Tired of all the “gurus”!

November 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment

When I first started blogging and working in the area of social media, I read everything that the “gurus” were saying about social media and how to get noticed online.

After several years of reading and following these “gurus” I have come to the conclusion that I am tired of all the “gurus”! It seems that, for the most part, they are self-serving and only want to sell their wares. I’m not opposed to “selling your wares” as long as they have real value to individual clients. I struggle with so many people calling themselves “gurus” when all they have done is “parrot” what everyone else is saying.

For we Boomers who are looking for ways to reinvent retirement, these “gurus” can hook us early and we end up trying to create businesses that look like everyone else. These bland and unimaginative businesses fail as often as the averages suggest. And the “gurus” just keep on “teaching” the same worn ideas to another set of honest, hard-working people.

What Boomers need as they consider creating retirement businesses is for those who would be business/life coaches to consider them first. To help them think through and investigate what they want and how they want to do things. They don’t need “gurus” teaching tired systems, but rather they need honest people looking to help them find the business that makes their retirement years all that they have hoped for them to be.

So, if you are tired of all the “gurus” then take time to look for the right help that will help you help you reinvent retirement in the way that makes the best sense to you!

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Quick Site Update

November 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I just wanted to post a quick site update, because I am incredibly excited with the activity over the past week. At the beginning of last week my efforts were to quietly update the site throughout the month of December and then launch it in its new configuration and with its new mission on January 1, 2012. (This is still my ultimate goal, but it has been modified just a bit!)

To my shock, last week several people actually joined the site as members! There are eight of us total (and one “practice” member) as of this writing. Eight doesn’t seem like much, but seven of the eight came “by accident” (I was here on purpose)! I am so thrilled that folks both found the site and that they saw enough value to “join.”

So, for those of you who have joined in this “pre-launch” period, I need your help. I would like you to act as a sounding board for ideas that I have for the site. Please take time as often as you can to read these December posts that will lay out the ideas that will guide us here and will set the course for the new year.

Comment on what you read, give me feedback, additional thoughts, and your thoughts on both the direction of the site and how to accomplish the goals I will lay out in my December posts. As long as you are here early (which I count an incredible blessing) let me know what you think!

If you know some other Boomers who could bring some really cool thoughts to the table, invite them to join us as well!

I look forward to hearing from you and to gaining insight that will help me do the most good for the greatest number of Boomers!

Thanks for being here – Dave

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Business Models and Baby Boomers

November 25, 2011 by 2 Comments
Business Model Concept

Image by Alex Osterwalder via Flickr

I have been engaged in an interesting discussion on LinkedIn with several people about business models. Which models are viable and which one’s should be avoided. As a Boomer myself, whose desire is to build a strong and successful business for myself as well as for my clients, a conversation like this can be a constructive one (or destructive if you are not careful).

The business models in question in this conversation are not really relevant but the conversation is. Here are my thoughts:

  1. No one business model is right for everyone. In the conversation people have spoken both positively and negatively about every business model in the conversation. Some like the idea of finding that perfect, unique, niche business; some like the comfort of brick and mortar; others like franchise or “franchise-like” businesses. In the end business success comes when you find the business model that works for you and you pursue that!
  2. Everyone considering a retirement business needs to do their own due diligence. Even as a business development coach, I cannot do your due diligence for you. All I can do is to help you search out the facts and help you understand/interpret them. Ultimately you must make sense of the facts and choose the business model that best suits you.
  3. Don’t ever let one person (excited or angry) about a particular business model make this kind of decision for you. For every person who someone knows that has gotten “taken” by the bad people in one model, I can show you someone who was “taken” by the bad people in another model. I once had a car that leaked oil. Does that mean I should sway every person I know from buying that model car? (Even if I don’t tell you about my lack of care for the car as well?)

My point here is that in the world of business, every business model has its pros and cons. What you need to do is assess each model as to how well you could work with these pros and cons. Make your decisions based upon your investigation and due diligence, not based on someones hype or bad experiences!

 

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Business Between the Holidays

November 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Christmas lights on Aleksanterinkatu.

Image via Wikipedia

As I sit here this morning, the day after Thanksgiving, I have been thinking about the next five weeks or so that will bring an end to 2011. I have to admit that I, like so many other entrepreneurs, have been considering: How it is best to do business between the holidays?

When I first started selling real estate back in 2004, one of the most interesting things I learned was that for some agents the end of their year came around the 15th of November. Most of the agents who “shut down” were the “average” agents who never had much going anyway. However, among those were agents who were, at least in my eyes, successful and well known agents whose production numbers were always among the best in the office.

But, there was always a few who seemed to do as much business between the holidays as they did throughout the rest of the year. These were the real professionals whose business usually topped that of everyone else in the office. They were the one’s who were in the office nearly every day and worked with more buyers and sellers than anyone else.

I worked in the real estate world for five years and found that no matter the office or the brokerage, there were always those professional agents who always had business between the holidays. What I found in them I want to share with you in hopes that their success principles will provide you with the knowledge to do business between the holidays:

  1. These business professionals worked all year to finish each year as strong as they had started it. The challenge for them was to make their fourth quarter bigger than their first.
  2. These business professionals learned that part of business success was setting the stage for future sales and when things were slow they were working “behind the scenes” for the next sale.
  3. While it is true that office hours were limited during the holiday season, that did not stop these top producers from making use of the office when no one else was around. They worked when no one else did, did what no one else would and were rewarded like no one else was!

After leaving real estate (the only job I ever really missed after leaving) I kinda bounced around a little, looking for what was right for me now. Having found my place again, I am working, like those top producers to make the holidays a great time for family as well as for business!

Have a great holiday season, but don’t forget that your business and your clients need you too!

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Looking Forward to the New Year!

November 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment

As I write this post, we are still a couple days short of Thanksgiving but already I am looking forward to the new year. Baby Boom

The First Thanksgiving, painted by Jean Leon G...

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Entrepreneurs is moving in the direction of a full-blown member site and I am very excited to see how its develops throughout the year. I will be adding details for the official “launch” during the last couple weeks of December so stay tuned and let me know what you think!

In the mean time, you can sign up as members of the site right now and by doing so you can get in on the ground floor of all the excitement that the new year will bring. So make sure that you begin now to not only sign up yourself, but to share this site with all your Boomer friends and help me kick this thing off with a bang in January.

Let be “bait the hook” by telling you about three unique aspects that you will find here:

1. There will be a section on the site called “Boomers helping Boomers.” This section will cover everything from “how-to” information to “aging in place” advice, to travel tips, etc. It will be a place for Boomers to learn about living a life full of joy, impact, and security.

2. There well be a section on the site called “Boomers, Business, and Finances.” This section will help Boomers understand all aspects of living financially secure through the entire second act of their lives. We will have information on the current job market and how unemployed Boomers can find meaningful work, business opportunities for Boomers, financial planning and how to reinvent retirement.

3. There will be a section on the site called “Making a Dent.” This section will help Boomers join forces and create opportunities to leave our world better than when we found it. It seems to me that when all we think about is ourselves and how life is about us that we really diminish the true meaning of life.

Being the “dreamer” on my team, I don’t know all the details about how this is going to pan out, but I do know that this is the direction we are heading. I would love for you and those you invite to be an active part!

Stay tuned and stay active!

Dave Wellman, Founder
Baby Boom Entrepreneurs

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Boomers Can’t Wait!

November 18, 2011 by 2 Comments
The corner of Wall Street and Broadway, showin...

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As I have been working on the changes to Doulos Marketing for 2012, I have come to one undeniable conclusion:

Boomers Can’t Wait!

With all that is unfolding right before our eyes (Occupy Wall Street, a Congress that cannot function, an economy that cannot rebound, a housing market still reeling, manufacturing jobs gone for good, etc ….) it is time for average Boomers to once again step up again and lead the way to better things. Better ways to work, to serve our communities and to strengthen our families as well as ourselves.

Add to all of this that we Boomers are the largest group of chronically unemployed and I say again: Boomers can’t wait!

So, here is a simple plan that is filled with risk, excitement, fear, and, in the end, a way out of these dark times to a brighter day:

  1. Get up every day with a desire to be significant. Now I am not suggesting that everyone has to have a master plan designed to “change the world.” What I am suggesting though is that we don’t just go through life like it is an exercise in futility. We are here on this planet at this time for a reason. Find yours and live to bring it to pass!
  2. Go out every day to be the best person that you can be. If you have this “best person” mindset, you will treat others with dignity and respect (even people you don’t agree with or even like); you will work hard in everything you set your mind/heart/body to do; and you will continue to look to the benefit of your efforts to your company, your customers, your community and your family. You will see the dignity in everything you do and be able to end each day knowing you did what was right for you.
  3. Give back to those whose lives are not where yours is. One of our biggest struggles we have in this country is realizing how much we really have on a world-wide scale. So many of us have so much and so often we see what we have as “rights” instead of the blessings of liberty. When we recognize that we are truly blessed we will be much more willing to step out and help others so that they can have what we readily enjoy.

Now we can debate a lot of things these days, looking for the right people to blame, demanding that others “pay their fair share”, or shouting from the roof tops “its not my fault.” But, in my view, its time to stop that because too many of our generation will be destroyed without remedy looking for the mouse in the cookie jar. Boomers simply can’t wait any longer! We must choose to step up, step out, and be counted again.

The “new” Doulos Marketing is dedicated to charting a course for this to happen. I hope you will keep reading, keep passing the message on, and keep looking for ways to reach out to other Boomers who like sand at the beach, slipping through the cracks. (And the older we get the harder this task will become.) It’s really up to us. Will you join the effort?

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New Things Coming in 2012

November 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Doulos Marketing is making big changes for 2012. There and many new things coming in 2012. I am working very hard on these changes and because of that I have not been posting lately. Beginning this week, I will get back to posting regularly.

My greatest hope is that the changes will benefit the greatest number of readers and that you will build better, stronger, and more successful businesses in 2012.

I really believe that success in this current economy will come to those who do three things:

  1. Take on a sense of personal responsibility and use your skill set in ways to benefit you, your family, and your business.
  2. Decide to develop new skills that will make you stand out from the crowd in whatever area you choose to work.
  3. Look for opportunities to help others find their stride in life so that they will develop to the best of their abilities.

Stay tuned … I will be releasing much more information about our new direction throughout the remainder of 2011. As always I appreciate your comments, questions, and suggestions.

More later …. Stay tuned!!

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