destination first before mapping out your journey. So what are the goals you intend to accomplish with your product creation ventures? The everyday travails of your business may make you forget the end in sight. On the other hand, prepare to entertain new developments that come to your mind in your product creation. Your conception of a product may have started this way, but a few tweaks here and there along with some market research results and it ends up another way. Take it as the result of a creative process, not as a failure to reach your goal. After all, your product creation activities are intertwined with a long-term goal that you should strive to sustain at your utmost: profit generation. So if your less profitable initial idea evolves to a more profitable product, be thankful!

With your product made up already, start doing some aggressive Internet marketing. A product purchase typically comes after more than five times a customer is exposed to an informative call-to-buy message. Thus it is important to get the contact details, like the e-mail address, of potential customers who are on the brink of a sale. Use the results of your market research to determine the demographics to which you should concentrate your marketing efforts.

With consistent product creation, you can make an inventory of your products that you can market in due time. Just keep making products – the moment you succeed in making and marketing a product, customers are surely wanting more from you, so give it to them. Keep them on your side through constant product creation.