 Strengths + Skills + Character + Opportunities = Career Success
Create opportunities for career success. Start with strengths that come to you naturally and easily, then learn skills that compliment your strengths, and build character to create opportunities for career success. As you learn more about yourself you will find skills you want to master and opportunities that fit your values. Are you more of an intuitive communicator who creates from your heart or an analytical innovator who designs from your head? Valuing your strengths - the natural abilities you were born with - will drive you to develop skills you want to use for your business or job. Your skills are demonstrated in your product, analysis, data, and abilities but your heart will draw your audience to interact with you. Your career success starts with you. Are you writing your business plan, setting up your portfolio, or looking for a job? You need to be able to clearly express your strengths. You know you are working in your strengths when time goes by so quickly you don't know what happened. You are in the zone. The neurons in your brain are firing and your face lights up when you talk about what you are doing. Not sure about your strengths? Try this: Talk to a friend about something you did or are working on that you really enjoy doing. Notice your friend's expression. Are they listening and interested in what you are saying? Ask your friend if you look enthusiastic or passionate about what you are describing. If your friend doesn't appear really interested in your project, you may need to rethink your project or find your passion in doing it. You might even network and find someone with a similar interest to stir up your passion. When you write about your strengths on social media, do people respond? Your LinkedIn profile should include your strengths, values, and something your are passionate about. Social media is a tool to reach a wider audience and monitor the reaction to your work. When you share your product or service with a customer, prospective partner, or employer you will need to show your excitement to generate their enthusiasm. Value yourself and your work. Start sharing today! Want to know more about how to show your strengths, skills and character?
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 It's been a busy month accounting for books on this year's taxes as well as preparing for next year. Keeping records and preparing taxes is fairly simple for my coaching practice since I was selling a service with no inventory.
Last year I published my first book, Fire Up Your Profile For LifeWork Success to add value to my coaching practice. Well before April 15th rolled around I wished I had hired a tax accountant or bookkeeper. We got in the habit of doing the taxes ourselves using Turbo Tax and didn't realize the difference it made when we added inventory the need for Cost of Goods Sold--not as simple as it appeared. I had the idea I could just expense the books I purchased and add my book sales to income. Apparently this is a common misconception that oversimplifies the process. According to the IRS, the following items need to be taken into consideration when computing COGS:
Last year I used the free inventory program InFlow for PC. It was simple to set up and generated useful reports for sales, sales tax, and books used. It has been years since I worked in bookkeeping, and I realized I hadn't kept the detailed records that would have been helpful. This year I found AccountingEdge Pro for Mac in an inexpensive Apple Bundle and decided to give it a try. It takes longer to set up since it uses double entry accounting. It has a lot of online support articles and videos which were helpful, so after setting up my business, I realized I made some errors in the setup. I decided to change the original company setup to a test company, and then start a new company set up with a another company name. There doesn't appear to be a limit to the number of customers you can add as there was with InFlow and it has a Cost of Goods Sold account. I believe things will go much smoother when April comes around next year. Improvements I made this year:
We all have the intention of keeping good records throughout the year and having them organized and accessible for taxes. But when you develop a new product it initially sells quickly, and it is easy to be excited and overwhelmed with initial success. When deciding what products you want to sell, consider your bookkeeping and taxes. After selling some books, I was ready to increase my clients and move on to the next book. I didn't want to spend more time on record keeping and mailing than was necessary, but in my enthusiasm I mailed books to different locations, sold them at special prices, and didn't invest the time needed to understand the implications. Understanding the implications of different methods of selling a product will help in making decisions and keeping up accurate records. An eBook you sell on your website doesn't require inventory and the bookkeeping that goes with it, but if you sell a PDF yourself it can easily be shared with people who didn't purchase it. Selling your book through an online company like Amazon or Barnes & Noble simplifies your bookkeeping. They send you a 1099-Misc form for royalties (which are recorded separately on your tax form) at the beginning of the year for filing your taxes. You don't need to pay for and manage mailing, taxes in different locations, inventory, and cost of goods sold. Shipping to different locations requires the most record keeping. Often the best way for a coach to sell their books is by word of mouth, presentations, classes, and workshops--basically selling your product yourself out of the trunk of your car. You may even want to carry a book with you so that when someone wants to buy it, you have one handy. Just remember to record all of the books you sell. It is also easier if you sell all of your books for the same price. Most customers like an even amount to pay--especially if paying cash--so I include the tax in the price and round it off to a dollar amount. It's been a great experience selling books, and it has helped my coaching business, but I will do a much better job accounting for books this year whether I hire an accountant for taxes or we do them ourselves. Share tips and ideas you have found for organizing and record keeping for your business products. Reference Cost of Goods Sold and the Tax Gap (FS-2006-23, July 2006). http://www.irs.gov/uac/Cost-of-Goods-Sold-and-the-Tax-Gap. Accessed 4-19-2014. Disclaimer Consult an accountant or appropriate professional for tax information. The intention of this article is to share personal experience and is not in any way tax advice. The current career market is full of surprises, options, and opportunities, but it may not be easy to find the work you want to do at the compensation you desire, at the time and place you want to work--at least not at first. There are numerous changes and transitions throughout our careers.
Career Hopscotch We move back and forth between education, work, family needs, and leisure doubling and tripling roles during different stages of our career development. Transitions flow back and forth like a hopscotch game. You might go to school, work, have a family while continuing to work, then retrain, start a new career and start the cycle again. Sound familiar? "Fire Up Your Profile" pg.124 Student Transitions The best time to find meaningful experience, learn new skills and find work you like to do is while you are in college or a career training program. Internships, volunteer work, and relevant temporary work. http://www.californiacareers.info/downloads/MasterCCPG_v2.0_7-08c.pdf Job Change Transitions You have experience and now you are changing careers because you are choosing a different direction or your employer is changing directions without you. http://susanireland.com/resume/examples/ Military Transitions You have amazing and often diverse experience from your service in the military. Now is the time to translate that military experience into civilian language. http://www.quintcareers.com/work_after_military.html Experienced Worker Transitions You have years of experience. You may have gained expertise in a specific area or you may have diverse experience. Now is the time to assess your economic standing and decide what you want to do next. Are you ready to adjust your schedule and work differently, are you looking for a full time job, or do you have the ability to choose the work you want to do? It is time to use your "Entrepreneurial Spirit" to make career decisions. http://njlifeworkcoach.blogspot.com/2010/11/entrepreneurial-spirit-at-work.html Whether you are a Career Coach, Entrepreneur or employee, reading posts on Facebook with an eye for the needs of others can help you in your business.
A recent study by researcher Ethan Kross, a social psychologist and faculty associate at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, reported by several sources including The Huffington Post, said in a statement, "But rather than enhance well-being, we found that Facebook use predicts the opposite result -- it undermines it." If social media is used as a tool to learn more about others, and reach out to them through your business, giving, and prayer then social media can add to your happiness. When these tools are used to compare yourself to others, avoid real interaction, or passively observe the world you are not taking part in, then it is another way of adding to your unhappiness. We often hear that people talk about frivolous things on Facebook, but the all of the little things make up the big life. As a Personal/Career Coach, I began thinking about all of the trends and life events I hear about through Facebook. People moving, losing their jobs, finding a new career, enjoying their work, building a new business, personal and health concerns, babies being born, and then kids going off to school. I feel the heartbeat of clients and potential clients everyday. If you work with students it would be helpful to know that some of them may be feeling bad about their lives when compared to others on Facebook. How can you help them? Working with creative entrepreneurs, career changers, and job seekers, I can see what people are doing in their businesses and how it impacts their lives. Seeing what people are buying and selling—including what they had for breakfast--gives me a clue about trends that affect business and work. Are people gardening? Traveling? Exercising? Eating healthy? All these things are important trends that help me work with clients. Whether you work directly with people or work with a computer, what people are doing and buying affects the company you work for or the career field you are in. Look at social media with an eye on others rather than yourself and Facebook will be more than a let down. Think of Facebook as a neighborhood where you share with others and build a reputation. Through connections on social media, I sold books, and added clients. Look to the needs of others whether in person or electronically and you will create opportunities for business success. |
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Nancy J. Miller, M.S. is a Certified Life Coach, publisher, and author of "Fire Up Your Profile For LifeWork Success".and "Vegetable Kids in the Garden." With a Master's Degree in Career Counseling, she has over 15 years experience coaching entrepreneurs, writers, job seekers, professionals seeking a career change, and students. Contact Nancy at: success@nancyjmiller.solutions to learn more.
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