So you’ve had it with office politics, working for a bad boss and making someone else rich.

You decide to quit and set up your own business.

Before you do, you need to work out what your time is worth.

Take this typical job in PR as Communications Manager for a major company in a big city.

Here’s the headline of the job in the weekend paper.

Corporate communications role, big office near a major park, full-time staff position with salary of $145k+ super

This is the job description when you first applied.

“Our new communications function plays an important role in the management of internal/external communications, reputation risk and providing expertise in community relations.

Reporting to the General Manager, Business Development, your responsibilities will include coordinating internal and external communications initiatives, including publications and the intranet; media relations, assisting in the implementation of external stakeholders strategies; providing counsel to projects in the management of community engagement; preparing speeches and presentations on behalf of senior management; and maintaining an emergency and crisis communications management plan.

Essential skills and experience require ideal candidates to have proven experience in delivering enhancements to internal and external communication. Minimum 5 years experience in external stakeholders relations is essential as is oustanding written, verbal and interpersonal communication skills.”

So let’s take this fictional role and compare it with what you would need to earn if you ran your own PR business.

One of the speakers I most admire, Matt Church CSP provided the inspiration, insight and permission for the basis of this article.

“Don’t give up your day job, well not unless you value your time correctly,” Matt says.

He says the focus is on how you value your time if you run your own company compared to working for someone else in the job mentioned above.

“What do you need to earn for the year? There are two figures to consider here; Your annual “turnover” from fees and your specific “take home” before tax. As a simple rule of thumb, those of you comparing your income equivalent in a day job should look at an annual turnover at least double your potential professional salary. In most cases it needs to be double plus 25 per cent; the 25 per cent factors in lean running costs,” Matt says.

“You should then divide the grossed up figure by 100 days and you get close to your day rate. As you play with this you can start to get clear on what you need to earn as a benchmark each time you sell what you do.”

Let’s look at an example: Pauline the PR professional!

Pauline can earn $145,000 a year working as the Communications Manager in the above example.

Double her day job equals $290,000 in fees (2 x $145,000)

Lets then add the 25 per cent (25 per cent of turnover) for a lean operation running costs.

She now has a calculated budget turnover of $362,500

Divide this by 100 saleable days a year equals a day rate of $3,625.

Now here is what usually happens according to Matt!

Pauline or any other professional moves out of her day job as advertised above and starts to think all she needs to do is replace her salary. Matt reckons this is “a seriously bad move!!”

“They then divide this by around 220 days a year. That’s a lot of hard work for very little money.”

In Pauline’s case she would have a day rate of approx $650!

Now, I’ve even seen PR jobs advertised as low as $19.50 an hour! Why is this so low compared to a lawyer four years out from law school who earns at least $400 an hour?

I argue an effective corporate communications professional will add more value to a business than a lawyer any day!

“Don’t let anyone tell you that your day rate when compared to an employee is way too high. The on costs and base costs in a business will smash you every time. As an aside, smart doctors share resources to drive down the base costs,” Matt says.

According to Matt, if you don’t value your time correctly 3 things will happen;

1. You will find yourself earning lots and taking home nothing.

2. You will work way too hard and not have any time to develop new business

3. You will constantly think you should go back to a day job!

“In a practice based income business model, take-home is king not turnover! So pay yourself first and don’t sell yourself cheap!”

This is really valuable advice for people wanting to run their own PR, media or management consulting practice.

And how do I know? Well, over the past eight years of running my own business, I’ve been there and done exactly what Matt says you shouldn’t do.

I was so tight for cash flow at one time, I spent the weekends renting my office carpark to football fans just so I could survive.

Fortunately, I’ve learnt and been able to turn my business around through fair and value-based pricing.

And of course that’s the value of having a mentor or coach. Someone who has been there before and can advise on all the pitfalls.

My thanks to Matt Church CSP for his insights and I highly recommend his Thought Leaders website - http://www.australianthoughtleaders.com/

Thomas Murrell MBA CSP is an international business speaker, consultant and award-winning broadcaster. Media Motivators is his regular electronic magazine read by 7,000 professionals in 15 different countries. You can subscribe by visiting http://www.8mmedia.com Thomas can be contacted directly at +6189388 6888 and is available to speak to your conference, seminar or event. Visit Tom’s blog at http://www.8mmedia.blogspot.com

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Knowing a little about oil can go a long way to helping you decide where to put your hard-earned cash…

What is Oil?

Nearly everyone is aware that crude oil was formed by the decomposition of plant and animal life from hundreds of millions of years ago. This material was compressed under vast sea-bottom deposits and the pressure and heat created hydrocarbons: that is, mineral, or crude, oil.

Lubricating oils are the product of the refining of crude oils. These oils are materials made up of many chemicals, including detergent and paraffin. Paraffin (wax) is an inherent component of crude oil and not all is refined out. Paraffin is the chief reason oil thickens up when it gets cold. Anyway, back to our engines…

Engines would quickly seize-up without lubrication and oils are designed to prevent bearing wear and metal-to-metal contact. This is accomplished by pumping the oil under pressure so that it forms a film between those parts. Manufacturers put special additives to oil to allow it to perform properly over varying engine conditions and time. Some additives slow thinning as engine temperatures rise, hence the “multigrade” designation on the container. Other additives help to limit the breakdown of oil under loads.

Internal combustion causes byproducts such as water and carbon. These byproducts are what create the “dirt” in oil, necessitating scheduled changes. These can create deposits and acids, so other additives are in place to do the following:

- Antioxidants are there to minimize the formation of acids, varnish and sludge.

- Detergents are added to keep engine parts clean by lifting deposits (mostly carbon) from surfaces.

- Corrosion Inhibitors also work against the formation of acids that can attack bearing surfaces.

- Rust Inhibitors keep water from mixing with the oil film and causing rust.

- Foam Inhibitors prevent the formation of foam bubbles in the oil, due to detergents and the physical churning of the oil during engine operation.

- Friction and Wear Reducers, Dispersants are there to help keep insoluble combustion byproducts in suspension and to minimize wear in bearings.

So Far, So Good, But What About Aftermarket Additives?

All mineral oils are graded by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). These grading criteria are based upon the expected load and temperature ranges under which a given engine will be used. Viscosity grades are available in a wide range. These grades are most frequently seen in forms such as 5W-30, 10W-30, etc., in multi-vicosity blends. Straight viscosities are also available (20 W, 30W, etc.).

It is true that most engine wear takes place during startup, since virtually no measurable wear takes place during running. The faster an engine is revved during startup, the more the wear, so keeping a light foot on the accelerator pedal during startup -and warmup - is the secret to long engine life.

Oil is viscous and has capillary action. That is, it remains on the engine parts as a film indefinitely after running. Contrary to advertisements, your engine’s parts don’t scrape against each other (as bare metal) just because you haven’t started it in a few weeks (granted, if it’s 10-degrees outside and you haven’t started that ‘59 Corvette in six months, there will be a little wear when you start it up. However, if you crank the starter for 30 seconds or so and then start the engine, little significant damage will result because you will have pumped oil into the system under minimal loads).

For decades, however, a huge industry has made billions of dollars by convincing the public that their engines are wearing out prematurely due to lack of “complete” lubrication. The aftermarket oil additive industry - there are many of them and they advertise everywhere - claims to show “proven” results, longer life, better mileage, etc. by using their products. None of this is true.

What these marketers are selling falls generally into two categories: either their product is a variety of soluble chemicals (chiefly, chlorinated paraffin) or solid particles suspended in a “carrier.” The chlorinated paraffins work fine for your drill press (cutting oil is chlorinated paraffin) but don’t do anything in your engine. Solid particle additives, chiefly PTFE or Teflon, is a suspension of ground-up particles in oil. It won’t work, period.

Many of the aftermarket additives contain compounds already added by the oil refiner (No, more is not better! The refiner put in the right amount for the job and more would only upset the mixing proportions of the other additives!). Other additives contain “questionable” materials that could harm engines. Engine oils are complex mixtures and adding the wrong chemical compound to a properly formulated blend can cause failure of other critical additives.

Your engine was designed by competent engineers and a lubricating oil was specified for it. Properly maintained (and brought up to correct operating temperature at each use), it will easily last 150-200,000 miles on ordinary mineral oils. Under normal operation (startup to redline) the extremes of load, temperature and wear claimed by additive advertisers don’t exist in your engine.

We can’t stress the following enough:

No oil manufacturer recommends the use of off-the-shelf additives in their products, nor do any automobile manufacturers. Most additives do nothing (remember, those high loads and stresses don’t take place in normal engine operation) and some actually can contaminate the oil. No manufacturer’s warranty will cover failure if it is found that an additive was present in the engine oil.

Virtually all additive advertisements (and synthetic oil ads as well) claim better fuel mileage. This is anecdotal, unprovable and non-scientific (before you write back with your rebuttal, consider this: if any claim of better mileage could be proved to be repeatable, the government (NHTSA, in fact) would require the manufacturers to use the product. The manufacturers themselves would specify it because it is all they can do to reach those CAFE - Corporate Average Fuel Economy - standards). It just ain’t true.

So you used an additive once and found the engine ran better and you got better fuel economy? Of course you did, because you were paying closer attention to its operation than you normally would! This is known as the “Hawthorne Effect” and it works because of that very fact. If you collected random records of the engine’s performance you would find no change from before.

How About Synthetic Oil?

Today’s motor oils are very high-quality products. However, synthetic oils are becoming very popular, especially used in high-performance engines. Synthetic oils are blends of synthesized hydrocarbon fluids (SHF) and esters, all derived from the refining process. The chief material of synthetic oil is polyalphaolefin, derived from ethylene. Synthetics can be called petrochemicals, and while they appear chemically similar to mineral oils they are “pure” chemicals. No waxes or other impurities are present in synthetic oils. Since they don’t contain parafin, synthetics tend to flow better at lower temperatures and not thin out as much at higher temperatures. They are available in multi-viscosity grades from 0W-30 to 15W-50.

Synthetic oil has some advantages:

- Relatively constant viscosity over a wide temperature range

- Higher detergent properties. They are naturally detergent

- Non-toxic when handled properly

- No harmful impurities

- Better lubricative properties

- Less breakdown tendency under high loads

Synthetic oils cost about three times that of regular oils and aren’t really necessary for most people. There are some situations wherein the extra expense of synthetic oils is warranted, however.

1. Racing: Engines are run full-time at high rev and there is tremendous heat. You need all the help you can get.

2. Extremely cold environments. Maybe your engine won’t know the difference, but you’ll save money on batteries.

3. Engines which don’t use camshaft bearings (Lamborghini,Ferrari and others, including 30s and 40s cars).

4. Engines that won’t regularly get up to proper operating temperatures. Improper warm-up is the biggest killer of engines. Cold sludge and varnish will build up and create lots of friction, hence wear and failure. Synthetic oils will not form these deposits.

5. Carbureted cars that run exceptionally rich (if the oil dipstick smells like gas, yours is one).

Myths About Synthetics:

It can’t be mixed with regular mineral oils.

Not so. Mobil 1 and the others are perfectly compatible with mineral oils (but not with each other).

You get longer oil life with it.

Not so. You have to change your oil according to manufacturers’ instructions (it’s the exhaust byproducts which get into the oil and turn it black, requiring change. Synthetic oil can’t hold any more of these particles than mineral oil).

Synthetic oil will destroy seals and gaskets in older vehicles.

Not so. If the seals are functional no harm will be done. If they are hardened and shrunken, you need to rebuild the engine.

About The Author
Les Jackson is a well-known automotive writer, and Editor-In-Chief of www.SecondChanceGarage.com, a website dedicated to car restoration enthusiasts.

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Once upon a time, a millionaire was a rare thing indeed. But that’s not the case anymore. Of course, money has depreciated over time thanks to inflation, so that a million dollars now does not have the same buying power that it did in the past. But that’s not the only reason that more and more people are able to claim that they are millionaires. Part of the increase in membership into this once highly exclusive category is that people are becoming much smarter about how they use their money. They have come to understand the magic of compound investing and how powerful a tool it is to understand when it comes to getting your money to work for you.

As discussed in other articles, remember that money has time value. While a million dollars captures a certain ‘meaning’ to us now, it will not have the same meaning in 10, 20 or 30 years when you are ready to retire. So just understand that even if you are able to call yourself a millionaire, that doesn’t mean that you will be living the lifestyle of what you see today’s millionaires doing. By then, it will take multiple millions of dollars to enjoy the same type of lifestyle that today’s millionaires enjoy. All the more reason to begin your wise investing as soon as possible.

So how can you get to the goal of becoming a millionaire? Well, first you need to adopt the millionaire attitude by taking an honest look at your current financial situation. Chances are you can first change some of your spending habits so that you are ‘losing’ less money. The more money you can invest now instead of spending it on unnecessary items, the more money you will have for your retirement. Where are you currently in debt? There is ‘good’ debt, such as a mortgage, which in most cases means that what you have purchased is appreciating in value. And there is ‘bad’ debt, such as a new car payment, which has you paying for an item that is depreciating in value. And for many of us, the worst debt is also the most commonly held - credit card debt. If you are paying for the right to use credit, you are probably living above your means. Not to mention the fact that once you are considered a good risk by a credit card company, you are more readily able to get credit from other companies as well. So all too often, you can end up making minimum payments on a number of credit cards, making it difficult to ever pay off any of them entirely. Of course, you can’t change what you’ve spent in the past, but you can change what you spend in the future. Stop spending what you can’t afford, pay off high interest debts, and invest as much as possible.

The exact investment requirements needed to reach the millionaire mark depend on how much, at what interest rate, and for how long you have to invest your money. But, let’s say that you are 35 years old and you want to retire at 65. You are starting from scratch on your account and want to get to $1,000,000 by 65. At 8% interest, you would need to save $8,826 per year, or $735.50 per month. What if you can earn 10%? Then you need $6,079 per year, or about $506.58 per month to reach $1,000,000 by 65. Of course, if you had 40 years to reach the millionaire mark, you’d only need $321 a month at 8% or an amazing $188.25 a month at 10% in order to hit your goal. The moral is, the sooner you start, the more magic compounding interest can do for you.

Visit the Global Investment Institute for more articles and learn how to become a billionaire at http://www.Global-Investment-Institute.com

Investment webmasters or publishers, please feel free to use this article provided this reference is included and all links remain active.

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