Mothers of Reinvention

as featured in the “Inspired” magazine, Autumn/Winter 2008
by Fran Molloy

For former management consultant Denise Hall, the flexibility she needed as a mum has become the key to her success; her business is based on supplying talented consultants, who work as ‘free agents,’ to organisations who need their skills for a short-term project, often in project-based fields like organisational development and training.

She channelled her inner entrepreneur and with another mum as business partner, established aCE talentNET. With her extensive experience as an international management consultant, Denise could have had her pick of top executive positions; but she felt that, as a single mum, she needed a certain level of flexibility, and that is difficult within a large corporation.

Now, she works about 25 hours a week – during school hours – and is able to earn a good income, while keeping an active role in parenting her daughter.

“You don’t have to bust a boiler to make it work,” she says, adding that she sees many parents caught up in inefficient work settings that waste the time they could be spending with their children.

Efficiency and responsibility are key to making her business work – and her team is not bound by office hours. “We structure our days around what needs to be done – the work to be done is addressed rather than the hours that need to be filled.”

Technology helps to make most of Denise’s work location-independent – and she has a lot of trust and respect for her team of co-workers.

for the full article… read on

Innovation Avalanche

The July / August 2008 edition of Trend Briefing is now online, covering INNOVATION AVALANCHE, including new and updated trends, and no less than 41 new business ideas, many of them begging to be introduced to the Australian market.

So… time to finally dream up that new product or startup.
You know you want to 😉

INNOVATION AVALANCHE: There’s more innovation happening than ever before. New brands, new niches, new concepts, new products, new services and new experiences are flooding an equally fast expanding number of markets. Just as important, there are more freely available sources to track these innovations than ever before. And all of this is coming to (if not at) you from every corner of the world. The GLOBAL BRAIN has been unleashed, and there’s nowhere to hide for those who aren’t part of it.

The link between INNOVATION AVALANCHE and trends? As focused as we are on emerging consumer trends, we never tire of pointing out that trends are only good for one thing: helping you get inspired to innovate, to come up with new goods, services and experiences for (or even better, with) your customers.

Now, one easy way to get started is by taking a look at innovative companies around the world that are already capitalizing on trends, and learn from them. But before you dive into the many trends and examples we’ve selected for you, a few quick pointers…

read on

The Most Profitable Home-Based Businesses

Whilst this is US based data, I’d be fairly confident that similar views would also work in Australia… have a read and see for yourself

Who needs a nasty commute when you can make a decent buck but a few feet from your kitchen? Over half of all U.S. businesses are now based out of an owner’s home, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. With the economy shedding jobs, the ranks of the self-employed may well keep swelling. Plenty more entrepreneurs may look to eliminate rent and fuel costs to pinch pennies.

With the help of Sageworks, a Raleigh, N.C.-based private-company data provider, Forbes.com has assembled a list of the 10 most profitable businesses–on a pretax basis–that could be run out of a home. The data were drawn from eight years worth of financial statements (nearly an entire business cycle) for tens of thousands of privately held U.S. companies with annual revenues under $1 million and bucketed by Internal Revenue Service classifications. Average pretax profits ranged from 8% to 14%.

Facilitators–from brokerages to consultancies–nabbed five of the 10 spots; creators, such as specialty design shops, earned three; and repair outfits rounded out the rest. To be sure, not all will fare equally (or well) in the economic downturn.

read on
and if you prefer to see this information in picture, click here

As for consultants… Two big challenges mentioned: marketing and pricing your services. That’s where the services of aCE talentNET come in to their own…

ICA – Surviving the Financial Meltdown

Do the words “global financial meltdown” sound familiar?

News reports are full of gloom, but how will this impact on you, if things really get bad? This opinion piece, by Ken Phillips, Executive Director of Independent Contractors of Australia, is provided as food for thought for independent contractors and anyone running a small business—particularly if you haven’t run a business in hard times.

Well worth a read…

How money-smart are you?

via the Barefoot Investor Scott Pape for TheAge.com

these questions are good…
Mine was a “solid performance” accordingly to the result scores at the bottom of the questions. And if you don’t score any higher than that? then you have some serious work to do!
contact me quickly!

HOW money-smart are you? Well, this week ANZ released the results from its annual Financial Literacy Survey, which tracks how knowledgeable Australians are about their finances.

The results were not unlike a troubled teenager’s school report: “Much improved. Could do better. Would help if the student did some homework once in a while.”

Even if you slept through economics at school, you now have the chance to do a free refresher course. In the next 18 months we’ll all be going through a (real world) economics exam – get it wrong and the ramifications will be much worse than a scolding from your mum.

So to help you prepare I’ve put together a quick quiz that tests your financial knowledge.
read on…

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