Rocky Mountain Magazine & Meeting Place

Tell me, what business are you in?

I say your business is an extension of your spiritual path. Now, most of you are probably thinking, “Wait a minute, my business is selling espresso and muffins,” or, “I sell hammers, and hoses, and hardware.” But I say you are really selling integrity and honesty.

Whether you own a business or work for someone else, you are a teacher of truth, in effect, for you teach the way of honesty and integrity in everything you do and thought the manner in which you do it.

You are also a healer of the world, because in everything you do, you either add to or subtract from the honesty and integrity in the aggregate mind of the world.

And it is each little bit of honesty and integrity that adds to the whole which adds to and aids the healing of our community, state, nation, and planet.

Some of you go to extraordinary lengths to be of service in an honest and integrous way, and I declare, if you only had a mirror in which you could see your spiritual reflection, you would perceive the halos and wings that adorn you.

We sometimes believe what we do is, “only business,” but I see our “business” as the business of being the best we can be; the business of making our world the best it can be. So smile, and light up that halo – straighten your shoulders and spread those wings a bit — the world is watching.

By Richard Stone

By Wayne Wallace

It’s been almost two years since turmoil began in the financial markets. And during that time, your own financial picture, along with that of virtually every other investor, has probably changed. Still, you can do a lot to get back on track toward the future you’ve envisioned — and you can start today.

What moves should you make?

Here are a few to consider:

Assess your current situation. You’re well aware of the change in your portfolio’s value over the past two years, and you may well have already made some adjustments. But if you’re going to position yourself properly for the future, you need to review your entire financial situation: your savings, spending, investments, insurance and income needs. Only then can you chart the course that’s right for you.

Re-evaluate your goals. Since you are already reviewing your financial picture, now is a good time to also re-examine your goals.

Would you like to help pay for a child’s college education?

Do you know when you plan to retire?

When you do retire, what sort of lifestyle do you envision?

If you haven’t already done so, identify your goals and try to put a price tag on them. Review your strategy for reaching your goals. Once you know about how much money your goals may require, you’ll need to review your savings and investment strategies to determine if they are likely to provide sufficient funds.

You’ll need to look at your investment mix to see if it’s providing the right combination of growth and income opportunities. At the same time, you’ll want to analyze your feelings about investment risk. Before the market decline, many investors believed they were more comfortable with risk than they actually were. Because different investments carry different levels of risk, it’s essential that you know your risk tolerance and factor it into your investment decisions.

Start making necessary changes. To attain the goals you’ve identified, you may well need to make some changes. For example, during the most recent bear market, the value of your growth-oriented investments likely fell considerably, which means these investments may now make up a smaller percentage of your portfolio, relative to income-oriented vehicles.

Yet to achieve your long-term objectives, you may need a good amount of exposure to investments that have the potential to provide growth, such as stocks. Consequently, you may need to rebalance your portfolio, possibly with the help of a professional financial advisor — someone who knows your goals, risk tolerance, family situation and other key factors.

Be flexible. After you’ve identified your goals and revised your investment strategy accordingly, you have taken some important steps — but you’re still not done.

None of us can predict what will happen in our lives, and as we’ve seen, the financial markets are equally unpredictable. So you will need to be flexible with your investment moves and prepared to make changes as necessary.

In short, establish an investment strategy that’s right for your needs and follow it as best you can, but be prepared to adjust your path as time goes by. By staying diligent, you can help yourself advance toward your important goals — in all economic environments.

Wayne Wallace
Financial Advisor
Edward Jones
760 Wicks Ln Ste 3
Billings, MT 59105
(406) 254-7048
www.edwardjones.com

Facebook is the largest and one of the fastest growing social networking sites on the web. The odds are that you have a profile and that you have friends who are active on Facebook. One of the aspects of Facebook that many people aren’t aware of is that they can have a business page or fan page in addition to their personal profile page.
Businesses of all sizes are using these pages to interact with their customers, everyone from Coca Cola with over 4 million fans to local brands with 50-150 fans. Should your business have a Facebook page? Yes, here’s why you should have a Facebook page:

1. Your customers are there
   I’m sure there’s an exception, but with over 350 million people worldwide and over 200,000 adults in Montana on Facebook the odds are that they are there.

2. You can be found easily
   There are SEO benefits to having a Facebook page. What that means is that in many cases your Facebook Business page can be found on the first page of Google’s search results for your page name. This is a great shortcut for businesses that want to rank well in the search engines.

3. Very easy, inexpensive way to communicate with your customers
   The benefit of Facebook and other social media tools is that you can engage your audience on a deeper level. Your only expense is your time unless you hire a professional to build and manage your page for you.

4. Pages allow a business to “Publish to the Stream”
   Items that you publish on your page show up on your fans homepages. The average person on Facebook has 120 friends and their friends will see what you publish. It is even more powerful when you are able to get your fans to interact with your page through liking and commenting.

5. Pages allow a business to engage fans with Rich Media (video, pictures, events)
   You aren’t stuck just sharing text you can share a variety of content to keep your page interesting and engaging. Sharing photos from events, videos you’ve produced or are sharing form YouTube will help your audience get more involved in your page.

6. Pages let a business analyze how fans are interacting
   Facebook’s Insights Dashboard is a powerful analytics program takes away the guesswork by showing you how your fans are interacting with your content. This helps you develop stronger strategies to interact with them.
   Those are just a couple of the reasons that you should explore starting a Facebook page. Starting a page is easy to do and it can be a fun way to interact with your customer base. But beware Facebook is addicting, if you don’t have a plan when you start your page you will find yourself on Facebook for hours a day with no real return on your investment. If you would like to find out more about Facebook join us in a class February 2nd and 9th.