Jobs and Careers with James Caan 2012 - (Page 242)

inTerVieW 102 Your business with James Caan Finance guru and celebrity author ALVin HALL Your business or your life? Your Business: Alvin, you’ve had a number of successes throughout your career including your BBC series Your Money or Your Life and your highly acclaimed literature, but where did your career begin? Alvin Hall: I’ve had several careers. I started out as a high school English teacher. I did that for a couple of years and then I went to graduate school. While I was in graduate school, I worked in a teashop, and freelanced writing reviews about music, dance and the arts for a local alternative newspaper. After that, I taught composition literature at a college for two years. I think I was trying anything that seemed interesting because I did not really know exactly what I wanted to do. At some point, a former college roommate asked if I would work for him and his father at their training company on Wall Street. At first I turned it down because I wasn’t very interested. But then my friend made a very good point. He said: "You love the arts. You will always love the arts. But you can’t afford to buy art you love unless you have a good job." And so with that, I came to work on Wall Street. My first job, Director of Course Development, was to design training programmes for that company. However, gradually we discovered that I could teach these programmes because I had written them. After working for two other companies, I eventually decided to set up my own training business. I was good at it and I enjoyed it, so why not? I still run this business and do teach training classes about the financial markets. I’ve never given this up. Even when I was at what I considered to be one of the peaks of my success in Britain, I always kept my training business running. I never gave it up. YB: How have you ensured that your business has remained successful? AH: My company is a small consultant business. I’m very much aware that in my business, there’s a huge human element involved because I train real people in real classes. The success of my business depends on the classroom experience they have, so I focus on that. That’s the takeaway: if my students and my clients like my classes, then they will tell their friends at other firms and maybe that firm will hire me. YB: Building a good reputation must be integral to any business, but particularly essential for anyone starting his or her own small business? AH: I think that anytime you start a new business, you need to accept two facts up front. If you don’t want to accept these facts, then you do not need to go into business: First, you will not be in total control of your life. People always tell everybody: "You start your own business and you are in control of your whole life." That is a complete and utter myth. You will be working for your clients and they will, like it or not, control or shape much of what you do. If you don’t have clients, you don’t have a business. It’s that simple. People who think that they can take a three-week holiday in the early phase of building their business are delusional. When people start to live off their business, rather than use the money it generates to sustain the enterprise, the business is generally not going to last very long. The second reality is, you’re going to work harder than you’ve ever worked in your life. Some people start businesses because they think "I’m tired of the Alvin Hall, financial adviser, author and media personality, tells us why, in business, you to need know your ‘nut’; make your business sexy and prepare for the unexpected

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Jobs and Careers with James Caan 2012

Career bites
What really counts
Weighing it all up
Around the world
Ask the experts
Growth sectors
Train your brain
Homework
Carve a career in care
Here come the girls
Mum’s the word
An apple a day
It’s for you-hoo!
A step forward
His & hers
Bank on it
Risky Business
In the money
3 Specialist medical jobs
The stuff of life
Power on
Engineering heroes
Outside the box
Keeping it clean
Your Business with James Caan
Go Go GadGets
On trend office
Take my advice
Getting Going
The bank job
Make the most of your assets
Back to business
The law and you
HR Matters
Make it work
Into the cloud
Design & shine
Reach out
Gorkana and Gurkhas
Protect and prosper
Making it count
Your business or your life?
Nice supplies
Beginning business
Ship it
Ethical business
Backing business
Standing together
Top 10 hiring tips

Jobs and Careers with James Caan 2012