We have tos stop our interdependence on the world and go back to taking care of ourselves fiscally. The way to do that is to create work that will be profitable and encourage companies to come and stay in the US and not flee. At the same time, companies are getting incredible tax breaks and they need to be fair about this as well because developing nations aren’t developing as much and people internationally are running out of cash and steam.

Maybe I am wrong on this but with what appears to be about 42% unemployment I think that it is time to scream at our politicians and make them do something or limit their terms and vote them out now.

Just sayin’.

Good luck everybody.

We Need To Make J O B S F A S T

If the bills are piling up, start organizing them into what is a higher priority than the other one.  That will make it easier to also start cutting back on spending for things that you don’t need or won’t use.

If you are running low on medicine that you need, make sure that you get it.  Your health has to stay intact so you can make it through the Depression we are in and out to better times.

Expect the bad times to last for about five years.  If you are out of work now, start looking at what job do you want to do to make a living.  Take advantage of the down time to start retraining yourself for something that is marketable.  The so-called green industries are thriving and despite Caterpillar stock dropping like a rock (boo hiss) there is a lot of infrastructure work that is needed in this country and we need more engineers.

Keep your brain sharp by doing crosswords, puzzles, brain teasers and memory games like Concentration.  Ever play the game of Concentration?  It is easy.  Get a deck of cards, shuffle it and place them on the table in a tableau ( a table) layout so the cards look like a board.  With at least one friend, take turns turning over two cards trying to make matching cards.  If you get a Jack with oe card and a Two with the other number, that isn’t a match.  Two sixes are a match.  You get to keep the cards that you matched.  Winner of the game is the person who can get the most sets.  It is a great game for matching things and keeping yourself sane by keeping your memory skills sharp.

Practice your writing skills on a computer.

Keep your mind sharp by playing chess with the computer on increasing levels of difficulty.

Exercise, exercise and exercise.  Keep your body moving and healthy to keep your brain young and agile.  You can do it.

Watch your expenses and try to watch your diet.  By avoiding too many snacks you can save money and keep yourself alive longer by watching your weight.

—–

There may be relief coming now with the stimulus bill being signed.  Medical benefits may be covered a little longer and better with the government paying for part of the missing COBRA benefits.  That will lower the payments for those of us who are unemployed to something little easier to pay.

For those of us who are under-employed there will be a little extra money in each paycheck.  Our Federal taxes will have less money taken out.

And no shock here, the State of California STILL hasn’t balanced the budget.  Sheesh.  We have people waiting for their refunds here!  Come on gang, get with it.  Californians, get ready to vote them all out of office if they don’t get with the program.  People are losing their homes and are hungry here!

—–

Interested in any of my books?  You may want to make a stop over  here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale. If you like poker, Heroes (the TV series), comic books, Watchmen, etc, there may be some fast links to get you to what you are looking for.  Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax”?   Please order it today.  The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars!

 If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book listed below.  Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book  go  to Rett Syndrome research.  One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes.   My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime.  Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

 Kim Isaac Greenblatt

How To Stay Sane While Unemployed

The President and Congress have to do something.  Already farmers who can’t afford water are going to let some of their crops go and have smaller harvests.  That cuts into our food supply.  People who are out of work cannot afford to buy goods, services or pay their bills.  That will cause more companies to lay off or fold.  I have a solution.

The solution is to get the money into the hands of the average person by doing something to get more jobs going faster.  How about crash courses in skills that the government is still in need of?  The government still needs computer programmers, attornies, technicians, engineers, social scientists and linguists.

We need the space race going again and fast.  We need to get out of the Depression by uniting everybody together in a race for Mars.  We need to get large and small companies funding so they can employ people and get the national economy, and by extension, foreign economies going.

Realizing it won’t happen over night, we all still need to live over the next six months to a year till things get going.  If the President and Congress wanted to make a difference, the economic stimulus package should be $10,000 per family but even that would blow us out of the water in the long haul with inflation.  A lot of American cities will be turning into ghost towns.  Look at Detroit.  People either will need to migrate out of their cities like in the Dust Bowl days or government needs to do something to get off shore jobs back in America.

There are a lot of problems going on internationally and I would expect our Administration to address them.  The first priority though is to get an economic recovery going.  Everybody can talk and think clearly when they have a roof over their head, some clothes on their backs and food on their tables and stomachs.  If people are going to be hurting in one of those three areas they will make bad decisions and we don’t want things to drop into chaos.

I am hoping the infrastructure programs take off and lead to more programs and work.  We need to rebuild our roads, dams, etc – long time readers know that is one of my harp points.  My concern is that the execution of the plan will not be co-opted by corruption and the money not getting to employ people or by getting shoddy materials.

People, keep our politicians accountable!

On a skewed note, I was watching on 60 Minutes that they were showing studies where people who are hungry and eat less tend to live longer lives.  I am going to take a cue from that and maybe start watching what I am eating and cutting my portions down even more than I am doing now.  I walk 1.5 – 2 miles a day and I know that watching one’s diet is an important thing to take care of as well if one wants to have a profitable life.

Keep those questions and comments coming, folks.  Anything I can do to help – ask away.

Be safe, happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.

Interested in any of my books?  You may want to make a stop over  here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale. If you like poker, Heroes (the TV series), comic books, Watchmen, etc, there may be some fast links to get you to what you are looking for.  Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax”?   Please order it today.  The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars!

 If you are laid off, looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book listed below.  Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book  go  to Rett Syndrome research.  One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes.   My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime.  Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

I am calling it – we are in a Depression

2. Medical technician – I think we have way more radiologists (x-ray technicians), phlebotomists (the people who draw blood for lab work or donations), and other technical chops related to medical needs unless you actually are programming code for heart pumps, firmware, etc.  Thanks to tons of websites and surveys stating how much of a need we would have for these types of jobs I see that (at least in major cities), there is a surplus of these type of people.  If I am work, drop me a line or post below and give us your take on this particular aspect of business.

 For people coming to America to look for positions in these fields as well, for the immediate future, more and more hospitals and private medical services are limiting their hours, closing their doors, and just finding it not cost effective due to tough insurance reimbursements to stay in business.  Also, if you are thinking of working in India, they already have a surplus of medical technicians there was well.  If you are going into this field to carry on the family business, go for it, otherwise, you may want to rethink this vocation.

3. Medical billing – This particular gig has been hyped up even more than being a medical technician.  Too many people are doing this and there aren’t enough doctors, hospitals or solvent insurance companies to make a living with this.  You may get some accounts but competition is pretty fierce out there already.

4. Recruiter Business -  With more and more companies requiring you to apply through their Internet portals, the position of recruiter is being delegated for specific niche positions or industries where they require a little more extensive screening than their websites offer.  If you think you have the skills for that niche, I would say give it a try,  otherwise, I have seen more recruiters fail than succeed in the last few years.  Start up costs may be low but failure rate is high.

5. Childcare Facilities – Much to the chagrin of some working mothers, you are seeing more and more childcare facilities close.  The reasons?  It could be one of the Three “L”s:  Licensing problems, liability issues, lawsuits.  Daycare centers boom and bust in terms of being scrutinized by local authorities depending on how many kids get hurt and what makes it into the media.  A lot of daycare centers try working under the table with cash only.  That isn’t a good idea, especially if you get caught.  For existing daycare centers, with more parents getting laid off, they aren’t getting paid and in some cases their kids are being yanked from the centers. 

You also better make sure you have a lot of insurance and you have the appropriate legal documents for the parents to sign.  Despite all of that, you still may get sued.  That would take the joy out of taking care of kids for me. 

Ah, you may be saying, “Kim, but I have a huge house. My sister and I love children and we can handle it.  I raised ten kids of my own.” 

Okay, but you really want to make sure that you know what you are doing.  There is a difference between taking care of your own kids and a bunch of other kids that you don’t know about.  What if one of them has a predilection for starting fires at four years old?  In any case, good luck, keep the kids away from sharp objects and make sure you have some liability protection. Check out your local economic market before you decide to start up this gig.  A lot of popular markets are just glutted.

6.   Web Designer - Unless you have some artistic talent that you have won awards with, or a burning desire to do this (in which case you will overcome the odds and be a success at ANYTHING you do) I would stay away from this.  The market is not only saturated, there are too many tools available that allow you to build your own for free from the ground up.  The pay isn’t what it use to be and it takes time to build up your client base and skills to make a decent living doing this.

7. Mediator - People use to try to get into this business because they thought it was “easy money”.  Ha!  The field is glutted with a lot of bad mediators who got into this business because they didn’t need to go to law school to be able to actually make money in the legal system.  Please don’t get me wrong.  I am a mediator-arbitrator and I make some money at this.  The operative word in the last sentence is “SOME”.  

It has taken me a LONG time to get to this position and over the years more and more people have gotten into the profession, at least here in Southern California.  By all means learn the skills of mediation and negotiation and if you decide to get into this business, be aware that you need to do a lot of pro bono (that means “for free”) work in order to get your own practice going. 

Unfortunately, there are already a lot of people doing just that in this business.  Similar to the other gigs, if you have a burning desire to do this, realize you won’t get rich if you make it in this business.  You will have a hard enough time trying to just make a living at it.

8. Travel Agent - There use to be a need for this job for people who are on the go and didn’t have time to plan their vacations.  Now, thanks to easy access to websites that will do everything for you except fill your airplane with gas and tuck you in your bed in your hotel room in French Polynesia’s Bora Bora, it is all self-service.  If there are any perks (discount flights, hotel stays off season, etc) think of getting a gig where you can earn enough money to pay for the travel perks yourself without having to sweat a few years to actually reap the benefits of the discounts. 

A lot of the airlines and hotels are dealing directly with the public and offering greater discounts, seasonally speaking, to their guests directly. 

9. Telephone Sales -  More and more people are simply getting on the DNC (Do Not Call) list and they are not tolerating cold calls by phone.  Because of so much fraud over the years and misleading phone calls, the entire industry has been hung up on.  Unless you really are into cold calling and getting a lot of rejection, I would stay away from this job.

10. Anything that you start up that has a buzz word that you have to ask yourself will sound stupid one to two years from now.  Right now, the buzz word is “green”.  “We are going green.”  “You know that our environmentally safe products are great because we’ve gone green.” 

With all due respect to all the groups mentioned here, a few years ago in different markets you   could have purchased products and done business with people who were “Freedom Supporting”  “Black Owned” “Christian Values” “American” “100% European” “World Wide Web Enabled” “Child Friendly” “Meatlovers Only”, etc. 

You get the picture. 

There are a lot of marketing buzzwords or causes that have come and gone.  Now, because of the environment, everything is “Green” and of course, “Eco Friendly”.  Don’t get me wrong.  That may be a GREAT marketing tool in some markets.  If you are actually selling only goods that are  “Made In America” that is a legitimate and honest hook and the tenth point in this article doesn’t apply to you. 

Take for example my case. 

I have a vested interest in finding a cure and treatments for Rett Syndrome for my daughter, Arianna.  I go to Rett functions and see other girls with the Rett gene.  Their is a lot of love, suffering and joy in our lives.  Making people aware of Rett Syndrome is important to me.  Part of all my proceeds from all my book sales go to researching a cure for Rett Syndrome.  Rett Syndrome affects a girl born once every fifteen minutes.  Boys born with the Rett gene die at birth.  The disease affects people regardless of race, creed and color and it is often misdiagnosed.  I have been saying that (and following through) for years.  It is part of what I do. 

If whatever it is you are doing is important to you, like staying green, go ahead and use that in your business as part of the name or marketing.

Just note that the tenth point applies to people who throw the name on for the marketing appeal as a hook to get customers to check them out and weasel their way into getting you to buy something. 

Just do yourself a favor and unless you actually are going to live and breathe your cause, pick a name that you won’t regret a few years down the line if you are still in business that long.

Good luck!  If you  think that I may owe you guys and gals an article on ten businesses that you might want to be in, drop me a line or post…

Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement 

 
Kim Isaac Greenblatt

I get emails with questions about how to get more international sales whether it is actually selling something, offering services or even getting somebody from another country to click through to their website.  The bottom line is are you selling a good product at a good price.

If people can order your product or service, get it in a timely manner, find that you did what you said you would or that the product works, that is it.  As I am fond of saying, there isn’t anything magical or supernatural about it.

When people order my books on tax preparation or money management (which deals with how to get jobs and what to do if you are laid off),  they can see samples of my writing style and they generally know what they are getting into.  The problem with dealing with people in international sales is sometimes you don’t know what is on the other side of the ocean, or shipping costs are prohibitive, or there is sometimes problem in the delivery method.

It is up to you as the seller to insure that the supply and distribution chain that you are using is a sound one so that you can get your product to your customer or client.  Anything else than that will result in a bad deal for both you and your customer.  Sure, you might make a sale but if you lose repeat business or word-of-mouth is that you aren’t a good place to get things from could kill your business.

Another problem is that if you have failed to do adequate localization, you might not be understood.  Localization is a fancy word for tailoring your sales, your business to what the people in your target audience in their part of the world expect to see in their advertising and you need to insure that you don’t use any slang that might be considered offensive, cultural references from another country that don’t make sense, etc.  Have you ever watched a television show from another country and even if you understand the language, get some slang that doesn’t make sense?  Even watching some tv from the BBC here in the US I have to think about what was said, jot down some notes and research what some of the slang is to get some jokes.   A lot of video games go through localization because some nations don’t like the level of violence in a game so the game producers have to tone down or remove or redo certain aspects of games.  Same holds true with movies that are R rated and need to be edited with PG scenes.

Well, either that or stop watching BBC.

Test marketing is a good idea as well and if you know any people that speak the language or know the country you are selling to, it doesn’t hurt to ask them for help.  People all over the world will forgive you if you don’t get their language straight in speech or print if you are trying to communicate with them.

In the meantime, hello to all my readers and friends from around the world and thanks for reading!

Kim Greenblatt

You are reading the profitable blog about international sales.

Chapter Titles for the upcoming book, Practical Money Making – Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION 
WHAT IS YOUR FINANCIAL GOAL? 
NO JOB 
YOUR DAY JOB 
YOUR 2ND JOB 
MY COMIC BOOK DELIVERY BUSINESS 
NON-PROFIT JOBS 
DON’T TAKE ON A JOB WHERE YOU SELL SOMETHING THAT YOU LOVE TO COLLECT 
I HAVE NO MONEY AND I NEED TO DO SOMETHING PART TIME 
MAKE MONEY DOING THINGS THAT PEOPLE HATE TO DO 
THINGS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER WHEN PICKING A BUSINESS 
DEVELOPING PASSIVE INCOME STREAMS 
THINK FOR THE FUTURE 
NEST EGGS 
PAY OFF DEBTS FASTER 
LONG TERM INVESTMENTS 
ACCOUNT FOR TAXES 
WORK AT HOME OR WORK AWAY FROM HOME AND SOME TAXING QUESTIONS 
REVIVING OUR DEAD SERVICE ECONOMY 
DO WHAT YOU LOVE, BUT DON’T LET IT DESTROY YOU FINANCIALLY 
RETIREMENT 
MONEY IS TIGHT AND IT IS ABOUT TO GET TIGHTER 
THREE AWESOME CLOSING BITS OF ADVICE 
 
If you, my readers, have any questions, please let me know.  The book should be out in stores and available on the internet in about a month.  The isbn number is 978-60622-001-6, and the suggested retail price in the United States will be $14.95.

Also, I am taking requests for what my next non-fiction book should be.  Let me know what you want to see.  In the front running is now a book on Special Needs.  It will be more of a general book than my Rett Syndrome book and will focus on financial issues as well as social, physical, mental and spiritual things.

Let me know your thoughts.  Be well, safe and profitable!

Kim Greenblatt

You are reading, Kim Greenblatt’s blog, profitable, and learning about his upcoming book, Practical Money Making,  soon to available everywhere!

What does this have to do with you?   It means that you should at least once a year take stock of your business or job and see where you can clean things up.  Maybe you are a little slow with dealing with problems.  Maybe you react too quickly and that causes more problems some times.

These are the things that you can tweak as you become aware of them.  In some businesses, you can’t win no matter what.  If you are a tax collector people will not be happy with you no matter what you do. 

Some other things to tweak are asking yourself where else can you improve productivity?  Maybe there is something literally that you need to clean up.  If you are in the restaurant business and find that you didn’t get that “A” rating if you are in Los Angeles, California, you are probably wondering what else you can do to boost your health rating for your food. 

Maybe you have some money leaks in your business and it is time to start plugging them up.  It isn’t the big losses that sometimes kill us, it can be the small nickel and dime losses or differences that will add up and cumulatively be a problem.

So make sure that when you clean your house, you also remember to do some cleaning at your business. 

Now I need to take a shower because all this sitting in dust and dirt is starting to make me itch….

Kim Greenblatt

Kim Greenblatt welcomes you to his blog, profitable, and talks about cleaning his home office and cleaning your business.