Your Questions About Business Online Services Group

Jere answers:

Well, to be able to pass high school you need a minimum of 30 passed credits. 18 of those credits are compulsory; 4 English, 3 math, 2 science, 1 language (French, Spanish…), 1 physical education course, 1 arts course, 1 Canadian history course, 1 Canadian geography course, then 0.5 civics and 0.5 careers. On top of this one additional compulsory course from each of the following groups; a) English, French, native language, social sciences, humanity, Canadian studies, b) physical education, art, business, French, c) French, computer studies, technology, or an additional science. All of the other twelve are yours to choose! You also need to have at least 40 hours of community service and have passed the grade 10 Literacy Test. Don’t get too worried though, you can technically stay in school until you are 21 years of age!

Good luck and I hope that this helps you!

Jere answers:

1. Figure out what you want.
2. Think up several different ways to get what you want, both standard, traditional ways, and oddball, creative ways.
3. Break the paths into manageable steps. Some of the first steps should be researching online, from books and TV and by talking to people.
4. Start doing.

If what you want is to start a business, it would be quicker and less expensive to take an entrepreneurship course. Or read up on your own. The Small Business Development Center has offices nationwide and offers free help to small businesses and people wanting to start them. Some offer entrepreneurship courses, too. Http://sbdcnet.org/

Also check to see if any entrepreneurs’ groups exist in your area and join – if it’s free or the fee is reasonable. Don’t fall into the trap of paying for memberships and image – until you have the income to justify it.

As for making your own opportunities, you need to be on the lookout for them. See a need in your community? If you can figure out a way to meet that need, there’s an opportunity.

For example, a lot of people need jobs right now. You might think, great, I’ll start a staffing company! But not a lot of employers are hiring, and a lot of staffing companies already exist. So you would have to think of a way to make your staffing company better, or else you’d have to find another way to make a business around employing people, such as starting your own factory or store.

Or perhaps you’d love to surround yourself with gorgeous men. You could start a male modeling agency. Or become a male escort service madam. Or write a show or screenplay all about these awesome guys… And then you’d have to recruit the guys and network like crazy to find sponsors or producers or be recognized as an agent for them.

Jere answers:

Dude, have I got the help for you. I’ve just gone through all this mess trying to start a movement here in Tacoma. First things first, you have to have a name that grabs peoples attention, both for the group and for the forum. Then you pitch the idea to local groups, like the Democrats or the Greens or some other local organization. If you’re shy, you can spread the word via email lists, forums, message boards, or other media. Then when you get a few hits of people who are interested, you can ask them if they have any resources you can use. Use the cheapest means available to raise awareness of your event. If there are community calendars or bulletin boards at places of social significance, plaster them liberally.

Start a blog. Check out the one I started at www.apctahoma.blogspot.com There you can see that I really created the whole concept right there on the spot. It takes a little work to set up and to post to, but you can do it for free over at blogger.com. With a blog you can update members about meetings, post cool articles, and build an online community. What you really want to do is find a techie or group of techies who like your cause and want to help promote it with their expertise. Without that kind of help, you’re stuck just working on messaging your event and tooling it to appeal to a broad base of folks. Which can be effective, but the sooner you get an active web presence and good media materials, you won’t be seen as quite professional enough.

Sponsors are critical, whether it’s your local Labor Council or a small local business. Use the resources you have to open up other resources.

Since you’re a college student, you have access to something other people don’t have: college faculty. Find a teacher who believes in what you believe, and let him tell you how it’s done. Most active teachers will love to help you set up something like this, particularly poltical science or history professors.

Also, critical to this work is picking events that have action related stuff in the ad. So it could be writing letters, marching, hearing speeches, interacting in workshops, drumming or eating, whatever the activity is. And it should imply that something is actually going to be accomplished. Folks usually only like to go to process-type meetings if they’re involved in the leadership, so instead set up some fun activities for the group to do. You might even partner up with a local charity and do something jointly together as a way of bringing your networks together. In this day and age, service attracts a lot of interesting people.

And know your audience. If your audience is sophomores and juniors have good music, very little drama, and a whole lot of interesting conversation, and the good times will roll. With seniors and beyond, focus on events as they can fit into a full-time grownup’s busy schedule.

Also incorporate elements of you into everything you do. If you like art, get some art for your event. If you like piano, get yourself a pianist. Remember, if it isn’t fun, you won’t keep doing it. And you have to keep doing it.

Go ahead and steal this title idea “Speak Your Peace – A Community Forum on the Future of Democracy” Perhaps that will inspire you to come up with good ideas of your own.

Good luck, and never stop believing in the power of good people to do great things.

Jere answers:

The two main types of insurance liceses are “Property and Casualty” and “Life and Health”.

Property & Casualty allows you to sell auto, homeowner’s, and other similiar coverages to individuals. For businesses you can sell General Liability, Professional Liability, Business Auto, Worker’s Comp, etc..

Life and Health allows you to sell life, health, disability, annuities, etc.. To individuals. For businessess employee benefits such as group health, life, disability, dental, vision, etc..

As for which one is best for you that partially depends on where you live, what type of products you would rather sell, and how you see yourself progessing in the industry.

The pros of “Property & Casualty” insurance is almost all businesses are required to have one or more of the coverages. General liability coverage is required if a businesses leases office space, Worker’s Comp is required by law in most states if the employer has 2 or more employees, professional liability is required by certain industries like malpractice, errors and ommissions covarage for insurance agents, etc.. On the individual side most states require auto insurance and all homeowner’s that have a mortgage are required to have homeowner’s insurance. However these products have lower commissions on average than life & health based insurances. So I would say easier to sell, probably higher volume, but smaller commissions.

Life & Health based insuarnces offer the ability to make more money on the sale of the products, but take more selling skills because the need is not always apparant or at least for the premium being quoted. Life and health allows for alot of cross selling for example: a 35 year old couple with a newborn child may initially need health insuarnce, but other needs like life and disability insuarnce may be prevalent too. Also, the Life & Health industry allows for an easy transition or progression to the financial services industry. Many financial planners start off as a life & health agent and it adds a further dymanic of trust to the client relationship as well as more cross selling opportunities to college planning retirment planning, estate planning, etc..

Either way you should talk with local professionals in both sides. You can also visit the industry organizations websites. I am not sure of one for the property and casuality industry but for the life and health industry you can check out NAHU “National Association of Health Underwriters”, AHIP “American Health Insurance Plans”, and NAIFA “National Association of Insurance and Financial Professionals”

Good luck!!

Jere answers:

In an effort to help tax payers file their taxes fast the Internal Revenue Service teamed up with a group of tax preparation companies to form the Free File Alliance. The Free File Alliance provides a free electronic tax filing service to U.S. Tax payers who have an adjusted gross income of $54,000 or less. These companies (TurboTax, HR Block and TaxAct all participate in the FFA) offer online tax preparation software that allow you to file your taxes electronically any hour of the day for free. The Free File Alliance companies will use direct deposit to get you a fast refund in as little as 10 days.

Out of the three FFA tax companies you mentioned my best experience is with TurboTax. TurboTax has participated in the Free File Alliance since October 2002. USA Today ranked TurboTax the “#1-rated tax software year after year” and now you have the opportunity to use this efile software free. TurboTax guarantees that you will receive the biggest refund using their program or they will give you your money back. The TurboTax Deluxe, Premier, or Home & Business edition covers over 350 deductions so you don’t overlook any opportunity to save more cash. Their program is easy and quick. The TurboTax efile program asks easy questions, handles the changes in your life, collects your tax information for you and answers all your tax questions.

Before you try any other program I would suggest checking out how easy TurboTax is. Here’s a site that provides great information on filing your taxes for free- http://filetaxestoday.com/