Are you looking to make a career change? But don’t have the time to head back to classes. Or maybe you can make time for the classes but can’t afford to cut back hours at work. I know a few people in these situations. They want to head back to school to get ahead in their jobs or want to move on to bigger and better things. But trying to get back to school is just impossible. Not anymore, I found a site that offers MBA Podcasts. Many business schools are offering fully accredited MBA programs online. If you’re looking for this type of learning do a simple Google search, you’ll find what you’re looking for.

With the economy in one of the worst shapes it’s ever been in since the great depression, people are scared and have no clear idea what to do with their money. The U.S markets as well as the world markets are showing signs that things are still improving slowly. But you know what, the bottom could fall out in one day, that’s how bad things still are. Me personally I review the U.S markets every hour on the hour, I drive my wife crazy reporting to her. I do this because it’s not about long term investing for me lately, it’s short term. I only care what our investments ending at for the day. I think this way because we took a really hard hit last year, and that’s not going to happen this year. Once I see a sign of bad news or a report that comes that’s not going to be good I get ready to sell. I wouldn’t recommend this to any one, because it takes a lot of watching and reading, but we need to get our money back, which we are.

If you are in business or thinking of going into business for yourself then read on. The hardest part of running or starting a business is securing funds. Most businesses fail within their first year, not because of poor customer service, or your products and service. It is because of the o-mighty dollar. Most businesses that start out today require a lot of money. And if you don’t have the funds to pay for your basic requirements for at least a year out your chances of failing are significantly higher. Basic needs would include things such as paying yourself, your employees, and paying for operating expenses. Now you are probably asking, how do I get the funding if I have been turned down by a few banks? I say, you’re not alone in getting turned down by banks, and don’t take it personally. Banks have tightened their belts on handing out business loans. They mostly have been handing out loans that are considered very low risk. So now it’s time to look elsewhere. Check out loan and funding companies. Their interest rates will be higher, but the chances are you’ll get your money. Some will require a few minimal requirements. You really need to look for the money. If you look hard, you’ll find it, it’s out there. Good luck in your searches, and make sure you read all small print before you take out the loan.

Are you one of the one million plus people who have lost your job this year? And are you still unemployed, but hunting for employment? If so you’re not alone, there’s over a half a million people doing the same thing. And some professions have been hit harder than others have. For example the legal professions have been hit pretty hard with the collapse of Wall Street and big corporations. And if you’re an attorney looking for employment it could be harder to stick out. And with all these websites out they’re offering job search’s you just don’t know who to use or where you’re going to get the best results. I did come across a site that offers job searches and matches that could work for any profession, even legal jobs. Just do a simple job search via Google and you will see a ton of sites to go to. You just might have what you’re looking for to get ahead and get that new job you’ve been seeking. So click your way on over now.

I just read an article online that states that the Blu-ray Disc Association recently started to license their technology to Chinese manufactures. You all know what that means, Blu-Ray players for under $100 bucks. I hate to say it, but that’s when I’ll get one. If we could build these players and sell them at a much more affordable price I would have gotten one a long time ago. Right now these Blu-Ray players are selling for more than $200, which is way to high in my opinion. And the disc’s cost about twice as much as the standard DVD, why? I once heard that making a Blu-Ray disc was cheaper than making a standard DVD. The same happened when we went from a VHS tapes to a DVD, it was cheaper to make the DVD. At the time they where selling the DVD for twice the amount of the VHS tape. If these makers would stop being so greedy we wouldn’t need Chinese manufactures to get the pricing under control, and people would by more things made in the USA. I really feel that if the maker of anything would charge reasonable prices for their products we would be much better off than what we are now. The greed needs to stop!

I have a few questions for all of you. Are your fed up with your hosting provider? Does your site have a lot of down time? And do you feel that your hosting provider could deliver much better customer service? If you answered yes to any of these questions you need to seek out another provider, fast.

If you’re business website constantly goes down it will cost you money, and customers. If you’re a site owner, business or personal, you know how hard it is to find reliable web hosting, which is very critical to your business. As most of you know, when your site goes down you just want to pull your hair out. You purchase a plan, your promissed up site time, then out it goes, drives me nuts. So do what I did, research, research, and research your next provider. Call them, talk to someone on the phone. Most of these providers don’t offer toll free numbers, but that’s not a big problem. They just want to reduce the calls for low level questions. To avoid phone charges, call from your cell phone. I know I’m running on here, but I can’t stress enough, call your provider, and research them. Good luck on your searches.

MySpace stated that they will be cutting more of its work force. Their claim is because they want to get more inline with Facebook. I read Facebook employs a little over 800 people, MySpace now will employ about 1,000 employees. This reduction will cut a few hundred more people to lose their jobs. And on top of the layoffs, Facebook is leaving MySpace with U.S. users. I read that both now have a few hundred million users each. MySpace is falling while Facebook is growing. Facebook is a much cleaner and user friendly system. Facebook doesn’t allow all that crap that MySpace does. This is the reason why I think MySpace is getting hurt, all the junk they allow on their site.

It seems that eBay is still struggling in this recession. Their 2nd quarter earning is down about 5 percent, but ahead of what analysts where looking for. They, eBay reported $2.1 billion, which is better than losing money if you ask me. I can also say that I personally have seen a drop with using eBay. My sales have dropped on eBay by a lot. I was getting a few sales a week, now I’m lucky if I get a few questions a week. I even started to search the net to find other sites to sell on. The problem I’m having is that I can’t find anywhere else to sell at, and that stinks. I think the problem with eBay isn’t the recession, it’s the way they revamp their system, and prices. If you’re a seller on eBay you know what I’m talking about. What I would like to see eBay do is go back to the way they where, and maybe sales for them will go back up. I sure would use them more often.

No Contract Needed!

My Wife and I went looking for new cell phones. Our contract was up, 2 years ago, we never renewed because they didn’t require it, and plus we weren’t sure if we wanted another contract. We were with the same company for over 10 years, so we weren’t sure if we wanted someone else. Anyway, we wanted new phones with better text and web access. What we really wanted was to get on Twitter and Facebook with our phones, plus a few other sites. But we didn’t want to purchase a $600 Blackberry. So in order to get free phones we would have to enter into another 2 year contract, which we weren’t ready to do again. So we decided to look at all the major cell phone providers, you know who they are, before we agreed to another contract. We even looked at Boost Mobile, a new provider in our area. Boost didn’t require a contract, we could get a Blackberry for $150 bucks, and all data plan that includes everything for $60 a month per phone. Which we both like because we can get on the web, get some great free apps, and get on Facebook. They even provided a way to reload your account, it’s called Re-Boost. Re-Boost is a way to reload your account to fund your plan. I will end with this, these guys, Boost Mobile, are worth considering for our next provider. I will be reading more about them to make sure their the right fit for us.

Are you a business owner looking to increase your sales in this economy? I am, and I’m always looking for new ways to increase my sales. Lately however it’s been really tough going with sales. It seems what ever I try to do it’s just not working like I want it to. Some of the things I have is running discounts and compiling services, selling packages basically. I’ve even lowered prices on a few of the products I offer, which has worked a little. But when you start lowering prices it underscores your products services in my opinion. And then what do you do with the customers you have paying full price, do you lower them as well? I know I would want my price lowered if I was a customer paying full price.

So I’ve been looking for new ways to get my name out there. One way is marketing offline, something I’ve never thought about before. Since all of my services and products are related to webmasters and site owners I’ve never marketed offline. I’ve been thinking about doing some direct marketing by sending out fliers. I’m even thinking about sending a postcard to some of my customers to let them Know I appreciate their business. I think by sending a full color postcard could go a far way, and hopefully bring in new customers. I know I would like to receive a great looking postcard with the vendors I do business with. The cost of a few postcards is very cheap, and the amount of business coming in could be huge. After all word of mouth is the best form of marketing. The more people you have saying great things about you will grow any business. What do some of you think about marketing online services offline, do you think it would work?