This Thursday, I will talk in a round table discussion format with a great group of other industry experts about taking your business to the next level. I will discuss something I know about; Social Marketing and how to integrate it into other Marketing campaigns that you may or may not be running.
But what I wanted to touch on was an area that I admit I am terrible at, and it’s something the other speakers are talking about, and that is Financing and Money.
Money affects our lives, and every part of it involves us and our culture from the moment we are born, even before that if you ask our parents.
I always say I wish my school was more advanced at the time and had allocated educational time to teach us, naïve kids, about money and financing. I’m surprised sometimes I can balance a chequebook.
When it comes to the end of my business year and the sudden arrival and denial of accounting time, I’m almost in a complete panic about what I should have done, as if it was a new thing I had never done before. Financing is one of those things that I should know a lot more about, and perhaps I have always been too afraid to ask for advice because I believe it is such an essential part of our lives, and I should know this information.
It wasn’t until today that I heard one of the upcoming presentations for this Thursday mentioning specifically an approach to this problem and that I may not be alone. That especially for businesses when it comes to banks that are looking for exact numbers and not just estimates out of the back of your mind ( I am good at making those up). And believe it or not that there are advisors, banks and everyday people like you and me out there whose business is to help you find that information and what to do with it and help us benefit from the knowledge.
With the changing social interaction, this is an ideal opportunity to change the stigma of not knowing what to ask about money and financing. That online world has presented us with an open and somewhat unlimited and interactive forum to learn and ask questions about some crazy subjects such as paying bills, mortgages, registered retirement savings plans, stocks, financial investments and yes and probably the best way to balance a chequebook.
So if I filter out the spam tweets that are telling me how to make a gazillion dollars a day by tweeting and follow some of the new links to financial blogs and blogs that banks or investors have produced that perhaps at the end of the year, I may surprise my self and my accountant and at the least have my receipts put into the correct folders.
So, are you honestly afraid of money, banks, investments and how it controls your life? Do you wish the education system would have spent more time or given you more resources in getting you up to speed about what it would mean when you left school? Are you still looking for more interaction on managing your mortgage or how to budget for the financial requirements of your monthly living successfully? A massive area that could have changed many lives is what you need to know to start a business or go into a business venture.
Please let us know, are you in control of the $$, or is it in control of you?