By now, everyone knows the statistics. 10,000 Baby Boomers retire in the U.S. alone each day; many of us will spend more time in the Retirement stage of life than in young adulthood, adolescence and childhood combined. We will spend much of that time in good mental and physical health because of scientific and technological advances.
All indicators are that Retirement is a powerful life transition and can be the doorway to the most creative, enjoyable time of our lives.
Yet the subject of retirement is one of the last great taboos. We may dread it or look forward to it ? but, in our culture and in our families, we almost never talk about it. We certainly don't plan it. We sit back and let it happen.
Chances are, you will have spent more time researching and planning your last vacation than you will spend sitting down together as a couple and ironing out the details of your retirement.
To help you on your way, here are three absolutely essential questions you must ask yourselves, as individuals and as a partnership, before you retire.
Where Will I Live?
The answer to this question will not be a point on a map. Do you want to live in a City with a political culture, museums, coffee shops you can walk to, an artistic community, a local Junior college? Do you want to be able to walk your dog near your home, play golf nearby, grow vegetables, be out of earshot of any neighbors? Do you want a small town atmosphere? Do you want the hustle of nightlife? Do you need to be near an airport? Do allergies or medical conditions play any part in your decision? What do you want to see when you look out of your kitchen window in the morning nursing your coffee ? a beach, mountains, friendly neighbors, trees?
Who Will I Live With?
Do you want to live near the kids so you can see them on weekends? Do you want to live in another State so you don't get stuck with unofficial babysitting duties each weekend? Do you want your friends and neighbors to be Liberals, Republicans or aging hippies? Is a Faith-based community important to you? What kind of church or temple would you like nearby? Do you want to live within a community with a wide disparity of ages? Do you want to live in a Seniors Only Community? Would you like to live in a creative community; an outdoorsy community?
How Will You Live?
Will you garden or are you done with yard work forever? Will you volunteer, mentor local kids, start your own business or consultancy? Will you golf every day? Are yoga classes, neighborhood associations, Book Clubs, availability of part-time employment important to you? What will you do all day?
If you are retiring as a single individual, answering these questions can be crucial, but fairly simple. If you are retiring with a spouse or lifetime partner you may be surprised at the disparities that may crop up. Your spouse may have been harboring a secret desire to live in an upscale urban condo after 20 years of suburban tract living. This puts a crimp in your desire to take long walks in nature every day. One of you will have to give. Both of you may have to compromise. This can be done with deliberation and consideration if there is time to discuss, negotiate and search for alternatives.
Let the mantra for your Non-Financial Retirement Planning be:
Awareness and Communication (and don't forget that often the most important part of communication is truly listening).
Mary Rosendale is a Certified Coach with a speciality in Baby Boomer Retirement Planning. She is trained and authorized to administer and interpret the RSP, the most accurate and well-known indicator of a satisfying retirement.Visit her on the web at www.MatureLifePlanning.com
If I had to begin my business again from scratch, I would look at forming strategic alliances and seeking joint ventures partners much sooner in my business growth plan. Asking a more successful business owner to help you promote your site or to form an alliance where you both benefit is one of the quickest ways to turbocharge your success, provided it's done correctly.
However, therein lies the problem. Most joint venture requests are made with absolutely no planning and no forethought. Since I've had an online business for many years, I get emails every week requesting me to promote or joint partner with someone in some way. Almost all of the requests are immediately deleted because the person making the request has simply not done his/her homework and presents me with, at best, a very ill-conceived plan.
There are a few simple steps you should take BEFORE seeking out any joint venture partners or strategic alliances. Here are 4 secrets to success in your joint venture partnership request:
1. Product ties into target market. I'm always getting joint venture requests from people who have products that make absolutely no sense for me to promote. The most mismatched request I've gotten for a JV is with a portable shuffleboard game business owner. No one has joined my list to hear about the latest in any type of game, and undoubtedly my list members would wonder what crazy pill I'd taken the day I send out an email to tell them about this product. It's a complete mismatch for my list.
However, the promoter of this game just didn't get it. He continued to insist that my list would benefit because everyone needs relaxation time, and this game would provide that. Wrong, wrong, wrong. His interest in the JV was due to the fact that I have a large list. A large list doesn't matter if it contains the wrong target market. For successful joint ventures, approach businesses who serve the same target market as you and who sell similar products.
2. Reliable tracking software. A second way to get shot down immediately in your joint venture request is to tell your prospect, "Oh, I'll manually track your affiliates when they write your name in the 'referred by' box on my order form." Yeah, right. That NEVER works. The only way I'll joint venture with anyone is if they are using reliable affiliate tracking software that provides me with a unique affiliate link that I can use throughout any web pages I create or emails I might send, as well as permits me to check on my affiliate commission sales at any time. To successfully make a joint venture request, offer your JV partner the ability to reliably track his/her success with the joint venture.
3. Worthwhile commissions. "I'll offer you $2 in commission for every sale that you make!" While this JV requester thinks this proposal should make me stop in my tracks and hang onto his every word, a proposal this inconsequential just isn't worth my time. Your product has to be priced high enough that the commission option will be worthwhile for your JV partner to promote. To determine what this might be, take a look around potential JV partner sites. At what price ranges are their products offered? What commissions are they offering to their affiliates?
I was in a teleclass recently with a well-known Internet marketer who said he wouldn't even consider a JV partnership unless he received around $1000 per sale. In this case, the JV requester's product will need to be priced at least $2000 in order to award commissions of that magnitude. Can you play at the level at which you're making your requests? A good JV partnership is born when the requester and the partner offer similarly priced products and similar commission structures. Make it worthwhile for your JV partners to promote your product.
4. Conversion rates. The worst thing you can do is say, "I don't know" when your JV partner asks you the question, "What is the conversion ratio of your sales letter?" Your JV partner has no desire to be your guinea pig and test the success of your sales letter for you. You need to know your conversion numbers before approaching anyone with a JV partnership offer. This means that you should know that out of X number of visits to your site, Y number buys your product, i.e. 1 out of every 100 or 50 out of every 3000. The higher your conversion rate, the more likely someone will accept your offer to joint venture.
If you don't know the conversion number, try some pay-per-click advertising or start first with JV partners with smaller lists. This will allow you to tweak and improve your sales letter page and thus increase your conversion ratio to better prepare you to make requests to more powerful JV partners.
Joint venture partnerships are a very effective way to rapidly increase your sales and grow your business. Do your homework and get your plan in the place now so that you can add this strategy to your marketing arsenal.
Both Mary Rosendale & Donna Gunter are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Donna Gunter has sinced written about articles on various topics from Internet Marketing, Property Investment and Nutrition. Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses by demystifying the steps needed to successfully market a