Brad Moore Coaching

Life & Career Coaching: Would You Commit Based on a Single Interview (Date)?

Brad Moore — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:13:32 +0000

I recently was on a talk show with Spud McConnell of WWL Radio. We talked about difficulties facing the Millennial generation as they enter the job market. It seems that some folks from this generation are doing some rather odd things when it comes to interviewing. bringing a box of donuts into the interview because there was no time to eat before the interview wearing flip-flops and a T-shirt into the interview interrupting the interview to check up on a pet, who was left of the car Isn’t this hilarious? Listen to the interview for several more like the above! I want to cover a few things in more detail in this post then I could on the talkshow. The first deals with company research. I reckon that doing research on a company is much like dating. Let me explain. Most girls that I have dated (and that’s not a really long list!) attempt to project a very positive image. It is only later, after multiple interactions and maybe a few fights or breakups, that I learned that she is not perfect — much like me! With LinkedIn, you can find out former employees of the company and then contact them to find out the truth about a company — or at least their version of the truth. Of course, keep in mind that some people are going to be miserable regardless of where they work . I am going to walk you through this as if I were wanting to know the truth about Money Management International, my former company.The first step is to make sure that you are registered on LinkedIn. Then, you want to click on “Advanced” up in the top, right-hand corner by the search box (see below). When the page below comes up, want to complete the company slot with the name of the company that you are researching. Underneath that, you want to choose “past not current” so you can see the past employees of the company. And Voilà…there you have it! If you cannot find a way to contact any of these folks through LinkedIn, you ought to be able to do it in an alternative way considering all the information on the Internet. If you’re still not sure, read The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris. If you’re still not sure of how to do it, contact me. Again, this research thing is like dating. You do not want to commit until you know the whole story rather than the public image. One more thing I wanted to cover is that job seekers need to ask questions during the interview. Did you know that the word “interview” comes from a Latin word that means “to see about each other”? This is not an interrogation that you must survive. Rather, they are seeing what you have to offer — and you are seeing what they have to offer. If it is not a good fit, then both of you need to look elsewhere. Here are a few good questions as you see about the company…. What would a typical workday look like? What does the typical career path for this job look like? Do you have continued development or educational programs to enroll in? How would you describe your company culture? (you may get better information from former employees) What are your major competitors? What upcoming changes do you see in this industry and how are you prepared to deal with that? If you are wanting more good questions, do a Google search or feel free to send me an e-mail. Happy Job Searching and let me know if you need anything!

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Do You Hate Your Job?

Brad Moore — Wed, 01 May 2013 19:47:18 +0000

Is bringing home a paycheck enough reason to remain in a job you hate? Dan Miller, in his book 48 Days to the Work You Love, tells the story of a young, Harvard-educated surgeon. As is the case with many young folks, he had unwittingly followed the career path of both his father and grandfather. Although he accumulated wealth and was able to obtain and experience most anything, there was one slight problem. He was MISERABLE! He was miserable because he hated his job. In fact, he was miserable to the degree that he entered a psychiatric hospital to treat a heroin addiction! Next is David – a guy I happen to know personally. Here is what he wrote shortly before he quit his last job. I am miserable with my job. I repeat the same speech 5x a day while sitting in the same chair in the same office. I have been depressed during this time but have not been able to find any other job. At times, I have stopped searching because it has seemed like it was a waste of time and I would be stuck in this job ’til the end of time. I suppose I could be missing something here…but it seems that this guy was NOT very happy either. Was a paycheck enough to keep David in his job? NO!!! In fact, the story has a happy ending. David visited with a life coach for several weeks, became reacquainted with what he could uniquely contribute to this world, and was empowered to make BIG CHANGES in his life. Money just wasn’t enough to keep David chained to a desk ’til the end of time. (By the way…my middle name is David!) OK..Brad…I get it that you and Mr. Harvard-educated surgeon were not happy with your jobs..but what in the world does that have to do with finances? Great question and I’m glad you asked! Dr. Thomas J. Stanley, in his book The Millionaire Mind, studied how millionaires think, along with their defining characteristics. Interestingly enough, factors such as GPA and IQ had NOTHING TO DO with financial success. Rather, the single characteristic that all the millionaires had in common was that they were all DOING WORK THEY LOVED! Could it be that part of being successful financially is finding work that you love doing? What have you found to be true in your own experience? Are the wealthy people you know doing work they love? On the flip side, are folks who are living paycheck to paycheck more likely to be in jobs they hate? (Click on the COMMENTS bubble next to the title)

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Increasing Your Credit Score, Part II

Brad Moore — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 22:30:01 +0000

A few random facts first. Credit repair companies will NOT provide a permanent fix to your credit report woes. Most of these companies make use of a loophole in order to temporarily increase your score, thus allowing you to go even further into debt (yuck!). They dispute nearly every negative item on your credit report and, while the credit bureaus are trying to figure out the mess, the negative items drop off your credit report. Then presto! Your credit scores increase! After the credit bureaus finish their investigation, however, your credit scores will resume their pre-credit repair levels. On a slightly different note, do not allow the credit bureaus to define your identity! Life happens – unexpectedly being laid off , a dreaded cancer diagnosis, or another Hurricane Katrina – and sometimes people are just not able to pay their debts. Make up your mind to lay aside the shame and embarrassment and move forward with your life. I am a winner even if my credit score is 100! For those of you who want some steps to improving your credit scores, here you go….. 1. Obtain your credit reports and dispute any items that are inaccurate or that should not be on your credit report. Sometimes, a debt will be passed from the original creditor to a collections agency, and then later to another collections agency, and then later to another collections agency, and then later to another collections agency, etc. You get the idea. In this case, you would want to dispute all the creditors or collection agencies that do not currently have the debt. 2. Before you pay anything, you want the collections agency to validate the debt in writing. For example, you would want to say something like, “I had never even heard of you guys so I am not comfortable paying anything unless I have some kind of proof…could you send me something in writing?” 3. Before you ever part with your precious money, make sure you have an agreement in writing (see my last post for more on this) from the creditor. If not, wish them a good day and call them again in a month or so. Be aware that you will have more negotiating power if the statute of limitations has expired. This simply means that the creditor’s greatest weapon has been taken: the lawsuit. 4. Contact me immediately if any of them file a lawsuit (not threaten to file a lawsuit which, by the way, is illegal). However, do not ignore a notice from the court saying that you have been sued. Even if you know that you owe the debt, I say again do not ignore these notices. Otherwise, your creditor can easily obtained a default judgment and you lose all of your negotiating power. 5. I would use a cashiers check or money order to pay them (a personal check would give them your bank account number) after you have the agreement in hand. 6. Record all of your conversations, dates, and person spoken to in some type of notebook. Also make copies of things like cashiers checks or money orders. 7. If you have a lot of negative items on your credit report, remember that this is a marathon — not a sprint. You may want to set a goal of dealing with one negative items per week. Set midi-goals and celebrate as you reach those goals. I hope you do lots of celebrating over the next several weeks and if you can add anything to help, please do so in the comments!!

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Increasing Your Credit Score, Part I

Brad Moore — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 14:11:26 +0000

This is not intended to be a how-to article on improving your credit scores. However , it does contain helpful information that will assist you in doing just that. Moreover, it may contain information that you have not read anywhere else . Good luck and let me know if you need any help! You can now get your credit score, credit report, and credit monitoring for free! - Yes, you can now head over to quizzle.com where you can obtain your Experian credit report and score once every six months. You will not even need to enter your Social Security number at this website. Yeah..Brad… that’s cool and all but you know there’s not any such thing as a free lunch! So what’s the catch? Good question! It seems this website really pushes you to purchase a home, it follows that someone out there somewhere (not me!) has indeed used this website to obtain a mortgage. Besides Quizzle, there is also a website called Credit Karma where you can obtain your TransUnion score. However, you will need to enter your Social Security number. The advantage of this site is that you can more closely monitor your credit score, obtaining a score once every week (as opposed to six months). This one also seems to push credit cards much more than the Quizzle website. Last, you can always head to annualcreditreport.com and check all three credit reports (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax). Some folks even pull one of these three credit reports once every four months so they are constantly in tune with what is going on with their credit report. Yet there is a catch (isn’t there always?) in that all you can see is the credit report,- but not the score. However, if you know you have a terrible credit score anyway, then who would want to look at that terrible score again? These free scoreless credit reports will give you all the information you need to improve your credit score. Your credit score may decrease whenever you pay old debt - You have finally decided to the responsible and pay off all your old debts, pleasing both your mother and your no-debt grandmother. Surely, you think, my credit scores will max out and my dream home will now be within reach. NOT! The problem here is that your most recent credit transactions play the greatest role in your credit score. Therefore, that old emergency room medical debt from five years ago has very little impact on your current credit score. If you pay this bill now, however, it will be considered a recent credit transaction, This, in turn, will give this negative item on your credit report more weight and consideration, causing your credit score to drop and the dream home dream to again be laid to rest. Okay Brad..so it’s better NOT to pay my bills if I want to have a good credit score:.is that correct? Is that what I hear you saying? Another interesting question. You are just full of those today! Personally (and maybe I’m kind of weird), I think that a person ought to pay their debts. Continue reading number three for more information about how to combat this paradoxical silliness brought about by the three credit bureaus. There is a way to pay off old debts and NOT have your credit score decrease - what you need to do in negotiating with the creditor is to obtain a written agreement that the creditor will delete the negative item from your credit report. Your goal is for the credit report account to be marked “paid as agreed” or as “closed” ( you get a stubborn collector, the best they may do is mark it as “closed”). You MUST have this written agreement before you pay the debt . You must have this written agreement before you pay the debts (written twice for emphasis!). One last thing…you can often times do this with charge-offs (when a creditor has not received any payment from you for six months they will do a charge-off, which then gives collections over to another agency). Remember that the only thing that they want is your money. Until you have that written agreement in hand, you need to keep your money in hand. Interestingly enough, the TransUnion website even encourages you to do this (click here). Also, you need to always request that a collections agency validate the debt in writing. Otherwise, how do you know if it’s not someone trying to swindle you for your hard-earned money ? I suggest beginning your negotiations offering 25% of the overall debt, knowing that final negotiations will be around 40-50% of the overall debt. Remember that you want to be patient and persistent. Be willing to “walk away” if you do not get what you want. Two weeks later, approach them again. If you would prefer to do this in writing, that is perfectly acceptable. In fact, some encourage this because it prevents the collector from trying to manipulate you over the phone. Stay tuned. In future posts, we will discuss how credit counseling and bankruptcy affect your credit score. If you prefer, you can get coaching for help with your credit score rather than spending your time trying to figure it out yourself.

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Brad Moore — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:38:59 +0000

Ashley and Brandon – Simplified, Organized, & Began Controlling Spending!

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Brad Moore — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:31:14 +0000

Customer Case Studies

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Brad Moore — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 04:25:20 +0000

GT Auto – Expected Savings of over $20,000 in 2013!

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Save Money (Possibly $1 Million?) on your Phone Bill

Brad Moore — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 02:22:04 +0000

The City of New Orleans expects to save about $1 million annually by switching from traditional landline phone service to VoIP – or Voice over Internet Protocol. Just to put that in perspective, the city usually spends $3 million per year on telephone and data. The City of New Orleans joins a growing list of other companies or entities who are saving money by switching to VoIP including Ford Motor Company, Bank of America, and the City of Lincoln (Nebraska). Another Louisiana entity, auto-insurer USAgencies of Baton Rouge, also recently changed to VoIP. A brief history is in order. VoIP was first used in the mid-1990’2 because it saved significant money on overseas phone calls. However, call quality was very inconsistent and often resulted in dropped calls. Fast forward to 2013 and the industry has completely changed…and to the business owners’ advantage! Software and hardware improvements have brought the industry to the same level – and many believe to a higher level – than traditional landline services. Traditional landline company Bellsouth, not wanting to be left behind, will soon (and may currently) offer VoIP services. In fact, PC World (based on research by In-Stat) estimates that 80% of businesses will use VoIP phone systems by 2013! Razorline (VoIP company) of Baton Rouge cofounder Gene Dry approximates that a business with 30 phone lines can save approximately 30-40% by switching to Razorline. This sounded great to me. However, I am a natural-born skeptic and needed to ensure that this was AS GOOD AS ADVERTISED! I called to receive a quote and spoke to a nice young lady named Michelle (although I called three times, I spoke to a living, breathing human each time rather than voicemail….amazing!). The quote was based on a business owned by my friend in the New Orleans Metro area. His phone service includes the following: 5 phone lines 1 fax line internet and a static IP for the alarm system His current provider, AT & T, was charging $485 monthly. By switching to Razorline, my friend would pay about only $328 monthly —- a 32% savings! End of story, right? Not quite. We decided to give the original provider, AT & T, a chance to redeem themselves. To our surprise, they came through with a quote for $197 per month – a huge 59% savings!!! Now what can we learn from this? Always obtain at least 3 quotes. Allow businesses to work and negotiate hard for the privilege of being your provider. It might just cut your costs in half – or maybe even more than half! On a more personal note, you may also use the VoIP option to save on your personal phone bill. What appears to be the least expensive of these options is MagicJack. In fact, I spent $31.43 on my phone bill for the entire 2011 year. However, you need to know all the disadvantages and advantages before choosing this option. What “savings secrets” might you have related to your telephone bill? Please share in the comments…

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“What Are You Teaching Your Kids About Money?”

Brad Moore — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:11:21 +0000

During my financial coaching, I usually do a free consultation so that the potential client and I can learn a little more about each other to see if coaching would be a good fit. One of the questions I always ask a parent or parents is this: What are you teaching your kids about money? About 95% of the time the phone suddenly goes silent. I feel as if I can hear the wheels turning… “Maybe I haven’t been doing the right thing by giving little Bobby any and everything that he wants (and sometimes screams for!)” “What do you mean? I am supposed to be teaching my children about money??” “My oh my….I sure hope little Bobby is not drowning in debt one day (like I am)!!” This naturally leads to the question: How can I teach my children about money? Here are just a few suggestions. Keep in mind that there is much more that could be written on this subject besides just this one article. Don’t do the allowance thing! Since when have you received free money for anything? This will only teach your children – in the words of one of my clients – that money grows on trees. So just find yourself a good money tree…and you are set for life! Rather than giving your children money, allow your kids to work for money (like you do, right?)!! My 10-year old has become incredibly vigilant in regards to recognizing opportunities to earn money. At the beginning of this school year, he put up the dishes in the kitchen cabinet without being asked and without being promised a paycheck. Moreover, and perhaps the greater miracle, he did not break a single dish! As far as I was concerned, it was now his job and we quickly negotiated a financial package. If your children will not do their work in the time and manner that you (the loving boss) wants, then do it for them! Okay…Brad…that doesn’t even make any sense after you just gave your first suggestion. You are right…but there’s a really cool catch! I do indeed do their job, but I do not come cheap. In fact, I charge VERY HIGH FEES…which they are required to pay. So either I will pay my children – or my children will pay me! In the real world, you could easily be fired for not performing your job correctly. But I’m a very nice, loving dad, choosing to reduce their paycheck rather than fire them. Also, my pool of job applicants for family jobs stands (and hopefully will continue stand) at only three! So…now there’s no more yelling and screaming to clean their room! Not to digress too much, but my yelling and screaming leads to NOTHING POSITIVE in my relationships with my children (remember I have a psych degree also!). I just relax in the easy chair while they do their work. If they choose not to, then no problem…I calmly do it for them, earning a little spending money to boot. Let me ask you a question: have you ever seen your children sprinting through the house so they can clean their room (before you do)? It’s a truly awesome sight and makes parenting great fun! Do you think that sounds mean and ogre-like? Actually, I think the yelling and screaming sounds much worse! When it’s time to do clothes shopping for school, give them a set amount of money and let them do their own shopping Have you ever observed your teen perusing the sale ads from the Sunday paper? It will happen if you do NOT give them too much money. But if you give them $2000, then you are defeating the purpose. If you need to provide additional money later so your child does not have to show up their first day at school without shoes and underwear, then do so. The idea is to teach them to make wise spending decisions. Like I said earlier, this article does not give you exhaustive information on teaching your children about money. But it can help to get you pointed in the right direction. If you have failed miserably up to this point in time, then forget about the past and move forward from here. Perhaps you need a good financial coach (hint, hint) to help you get on-track so you’re prepared to teach your children. Or what about a high school junior or senior financial coaching package – before the college credit card barrage begins! Before I sign off, I want to provide you the opportunity to share your stories. By no means do I have the market cornered in terms of teaching children about money. I know some of you have great stories because I have heard some of them. Please help us all by sharing in the COMMENTS at the top of this article… Brad Moore http://www.bradmoorecoaching.com/ 504-298-2896

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Is It Possible to Budget in Only 30 Minutes a Month? Part II

Brad Moore — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:45:39 +0000

Now….(drum roll in background) for the moment you have all been waiting for! For the month of August, it took me a TOTAL OF 36 MINUTES to manage the family finances!! While I did not quite achieve my goal of 30 minutes, I still think my effort was worthy of a silver medal (Chinese national anthem playing in background). And based on the picture above, that puts me in pretty good company. Indeed, if it was not for my early onset of Alzheimers, I fully believe that I would have finished in under 30 minutes! Alas…sometimes I am so forgetful! The first instance occurred when I wasted 5 minutes searching for a dumb password! Another time, I also wasted about 5 minutes trying to recall what some of my expenses were and which budget category they belonged in. For example, did I spend $5.43 at Walgreens on medicine (medical category) – or was it milk (grocery category)? The important thing is that I now know that a person can manage their finances – including tracking their expenses, paying all bills, and keeping budgeting categories updated – in only 30 minutes a month! No longer do you have to choose between two extremes: spending too much valuable time as you achieve financial health…..OR being footloose, fancy-free, and flat broke by the third week of the month! Now…you can play golf EVERY WEEKEND, all the while knowing your finances are in perfect order. Here is a real quick summary of our August 2012 money management: 7/30 (12 minutes) – Money was moved into the proper accounts in order to be prepared for the challenge. This also took way too long! 7/30 (2 minutes) – I withdrew money from the ATM. 8/3 (2 minutes) – I checked the online balances in our accounts. 8/? (3 minute) – An email was sent to Capital One concerning a problem with our account. 8/11 (2 minutes) – I withdrew cash from the ATM again. 8/18 (3 minutes) – All of our bill (7-8 total bills) were paid. 9/4 (12 minutes) – I updated all of our budget categories to help us make future spending decisions. As you may notice from the date, I did this quite a few days later than what I ought. The key to avoid making such an error is to never think, ‘it’s only a little category 1 hurricane…surely it won’t hurt anything!’ Needless to say, we saved big-time on electricity since we were without it for 5 straight days! Although I will not go into great detail here, one thing that has really helped me to be more efficient is using bill pay through my bank. Here’s a few ways it has helped… Given me control over when the bills are paid rather than my bank (auto-draft) Much speedier than paying bills by hand Avoids $27.00 paper checks charge (and I guess that makes me more green, right?) So there you have it! A total of 36 minutes! I have been refining and tweaking this process now for about five years. Although utilizing your bank’s bill pay feature will not reduce your monthly financial management time to 30 minutes, it will serve as a good first step. Now what about you? Have you used bill pay and what are your comments about it? (click on the ‘COMMENTS’ bubble at the top of this article to respond)

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