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If it’s time to find a new term life insurance policy, the best way to get the information you need to make a decision is to request term life insurance quotes online. This will be faster than calling around to local insurance agents for prices, and will also enable you to make sure that you are getting the best possible deal. Don’t make a decision about which policy you purchase until you have researched the options available online.

Guest Post by Jim DeBetta- President, Academy for Entrepreneurs

Lets face it….inventing is NOT easy and not knowing what to do with your idea can even be more difficult.  I always have a special appreciation for inventors and idea people – to be able to look at something and truly create a way to make it better is a gift, and creating something new from your mind is a whole other level.  While the mind gears are turning and the excitement over “what can be” builds, you wonder how you bring this idea to life.  What do you do, how do you do it, who do you turn to?  All things that weigh on your mind seemingly night and day.

The psychology of inventing…..and how to put your mind to work to do something extraordinary!
I talk to inventors everyday and almost all of them say the same things to me – “I have a great idea and have been thinking about it for years”, “I work for xyz company and I have an idea on how to improve something we do”, I enjoy gardening and came up with a new tool to make it easier”, and so on and so on. 

After hearing their stories, the same questions come to mind – “why haven’t you done anything about it?” “What’s holding you back?”  As we all know, lack of money is not always the issue.  Rather, people tell me they are too busy with everyday life, they are fearful they do not have the skills to get things going, they want help but are confused as to what to do next.  The answers I get are often “mental” barriers and I am here to say  that YOU CAN DO IT, and you can get from the idea stage to the actual product development stage.  You are truly strong enough, smart enough, and more talented then you may think. 

I have seen and worked with many inventors with little or no business experience and working full time jobs with kids at home make a great success of themselves.  How do they do it?  They just know that no matter what they were going to do what it takes and that nothing was going to stop them from reaching their goals.  They are positive people.  They are wise enough to realize that bringing a product to life is not easy and it takes time…and often a lot of time.  They also know when to seek out help and learn what they can do on their own and when they need to seek out the professional advice of others who know more about the process then they do.  Attitude is HUGE and perseverance is critical in anything in life you wish to achieve.  Inventing is no different.

WHAT YOU MUST DO IN ORDER TO SUCCEED

• Understand that inventing is a gift and no matter who you are or what you do that you can bring your idea to life
• Know your limitations and learn from others who have been where you are now and where you are about to go
• Have passion (must be in you) and allow others to feel it
• Be in it for the long haul.  It often takes years to realize your dream but nothing great comes fast or easy
• Rich or poor, young or old, I have seen all types of people succeed and fail so devise a game plan and work it out with someone you trust

Inventing, like many things in life, has its ups and downs.  When you are a bit down and out about your idea and where it is going, take a break for a few days.  Stop working on your invention and do something else.   That little break may be all you need to reignite that inner drive.  You know it is there – you are an inventor!  But sometimes we need a “mental vacation” from the very things that inspire and motivate us to make us better and stronger…..

Guest Post Provided by Simona, ABI Marketing and Public Relations

During a recession BtoB marketing is an investment. You have to do it in the bad times to realize gains in the good times. While many companies only market after a recession is over, the real winners emerging from economic hard times are the ones that do the exact opposite. Aggressively marketing after you’ve won business means that you’re essentially buying into the market after it’s regained value. You may feel good when your numbers return but you’ve actually missed a huge opportunity during the economic recovery.

Here are 5 quick tips to make sure you don’t miss that opportunity during and after this economic crisis.

Get the full presentation here (Link)

1.) Cultivate New Markets

While the recession may be contracting your core customers and the markets they serve, it doesn’t mean that you can’t explore other markets. Communicating your value to these markets is important to gaining business from them during the recession and afterward.

2.) Feel Their Pain

Your customers are very likely feeling the same economic pressures you are. Communicating how you can help reposition their products or help them enter new markets transforms you from a supplier to a partner. That’s a good thing to be in economic good times and bad.

3.) Keep Communicating with Lost Customers

Building a solid foundation for business is seldom about keeping all of your customers all of the time. Communicate with both customers and former customers as well as prospects about new innovations, new market opportunities, and trends in the marketplace. This is important now, during the recession, and after during the recovery.

4.) Be a Thought Leader

Being a partner in business puts you in a better position in good times and bad. Let your customers know that you have your eye on the big picture and that you can help them take advantage of some of the larger trends impacting the marketplace. Trade publications are a great way of communicating directly to your customer base and there is a wide range of new technology tools (blogs, podcasts, social media) that make communicating directly to customers an additional possibility.

5.) Create a Plan (And Stick With It)

Having a plan and realistic goals can help not just weather the hard times but actually grow business. This does not necessarily mean growing sales figure over last year — but it may mean breaking into a new market, winning over new customers or simply staying in touch with customers that had to put you on hold for a few months.  Have a 1 to 2 years marketing and communications strategy that takes any adverse economic factors into consideration.  You’ll be in a better position than companies that simply cut off marketing until the good times return. When the economy recovers, they’ll be picking up the pieces, and you’ll be grabbing the customers they lost touch with.

Get the full presentation here.

Call Simona at  +1 212.529.4500  or email her at and have ABI tailor a plan for your company today.

I’ve often discussed goal setting and why it is so important. Writing down your goals on paper (whether they are personal or professional) increases your chance of actually accomplishing them. This is actually one of the reasons that most New Year’s Resolutions never come to fruition – they are never written down. Without putting pen to paper, your goals are really just wishes. But once you verbalize your goals, and create a clear plan for achieving them, they are moved from the clutter of bright ideas and wishful thinking into the realm of the possible.

What do you do if you want to take a fantastic vacation? You plan your trip. First, you decide where to go. You are located in point A and you want to travel to point B. That is your goal. Now how do you accomplish it? Perhaps you’d like to hire a car and driver so you can relax and read for the 1,000 mile trip. But as you work through your plans, you realize that driving would be neither time- nor cost-effective. So you tweak your plan, investigating airline and railroad fares and itineraries in order to continue moving in a direction toward your original goal – successfully.

The example may be a simplistic one, but it shows how goal setting and planning should at least become a part of your weekly exercise. If your goal is to sell 10,000 widgets in the third quarter, what is your plan for reaching that goal? Have you stepped up your marketing program to drive more lead generation? Are you going to offer a bundle package to drive more sales? If you don’t write it all down, will you still continue to work toward making the mark? Probably not. And if you don’t write it down, along with a plan to accomplish your goal, how will you know if your time and money is being well spent? You’ll have no idea how to measure the return on your investment.

Are you committed to really pushing the envelope and reaching for things that might seem hard to achieve? I challenge you to go for it. Now is not the time to sit back and wait for something great to happen. You must take the grasp the reins, so to speak, and drive your company forward in a positive motion with all of your wisdom, energy, creativity, and experience. Remember, goals don’t necessarily have to be attached to a concrete dollar number. They can be as simple as writing three blogs a week or reading one educational article a day. You may have many mini-goals that actually help you achieve a larger umbrella goal. Regardless of size or impact though, keep these few things in mind in order to achieve whatever goal it is that you set.

- Commit your goal to paper. Whether you write those goals down on paper, log them into a spreadsheet, or key your ideas into your smartphone, committing your goals to the written word is the first step to achieving them. Remember, too, that you can have short-term AND long-term goals. What do you plan to accomplish in the next three months? Six months? Five years? Ten years? Make a wish and turn it into a goal by putting it in writing.

- Make your goals visible. After you have them on paper, post your goals where you can see them on a daily basis. If you wrote them down in a file on your computer or Blackberry, print them out or better yet, scan them in and make them your screen saver. The more you’re reminded of what you’ve set your sights on, the better the chance you have of working toward and accomplishing them.

- Create realistic, measurable goals. I want to lose weight is not a goal. It’s a hope and a dream. I want to lose 10 pounds by June 1 is a goal. It has a definable element that can easily be measured (you either step on the scale on June 1 and have lost 10 pounds or you haven’t) and you have a deadline as to when you need to meet that goal.

- Create a plan to achieve the goal. Obviously you’re not going to write down your goals and then just wait for them to happen. You must create logical steps that will successfully get you from point A to point B. It sounds simple enough, but keep an open mind as you create these strategies. What happens if, three weeks into your plan, your vendor runs out of widgets and you won’t even have 10,000 to deliver even if you get the orders? Consider what you might do if all of a sudden, a new state-of-the-art widget was available that was clearly better than the one you planned on selling. Would you still sell the original one or would you revisit your goals and tweak them accordingly? Stay on task but be flexible in order to adapt to changing situations. Allow yourself to make changes along the way, so long as those changes still contribute to achieving the original end result.

The hardest part about setting and then reaching goals is actually remembering to establish those objectives in the first place. We get so caught up in the day-to-day operations of our businesses and obsessed with our “To Do” lists, that we forget to sit back and look at the big picture. In reality, if your “To Do” list is full of tactics that will help accomplish your goal, then by all means, keep working your way down that list. However, if you find yourself simply going through the motions and completing busy work, then it’s time to step back and revisit what your goals really are.

A dedicated marketing professional, Michelle Kabele has been helping technology companies develop award-winning channel partner programs and marketing strategies for over 10 years. Michelle has worked extensively with small businesses throughout North America.

Michelle has an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Evanston, Ill.)

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michelle_Kabele

Article Contributed by: CareerAlley

With almost a third of 2009 behind us and Spring in the air, there is no tangible sign yet that this economic crisis is has bottomed out. All the more reason to focus your approach to finding your new job. This list of companies does get a larger number of resumes than your average company, but they are hiring and why shouldn’t it be you?

• Texas Instruments – Semiconductor maker TI is ranked 65, up from 100 in last year’s list. TI has over 31,000 employees globally and added 668 jobs last year. Their career site has links towards the top of the page to Search for Jobs, TI background, Students & College Grads and Events Calendar. The center of the page has a world map where you can search for jobs by location below which are a number of links for Student & College Grads. They have several tools on the right side of the page (like a “Check Fit Tool” which has check boxes to see where you might fit), including how to apply. Click on the country of your choice to check for jobs.
• MITRE – At 66 on the list, MITRE is a non-profit research arm of the Federal Government. With over 6,400 employees, MITRE added 326 jobs last year. Their main careers page has tabs at the top with information on the company, news and employment. Featured jobs are listed on the right hand side of the page (clicking any one of these links to a summary which can be clicked for more detail) The left hand side of the page has a number of links, including links for students, Job Categories and Search Jobs. Click on search jobs where you can register for the site, search jobs, submit your resume or have a recruiter help you with the process. Click on search jobs for an advanced search engine which listed 281 jobs when I checked.
• Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta – This Pediatric hospital is ranked 67 on the list. They have more than 5,800 employees and added 344 jobs last year. Their main career page has links to job opportunities on the left, with a generic link for search jobs and specific jobs such as Nursing. Their are career resources and an interesting “Not currently employed at” feature where you click you career type. Click you your career type to link to the job search function where there were 82 jobs when I checked.
• Southern Ohio Medical Center – Another medical related company on the list, SOMC is ranked 68 this year (up from 75 last year). 2,100 employees with 57 jobs added last year, SOMC’s career page is fairly simple. The main part of the page is taken up by an advanced job search function, with special links on the right for Apply online, How to Apply and company information. As with most company career sites, you can register on the site. There were 41 jobs when I checked their generic search.
• National Instruments – This software company was ranked 69 (up from 79) and has more than 2,500 employees in the US and 2,400 non-US employees and adding 174 last year. Their main career page has company information with links on the left hand side of the page to Experienced hires, New Graduate, Intern/Co-op and more. Click on Experienced Hires and there are additional links to specific functional roles. Search for Jobs is at the bottom of the list which links to the main search engine. Here too you can register on the site. There were 16 jobs when I checked.

Good luck in your search.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.