We’ve all got some big challenges to deal with these days: this wacky economy, maintaining cash flow, laying safety nets, building our companies, attracting more business, all while managing to stay sane and tenacious through these trying times.
That’s why we rolled up our sleeves and put ourselves to work on attacking this hairball of issues that literally can make or break your career…not to mention your spirits.

After months of all nighters and brutally long workdays, we’re finally ready to unveil a big new resource to help you find solutions to your biggest personal and professional challenges.

It’s called Fast Track to Success: 30 Days to Transform Your Life & Career.  Jam packed with perspective, inspiration and tips for leaping into action, this new tool is GUARANTEED to make a serious difference for you.  And you can take that to the bank!

How?  Fast Track is an online learning program that you can power through in as little as 30 days, 30 minutes a day.  Every lesson features online posts to read with full audio (read by me!) that you can download and listen to on the go if you’d prefer.  Then, once you’ve learned, it’s time to help you do.  Almost every lesson has a worksheet (or a few) designed to walk you though putting everything into action immediately.

Since this is all about getting to the next level, you’ll see not only your perspective, but outlook and opportunities evolve more and more every day!  We’ve even included a few videos to keep you fired up and opportunities every step of the way to share your thoughts or ask for help or advice from our team.  And again, we’re so confident this can help change your life for the better, we’re willing to guarantee it.  We’ll even send you a hard copy of our New York Times bestseller Secrets of the Young & Successful: How to Get Everything You Want Without Waiting a Lifetime as our gift.

To celebrate the launch of this new program, we’re going to spend the next 30 days sharing some of our best tips and tricks to take on this crazy economy on by storm, increase your opportunities, amp up your competitive advantage, and yes, make more money!

We want to share your best advice too, so keep your eyes peeled and we’ll offer plenty of opportunities on YoungandSuccessful.com, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to share your expertise and experience too!  So stay tuned and help us spread the word about anything you find particularly useful to your friends and colleagues.  We’ll all fare better and find the success we crave and deserve if we bond together and become a force to be reckoned with.

Here’s to all of our success!

Think about the last time you Googled someone. As young professionals, we grew up with the web and have all kinds of content out there about us. High school track scores, Facebook wall posts, blog comments, etc. – these digital breadcrumbs make up an online image that can work for or against us. Luckily, there is a new tool to help you make sure your online image works for you and helps advance your career.

This tool is called Brand-Yourself.com, and it’s the first online reputation management platform for young professionals of its kind. My team and I have been slaving away at the office to get it into your hands this week, and in honor of your loyalty to YSN, we’re giving away 50 full access, premium accounts.

Use the promo code “YSN” and sign up now >

And who is our system for? Everybody! Job applicants, consultants, small business owners, entrepreneurs, actors, professional service providers, authors – anybody who wants to control how they are perceived online.

After countless hours working closely with readers like you, top HR folks and personal branding experts, we’ve created a process that makes it easy to manage your reputation. We walk you through our four-step process with automated tools along the way. Not only does it work, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun!

You will proactively:

• Build on-brand content that aligns with your career goals
• Optimize that content to show up at the top of Google
• Promote yourself in the right places using social media
• Monitor your progress along the way

Step One: Build

In the Build section, we help you create the content you want people to associate with your name. We help you pinpoint your core strengths and build high-ranking web pages and profiles that demonstrate them.

Example Tool: Google Results Organizer

Throughout the process we’ve built some cool tools. Our Google Results Organizer is a fun way to discover how people perceive you when they Google you. You identify which results are about you and which are not by clicking and dragging results into appropriate columns. Our search engine optimization tools in the next section will then help you raise relevant results up above negative or irrelevant results.

Step Two: Optimize

Creating favorable content is not enough. The optimize section empowers you to choose which content shows up at the top of Google over negative content, irrelevant content and other peoples’ results.

Step Three: Promote

Being found when people are searching for you is an excellent reactive approach. In the Promote section, we help you proactively promote your content to the right people in the right places. We help you do this via social media by serving you daily recommendations of what to do next, and who to connect with to build your brand’s network.

Step Four: Monitor

Growing your reputation is an ongoing process. In the Monitor section, we make it easy to monitor your progress along the way by tracking changes in Google results and mentions of your name across the social web.

Over the past few months we’ve literally lived at the office, building the platform you can now try for free today. We’ve built something we are proud of, and we can’t wait to share it with you – and hear what you think.

For the first ten people who comment with feedback on the system, I’ll email you extra-extended free trial promo codes!

So poke around! Let us know what you like and what you’d change. Meanwhile, RJ Sherman (our Chief Technology Officer) can finally step away from his triple computer monitors and get some fresh air.

Sign Up for a Free Trial and We’ll Donate $0.25 to I’m Too Young For Cancer

During our official launch this week, when you sign up for a free trial, we’ll donate $0.25 to the I’m Too Young For Cancer Foundation, which ensures that every young adult affected by cancer is given access to the best support possible. The foundation strives to be a national leader in cancer advocacy, support and research, working exclusively on behalf of adolescents and young adults affected by cancer. With your support, they will continue providing hope, education and community to millions of survivors around the world.

1.    Sign up for a free Brand-Yourself trial now >
2.    Use the promo code “YSN” for an extended free trial
3.    Comment with your feedback and get an extension on your trial!

It’s that time again—time to usher in a brand new year. No matter what you did or didn’t do in the past, you can turn the calendar page and begin again. Start your job search fresh with a cover letter that will result in an interview for the career you’ve dreamed about.

Even in a tight economy, people are being hired every day. You can be one of them. Businesses need qualified individuals who are professionally trained, experienced, and ready to step into a wide range of jobs—from A to Z.

Blow away the competition this year with a unique cover letter that commands attention.

Adopt a Winning Strategy

A well-crafted job search cover letter has three tried and true ingredients and you can include them in your letter as easily as anyone else. Here they are, yours for the taking.

Make it SHORT: Thank you for posting your need for a bookkeeper on CareerJimmy.com. With five years of experience in this field for my previous employer, I feel well qualified to fill this position and would welcome the opportunity to interview.

Keep it SIMPLE: I’ve received two company awards for my skills and performance. I understand the importance of taking responsibility for the job assigned, holding myself accountable to my superiors, and being a team player with my co-workers.

Be SINCERE: I would love the opportunity to interview for this position. I want to learn more about your excellent company and then show you how I can do my part to help achieve your goals.

Help employers do their work by putting your name and experience in front of them.

Think of the hiring manager as a good friend, joining you for lunch after a round of golf or a workout at the gym. Keep your writing short, simple, and sincere and you will be noticed.

Avoid a Losing Strategy

Notice the difference between the previous examples and this one that is filled with clutter, confusion, and camouflage…

“Regarding your posted listing on CareerJimmy.com I am taking time today to respond to that listing in hopes that you will take some time to consider me for the job of bookkeeper, given that I have five years of doing this type of work for the employer I used to work for before I saw your listing. I hope you will decide to interview me, although I realize there are other people hoping to win this job. If you want I can provide you with more information about my qualifications. Just ask. Please consider me for this job. I have been unemployed for the past six months and need to get to work soon.”

Salute the New Year!

Read your cover letter aloud—preferably to someone you trust for honest feedback. Then kick the clutter, confusion, and camouflage off the page! And turn to short, simple, and sincere. Be yourself. That’s the person a hiring manager is eager to meet. When you hear your unique voice on the page, you’ll know you’re there.

Then lift your glass and tip your hat to the New Year with expectation and excitement. It’s going to be a great 2010 for you, perhaps one that will change your life and career in ways you’ve never imagined. And all because you took the time to write an amazing job search cover letter that will have a future employer raising his glass to yours (and inviting you in for a job interview).

Happy New Year and happy job hunting!

Jimmy Sweeney is the president of CareerJimmy and author of the new, Amazing Cover Letter Creator. Jimmy is also the author of several career-related books and writes a monthly article titled, “Job-Search Secrets.”

Visit Jimmy on the web at Amazing Cover Letters.com for your ‘instant’ cover letter today. In just three and a half minutes you will have an amazing cover letter guaranteed to cut through YOUR competition like a hot knife through butter!

Launchpad is a new career search strategy guide, which was just released on Amazon and will be published quarterly by our good friend Chris Perry. Chris is the founder of CareerRocketeer.com a fantastic resource blog for career development and personal branding!

Launchpad is a collection of articles by some of the top career advancement and branding experts in the industry. You’ll find great articles such as:

“Irrational Fear and Your Job Search,”

“8 Hot Tips for Today’s Executive Resume 2.0″

and a very special article titled “Many Roads Lead to Success” by Jen Kushell.

According to Chirs, “in this economy and job market, professionals are actively seeking new and creative ways to stay on top of their job search efforts or to increase their job security; however, there are so many different books, blogs and articles from so many different experts and authors for professionals and career seekers to consider.

Our goal with Launchpad is to bring together short, relevant and actionable articles and tips from the industry’s top experts into a powerful “one-stop-shop” career search and personal branding resource to save job seekers time, energy and sanity in their pursuit of their next job opportunity.

I am proud to say that this first volume does just that, covering today’s hot job search topics including: resume optimization, interviewing, personal branding, career search strategizing, relationship building, professional networking, the use of web 2.0 search tools, and much more!”

Launchpad is available now on Amazon, click here to purchase!

The New Year has just begun and you know what that means, right? New goals… new diet…  new exercise program…. new job?

If you’re unsatisfied in your current work situation, or even if you’re just wondering if there’s something better out there, pick up a copy of New Job, New You by Alexandra Levit. You may know Alexandra from her previous works They Don’t Teach Corporate in College or How’d You Score That Gig?

This time, Levit is tackling career change. New Job, New You is designed to help you discover what’s really driving your career choices, so you can channel those motivations into a more satisfying job and, ultimately, a more satisfying life.

The book gets to the heart of what makes people switch careers, using some of the more common reasons as a framework for the discussion. In Levit’s words, these are:

Family: When true work/life balance becomes a necessity
Independence: When you’ve been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug
Learning: When your bookish, curious side takes over
Money: When an increase in earning potential is on the horizon
Passion: When you yearn to do what you love
Setback: When one door closes, another one opens
Talent: When you’re too good at something not to give it a shot

If any of these strike a chord, New Job, New You could serve as the inspiration for your own career change in 2010 or beyond. But the book does more than help you identify why you may want to move in a new direction, it provides guidance on how that is specific to each section. Levit does a nice job of helping you think through options – listing steps to get your financial house in order before making the leap as an entrepreneur for example – so you can make informed choices as a result.

If – like me – you find that New Job, New You helps you identify what you want out of your career – or even if it leads you to search for greener pastures, you will find plenty of inspiration from others who came before. Since the moment when you take a deep breath and decide to start a new career can be terrifying (yet incredibly liberating), each section features interviews with others who have successfully transitioned from one job to another.

There’s also a forward by Stephen Covey (Hey Alexandra, how’d you score THAT gig?!) that rightly points out this is no longer the age of a hierarchical career model where organizations have all the control. We – as talented employees – have real choices in how, where, and when we work….sometimes we just need a little encouragement to make it happen. Consider this book your paperback “kick in the pants” to get moving.

New Job, New You is available on Amazon.

Emily Bennington is the author of Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job. She hosts a popular blog for career newbies at www.professionalstudio365.com and can be found on Twitter @EmilyBennington or via email at ebennington@msn.com.