The aim of this site is to help young professionals help them find their way to their financial or career goals so that means via this site or any other.

James Cox is a very smart switched on guy from Sydney who like many of us is unsure of his direction for his career and has decided to jump into the crazy world of finance at possibly the hardest time.

James’s bio is here, he has started a finance blog which aims to take his readers along his ride in education as he enters his new career path in finance after leaving his sales job and completing his science and law degree from Sydney University.

I really like the broad topics he is tackling in the finance field and the way he lays it out it’s great so that even laymen’s can understand a previously complex issue.

James has managed to land himself a job at intelligent investor which covers news and analysts opinions and provides tools to help you become a more successful investor.

He is now studying for the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) level one exam in December and will be covering his adventure through out his blog which is especially interesting to someone like me who wants to one day do the course.

He cover topics like Company Valuation, Investment Banking, Trading, Corporate Law, Economic Trends and others.

You can also shoot him a email as well and request topics, interviews and the like and he will endeavour to help answer your question/s in his blog.

Hopefully he doesn’t slack off like me (I’m sure he won’t) now that he has a lot things on his plate but his site looks promising I highly encourage you to check it out.

http://www.jamescox.com.au/

Andrew

When I first started working fulltime the hardest thing was acclimatising to sleeping patterns, concentration for nine hours, office etiquette and having the lack of freedom.

When I get home from work, I honestly don’t want to go for a run, read, add to this blog I just want to watch TV not think and sleep.

A big part of this is a bigger focus on diet and exercise to help your overall energy but also your body does sync in with these new patterns slowly.

Also setting clear times for going to bed and waking up, try not to deviate from this to help your body adjust and boost your energy levels.

Go to your local supermarket and buy healthy snacks for the office and have a little stockpile, I have nuts, lite cruskits, fruit like apples, bananas and green tea.

Also bring in a water bottle not only will this save you money but also keep you healthy.

Something that is helping me is having a diary of everything I eat, spend and the amount of sleep to help monitor myself.

I have noticed that little snacks and getting lunch everyday has been killing the budget and diet for me, so in September I’m not going to eat any French fries or have any soft drink, I’ll keep you updated on this one.

There are still positives for entrepreneurs who get to look at how a company functions the good and the bad and take those experiences into their ventures.

I also recommend taking some time away from work and think about your work/ career, don’t just get caught up in the day-to-day but think of the possibilities that are out there and how you can go about getting there.

It’s normal these days to stay at a job for only a year and build those skills then move up the ladder either at the same place or another where you pushing your boundaries and extending your portfolio of skills.

Something to keep in mind as well is that if you want to make the big bucks as a salary you either have to fulfil some skills shortage or your profession or job has to have an information gap.

Information gaps have been largely closed thanks to the internet, but no matter how hard you study on the net there is always the basic need for doctors, engineers, lawyers and specialists, the larger the gap the larger the premium you can charge.

Some general observations:
The good
Your learn the importance of clear processes
Better understanding of human resources issues
Understanding the needs of different generations
Understanding the mentality/ problems of your average worker

The bad
Entrepreneurial spirit sapped
Time taken away- theory of compounding time
Fitness/ diet takes a beating
Easy to get into a rut and not extend yourself

I honestly haven’t been this impressed since the guy that traded one red paper clip into house.

The project is now over and is might be old to some of you but here is the background.

Sean Aiken finished like many others in our generation, couldn’t tell you what he wanted to do with his life. So to help him figure it out he decided to a do a different job every week from a pizza guy to the mayor a town check it out “One Week Job.”

How it worked

Any company or individual anywhere in the world can offer him a job for one week. The job can be absolutely anything, anywhere - garbage collection, actor, working the family farm, a suit and tie corporate position…

After finishing college with a business degree, he made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t settle for a career that he was not truly passionate about. His goal is to gain a better understanding of what he need in a career to be happy and inspire others to go after their passions.

Results

Check out all the jobs he did here.

Total Donations Raised- $20,401.60

There is now a book and movie coming out and I’ll definitely be waiting for this one.

This is a perfect example of using your resources and helping solve not only your own problems but help others, hopefully through Sean’s experience he can show people that by volunteering you can get your foot through the door and get your hands dirty.

Sometimes you never know until your try it and you don’t want to be locked in to something without seeing what you want, hopefully I can do this but not 52 jobs!

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”- Steve Jobs (Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc and former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios).

As you can see by my frequency of posts this year, it has been a busy one, finally out in the ‘real world’ I am currently working in a media job while still trying to further other pursuits.

I’m finished university and still no closer to exactly what I want to do, I am traveling at the end of the year around the world and hopefully it does enrich my soul and steer me in the right direction.

My ultimate goal to beat the rat race is still number one, but I think I’m looking to short term to get there that I’m missing something short term, Steve Jobs in the speech he gave with the above quote said looking forward he can never see where he was heading but looking back it all made sense, I hope I too can say the same.

I have written lots of articles to come but I haven’t finished a single one, a reflection of my personality I guess but hopefully with some extra motivation I will get you some good articles and some food for thought.

Cheers,
Andrew
(Pondering his next move)

Link to Steve Jobs inspiration speech to Stanford 2005 graduates

So I have finished my degree, done some traveling and starting working full time. Businessaire is now back and here it to stay… keep tuned for some great info!

Since my last post, something new has come to my attention which is the answer! My perspective was solely for a little guy trying
to make money on facebook but not from a billionaire with ties to the technology world has done it, who am I talking about? Mark Cuban, who is doing a joint venture with facebook by creating an application called ‘Radical Buy’ an application for buying and selling everything, you can check out his article because he will cover it better than me here. It is in the early stages and still working on bugs and improving the structure, the forum to give feedback can be given here.

Summary of benefits
- Utilizing the millions of members on Facebook

- You can list an item and have it visible to all Facebook users instantly.

- After you list an item, others can post your listing on their Facebook page to earn commission!

For example, if you sell a watch for $100.00, you may offer anyone 10% commission to sell it for you.

If someone sells your watch for you, they get $10.00.

The amount of commission you offer is entirely up to you.

Don’t have anything to sell?

RadicalBuy allows all users to list other members items to earn commission. Simply add an item off your friend’s profile to your account and if it sells, they pay you the commission.

Listing an item only takes a few minutes and you can post 1 primary photo and up to 5 additional photos at no extra charge.

RadicalBuy helps you be a smart shopper by knowing who you are doing business with. Leave feedback about sellers and buyers, and read others comments BEFORE you buy or sell anything.

The question is where was eBay at? Why weren’t they doing this first….
You can add the application here.

P.S I don’t know how it is being monetized yet but I will keep you updated I just added the application

After a quick look RadicalBuy get a final value selling fee.

The final value selling fee is the fee paid to Radical Buy for selling your item on Radical Buy. It is based on a tiered platform. The fee schedule is as follows:
0-25.00 = 5%
25.00 - 1000.00 = 5% + 3% of remaining value balance
1000.00 + = 5% + 3% of initial 25-1000.00 plus 1.5% of remaining value

For example, if you sell an item for $22.00, the final value selling fee would be $1.10. If your item sells for $150, the final value selling fee would be $1.25 (first $25) plus $3.75 ($125 of the selling amount after the first $25) for a total selling fee of $5.

For all of you who try to make money on the internet (yes you know who you are) everyone knows that there is a big opportunity right now and that is how to make money through face book. An easy question to ask but a hard question to answer.

Firstly everyone is talking about it:

Mark Cuban said: Talking about the real value in Facebook
“The beauty of Facebook, as opposed to Myspace and other social networks is that the people on there are for the most part who they say they are, and Facebook does their best to dismiss those who aren’t. This simple differentiation makes the membership base of Facebook far more valuable than any other social network.”

John Chow: talking about Facebook Ad’s
Facebook Ads is comprised of three parts:

* Social Ads: Ads targeted at Facebook members using their profile data.
* Beacon: Ad widgets that advertisers can put on their own sites that allow Facebook members to become product endorsers, and spread that endorsement to all of their friends on Facebook through their personal feeds.
* Insight: Aggregated profile information that is exposed to Facebook advertisers that tells them what kind of people are getting their ads and who is clicking on them.

With over 50 million users and a very targeted demographic profiling of those users, Facebook is going to be very attractive to brand advertisers. However, I have a feeling Internet marketers will be finding ways to make money off the new platform as well.

Yaro Starak: talking about the Facebook Flyers Pro
Right now, if I was at all a player in the affiliate space outside of blogging, I’d be running to use Facebook Flyers Pro. With such a precise targeting system and a pricing structure that charges by the click, you can do all the usual testing procedures to ensure you return a profit and very tightly align what you are selling to the traffic you target. That should result in some very nice conversion rates and best of all, once you hit a profitable campaign, Facebook has traffic like an all-you-can-eat buffet - as much as you like until you get sick (and I doubt you will get sick of making money with Facebook traffic).

I thought about it and here is what I came up with but I really don’t know how and if they would be profitable.

1. Applications

Make an application that has advertising and maybe backlinks to your website
Pitfalls
- Not easy to monetize
- Might not be able to have back links
- Once you add the application you might not be able to change like advertising
- You can’t see impressions or views
- This is not something new and people haven’t been successful yet

2. Use Facebook Flyers Pro (Use the advertising experience)

Facebook Flyers Pro Delivers The Best Pay Per Click Advertising Program Yet Facebook leveraging the data and moving to a performance based ad sale. There is an opportunity for a lot of affiliate income and you do have the most specific and focused demographic, geographic, psychographic breakdowns so your campaigns can be tailor made.

Pitfalls
Facebook ultimately owns your income, your everything if the ‘deem’ that it is not appropriate then they just email you and say ““This ad has been disabled and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an ad if it violates our Terms of Service or Advertising Guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms and Guidelines if you have further questions.”

3. Brokerage Site
Where applications makers and advertising come together to do some joint ventures while you providing the service take a commission.

Pitfalls
Once again you are at the mercy of Facebook and they have the ultimate control, so if you go through all that hard work then they can just amend there Terms and Conditions and instantly ban you. I do have to admit that they have done a great job keeping it tight.

In conclusion
After all my thinking and talking it over with friends in the know, I have thought and I could be wrong but I feel that the only people that can really make ‘easy’ money on the Facebook movement is Facebook. There might be a small window of opportunity to make some money but it will be short lived until Facebook just takes control. I know this is a bit pessimistic but if you’re a user I guess you would like it not to go like Myspace and all spammy and just gearing towards advertising although they are improving it.

Also as an after thought is opening there own open source application system Google OpenSocial API. it’s funny how Facebook really spawned this movement for whole internet and people can customize there own internet world, i personally think it is really exciting.

Guidelines for facebook
if you wanted to know what ecommerce is allowed and what isn’t.

There is a young real estate agent on the Gold Coast named Regan Allard, works for Ray White Broadbeach is taking marketing prestige homes to new heights literally. I sore the video and thought it was pretty innovative and original, he told me that he is trying to achieve the highest watched prop video in Australia, something I think he can do. The next step to this is I heard that they are staging reality TV shows in houses and main character is the actual houses where you can see how people use the house and it’s functions. I think its great that marketing for the property market is evolving because just old pictures and writing really isn’t enthusiastic for the size of the purchases, I think the people that are looking to push that barrier will hopefully have tremendous success. I have included the video below but also click through on the link and help try get his views up so he can reach his goal!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjzJhz2xokY

Also people can email for his contact details, check out his site www.reganallard.com

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, it has been so hectic lately with work, finishing my degree, organizing my Asian tour at the end of year but the team is back now =)

Andrew

Exercise. I know it’s one word that makes a lot of people cringe, and yes, I was one of them. With the ‘obesity epidemic’, it may seem that you’re being bombarded by everyone to get your butt moving – and I am one of those people. Now that I have started to pay tax, I feel it’s a personal issue; I don’t want my money wasted on fatties who can’t be bothered to put down the burger and get off the couch. I know what your probably thinking: “excuse me, I work days/nights in between going to uni, and trying to have a social life! Sometimes I don’t have time to sleep properly, and you want me to fit in exercise every day too? And I mean, it’s not like I’m fat.”

Reality check, just cause you don’t think your overweight doesn’t mean your in the clear - skinny people can be unhealthy too. You have probably heard it a thousand times but it’s true, everyone is given the same 24 hours in a day – it’s just how you choose to use it. If you can find the time to watch TV, chat on the phone, surf the net or read the paper, you can find time to exercise.

The ironic thing is that exercise actually boosts your energy and serotonin levels, letting you fit in exercise amongst everything else, feeling good at the same time. We all know the hardest aspect of anything in life is to get started – trust me I used to wonder how anyone could find the motivation to walk or run in the same spot for an hour- but exercise isn’t just about a treadmill.

There is so much choice – walking, running, cycling, yoga, pilates, circuit training, body step/attack/jam classes, heck there’s even pole dancing! So no more “I can’t afford a gym membership” excuse, just find something that’s fun and you will work harder at it. For those of you that have a gym card hanging off your key ring but can never find the motivation to go? Next time just tell yourself that you only have to do ten minutes, that’s it. That way you won’t be dreading the thought of an hour long workout at the gym. Once your up and moving at the gym it’s easier to tell yourself to just do another ten minutes. Just think how you will feel afterwards, oh and news flash – you don’t have to drag out your exercise for an hour, just build up the intensity. You have probably heard about “interval training” – basically it’s getting more out of your workout, in a shorter period of time. The University of New South Wales did a study on a group of people doing 8 seconds of sprinting on a bike, followed by 12 seconds of rest; continuing this for 20 minutes. This group lost three times as much fat as those who exercised at a continuous pace for 40 minutes! What’s even better is that your metabolism increases after exercise, so not only have you burned off calories in that step class, but you’ll keep burning calories even after you’ve stopped exercising. Bonus! So what are you waiting for? Get moving, if anything it will allow you to feel less guilty for having those Friday arvo drinks and late night kebab.

By Bianca Andrado
Social/ Lifestyle
Businessaire.com Team