for your global investment portfolio include telecommunications in the Middle East and North Africa, manufacturing in China and India, IT services in India, and energy-related services in places such as Norway and the Middle East, all high-growth sectors. A cautionary note before you make your move: Read and understand what and where you’re investing your money.
Small Business
After 20 years as a health educator, Terri Holley discovered life coaching, loving it so much she earned her certification and launched a full-time business. Her new venture was limping along, but surprisingly, the blog on her Website was a huge hit. “People started asking me how to do a blog like mine for their business,†says Holley, 43, of Spencerville, Maryland. “Then it just clicked.â€
And it kept clicking. In April she launched Creative Blog Solutions (www.creative blogsolutions.com), where media strategists help entrepreneurs leverage social technology to market and promote their businesses. A self-professed geek, Holley became proficient in blog platforms. Now she builds blogs, consults, and holds teleclasses, furnishing clients with tips on how to gain the best search engine results, handle feedback, and integrate their blogs with other Websites. Holley reinvented her business, a strategic decision many entrepreneurs are making to stay relevant.
“Reinvention is looking at the world around you with new eyes. It means taking note of what’s happening in the general marketplace, considering your target clientele, and making a decision to refocus the strategy,†asserts Pamela Mitchell, founder and CEO of the Miami-based firm The Reinvention Institute.
Change can be dramatic or subtle. It should be done, however, with thought and vision, Mitchell says. Begin by browsing the Internet and reading industry publications to learn about new trends. Then figure out how these new areas apply to your business.
Holley may have put life coaching on the back burner but those skills still come in handy. After all, she’s still helping people move to the next level. “I’m most excited about taking people in the bricks-and-mortar world and introducing them to a world they never knew before.â€
Lifestyle
Dorothy L. Myers found herself in a tough situation this year. She’d left a stressful but lucrative job at a design company for another opportunity that didn’t pan out. Unemployed since July, the 43-year-old Washington, D.C., resident has chosen to go the entrepreneurial route and expand her part-time business, Haven Interior Concepts L.L.C., into a full-time online interior design venture.
“Going through this difficult situation has made me sit back and think about doing my own thing,†Myers says. “But the field is changing, so I’ve definitely got some training ahead of me.†Career coaches would say her head’s in the right place. In this shaky economy, when businesses are scrambling for consumer dollars, Myers and others need to have something extra special for tomorrow’s market. That could mean a makeover–such as hiring an image consultant, signing up for specialty classes, nabbing a new degree, improving your networking skills, or making a personal transformation, as Myers has done.
She’s looking into buying a design-friendly computer to get