Then one day your usual routine comes to a screeching halt, suddenly and without warning. You have been laid off. With a box of your belonging in hand, you are dazed and confused as you are shown the door. 

When reality sets in, your mind reflects on the things you should have done to prepare for this day.

Whom do you call? What other companies can use your skills? These and a thousand other questions come to mind; the questions that come with hindsight. 

If your lucky enough to still be gainfully employed, now is the time to prepare for such a day. The preparation that you do now can change the flavor of that day from one of life’s little set backs to an opportunity of a lifetime.

If you have already been laid off, and find your self running from door to door distributing resumes, do not worry. There is still time to do more research and put together a plan of attack.

In either case, you need to identify people and businesses that you deal with on a regular basis. You need to network.

Most experts agree that networking is a critical element of a successful job hunt and is the single most important source of job leads.

If you have been in your field a number of years, you may have collected an impressive number of business cards from vendors, consultants or colleagues working at other companies.

These associates have a history with you, as well as business relationships with many other companies that may need your talents. These same associates along with your previous vendors and consultants may know if anyone has any employment opportunities for you.

 (If you are currently employed and don’t foresee a layoff any time soon, take note for when it is your turn. Collect those business cards and build your own personal network now, while you are employed.)

Now that you have identified those resources, its time to pick up the phone and make contact with them and notify them of your availability. Kindly advise them that you would appreciate it if they could pass your name along should they come across another company that is in need of your talents.

If you are lucky enough to still be employed, or have been notified that the end of your employment is in sight, then networking is of significant importance. It is easy to become caught up in the daily grind of your personal life; however, this is your chance to cast a wide professional net. Now is the time to have lunch with that annoying sales person, update your Linkedin profile or take in a trade show. Every opportunity is a potential career contact.

The first thing many people do is to navigate to the nearest online job postings site. For some people this may be fine, but do not make this your only employment resource. You need to investigate your personal network of contacts to find out if employment opportunities exist and if you have the skill set needed for a match.

Research needs be your primary focus when seeking new employment. Research the companies in the area and find out what positions they are hiring for and what skills are needed for the positions available. Research the pay scales for those positions so you know what the national average is for negotiation purposes.

I have seen many people jump into new careers shortly after a layoff simply because they were concerned with a particular salary level, but did not take the time to market themselves for the best price available. Do your research and do not under estimate your skills, and more importantly, do not price yourself out of the market. Research is key in this area.

Do not obsess over being laid off; this will waste time and valuable energy. As Alexander Graham Bell once said, “Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open.”

There are times in our life when struggles are unavoidable. If we were to go through life without any obstacles, our skills would atrophy. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. Give every opportunity a chance, leave no room for regrets and remember, when one door closes, another always opens.

This is when most people turn to Domain name valuations or appraisals. Just do a Google search and you are likely to find dozens of them. The question quickly becomes which service should I use? Which ones are reputable? The answer is easy. NONE!

In my opinion, these online and even manual Domain valuations and appraisals are a complete waste of time and money and serve only to make easy money by the sites offering these services.

The Domain name does not determine how successful a web site will be, or that it will receive millions of visitors. A Domain name must be related to the product or service provided by the content of the web site. The Domain name only makes it easier for people to remember your web sites address.

If for example, you have a Domain name such as, “IntimateApparal.com” and the content of the web site is electrical supplies, then the Domain name’s value is worthless. However, if the site does in fact sell intimate apparel, then its values as a Domain name could be priceless.

Like so many other things in life, the value of a Domain name is only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. It’s very much like visiting a garage sales; something of little value to the seller may be invaluable to the buyer. As the old saying goes, “One man’s junk, is another man’s treasure.”

As with anything purchased these days, whether it’s a new cell phones or a box of paper clips, each item or domain name is worth exactly what you paid for it. If you bought a “.com” domain name and registered it for $8.00, then it is worth $8.00.

That does not mean that that is the price you or I would accept to sell the domain name. Simply put, we either purchase domain name to hold them and eventually development them, or flip them for a profit.

So if you have a web site that generated $500,000 worth or business in its first year, then what would the value of the domain name for that site be. After all if you had a site that brought in that kind of money, you could simply hold it year after year and continue to make money. To you that domain name may be priceless, but if you had to place a value on it, assuming that its value is worth 5 times what it generates for you each year, would price the domain name at $2,500,000, and that’s on the low side.

Would selling the domain name itself be worth $2,500.000? Of course not! The value is in the product or service the web site is selling. Just because someone made millions from a web site, does not mean someone else’s site would earn the same income if it used the same domain name.

There isn’t a single domain name valuation service that even considers what the name earns as a developed site. In fact there would be no way for a service to determine that type of a valuation.

A domain name valuation or appraisal is nothing more than an opinion, and as you know opinions are worthless. Ask anyone their opinion and any subject and they will gladly provide one, in fact I am sure you have often heard others opinions regardless of whether you wanted it or not. Since opinions are so cheap and available everywhere for free, why pay a service for their opinion.

The pipe dream of most domain name speculators is that they can turn that $8.00 they “invested” in a domain name, in to tons of money, often envisioning a 1 million percent return by selling the domain name on eBay or some other domain name parking service, and offer the “valuation” or “Appraisal” as evidence of the domain’s worth.

The reality is that you should treat your portfolio of domain names as you would a stock portfolio. Sell the bad ones cheap, and hang onto the good ones. When the time come to sell a site, remember what you paid for it. If you bought it for $8.00 and held it a year and paid the $8.00 renewal, than you have invested $16.00, so if you sell it for $100.00 you’ve earned over 600% on your investment. (Do that with a stock in the same time frame and you would have countless government agencies looking into you finances.)

My advice is to steer clear of domain name valuation or appraisal services and use the money you save to develop some of your domains into valuable web sites.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

You may be amazed that you are able to read the above paragraph, but the thing most people over looking is thatthey can spell in the first place. Today’s children are becoming less knowledgeable in reading and spelling, because of examples such as this.

If you compare the percentage rate to the number of people that are lousy at spelling, you will see that 45% of people are poor spellers and therefore do not have proper basis for deciphering the correct spellings.

The reason people are able to read the above statement is simple. They have a basis of the correct spelling as well as a correct understanding of grammar, which allows them to decipher the meaning of the words using context and visual closure as the determining factor.

If you were to give this little reading assignment to a first, second, or even a third grader to read, they would be come frustrated and unable to read the passage. They simply would not be able to figure out what the words based on the first and last letters and then unscramble the letters in between, because they do not posses the word knowledge.

No one can be a good reader or speller without a good command of phonics, syllabication and its application. For example, try pronouncing these words, “eihhbbppeooa” or “Cilgnnhlaeg”. Since they are not used in a sentence you have no context as to what the words could be, even though the first and last letters are intact. If you are confused imagine someone that cannot spell, and does not posses a good command of phonics, and syllabication to be able to sound these words out.

In order for schools to meet the needs of all students, teachers must develop a good sight vocabulary in their students, as well as a good understanding of phonics and syllabication. Correct spelling is essential when learning to read. By breaking a word down to its base sounds we are able to learn new words. We use rules for pronunciation of a word. If the word does not follow the rules you can not pronounce it.

Even a word processor uses a set of rules to identify words that do not follow the rules, and then present possible spelling alternatives based on the rules of spelling and the context.

And finally, if you are wondering the two words are “Ephebophobia” which is the fear of youth or adolescents and the word “Challenging” which is what reading is to those that do not have proper vocabulary, or understanding of phonics and syllabication.

I’m sure at some time in your life you have listened to someone on the radio and based on the sound of their voice, you created a mental image of what that person on the radio looked like. You may have envisioned a tall, middle aged gentleman, well dressed and clean shaven. Only to have your metal image shattered when you saw the person on a television interview. To your amazement you found out that the person is a short, stocky guy with clothing that looks like he slept in them.

The same is true of your image. People will naturally create a mental image of your professionalism, intelligence and character based on what you look like.

Claude M. Bristol once said, “Every person is the creation of himself, the image of his own thinking and believing. As individuals think and believe, so they are.”

“You only get the chance to make a first impression once” is a profound statement. Whether it’s a new job interview, a meeting with your boss, or a presentation to the board of directors, the mental images that people create upon meeting you will determine how successful you will be in dealing with that person. It does not matter whether you are meeting them for the first time or the one hundredth time, your appearance will determine how other people perceive you at that moment.

Image yourself sitting in a reception area waiting for a job interview. Across from you is a well dress “James Bond” type gentleman, well groomed, confident and obviously dressed for success.

You have the experience and the knowledge to perform the job at hand; you’re a perfect fit for the job. You have your resume in order, you’re well organized, and you have the credentials to backup your experience. You are calm, you fear nothing!

You sit calmly as the other candidate is escorted into his interview. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, finally an hour passes, and he emerges from his interview, and confidently exits the reception area.

Your name is called! You standup and walk into the office for your interview. You are offered a chair, and you sit down, only to realize you are facing the interviewer, and directly behind him is a huge mirror, and you suddenly notice that you have mismatched shoe’s, your shirt looks like you slept in it, and your pants have a hole in the knee.

At this point where do you think your confidence level is? By this point, it really doesn’t matter what you say, the odds are the interviewer has made up his mind before you even opened your mouth. His mental image of your personality has been established in his minds eye.

At this point all is not lost! You can still save the interview with your experience, knowledge and skills, but it won’t be easy. You still have to convince the interviewer to reject his mental image his minds eye has created.

To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, “The more extraordinary you are, the more dignified you should look. It also works in reverse. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person”.

Your appearance can make you or break you. If you want to succeed in business or life in general, you need to establish the right mind set. You may be thinking it’s not fair to judge someone by the way they dress, but the reality is, life is not fair. People will naturally assume that how things look on the outside is an indication of how things are on the inside

American historian, Christopher Lasch summed it up best when he said, “Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.”

So sit up straight, tuck your shirt in, and prepare yourself for success.

Sluggish sales are not the only problem during the current recession. Crime has been steadily rising, and according to the FBI nationwide crime report, the tally is up to $30 billion and rising. Of that, $30 billion are losses to businesses; almost one-third or $10 billion is the result of check fraud.

Retailers eager for sales are the hardest hit because of the loss of the bad check, combined with the loss of inventory because of the crime. However, retailers are not the only victims of check fraud. Everyone, from large multibillion-dollar corporations to small businesses and even private citizens, is becoming a secondary victim in the latest waves of check fraud.

Organized gangs—using forged checks to purchase such items as baby formula, jeans, and household necessities, as well as big-ticket items from LCD televisions to digital cameras to sell at local pawnshops, on the street, and over the Web on sites such as eBay or Craigslist—are nothing new to the retail industry.

One method used by check fraud criminals involves creating false identification or stealing someone’s identity, purchasing blank check stock from the local office supply store, using word processing software available on nearly any personal computer, and then printing convincing checks.

One of the tools retailers and banks have is known as the “Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act” or “Check 21” which went into effect on October 28, 2004. This piece of legislation reduces the time it takes for a check to clear the bank by allowing banks and retailers to exchange copies of a check digitally rather than having to exchange the check physically. This allows a bank to clear a check within 24 hours rather than the 3 to 5 days with the old method. This means banks and retailers will discover bad checks faster, reducing the possibility of becoming a repeat victim by the same criminal.

But Check 21 is not the only tool in the retailers’ arsenal. Many retailers are using Check Truncation, which converts a check from a physical piece of paper to an electronic transaction known as ACH. It works much like a debit card transaction but without the PIN number that you would have to enter for a debit card transaction.

Check Truncation works by scanning the numbers at the bottom of your check known as the MICR line (pronounced my-ker). These numbers provide all the information the retailer needs to debit your account electronically. This line contains the ABA number identifying the bank on which the check is drawn, as well as the checking account from which the funds will be withdrawn.

These two systems have had a significant impact on check fraud criminals by detecting invalid accounts, or accounts used for check fraud previously. The problem is that the banks have used these tools to give their customers a false sense of security, telling customers that these laws and procedures have been implemented to protect the customers, when in reality, these systems are designed to protect the banks.

Granted, these methods have slowed check fraud for a while, but as most criminals, it does not take them long to figure out a way around the problem or, in this case, how to use the system to their advantage, and that is exactly what today’s criminals have done.

Check Truncation has helped check fraud prosper more then ever before. It is like trying to put out a fire by throwing a bucket of gasoline on the flames. It just does not help.

If you have ever been to a retailer and made a purchase with a check, and the clerk scanned your check and handed it back to you with your receipt, then you have experienced Check Truncation.

Check fraud criminals love this aspect. By creating checks on their computers, they can place the bank ABA and account information on the MICR line that belongs to any secondary victim for whom they happen to have obtained information, such as the MICR numbers at the bottom of the check. After all, how is the salesclerk supposed to determine whether the numbers on the MICR line of a check belong to the customer? They cannot; that is the bank’s job.

So, now we have a criminal purchasing a quantity of products, and he makes out a check that he manufactured on his computer and hands that check along with his bogus identification to the salesclerk. The clerk then completes the transaction by scanning the MIRC line of the check and performs check truncation, converting the check to an automatic debit to the account encoded on the bottom of the check. Once the transaction is complete, the clerk bags the merchandise and hands it to the criminal along with the receipt and the original check. Yes, the clerk has actually handed the criminal the evidence that could have been used to convict him.

So, what is wrong with this transaction other than the criminal used bogus identification and a bad check? The truth be known—the check is perfectly valid. The information contained on the MICR line had to be valid in order for the transaction to be completed.

The problem is the information this criminal used on the MICR line may have been the exact same information that is on your checks. Yes! He may have obtained your account information and that Check Truncation transaction will be deducted from your checking account. The problem is the amount of the check was small enough that you may not notice it on your bank statement that you will receive in 30 days. Unless you balance your checking account, identify the transaction as fraudulent, and notify your bank within a reasonably short period—you will have footed the bill for that criminal.

This is only one method check fraud criminals are using to obtain funds. These check fraud criminals use other methods, some even more lucrative. Most people think they are protected by their bank; unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Because of the increase in check fraud as well as credit card fraud, banks have been pushing lawmakers to pass laws such as Check 21, as well as other laws that allow them to defer some, if not all, of the responsibility onto their customers. For example, in many cases, banks are not responsible for the first fifty dollars of a fraudulent transaction. If you notify your bank about a fraudulent transaction of say, $150.00, the bank may reimburse you $100.00, of which the first $50.00 is your loss. But what if the fraudulent transaction is only $45.00? It is a good bet that you will be responsible for that loss.

One of the most common defenses banks use to defer losses because of check fraud is that it is their customers’ responsibility to protect themselves from such crime, and ignorance of those laws is no excuse.

In my book, The Truth about Check Fraud, you will learn the truth about how checks work, and what you need to know to protect yourself from not only the criminals, but also from the banks. The banks do not want you to know many things about how checks work and how you can reduce your risk if you only knew how checks worked.

In addition, you will learn the many different methods criminals can use to access your money and how the banks will make sure you are left to assume the loss.

As this recession gets worse, crime will only increase. Do yourself a favor, and pick up a copy of The Truth about Check Fraud today. Just one fraudulent transaction could cost you 10 times the cost of the book.

You can find The Truth about Check Fraud at www.amazon.com.