Being a Children’s Education Funds Inc. (CEFI) Dealing Representative: How It Can Satisfy Your Inner Entrepreneur

Merriam-Webster defines entrepreneur as: “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.” It’s come to mean someone who’s a go-getter, a visionary, independent and creative, an innovator.

All of these characteristics and qualities can have their appeal. Individually, maybe. But many would-be entrepreneurs get lost at “innovate.” How can you be an entrepreneur if you really don’t think your ideas are all that novel? And maybe you’re a go-getter, but risk? Not a comfortable proposition that everyone can embrace.

There are ways, however, that you can indulge your inner entrepreneur within an established organization, win the rewards your hard work earns you without having to put your assets (and others’) at risk, and enjoy your independence without having to sacrifice the support structures that help you stay on top of your game.

The ability to achieve this kind of balancing act is what draws many to a career as a Children’s Education Funds Inc. (CEFI) Dealing Representative.

CEFI is an organization that provides Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs), an investment through which Canadian families can save, tax-free, for their children’s post-secondary education and benefit by government grants that supplement the amount they put aside.

CEFI Dealing Representatives help families set up RESPs. They walk families through the options on the right plan for their financial situations and needs, acquainting them with the investment aspects of the type of plan they choose, and helping them set up their payment schedules, among other responsibilities.

Dealing Representatives, in short, are running their own businesses under the CEFI umbrella – setting their own goals, working hours that meet their lifestyle demands, developing their own books of business, and achieving earnings commensurate to the effort they put in. It’s the next-best thing to being an entrepreneur, but the established organization behind them has provided a proven product and the tools and resources they need to be successful.

But CEFI Dealing Representatives also are able to flex – and grow – many of the same skills and capabilities they would be using as an entrepreneur.

Here are four that are most important for success.

Business and financial planning.

Growing a business – of any type – takes a certain amount of acumen and the ability to undertake budgeting and financial and strategic planning to figure out where you’re going, how you’ll get there and what goals and financial resources will help you know you’ve arrived. This kind of business grounding also gives you the understanding necessary to most effectively advise families on how to fund their education goals through CEFI’s RESPs.

Sales and marketing.

To grow a business means that you have to sell yourself as much as a product, and there’s a lot that feeds into that. It means growing your network of friends and business acquaintances who trust you and respect you enough to refer you to their friends and relatives. It means getting active in the community so people will know what you stand for.

Interpersonal skills.

These are as important as the hard business skills when it comes to success in any kind of business. Communication skills are a great starting point, but one that may be underestimated is the ability to listen to what families are trying to communicate to you and what their goals are when it comes to their children’s education.

Strong work ethic.

Just like starting any other business, it requires hard work to become a successful CEFI Dealing Representative. But, know this: the rewards are incredibly powerful.

As many entrepreneurs and even would-be entrepreneurs know, starting a new business, and entrepreneurship in general, involves risk – sometimes a lot of it.  But, starting your own business under the umbrella of a brand like CEFI mitigates some of that risk, while providing plenty of the benefits of successful entrepreneurship.  What’s more, you are doing something truly valuable: you are helping families achieve one of their most important goals: saving for their children’s future education!

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How To Turn A Business Failure Into Future Success

by Julie Weldon, founder of A Salty Rim

Let me start by saying that I believe there are no true business failures, they are really just opportunities to shape a new future. When I first hatched the plan to bring my parents’ idea into fruition for a new innovation for the outdoors, I had no idea it would lead to an unfortunate demise of what I had so proudly built.

Since I have always prided myself in integrity and high-quality, I did not want to bring this product to the masses when I could not confidently stand behind it. I made the decision to resign from the company and essentially lost everything. Or so I thought.

That experience truly shaped who I am as an entrepreneur today. I started a business coaching and consulting firm, A Salty Rim, with my partner and now I’m ready to bring my previous project back to life with launching a kickstarter, O.M.E. Gear, with a fresh redesign.

Through this lesson of “failure,” I have three tips to share with you so that you can pick yourself up after a “failed” business venture and instead use it to mold you as a leader.

Tip #1 Reflect on the Experience.

Take time to reflect on where things may have gone wrong. Instead of viewing failure as something to be avoided, turn it into a “stepping-stone.”

Challenging situations often offer a real-time education that no MBA can give. And for that, I am eternally grateful for my “failure” experience. But, in order for you to really learn and grow, you have to ask yourself some questions. Things like – What would you have done differently the next time around? What aspects have you learned are the most important to you? This time around I realized how much importance I have in creating a product with high-quality materials that are ethically made. I did not want to sacrifice in this area no matter what – even if it caused me to resign from my own company.

Tip #2 Refocus.

It is easy to be discouraged and lose focus, but by taking the time to adjust and set sights on the future, you will be able to productively think about next steps.

Take the time to write down new business goals and objectives. Celebrate what went right and how you can use those successes to push you forward to try again.

With my previous company, we won awards at trade shows for “Best New Design” and “Tailgating Game Ball Award.” These accomplishments reminded me that the original idea and basis for the product is still worth pursuing. With some simple tweaks to make it the product I originally envisioned, it has a great potential to be something even greater.

Tip #3 Find a Team You Trust.

Now that you have set new goals and reflected on what needs to be done to pursue a new attempt for success, you will need to find a team you can trust.

Listen to your intuition and gut on the people you invite into your business practices. Do they seem as passionate as you are about this new pursuit? Do they provide you with honest feedback?

This time around I am surrounded by my family and partner to help see this project through. We all have our individual talents and expertise to bring to the table, but I also know that I can trust them to care about this business endeavor as much as I do.

When you are trying something new, it’s very beneficial to have a team of people who will be honest, who care, and who are ready to climb the uphill battle with you.

 

Julie Weldon discovered her greatest joy lies in helping business-minded people live each day to its full so she started A Salty Rim for business coaching and consulting. Weldon is also launching a Kickstarter in September for a new outdoors brand O.M.E. Gear. She co-hosts the podcast, GSD Entrepreneur, to talk about business, life and getting sh*t done.

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Global Content Marketing: Expand With An International Strategy

by Tim John, Director of Business Development at Intrawelt

Creating the right strategy is one of the main ways to expand your customer base. Your strategy is an explanation of why you are creating content for your audience and how you can make a difference above every other company out there. It’s about building up your audience to get your desired outcome and a great return on investment. Without a content marketing strategy in place, you’re just ‘another company’ fighting for custom.

A national content marketing strategy is all well and good, but it limits the people you could potentially reach. How can you make that all important global switch to generate more leads and dominate your industry worldwide?

Global content marketing gives different brands the opportunity to expand their audience. Well, saying this, why doesn’t every business take this path? Unfortunately, with language and time barriers being an initial issue, it’s not always that simple. Expanding with an international strategy is worth it so long as you can overcome some minor hurdles.

Creating the right content.

Coming up with the content and throwing it into a free online translating tool isn’t enough. Neither is guessing what people are punching into a search engine to fuel your website’s content. Having said that, it can be difficult for a lot of businesses to get hold of the right resources to manage content in their global content marketing strategy, so taking the time to plan ahead effectively is essential.

Translation services.

It’s crucial to overcome those language barriers when going international. However, how do you know what to translate? Are translation services well within your budget? Have you got the capacity to ensure each piece of content is translated, and that it will deliver a significant return on investment?

Using suitable and reputable language translation services such as Intrawelt can tick all the boxes and ensure your international efforts can be understood by your extended audience. They can provide top translation and interpretation services to businesses worldwide.

Scheduling tools.

What happens when you need to churn out content targeting a country with a different time zone? Don’t worry, you’re not expected to set your alarms early in the morning to make sure it’s posted while they’re on their daily commute or lunch break. Whether it’s your social strategy or the next informative blog post on your website, ensure you schedule effectively to gain maximum exposure. Do a little research into when your international audience are active and when they are more likely to see your content.

Sites, URLs and keywords.

A big thing to consider is where your content will be situated. Is an entirely new website and URL needed to cater for the needs of your international audience? Would you prefer a global gateway? Think about how your extended audience will navigate to their preferred site location and whether it will have a similar feel to it as your main site. It’s also a given that different audiences have different thought patterns when it comes to searching for services online. Make sure you research the different search engines they’re likely to use in a specific location as well as the most popular key words and terms.

Getting to know your audiences.

Through the advancements in technology and marketing in general, it’s becoming easier to target the right audiences globally. Take paid social media targeting and search engine ads for example; we can target new areas with a click of a button. From being fluent in the relevant languages to understanding who you’re really targeting, you need to get to know your audience to have a chance of branching out successfully.

Smart targeting.

Targeting new places doesn’t just have to be a case of spinning a globe and choosing where you land. See where your current traffic is coming from using Google Analytics; where would an entirely new international strategy be beneficial? This isn’t just limited here; research which social channels a country uses the most often. Think about catering for the needs of each area and what they need to see to feel supported.

Move forward with a global content marketing strategy.

When it comes to creating that flawless international strategy, you need to convince your new audience that you can deliver. You need to develop a trusting relationship by giving a personalised and optimised experience. When thinking about a global content marketing strategy, remember the following:

• Review your business goals
• Create the right content and obtain translation services.
• Know your audience and what they expect.
• Target the right channels to grow your current traffic.

 

Tim John is an industry expert with 14 years of sales experience of which 10 years in the translation industry. He has worked for some of the most successful translation agencies in the world in sectors like Legal, Financial, Pharmaceutical and E-commerce. For the last two years he has operated the UK Sector for Intrawelt expanding their client base as Business Director.

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3 Startup Cost Saving Hacks

One of the greatest challenges you’re likely to face when endeavouring to turn your idea into a marketable product and start a business is that you’re probably going to have limited financial resources in the early days.  Similarly, if you have just received investment it can be very tempting to go on a startup spending spree – which can have disastrous results for your long term success, as keeping a positive cash-flow is key to business success.

In this article you’ll find three ways startups can save money, in the early days, by shifting their paradigm away from the need to impress and toward focusing on creating more value – which is what really matters in business.

1. Start off working from home.

A common mistake many startups make is they feel the need to secure premises.

There are clear benefits to having the space to focus in a distraction free environment yet this tends to come at a great financial cost.  You clearly want to give the right impression to customers, but there are ways of doing this without having to invest in the infrastructure of premises – for instance, you could get a 1800 phone number that gives you a more professional image, and you could even have this managed 24/7 by a telephone answering service that answers the phone in your company’s name in order to create the illusion of having an office with a receptionist to take calls – when in fact, you’re still operating from your bedroom!

The point is, in the start-up phase you want to save as much money as possible and all good start-ups know it’s not about having plenty of resources in the initial phases that creates success; it’s having plenty of resourcefulness.

2. Keep your costs down on essentials.

There are some essentials every entrepreneur needs such as printer ink, but there are ways to keeping costs down by looking for cheaper alternatives, for instance, you could hunt out discounted deals or consider using refilled cartridges that are available at a fraction of the cost of a new ink cartridge.

3. Don’t hire staff, just yet.

The majority of entrepreneurs feel the need to do everything on their own, but when business starts picking up and making a profit, one of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make is to hire more people than necessary.  

A much more cost efficient strategy would be to hire virtual assistants that operate on a freelance basis the workload and amount you pay them can adjust according to your needs.

In summary, when starting out in business, it’s all about keeping perspective and focusing on what really matters.

The most vital currency in any business is that of value; see when you create enough value then everything else will fall into place.

It’s important to remember that everyone starts somewhere, at some point, and even the tiniest of acorns can grow into a collossal oak tree… yet, the journey all starts from a very humble beginning, and therefore, there’s no need to splurge on your startup, instead aim to grow it organically by focusing on creating value.

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Financial Advice For Gen Z: Avoid Mortgages, College Debt, Start Saving Now

by Tom Graneau, author of “Pennies to Power: How to Use Your 20’s to Gain Financial Independence for Life“

The oldest members of Generation Z have recently left college and entered the workforce. For some, learning how to handle their new money and expenses will be an education unto itself.

They can start by learning from the money-managing mistakes of previous generations. Most millennials, for example, aren’t doing a great job of saving money. About two-thirds of them, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security, have nothing saved toward retirement.

As a Baby Boomer who once went bust, my past financial challenges are a reason why I want to help educate young people now on the pitfalls of over-extending financially. The worst financial mistake a young adult can make – and one I made – is buying a home.

The last thing you want to do is get into home ownership; I see home ownership as the No. 1 factor leading to financial negatives in our country. You have a country where the banking system, real estate system and government tells us to buy homes, yet most can’t really afford the mortgage long-term.

Most of your mortgage payment goes only to interest the first few years. What they will pay in interest over the long run is mind-boggling, and it often dwarfs any equity they have in the home.

Many millennials, however, buried in student loan debt – another thing younger folks and families should avoid “at all costs” – are finding they can’t afford to be home owners. Forty-five percent of millennials’ income is spent on rent before they reach the age of 30, according to a study by Rent Cafe.

That’s fine; they should rent as long as possible. You will never spend as much in rent as you will buying a house.

In the early 2000s, I found himself in significant debt at the same time I was living stylishly and counseling families on how to overcome their financial issues.

The outside world thought I was doing fine, but I was as broke as those individuals I worked with. I was about 40 and I had to look at my situation deeply. My salary was stagnating, I was in a multi-million-dollar home and I realized I couldn’t pay that mortgage the rest of my life.

I lost my job and lost my house. I started recovering by shedding as much debt as possible and saving as much money as possible.

It was then I started investigating what’s wrong with America’s financial picture. Why are older folks so mired in the debt problem and depending mostly on Social Security? Why does each generation overextend on credit and so many live paycheck to paycheck. The problem is largely traceable to a lack of financial education and discipline.

Our society has done a poor job at teaching people how to save as well as construct a real budget and stick to it. It doesn’t emphasize limiting debt and saving money, and you see people with all this trouble.

To me, money problems most often can be traced to an inability or unwillingness to save. A lack of discipline is to blame more than a lack of funds. I recommend putting away 15 to 20 percent per paycheck, or whatever a person can afford, then increasing when they can.

It’s a hard lesson to portray to younger people, but we should never spend all of our paycheck. Always put some of it away.

 

Tom Graneau (www.tomgraneau.com) is the author of “Pennies to Power“. A 14-year U.S. Navy veteran, Graneau is a long-time financial management specialist and coach as well as a crisis manager. He came to the US at age 17 from Dominica, a small island in the Caribbean. Although the normal educational structure was inaccessible to him in Dominica due to family complications, he went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business at the University of Phoenix.

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5 Myths About Building A Successful Brand And Business

by Rachel Strella, founder of Strella Social Media

You’ll find no shortage of tips online about what it takes to succeed in business. Much of what’s out there is sound guidance, but not everything you see or hear will put you on the path to success. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to determine what is the product of genuine entrepreneurial wisdom and what is pure bunk.

That means you need to be cautious and judicious when choosing the advice you follow. To help you steer clear of the myths that abound, below are some of the misconceptions when entrepreneurs build their brands.

1. It’s easy to build a brand online.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. It requires time, hard work, and consistency to build trust with prospective customers, rank higher in Google searches, and gain a following for your brand.

Some tips for helping you get you there include:

• Have a good website to serve as your business’s online hub (ideally, one with an Open-source CMS that’s feature-rich and offers the opportunity to take advantage of integrations, such as those for SEO and social media).
• Blog consistently to demonstrate your expertise and improve your website’s online authority with Google.
• Explore content syndication opportunities to expand the reach of your blog posts.
• Do outreach to respected industry websites to secure guest blogging opportunities (to increase brand awareness and establish yourself — the face of your business — as a knowledgeable and trusted professional).
• Choose your social media channels wisely — and be active on them, providing content that builds rapport and loyalty with your audience.

2. You should handle everything yourself in the beginning.

Even in the early stages of business ownership, reconsider trying to tackle every aspect of starting and running the company yourself. You could end up doing more harm than good if you take on tasks that require the help of a professional (bookkeepers, accountants, tax advisors, lawyers, SEO specialists, etc.).

Aside from the potential issues that can arise from undertaking work that you don’t fully understand, trying to strong-arm business growth isn’t sustainable. When I started my business in 2010, I thought I could tough it out and handle everything, but I quickly learned that’s the fast track to burnout and missed opportunities.

You have limited hours every day — you should spend them on activities that use your expertise and skills to their fullest so that you’re getting the most benefit from your most important asset, YOU.

3. You can be “hands-off” when you outsource tasks.

Even when you delegate responsibilities to a trusted services provider, you will need to stay involved. Depending on the complexity and significance of what you’ve outsourced, you may still have to dedicate internal resources to the cause.

Social media is an excellent example. Business owners who outsource their social media strategy and management don’t always realize that for maximal outcomes, they (or qualified and trained individuals within their organizations) must be actively involved in the process. Yes, delegating tasks to an outside source can dramatically diminish the time and effort required internally, but it doesn’t outright replace the need for you to monitor and manage your brand online.

4. Your personal brand won’t really affect your business all that much.

Like it or not, you and your business will be perceived by many people as one in the same. So how you conduct yourself and what you say — online and offline — will reflect on your brand.

Some real-life examples of this include:

• Martha Stewart, whose company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, suffered and never fully recovered after she was found guilty in 2004 of charges related to insider trading.
• Former Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, when dashcam footage of his argument with an Uber Black driver went public online in 2017.

It’s especially important to be aware of the impact of your personal brand on social media. Just because you can say virtually anything you want in your social media posts or when commenting on others’ updates doesn’t mean you should. Your online commentary on politics, religion, social issues, or other hot-button topics has the potential to either deepen or disintegrate people’s trust in your brand.

5. Success builds upon itself.

It doesn’t always work that way! Growth isn’t always linear. In fact, sales and profitability can fluctuate — sometimes dramatically — from one year to the next. Even mega-companies like Apple see profits go up and down from year to year.

As your business takes on new opportunities, hires people, expands operations, faces new competitors, and confronts new industry challenges, you might experience some back and forth in how well it’s doing. Your finances and brand reputation may soar one year, struggle the next, and then make strides again after that. Expect to encounter ebb and flow.

The Real Deal – Building a revered brand and profitable business requires not only a viable business plan, exceptional product or service, and capital, it also demands a degree of common sense. As you read, watch, or hear guidance from others, consider it with healthy skepticism rather than assuming it’s going put your brand on a trajectory of success.

 

Rachel Strella is the founder of Strella Social Media, a social media management company serving dozens of clients nationally. She is a regular contributor to Small Business Trends and Social Media Today and has been featured in Forbes, ABWA Magazine, and numerous other major publications. She’s also a well-respected speaker having delivered dozens of social media presentations to businesses, colleges, trade groups, etc. Follow her on Twitter.

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In the Lean In Era, Business And Tech Still Fail To Promote Women; 4 Ways To Fix The Problem Now

by Douglas M. Branson, author of “The Future of Tech Is Female: How to Achieve Gender Diversity“

Information technology (tech) is at the epicenter of the world’s economy. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are the foremost companies in the world. But women in tech, as in other industries, face obstacles from entry-level positions to the C-suite.

If industry truly wishes to fix this, it must stop retreating into seemingly noble expressions of sentiment, and instead evaluate and adopt specific procedures and programs. That is particularly true of tech, exhibit “A” in the corporate failure to hire and promote women. Re-allocating burdens, from women who aspire to the companies and industries that would employ them, and adoption by those companies of specific programs, is what my book is all about.

Women can lean in, education can push STEM, states may enact wage gap and family leave legislation. But those developments mask the more fundamental issue. From startups to the largest firms, firms themselves actually hire and promote females. In contrast, many of these companies have gender aversion baked into their DNA. Tech, for example, has been unable to support women at any level. A mere 5 percent of Tech’s senior executives are women. Branches of the industry, such as video gaming, are overtly misogynist in governance, in culture, and in product content.

Can tech and other industries redeem themselves? Here are four steps companies could take:

1. Change the mindset, reallocate the burdens.

Bookshelves are overloaded with advice books for women who aspire in business. Get a mentor, network, don’t be a “bully broad,” be strategic, lean in, lower your voice, don’t be a “queen bee,” dress conservatively, and so on. Now is high time to look at the other side of the equation, what responsibilities companies and industries bear and what sorts of measures they should be considering. The onus shouldn’t be solely upon women anymore.

2. Adopt specific programs and procedures.

Professional advice books emphasize that women should obtain mentors. Women have, and it has not moved the needle at all. Women in business complain, “I have been mentored to death and I am still in same position I was 7 years ago.” Recently, emphasis in Australia has shifted to corporations themselves and to mentoring plus sponsorship. It has moved the needle – significantly. Ideas include comply or explain requirements (“if not, why not?”), certificate programs, pledge regimes, quota laws (Norway, Spain, Italy, France, Germany but probably not for the United States), mandatory disclosure, voluntary disclosure, structured search (Rooney Rule) adoptions, and more.

3. Cast a wide net.

Compared to other countries around the globe, the U.S.’s progress on gender diversity issues has slipped below the global median. Governments, stock exchanges, and industry groups in Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and New Zealand, for example, are very active on gender diversity issues. Surprisingly, promotion of women in business and in governance is hot-button issue of in the Peoples’ Republic of China (not in Japan, however: fewer than one percent of corporate directors are female). On the Atlantic side, proposals and programs proliferate in the countries of the European Union and with the EU itself.

4. Look to the future: pay attention to the pool problem.

We now appreciate that executives must balance maximization of shareholder value with sustainability. Long-term sustainability requires gender diversity. The pool problem speaks to that issue. The pool consists of the women from among whom boards and executives will choose senior managers — not now, not next year, but 10 years, 12 years, or 15 years in the future. Compared with today’s meager pool, the future pool will be markedly inferior, unless companies put in place steps to deal with the deficiency. One vital strategy is to ease the off ramps and ease the on ramps for women as they find it necessary to step aside from their careers, temporarily, often because of childbirth and child rearing issues.  Dial up, dial down, alumnae, and welcome back programs, among other things, can ease those on and off ramps. Companies must think about these type of measures.

When it comes to promoting women to leadership roles or positioning them for executive roles in the future, tech is the most backward of major industries. Even lower down the ranks, the number of women tech companies employ has declined – from 37 percent in 1995 to 24 percent in 2016 — and is predicted to decrease further in coming years.

Neither does the future appear as hopeful as we have wished. Yet there are steps and programs that might brighten that future significantly.

 

Douglas M. Branson is the W. Edward Sell Chair at the University of Pittsburgh. He has been a visiting professor at Cornell University, the Universities of Washington and Hong Kong, and Melbourne University, among others. He is the author of 23 books on gender and corporate governance. His new book is “The Future of Tech Is Female: How to Achieve Gender Diversity“.

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