Every year at least three million people fall victim to work-at-home scams. The sad part is that avoiding scams is not that difficult if you heed the advice of work-at-home professionals.
It’s my opinion that people fall victim to scams for one (or all) of the following three reasons:
1) A lack of knowledge and understanding about working at home: By reading free articles and website resources about working at home, checking out work-at-home books from the library, and talking with others who work at home, you can learn about common scams to avoid, as well as what working at home is really about. By knowing what’s really involved in working at home, you’ll focus on real opportunities and avoid the bogus ones.
2) Looking for the wrong types of work in the wrong places: When you learn about working at home (#1), you discover that typing and data entry jobs are nearly all scams, that telecommuting is real work and must be earned not bought, and that home businesses are a great way to make money, but that they can't be done completely on autopilot (there is no money for nothing). Many people get caught in scammers’ web because they buy into the idea that you can pay a job or get paid to do nothing at home. Remember, it’s called work at home, work being the operative word.
3) Allowing emotions to override common sense: Sometimes the desire to work-at-home can take on a desperate tone. When you find something that sounds just perfect, ideal for your situation, your desperation can lead you to send the money before your common sense can question it. You can’t fall for the hype no matter how good it sounds. Real work-at-home opportunities may be simple to run, but they won’t make you rich tomorrow (heck they probably won’t make you any money by tomorrow), and cannot be run by someone else or completely on autopilot.
To avoid scams you must make a promise to yourself not only to learn about working at home, but to also use what you know to critique and analyze work-at-home options, and don't let your burning desire to work-at-home override your common sense.
Here are some things you need watch for:
1) If its envelope stuffing, assembly work, email processing, payment processing, typing and data entry, it’s a scam. To be honest there are some legit data entry work and occasionally typing (although it’s not called typing it’s called transcribing), but most of them are scams. Home businesses that don't have a product or service, and any “guarantees” of income or the ability to earn big money doing nearly nothing are also likely to be scams.
2) If it’s advertising for a JOB, but asks for money, it’s a scam. Legit employers never charge to hire you. Ever! But watch out. Many people use this rule incorrectly. It’s only for ads from companies that indicate that for a fee you can work for them. It doesn't apply to business opportunities, work at home information resources, or even job boards.
3) If a company asks to use your personal bank account to do business, it’s a scam! Don't do it. It can cost you thousands of dollars and the loss of your bank account until the debt you owe is paid.
The best way to avoid scams is to be informed, take the time to research and understand work-at-home opportunities, and always let your head, not your heart, do the deciding.
About the Author: Leslie Truex has been providing work-at-home advice and information online since 1998. Get the Jobs Online Toolkit and other free resources with a subscription to her free weekly newsletter. Visit Work At Home Success for details.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Affiliate Marketing Secrets - This One Maketing "secret" Could Make you Rich, if you Apply it
Posted by EditorsChoice
Tuesday, 02 October 2007
It seems as though every new person that comes online wanting to make money is looking for those coveted affiliate marketing secrets or looking for that secret way to "crack the internet code" or somehow get rich quick. Well, that's all wishful thinking, however, I'm going to have to burst your bubble on a couple of these theories. For one, there is no "internet code" to crack, nor is there really any get rich quick button. There are however, some well hidden affiliate marketing secrets that are so powerful that some affiliates won't share them for any amount of money or they'll only share them with a choice few individuals that are in their circle of influence.
I want to share something with you right here and now. Although there are people making huge amounts of money using well hidden tactics, it's not absolutely necessary that you know these secrets in order to make money online. Let me repeat that again. You don't have to know anything "special" in order to make money as an affiliate. You will have to learn some basic to intermediate computer skills and you'll need to learn a lot of marketing basics, but the secrets can wait.
The main affiliate marketing secret that you need to remember is not a secret at all, but a marketing fact that has been proven to work, time and time again. It's called "Traffic + Conversion = Sales". This means that the more TARGETED traffic that you send to your affiliate website, the better chance you'll have of CONVERTING it into SALES. This means that if you're marketing t-shirts then you don't want to send people to a page about dog training, you only want to send them to a page about your t-shirts. Does that make sense? Once you've grasped onto this concept you'll be able to pretty much write your own ticket my friend. Read it, learn it, know it and live it because it applies, not only online, but offline as well.
http://pr-gb.com
Tuesday, 02 October 2007
It seems as though every new person that comes online wanting to make money is looking for those coveted affiliate marketing secrets or looking for that secret way to "crack the internet code" or somehow get rich quick. Well, that's all wishful thinking, however, I'm going to have to burst your bubble on a couple of these theories. For one, there is no "internet code" to crack, nor is there really any get rich quick button. There are however, some well hidden affiliate marketing secrets that are so powerful that some affiliates won't share them for any amount of money or they'll only share them with a choice few individuals that are in their circle of influence.
I want to share something with you right here and now. Although there are people making huge amounts of money using well hidden tactics, it's not absolutely necessary that you know these secrets in order to make money online. Let me repeat that again. You don't have to know anything "special" in order to make money as an affiliate. You will have to learn some basic to intermediate computer skills and you'll need to learn a lot of marketing basics, but the secrets can wait.
The main affiliate marketing secret that you need to remember is not a secret at all, but a marketing fact that has been proven to work, time and time again. It's called "Traffic + Conversion = Sales". This means that the more TARGETED traffic that you send to your affiliate website, the better chance you'll have of CONVERTING it into SALES. This means that if you're marketing t-shirts then you don't want to send people to a page about dog training, you only want to send them to a page about your t-shirts. Does that make sense? Once you've grasped onto this concept you'll be able to pretty much write your own ticket my friend. Read it, learn it, know it and live it because it applies, not only online, but offline as well.
http://pr-gb.com
Monday, October 1, 2007
A conversation with Richard Russo
The Pulitzer-Prize winning author of 'Empire Falls' talks about his landscapes and characters and the difficulties encountered in writing his new novel, 'Bridge of Sighs.'
By Susan Salter Reynolds
September 30, 2007
On a fall afternoon, the harbor at Camden, Maine, is glistening, splendid, with wooden boats and white sails and the small sounds of sea gulls and halyards and rigging. All roads into Camden funnel onto one main street that leads first to the library and then, just a few doors down, to Richard Russo's house. Toward the center of this street is the Camden Deli, where Russo wrote much of his sixth and newest novel, "Bridge of Sighs" (Alfred A. Knopf: 528 pp., $26.95).
Russo keeps an eye out for visitors on his bright, glassed-in porch. His is a house of doorways that lead to hallways within hallways. The author, compact and almost always smiling, likes to watch visitors disappear into closets and reappear, perplexed. How old is it? Even Russo doesn't know. "So old," he says, "it could have a ye in front of it." This sends him.
It would be difficult to imagine a setting more distinct from the working-class upstate New York of many of Russo's novels, including "Bridge of Sighs." It is also difficult to imagine such a happy man writing such a deep, dark book, a tapestry of a novel with so many threads that a reader worries, like a small child, that they might not be properly woven by the end.
For one thing, the novel's main character, a civic-minded 60-year-old named Louis Charles Lynch (otherwise known as Lucy) has inherited such a thick veneer of blinding optimism from his father, Lou Sr., that he may not be up to the task of unlocking the secrets of his childhood. His old friend Bobby Noonan, now a well-known painter living in Venice, has been on the run from his own past -- particularly his memories of a cruel father -- for so long that he lives in a haze of denial that has become rich fodder for his art. Lucy's wife, Sarah, also a painter, had to choose between two men when she was younger (trustworthiness over passion), and it is not at all clear that she made the wisest choice. Lucy's mother, Tessa, meanwhile, kept her own dark secret, outwardly bearing the burden of her parents' small-town dreams and prejudices.
As a child, Lucy transferred from public to parochial school. To get home, he had to cross a bridge over a river so toxic with chemicals from the local tannery that the water often ran red. The local bullies, like trolls, presided over the bridge. In a defining moment, Lucy was attacked one afternoon and put inside a trunk. From that moment on, he has occasional "spells," periods of disassociation that are pleasant enough for Lucy but frightening to those who care about him.
Nothing less than the enormity of consciousness -- the myriad elements of selfhood stretching over generations, DNA and nature and nurture, not to mention cultural pressures and behavioral patterns -- is what makes "Bridge of Sighs" so precarious, so unwieldy and so fascinating at once. Lucy's hours in that trunk exert a centrifugal force on the plot, sucking children and paintings and lovers and landscapes into its maw. As in most of Russo's novels, there is a cosmography of good and evil, an American mythology (work hard, build a better life for your children) as well as a more Jungian sensibility in which secrets are the seeds of selfhood and we separate ourselves, stroke by stroke, from family, carving out our own identities.
Such ideas transfigure the novel in various ways. At one point, Noonan's dealer-manager, Hugh, put off by a particularly dark self-portrait, says: "Well, it's all worm, isn't it," by which he means, "the worm in the apple, the small, off-putting detail that registered in the viewer's subconscious and undermined the overall effect, the too-pale white spot on the skin that hinted at malignancy beneath." Another new painting contains, off in one corner, a dark likeness of the Bridge of Sighs, "which connects the Doge's Palace in St. Mark's Square to the adjacent prison. Crossing this bridge, the convicts -- at least the ones without money or influence -- came to understand that all hope was lost. According to legend, their despairing sighs could be heard echoing in the neighboring canals."
"Bridge of Sighs" was a difficult book for Russo to write. He couldn't find the structure, and the conclusion eluded him for far longer than those of his other novels. "I knew certain things about the characters," he explains, "but not about the plot. Often with a novel, I'll have an idea, a feeling." With "Empire Falls" -- which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2002 -- it was dread. "I knew something bad would happen," Russo says, "but I didn't know it would end with a shooting."
Often, Russo feels a kind of lightness when he completes a novel. "Straight Man," for example, represented his goodbye to teaching, and it left him elated. Yet after "Bridge of Sighs," he felt exhausted and depressed. "Usually, when I finish a book, I start another one right away," he notes, but not this time. "I've never doubted these characters. But it's a book about despair. I had to cross the Bridge of Sighs myself. I felt like Lucy coming out of a spell."
Although he's recognized for his ambitious novels (ambitious in scope, ambitious in plot and context), Russo has rarely, in his own life, known what would happen next. "I thought I'd be an archeologist, then maybe a scholar," he says before trailing off: ". . . or just unemployed."
His grandfather was a glove-cutter, a self-educated man and a big reader. "There was no money for anything when I was growing up," Russo recalls, "even clothes for high school." In families like his, you feel the weight of your parents' dreams. It was only after his first novel, "Mohawk," appeared in 1986 that he was able to pay off his college loans.
Could Russo have written "Bridge of Sighs" at any other point in his life? "I wanted to write an intimate personal narrative and place it in a larger political context," he explains. (Issues of justice and citizenship and bearing witness exert their gravity on the characters and the plot.) A novel like "The Risk Pool" (1988) has "a more straightforward narrative, an intimate story without the larger context. These characters are older; they are turning 60 when we begin to look for the figure in the carpet, to ask the question, 'How did we end up here?' "
In many ways, "Bridge of Sighs" goes against the grain of contemporary literature, which often tends toward a smaller scope (a relationship or an event in a character's life). But one of Russo's heroes is Mark Twain, granddaddy of the great digression. Although contemporary readers are "less tolerant of digression," Russo's devotees are legion, perhaps because in his hands they get a double whammy: breadth and depth.
What's next? "I'm going back to North Bath," Russo says, like a man with travel plans, although what he's talking about is the upstate New York setting of his 1993 novel "Nobody's Fool." "Officer Rainer might be my next main character," he laughs, referring to a minor character in that book. "And while I'm there, I want to see what Sully" -- the novel's protagonist -- "is up to."
It's no wonder that Russo talks about his landscapes and characters as if they were real. On a chilly October evening, one might turn a corner to find Lucy or Sully or Noonan staring out at Camden Harbor, hands shoved deep in pockets, or sitting at that bar with the warm, yellow light on High Street, enjoying a beer, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. *
Susan Salter Reynolds is a Times staff writer. susan.reynolds@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com
By Susan Salter Reynolds
September 30, 2007
On a fall afternoon, the harbor at Camden, Maine, is glistening, splendid, with wooden boats and white sails and the small sounds of sea gulls and halyards and rigging. All roads into Camden funnel onto one main street that leads first to the library and then, just a few doors down, to Richard Russo's house. Toward the center of this street is the Camden Deli, where Russo wrote much of his sixth and newest novel, "Bridge of Sighs" (Alfred A. Knopf: 528 pp., $26.95).
Russo keeps an eye out for visitors on his bright, glassed-in porch. His is a house of doorways that lead to hallways within hallways. The author, compact and almost always smiling, likes to watch visitors disappear into closets and reappear, perplexed. How old is it? Even Russo doesn't know. "So old," he says, "it could have a ye in front of it." This sends him.
It would be difficult to imagine a setting more distinct from the working-class upstate New York of many of Russo's novels, including "Bridge of Sighs." It is also difficult to imagine such a happy man writing such a deep, dark book, a tapestry of a novel with so many threads that a reader worries, like a small child, that they might not be properly woven by the end.
For one thing, the novel's main character, a civic-minded 60-year-old named Louis Charles Lynch (otherwise known as Lucy) has inherited such a thick veneer of blinding optimism from his father, Lou Sr., that he may not be up to the task of unlocking the secrets of his childhood. His old friend Bobby Noonan, now a well-known painter living in Venice, has been on the run from his own past -- particularly his memories of a cruel father -- for so long that he lives in a haze of denial that has become rich fodder for his art. Lucy's wife, Sarah, also a painter, had to choose between two men when she was younger (trustworthiness over passion), and it is not at all clear that she made the wisest choice. Lucy's mother, Tessa, meanwhile, kept her own dark secret, outwardly bearing the burden of her parents' small-town dreams and prejudices.
As a child, Lucy transferred from public to parochial school. To get home, he had to cross a bridge over a river so toxic with chemicals from the local tannery that the water often ran red. The local bullies, like trolls, presided over the bridge. In a defining moment, Lucy was attacked one afternoon and put inside a trunk. From that moment on, he has occasional "spells," periods of disassociation that are pleasant enough for Lucy but frightening to those who care about him.
Nothing less than the enormity of consciousness -- the myriad elements of selfhood stretching over generations, DNA and nature and nurture, not to mention cultural pressures and behavioral patterns -- is what makes "Bridge of Sighs" so precarious, so unwieldy and so fascinating at once. Lucy's hours in that trunk exert a centrifugal force on the plot, sucking children and paintings and lovers and landscapes into its maw. As in most of Russo's novels, there is a cosmography of good and evil, an American mythology (work hard, build a better life for your children) as well as a more Jungian sensibility in which secrets are the seeds of selfhood and we separate ourselves, stroke by stroke, from family, carving out our own identities.
Such ideas transfigure the novel in various ways. At one point, Noonan's dealer-manager, Hugh, put off by a particularly dark self-portrait, says: "Well, it's all worm, isn't it," by which he means, "the worm in the apple, the small, off-putting detail that registered in the viewer's subconscious and undermined the overall effect, the too-pale white spot on the skin that hinted at malignancy beneath." Another new painting contains, off in one corner, a dark likeness of the Bridge of Sighs, "which connects the Doge's Palace in St. Mark's Square to the adjacent prison. Crossing this bridge, the convicts -- at least the ones without money or influence -- came to understand that all hope was lost. According to legend, their despairing sighs could be heard echoing in the neighboring canals."
"Bridge of Sighs" was a difficult book for Russo to write. He couldn't find the structure, and the conclusion eluded him for far longer than those of his other novels. "I knew certain things about the characters," he explains, "but not about the plot. Often with a novel, I'll have an idea, a feeling." With "Empire Falls" -- which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2002 -- it was dread. "I knew something bad would happen," Russo says, "but I didn't know it would end with a shooting."
Often, Russo feels a kind of lightness when he completes a novel. "Straight Man," for example, represented his goodbye to teaching, and it left him elated. Yet after "Bridge of Sighs," he felt exhausted and depressed. "Usually, when I finish a book, I start another one right away," he notes, but not this time. "I've never doubted these characters. But it's a book about despair. I had to cross the Bridge of Sighs myself. I felt like Lucy coming out of a spell."
Although he's recognized for his ambitious novels (ambitious in scope, ambitious in plot and context), Russo has rarely, in his own life, known what would happen next. "I thought I'd be an archeologist, then maybe a scholar," he says before trailing off: ". . . or just unemployed."
His grandfather was a glove-cutter, a self-educated man and a big reader. "There was no money for anything when I was growing up," Russo recalls, "even clothes for high school." In families like his, you feel the weight of your parents' dreams. It was only after his first novel, "Mohawk," appeared in 1986 that he was able to pay off his college loans.
Could Russo have written "Bridge of Sighs" at any other point in his life? "I wanted to write an intimate personal narrative and place it in a larger political context," he explains. (Issues of justice and citizenship and bearing witness exert their gravity on the characters and the plot.) A novel like "The Risk Pool" (1988) has "a more straightforward narrative, an intimate story without the larger context. These characters are older; they are turning 60 when we begin to look for the figure in the carpet, to ask the question, 'How did we end up here?' "
In many ways, "Bridge of Sighs" goes against the grain of contemporary literature, which often tends toward a smaller scope (a relationship or an event in a character's life). But one of Russo's heroes is Mark Twain, granddaddy of the great digression. Although contemporary readers are "less tolerant of digression," Russo's devotees are legion, perhaps because in his hands they get a double whammy: breadth and depth.
What's next? "I'm going back to North Bath," Russo says, like a man with travel plans, although what he's talking about is the upstate New York setting of his 1993 novel "Nobody's Fool." "Officer Rainer might be my next main character," he laughs, referring to a minor character in that book. "And while I'm there, I want to see what Sully" -- the novel's protagonist -- "is up to."
It's no wonder that Russo talks about his landscapes and characters as if they were real. On a chilly October evening, one might turn a corner to find Lucy or Sully or Noonan staring out at Camden Harbor, hands shoved deep in pockets, or sitting at that bar with the warm, yellow light on High Street, enjoying a beer, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. *
Susan Salter Reynolds is a Times staff writer. susan.reynolds@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com
Friday, September 28, 2007
The secrets of Jordan's success
Confounding those cynics who might have thought there were only two, admittedly significant, things behind Jordan's success, three if you count Peter Andre's nuzzling head, which you don't, The Star reveals no less than 6 top tips for super-stardom, straight from the horse's mouth so to speak. It might actually be worth paying attention, you know - her empire is worth, would-you-ken-it, £30million. Click 'continue' for her steps to success!
DIVERSITY
“I like challenging myself. I’ve got a whole range of things in the pipeline – my hair range comes out in October, I’ve got my clothing range, my make-up and my bed linen.
“My books have been No 1s and my perfume has been No 1 and sold out – though new stock will be in stores very in soon! There will also be gift sets out for Christmas.”
LOVE WHAT YOU DO
“It helps that I’m really interested in what I’m doing. I love doing the PR around it and I love doing the signings and meeting people.
“And I love to work. I still enjoy modelling – particularly my own lingerie range, which is really doing well – and I couldn’t be happier with my books.”
DON’T FORGET YOUR ROOTS
“However big I become, I never forget how I started out as a 17-year-old model. It took me a year before I made any money. I’ll never forget my roots. That’s where I started and I don’t regret a minute of it. I would never knock it.”
DON’T LET WORK OVERTAKE YOUR LIFE
“My family is my No 1 priority and always will be. With my career and my work I hope they’ll have the lifestyle I’ve got. But I’m not a lazy person – I love to work. We’ve got a good management team who look after me and Pete, and they arrange our schedules so we probably see more of our kids than most people with full-time jobs.”
DON’T TAKE LIFE TOO SERIOUSLY
“I think people like me because I’m honest and I can take the piss out of myself. I do take my business very seriously but I also like to have fun, and I’ve always been very humble. I still worry about whether people will turn up to my book signings.”
DETERMINATION
“Whatever I do, I make it happen because I’m determined. I have to keep proving myself to everyone, but I like that.
“I always say to people, ‘If there’s something you want to do, don’t stop, because you can do it.’ Being married shouldn’t be an excuse, having no money shouldn’t be an excuse. If there’s something you want to do, go and do it. That’s what I did.
“My aim in life is to conquer the world. And I’m halfway there! Remember, there’s only one Jordan!”
»
DIVERSITY
“I like challenging myself. I’ve got a whole range of things in the pipeline – my hair range comes out in October, I’ve got my clothing range, my make-up and my bed linen.
“My books have been No 1s and my perfume has been No 1 and sold out – though new stock will be in stores very in soon! There will also be gift sets out for Christmas.”
LOVE WHAT YOU DO
“It helps that I’m really interested in what I’m doing. I love doing the PR around it and I love doing the signings and meeting people.
“And I love to work. I still enjoy modelling – particularly my own lingerie range, which is really doing well – and I couldn’t be happier with my books.”
DON’T FORGET YOUR ROOTS
“However big I become, I never forget how I started out as a 17-year-old model. It took me a year before I made any money. I’ll never forget my roots. That’s where I started and I don’t regret a minute of it. I would never knock it.”
DON’T LET WORK OVERTAKE YOUR LIFE
“My family is my No 1 priority and always will be. With my career and my work I hope they’ll have the lifestyle I’ve got. But I’m not a lazy person – I love to work. We’ve got a good management team who look after me and Pete, and they arrange our schedules so we probably see more of our kids than most people with full-time jobs.”
DON’T TAKE LIFE TOO SERIOUSLY
“I think people like me because I’m honest and I can take the piss out of myself. I do take my business very seriously but I also like to have fun, and I’ve always been very humble. I still worry about whether people will turn up to my book signings.”
DETERMINATION
“Whatever I do, I make it happen because I’m determined. I have to keep proving myself to everyone, but I like that.
“I always say to people, ‘If there’s something you want to do, don’t stop, because you can do it.’ Being married shouldn’t be an excuse, having no money shouldn’t be an excuse. If there’s something you want to do, go and do it. That’s what I did.
“My aim in life is to conquer the world. And I’m halfway there! Remember, there’s only one Jordan!”
»
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Secrets of the Top Internet Gurus: Here’s How to Grow Internet Business Profits.
Internet Guru Marketing 101: 8 Money Making Tips for Internet Businesses
( EMAILWIRE.COM, September 25, 2007 ) Farmington, Michigan –- If Internet Marketers follow these tips then they will make the money they want!
Money Making Tip #1: Creating a good product. Internet Marketers shouldn’t just create a product that they think will sell well. Instead, they should research their niche market and find out what people want. An Internet Marketer should survey the people in his niche to find his potential customers most pressing problems. They should create a product that is the only solution to their problem.
Another option is that they could create a product that trumps a similar product already out in the market place. If Internet Marketers do this, they must make sure to convey to potential customers why their product is an improved version of another product.
Money Making Tip #2: There are two ways to increase profit. Internet Marketers can increase profits through increasing sales or decreasing expenses. It should be easier for them to decrease expenses. Then, they need to figure out how to minimize overhead, and find out where they have trivial expenses they can eliminate.
Money Making Tip #3: To make the most money possible Internet Marketers need to have money coming in from a variety of sources. Their goal should be to have multiple streams of income. For example, they can make money from eBooks, coaching, teleseminars, and so on.
Money Making Tip #4: Internet Marketers need to look at their background, experience, and expertise. They need to create products based on what they know and what they are passionate about. When Internet Marketers work in a niche that they are more passionate about, that will drastically improve their chance of success.
Money Making Tip #5: Internet Marketers should write a book as their first informational product. Brainstorm 25 topics that their niche customers would be interested in. If their scared about writing a book, they should strive to write 2-4 pages a day and they will be done in no time. They should make sure to have the book edited and use a print-on-demand company such as Book Surge to print their book.
Money Making Tip #6: Internet Marketers should repurpose their material to make more money. They can write a sales letter based on their audio content. Pull out the bullet points from their content and convert it into a killer sales letter.
Money Making Tip #7: Internet Marketers should outsource writing tasks to freelancers on websites such as Elance.com. For example, if they don’t want to write their book then they can have a Freelance Writer write it for them. They will often find freelancers that provide great service and they will be able to utilize their services on a consistent basis.
Money Making Tip #8: Traditional books always trump eBooks. It doesn’t matter if the books are on the same topic; a traditional paper book still holds more credibility than an eBook. So Internet Marketers should make sure to have traditional paper books in their line of products.
Additional tips to creating their own wealth include: Follow the piles of cash. Find people who have successfully www.promotingtips.com [created wealth] and learn from them. "Matt Bacak, the powerful promoter, is the person who has done just that in business and is leading expert on how to achieve quick and easy success" said Ralph Marcus Maupin Jr. (Mark Maupin) co-founder of National Real Estate Network and PrEasy.com LLC.
Remember, it's not only what they know, but who they learn it from. Learn from someone who is more successful then you. Learn the tricks of the trade and www.powerfulpromoter.com [internet marketing tips] from someone that has actually built wealth and not just written a book about it. Forget the past. It does not matter who they are or where they came from. Everyone deserves to be a millionaire.
Contact Information:
Stephanie Bunn
2935 Horizon Park Drive, Suite D
Suwanee, GA 30024
(770) 271-1536
www.internetmillionairemind.com
( EMAILWIRE.COM, September 25, 2007 ) Farmington, Michigan –- If Internet Marketers follow these tips then they will make the money they want!
Money Making Tip #1: Creating a good product. Internet Marketers shouldn’t just create a product that they think will sell well. Instead, they should research their niche market and find out what people want. An Internet Marketer should survey the people in his niche to find his potential customers most pressing problems. They should create a product that is the only solution to their problem.
Another option is that they could create a product that trumps a similar product already out in the market place. If Internet Marketers do this, they must make sure to convey to potential customers why their product is an improved version of another product.
Money Making Tip #2: There are two ways to increase profit. Internet Marketers can increase profits through increasing sales or decreasing expenses. It should be easier for them to decrease expenses. Then, they need to figure out how to minimize overhead, and find out where they have trivial expenses they can eliminate.
Money Making Tip #3: To make the most money possible Internet Marketers need to have money coming in from a variety of sources. Their goal should be to have multiple streams of income. For example, they can make money from eBooks, coaching, teleseminars, and so on.
Money Making Tip #4: Internet Marketers need to look at their background, experience, and expertise. They need to create products based on what they know and what they are passionate about. When Internet Marketers work in a niche that they are more passionate about, that will drastically improve their chance of success.
Money Making Tip #5: Internet Marketers should write a book as their first informational product. Brainstorm 25 topics that their niche customers would be interested in. If their scared about writing a book, they should strive to write 2-4 pages a day and they will be done in no time. They should make sure to have the book edited and use a print-on-demand company such as Book Surge to print their book.
Money Making Tip #6: Internet Marketers should repurpose their material to make more money. They can write a sales letter based on their audio content. Pull out the bullet points from their content and convert it into a killer sales letter.
Money Making Tip #7: Internet Marketers should outsource writing tasks to freelancers on websites such as Elance.com. For example, if they don’t want to write their book then they can have a Freelance Writer write it for them. They will often find freelancers that provide great service and they will be able to utilize their services on a consistent basis.
Money Making Tip #8: Traditional books always trump eBooks. It doesn’t matter if the books are on the same topic; a traditional paper book still holds more credibility than an eBook. So Internet Marketers should make sure to have traditional paper books in their line of products.
Additional tips to creating their own wealth include: Follow the piles of cash. Find people who have successfully www.promotingtips.com [created wealth] and learn from them. "Matt Bacak, the powerful promoter, is the person who has done just that in business and is leading expert on how to achieve quick and easy success" said Ralph Marcus Maupin Jr. (Mark Maupin) co-founder of National Real Estate Network and PrEasy.com LLC.
Remember, it's not only what they know, but who they learn it from. Learn from someone who is more successful then you. Learn the tricks of the trade and www.powerfulpromoter.com [internet marketing tips] from someone that has actually built wealth and not just written a book about it. Forget the past. It does not matter who they are or where they came from. Everyone deserves to be a millionaire.
Contact Information:
Stephanie Bunn
2935 Horizon Park Drive, Suite D
Suwanee, GA 30024
(770) 271-1536
www.internetmillionairemind.com
Monday, September 24, 2007
Home Business Scams That You Should Avoid
With so many home business opportunities pouring into the internet that continuously offering guaranteed success programs and home business solutions, more people are starting to look into the internet to start a home business as a means of supporting their families. Unfortunately, individuals preying on the needs of others are making many offers for home business opportunities. Many internet users are finding their inboxes deluged with offers of making bog money with little or no work. Secrets to making big money on the internet are available from many different companies, offered only after they "unlocked the secret" of hitting it big on the internet.
In most of the internet websites attempting to get people to send money for a guaranteed successful business, will be filled with success stories about ordinary people who were nearly broke and facing bankruptcy until they signed up for this program. After signing the program, now they have more money than they know how to spend and they offer enthusiasm thanks to the person who unveiled the tricks to making an obscene amount of money for doing nothing.
There are a few aspects of internet advertising for money making opportunities that should raise red flags and sound some loud bells before sending any money or worse, entering your credit card information.
Beware of limited Time Offer Deals that will expire in a couple of hours, if not in minutes. People needing to find a home business are often duped into signing up for a worthless program, wanting to make sure they secure their place in line before the opportunity is gone. Go back and visit the site later in the day or even a day or a week later, and chances are the same ad will be there with the same time limit warning. Some programs accumulated hundreds and thousands of downline that goes under you that guarantee commission if you secure your place immediately, otherwise it will be gone.
Read through the entire offering in the initial ad and when you reach the end, go back and read it again. Usually there is nothing to indicate what product or service you will be selling to your friends and neighbors. If, after reading the ad a third time you still have no idea what the company is offering, close the page and delete from your online history.
It is not unusual for companies offering what amounts to a franchise for their business to request money up front. Legitimate brick and mortar businesses have been doing it for years and it's an acceptable practice. However, before you opt in to a program, find out exactly what you will get for your investment. If it is only the right to use the name, move on. If the company wants you to pay for training materials that may be the only thing you get for your investment.
Ask for contact information about those in the testimonials to get your own take on their success. Chances are that will be "confidential" information and not available. Additionally, contact information for the company wanting you to send money now should be clearly available in their website. Hiding behind an email address is a common ploy for those looking to take your money and offer nothing substantial in return. It's your money they want, demand answers before sending it.
by EditorsChoice
In most of the internet websites attempting to get people to send money for a guaranteed successful business, will be filled with success stories about ordinary people who were nearly broke and facing bankruptcy until they signed up for this program. After signing the program, now they have more money than they know how to spend and they offer enthusiasm thanks to the person who unveiled the tricks to making an obscene amount of money for doing nothing.
There are a few aspects of internet advertising for money making opportunities that should raise red flags and sound some loud bells before sending any money or worse, entering your credit card information.
Beware of limited Time Offer Deals that will expire in a couple of hours, if not in minutes. People needing to find a home business are often duped into signing up for a worthless program, wanting to make sure they secure their place in line before the opportunity is gone. Go back and visit the site later in the day or even a day or a week later, and chances are the same ad will be there with the same time limit warning. Some programs accumulated hundreds and thousands of downline that goes under you that guarantee commission if you secure your place immediately, otherwise it will be gone.
Read through the entire offering in the initial ad and when you reach the end, go back and read it again. Usually there is nothing to indicate what product or service you will be selling to your friends and neighbors. If, after reading the ad a third time you still have no idea what the company is offering, close the page and delete from your online history.
It is not unusual for companies offering what amounts to a franchise for their business to request money up front. Legitimate brick and mortar businesses have been doing it for years and it's an acceptable practice. However, before you opt in to a program, find out exactly what you will get for your investment. If it is only the right to use the name, move on. If the company wants you to pay for training materials that may be the only thing you get for your investment.
Ask for contact information about those in the testimonials to get your own take on their success. Chances are that will be "confidential" information and not available. Additionally, contact information for the company wanting you to send money now should be clearly available in their website. Hiding behind an email address is a common ploy for those looking to take your money and offer nothing substantial in return. It's your money they want, demand answers before sending it.
by EditorsChoice
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The Top 20 Most Powerful Secrets to Getting Rich
In life and in particular business, there are those individuals that excel to superstar levels and make millions upon millions of dollars. And likewise, there are some who struggle for years and make little if any money at all. Most of us people are somewhere in the middle ground between the two. The real difference between the successful people and those who are not is that the successful people know something that the others do not know. These are the so called secrets to success
Regardless of what business you are in, you should always try to emulate the superstars or mentors. Go find them and make them your friends. Read everything about them that you can get your hands on. Do what the superstars are doing. Do not re-invent the wheel. Just take their strategies and methods and use them without deviation. That is not to say that you will immediately vault up to superstar status, but your results will almost certainly improve. It is a law that if you copy and paste the successful people you will get similar results irrespective of who you are.
Some of the powerful secrets that the superstars know and practice are as follows:
* The market comes first: You must think about the group of people you want to serve. For example, the people struggling with being overweight. The product or service that you want to give them comes second. Go for a very big market with lot of people who desperately want something in their lives. They cannot do without it. It is like life and death to them.
* You must get the right kind of people who can help you. You cannot do it alone. Successful people pay talented people to take care of the details on their numerous websites. They pay others to take care of the more mundane day-to-day issues. This frees up their time to work on items that they believe to be more important, like advertising and marketing.
* Fight fear and adversity: Successful people set goals and a plan on how to reach those goals. Then they get down to do what they have to do inspite of fear, worry, frustrations and disapointments. Nobody is sure about tomorrow so you must focus on your goals and have faith that you will reach them.
* Succesful people know the simple formula for making the largest amount of money in the fastest period of time with the least amount of effort. For example, it takes the same amount of effort to make a $50 commission as compared to a $5,000 commission.
Success is sometimes based on the fine details. Watch for the details. Try going into different small markets one at a time. First concentrate all of your efforts in a single area, then when it has made you money, hire somebody to maintain it for you or automate it. Then move on to another niche market. By diversifying your business among several different sectors, your chances of achieving success are considerably better.
Put in a lot of effort work and always follow the leaders. I you do this you will watch your Internet business explode with massive profits. Realize that there is no substitute for real hard work. Those who succeed put in a lot of time into growing their business. They fought very hard to get where they are now. Most have worked very hard and earned every penny they have.
So, again, imitate those ultra successful individuals who have made piles and piles of cash and someday, people new to the business will emulate you.
Written by EditorsChoice
Regardless of what business you are in, you should always try to emulate the superstars or mentors. Go find them and make them your friends. Read everything about them that you can get your hands on. Do what the superstars are doing. Do not re-invent the wheel. Just take their strategies and methods and use them without deviation. That is not to say that you will immediately vault up to superstar status, but your results will almost certainly improve. It is a law that if you copy and paste the successful people you will get similar results irrespective of who you are.
Some of the powerful secrets that the superstars know and practice are as follows:
* The market comes first: You must think about the group of people you want to serve. For example, the people struggling with being overweight. The product or service that you want to give them comes second. Go for a very big market with lot of people who desperately want something in their lives. They cannot do without it. It is like life and death to them.
* You must get the right kind of people who can help you. You cannot do it alone. Successful people pay talented people to take care of the details on their numerous websites. They pay others to take care of the more mundane day-to-day issues. This frees up their time to work on items that they believe to be more important, like advertising and marketing.
* Fight fear and adversity: Successful people set goals and a plan on how to reach those goals. Then they get down to do what they have to do inspite of fear, worry, frustrations and disapointments. Nobody is sure about tomorrow so you must focus on your goals and have faith that you will reach them.
* Succesful people know the simple formula for making the largest amount of money in the fastest period of time with the least amount of effort. For example, it takes the same amount of effort to make a $50 commission as compared to a $5,000 commission.
Success is sometimes based on the fine details. Watch for the details. Try going into different small markets one at a time. First concentrate all of your efforts in a single area, then when it has made you money, hire somebody to maintain it for you or automate it. Then move on to another niche market. By diversifying your business among several different sectors, your chances of achieving success are considerably better.
Put in a lot of effort work and always follow the leaders. I you do this you will watch your Internet business explode with massive profits. Realize that there is no substitute for real hard work. Those who succeed put in a lot of time into growing their business. They fought very hard to get where they are now. Most have worked very hard and earned every penny they have.
So, again, imitate those ultra successful individuals who have made piles and piles of cash and someday, people new to the business will emulate you.
Written by EditorsChoice
Monday, September 17, 2007
The 8 secrets that made the Model T No. 1
By Frank Hayes
Mike Elgan has a nice analysis of the secrets of Apple's success, and Mike says he wants PC makers and consumer electronics companies to "steal those secrets so they can start making better products."
But those other companies are likely to be leery of that -- and maybe with good reason. Some of what Apple does is tied to certain kinds of products, or being first to market, or preexisting brand associations. Just because it makes Apple successful doesn't mean anyone else can drink the same elixir and get the same results.
Which brings me to Henry Ford and his Model T. Here's a guy in a different era with a different kind of product who found his own success secrets. And they worked, maybe even better than Apple's -- in a few years, Ford went from being a little nobody in the automobile business to selling half the cars in the U.S.
What would Henry Ford have thought of Steve Jobs's secrets?
Secret 1: Engineering supports design -- no exceptions
They agree. Henry Ford wasn't selling Apple-style "experience" -- his design goal was to make a car his own workers could afford to buy. The ownership experience was ownership. But all Ford's engineering was still focused on that design goal. No useless geegaws, nothing that made it more complex or harder to operate or maintain.
Secret 2: Fewer is better
They agree. If anything, the Model T offered even fewer variations than Apple's products. Long before iPod white there was Model T black. Again, the marketing goal was different -- Apple reduces consumer stress, Ford reduced cost -- but either way, the rule holds up.
Secret 3: The experience is the product
They agree -- in principle. But in practice, Apple's and Ford's approaches were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Apple's even-before-it-comes-out-of-the-box approach extends the product experience to make it distinctive from its competitors. By its heyday, the Model T had no competitors in its price range -- once again, ownership was the experience.
Secret 4: The product is the product
They agree -- but hold on. For Apple, the iPod would be nothing without iTunes. That service is part of the user experience, and a big reason competitors haven't been able to knock it off the mountain. For Apple, the product is the experience, and the experience includes the services -- it' just that Apple focuses on the product that the customer takes out of a box. For Ford's Model T, the customer might never see a Ford dealer again. The product really was the product.
Secret 5: You can't please everyone, so please people with good taste
They disagree. "Targeting the low end cheapens the brand," Mike Elgan says. Maybe -- or maybe it makes it a market-dominating icon. Apple goes for the top end of the market. Ford went for everyone who couldn't afford the equivalent of $20,000 in today's money for a car, and made the Model T "the automobile for the rest of us."
Secret 6: Leave the past behind
They disagree -- sort of. The Model T wasn't a radical departure in physical design -- it had four wheels, a gasoline engine and all the parts in the expected places. Apple has the option of completely reinventing the wheel with new products. But Henry Ford did reinvent the manufacturing process in order to create that low-priced car -- he wasn't afraid to reorganize his factories, pick his workers differently and pay them more to get the results he wanted. (Side note: Interestingly, Steve Jobs tried to reinvent the computer manufacturing process when he built his automated factory in Fremont, Calif., for Next. That didn't work out.)
Secret 7: Product names are important. Really important
They agree. T is even simpler and more iconic than iSomething.
Secret 8: Group affiliation is the driver
They disagree. Not all products can be sold as "cool" -- and anyone who's ever seen a Model T sitting next to one of its more luxurious contemporaries wouldn't call a Tin Lizzie "cool" (I recommend the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., for that very experience).
Still, with different products, different markets and different eras, Ford and Jobs share a frighteningly large collection of success secrets.
Lucky for them, none of their competitors seem to be able to figure this stuff out...
Mike Elgan has a nice analysis of the secrets of Apple's success, and Mike says he wants PC makers and consumer electronics companies to "steal those secrets so they can start making better products."
But those other companies are likely to be leery of that -- and maybe with good reason. Some of what Apple does is tied to certain kinds of products, or being first to market, or preexisting brand associations. Just because it makes Apple successful doesn't mean anyone else can drink the same elixir and get the same results.
Which brings me to Henry Ford and his Model T. Here's a guy in a different era with a different kind of product who found his own success secrets. And they worked, maybe even better than Apple's -- in a few years, Ford went from being a little nobody in the automobile business to selling half the cars in the U.S.
What would Henry Ford have thought of Steve Jobs's secrets?
Secret 1: Engineering supports design -- no exceptions
They agree. Henry Ford wasn't selling Apple-style "experience" -- his design goal was to make a car his own workers could afford to buy. The ownership experience was ownership. But all Ford's engineering was still focused on that design goal. No useless geegaws, nothing that made it more complex or harder to operate or maintain.
Secret 2: Fewer is better
They agree. If anything, the Model T offered even fewer variations than Apple's products. Long before iPod white there was Model T black. Again, the marketing goal was different -- Apple reduces consumer stress, Ford reduced cost -- but either way, the rule holds up.
Secret 3: The experience is the product
They agree -- in principle. But in practice, Apple's and Ford's approaches were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Apple's even-before-it-comes-out-of-the-box approach extends the product experience to make it distinctive from its competitors. By its heyday, the Model T had no competitors in its price range -- once again, ownership was the experience.
Secret 4: The product is the product
They agree -- but hold on. For Apple, the iPod would be nothing without iTunes. That service is part of the user experience, and a big reason competitors haven't been able to knock it off the mountain. For Apple, the product is the experience, and the experience includes the services -- it' just that Apple focuses on the product that the customer takes out of a box. For Ford's Model T, the customer might never see a Ford dealer again. The product really was the product.
Secret 5: You can't please everyone, so please people with good taste
They disagree. "Targeting the low end cheapens the brand," Mike Elgan says. Maybe -- or maybe it makes it a market-dominating icon. Apple goes for the top end of the market. Ford went for everyone who couldn't afford the equivalent of $20,000 in today's money for a car, and made the Model T "the automobile for the rest of us."
Secret 6: Leave the past behind
They disagree -- sort of. The Model T wasn't a radical departure in physical design -- it had four wheels, a gasoline engine and all the parts in the expected places. Apple has the option of completely reinventing the wheel with new products. But Henry Ford did reinvent the manufacturing process in order to create that low-priced car -- he wasn't afraid to reorganize his factories, pick his workers differently and pay them more to get the results he wanted. (Side note: Interestingly, Steve Jobs tried to reinvent the computer manufacturing process when he built his automated factory in Fremont, Calif., for Next. That didn't work out.)
Secret 7: Product names are important. Really important
They agree. T is even simpler and more iconic than iSomething.
Secret 8: Group affiliation is the driver
They disagree. Not all products can be sold as "cool" -- and anyone who's ever seen a Model T sitting next to one of its more luxurious contemporaries wouldn't call a Tin Lizzie "cool" (I recommend the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., for that very experience).
Still, with different products, different markets and different eras, Ford and Jobs share a frighteningly large collection of success secrets.
Lucky for them, none of their competitors seem to be able to figure this stuff out...
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
7 Unknown Success Secrets Revealed
Hari Qumar
September 10, 2007
Who would not like to be successful in life in whatever one does? Every person would like to reach the heights of success. But, as it is rightly said “Success does not come overnight to anyone.” One has to work hard for it, have lot of patience to reap the fruits of hard labor. There are few guidelines which will help you pave a wonderful path to your ultimate success.
Let us know about them in detail.
1. Do what you are good at: Do the work that you love doing the most, even if it is web designing or just painting in order to gain success. You should not take up the job in which you are not good at or something that you are forced to take just because you need to satisfy your superiors. Don’t try to become a ‘Jack of all trades’ by learning all the latest technologies and ‘Master of none’. It is rightly said, “Make your passion your profession, money will follow you.” This means, do the job that you are passionate about, that you feel good doing it, where you get immense satisfaction doing it. Then this particular profession does not remain monotonous any longer, but it is now fun for you and you feel nice and satisfied in doing the job.
2. Be prepared to learn and to be positive: By becoming a ‘Jack of all trades’ and ‘Master of none’, I sincerely do not mean to offend you or stop you from learning new technologies. Because, the more you learn, the more you gain. The more you gain it is good for you as a whole. Infact there is no specific age limit for learning. Learning is an infinite process. A person learns at every stage of his life for achieving success. The moment, you feel you have learnt enough or you stop learning, you tend to indirectly limit your growth as a person.
Also, one needs to remain positive always. You must always keep a positive outlook towards whatever you do in life. As it is rightly said, “There is light at the end of the tunnel”. So, never think negative towards anything in life as a negative thought always kills you from within which is not good for your health in order to be successful.
3. Always be an innovative individual: You should always try to be an innovative person. Try to learn something new as this will increase your knowledge about the subject. Don’t be a ‘Run-in-the-Mill”. By this I mean, do not be repetitive. As this will only create fatigue within you and hamper your path to success. It is said that we should not break the rules. But in order to be innovative, one has to go beyond the rules laid. Rules only bind the person within the limits. But in order to be innovative, you have to go berserk.
4. Learn to invest not just money but your time, effort and resources, too:
Suppose you think of buying some business. And you put in your money into it. Once you are successful in purchasing the business you may think of sitting quiet, thinking that now my business will be run by the people working in it. This means, you are neglecting your people, your business. But, this should not be the case. You have to put in your time and effort for running your business and also talk to your people who are working for you. You need to know, what is going on in the organization. You need to take an active interest in the day-to-day activities of the organization. This is how you will come to know about your business, your people and learn to gain success in life.
5. Learn to set your goals and targets. Be persistent: One should be a target oriented person in life. You should learn to set your goals and targets in the work that you are doing. As life without goals, targets and ambition is a waste. It is like “Shooting an arrow in the dark”. When you set up your goals, you tend to work towards it in order to be successful. Be persistent in whatever work you do. Do not give up if you are not able to achieve your goal the first time and you fail. If you are able to achieve your goal, the very first time, then you do not come to know the true value of success. As rightly said, “Try and try again, until you succeed”. And, “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going”. So, one should never give up in order to be successful in life. Remember “Perseverance always pays”.
6. Learn to manage your time effectively: You should learn to manage your time effectively. As “A second lost is lost forever”. You should be able to complete all the given work within the stipulated time. Time management is the key to one’s success. One, who can manage his time well, has learnt the key to achieve success in his life.
7. Learn to give back to society what you amass, as you grow: Being rich and wealthy though look like they mean the same, (that is to accumulate more riches, money) but they are totally different. Being rich means where you accumulate more riches, money with yourself, but being wealthy means to distribute the wealth that you have accumulated back to the society. As you are living in the society and it is this same society that has helped you to become rich. So, it is one’s duty and responsibility to give back to the society what you have amassed in order to gain the real success. One should learn to be wealthy in order to be successful in life and not a rich person alone.
So, what are you waiting for? Go on! Apply these 7 principles of success in life to be really successful in whatever work you do.
UEFA EURO 2008 Austria-Switzerland
September 10, 2007
Who would not like to be successful in life in whatever one does? Every person would like to reach the heights of success. But, as it is rightly said “Success does not come overnight to anyone.” One has to work hard for it, have lot of patience to reap the fruits of hard labor. There are few guidelines which will help you pave a wonderful path to your ultimate success.
Let us know about them in detail.
1. Do what you are good at: Do the work that you love doing the most, even if it is web designing or just painting in order to gain success. You should not take up the job in which you are not good at or something that you are forced to take just because you need to satisfy your superiors. Don’t try to become a ‘Jack of all trades’ by learning all the latest technologies and ‘Master of none’. It is rightly said, “Make your passion your profession, money will follow you.” This means, do the job that you are passionate about, that you feel good doing it, where you get immense satisfaction doing it. Then this particular profession does not remain monotonous any longer, but it is now fun for you and you feel nice and satisfied in doing the job.
2. Be prepared to learn and to be positive: By becoming a ‘Jack of all trades’ and ‘Master of none’, I sincerely do not mean to offend you or stop you from learning new technologies. Because, the more you learn, the more you gain. The more you gain it is good for you as a whole. Infact there is no specific age limit for learning. Learning is an infinite process. A person learns at every stage of his life for achieving success. The moment, you feel you have learnt enough or you stop learning, you tend to indirectly limit your growth as a person.
Also, one needs to remain positive always. You must always keep a positive outlook towards whatever you do in life. As it is rightly said, “There is light at the end of the tunnel”. So, never think negative towards anything in life as a negative thought always kills you from within which is not good for your health in order to be successful.
3. Always be an innovative individual: You should always try to be an innovative person. Try to learn something new as this will increase your knowledge about the subject. Don’t be a ‘Run-in-the-Mill”. By this I mean, do not be repetitive. As this will only create fatigue within you and hamper your path to success. It is said that we should not break the rules. But in order to be innovative, one has to go beyond the rules laid. Rules only bind the person within the limits. But in order to be innovative, you have to go berserk.
4. Learn to invest not just money but your time, effort and resources, too:
Suppose you think of buying some business. And you put in your money into it. Once you are successful in purchasing the business you may think of sitting quiet, thinking that now my business will be run by the people working in it. This means, you are neglecting your people, your business. But, this should not be the case. You have to put in your time and effort for running your business and also talk to your people who are working for you. You need to know, what is going on in the organization. You need to take an active interest in the day-to-day activities of the organization. This is how you will come to know about your business, your people and learn to gain success in life.
5. Learn to set your goals and targets. Be persistent: One should be a target oriented person in life. You should learn to set your goals and targets in the work that you are doing. As life without goals, targets and ambition is a waste. It is like “Shooting an arrow in the dark”. When you set up your goals, you tend to work towards it in order to be successful. Be persistent in whatever work you do. Do not give up if you are not able to achieve your goal the first time and you fail. If you are able to achieve your goal, the very first time, then you do not come to know the true value of success. As rightly said, “Try and try again, until you succeed”. And, “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going”. So, one should never give up in order to be successful in life. Remember “Perseverance always pays”.
6. Learn to manage your time effectively: You should learn to manage your time effectively. As “A second lost is lost forever”. You should be able to complete all the given work within the stipulated time. Time management is the key to one’s success. One, who can manage his time well, has learnt the key to achieve success in his life.
7. Learn to give back to society what you amass, as you grow: Being rich and wealthy though look like they mean the same, (that is to accumulate more riches, money) but they are totally different. Being rich means where you accumulate more riches, money with yourself, but being wealthy means to distribute the wealth that you have accumulated back to the society. As you are living in the society and it is this same society that has helped you to become rich. So, it is one’s duty and responsibility to give back to the society what you have amassed in order to gain the real success. One should learn to be wealthy in order to be successful in life and not a rich person alone.
So, what are you waiting for? Go on! Apply these 7 principles of success in life to be really successful in whatever work you do.
UEFA EURO 2008 Austria-Switzerland
Monday, September 10, 2007
Special Report: Real Estate Magnate Shares Secrets to his Success
Orlando, Fla.—“Take good care of your employees and they’ll take care of you” is a well-known adage, but one that Harris Rosen, president & COO of Rosen Hotels & Resorts, Florida’s largest independent hotel company, takes to heart. Rosen operates a medical center for the employees of his seven Orlando-area hotels—an innovative idea that fosters employee loyalty while also saving money.
“In this business, where you’re serving others, employees have to feel their best,” Rosen noted. “Our philosophy has always been to treat our associates with great kindness.”
Rosen shared his cost-effective management strategies with attendees at Multi-Housing World, which is being held at his newest property, the one-year-old Rosen Shingle Creek Resort.
Rosen keeps a close watch on his properties, inspecting each one once a month. “It’s important to let your people know you care about your properties,” he said.
To find out what’s really going on, Rosen also schedules a lunch once a week with hourly associates in a certain department in one of his hotels. “You can’t find out the truth from behind a desk,” he noted.
Rosen has embraced “green” strategies, such as replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, tinting windows to reduce heat absorption, installing light sensors and water-saving devices. He expects annual savings to be $500,000.
“The nice thing about green is that you don’t necessarily have to be an [ardent] environmentalist,” Rosen said. “There is a direct connection between green and profits or losses; I believe, the greener, the more profitable.”
Any regrets over the years? None, he said. “Even incredibly stupid decisions were valuable,” Rosen said. “I learned to think through things differently.” He also pointed out that he had to sacrifice to achieve his goals but “if you have a passion for something, you’ll put in the effort required.”
Rosen earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1961 from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, and then served three years in the United States Army as an officer in Germany and South Korea. He began his career in sales in New York City at the prestigious Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where his father had also worked.
Eventually, Rosen joined the Disney Co. in California as director of hotel planning, and then moved to Orlando when the company began work on Disney World. After parting ways with Disney, he became his own boss, buying the 256-room Quality Inn on International Drive in 1974.
With Rosen Shingle Creek, the company now owns more than 6,300 guest rooms in central Florida, approximately six percent of the area's total rooms.
A few years ago, he donated land and provided funding to build the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management.
By Teresa O’Dea Hein, Managing Editor
“In this business, where you’re serving others, employees have to feel their best,” Rosen noted. “Our philosophy has always been to treat our associates with great kindness.”
Rosen shared his cost-effective management strategies with attendees at Multi-Housing World, which is being held at his newest property, the one-year-old Rosen Shingle Creek Resort.
Rosen keeps a close watch on his properties, inspecting each one once a month. “It’s important to let your people know you care about your properties,” he said.
To find out what’s really going on, Rosen also schedules a lunch once a week with hourly associates in a certain department in one of his hotels. “You can’t find out the truth from behind a desk,” he noted.
Rosen has embraced “green” strategies, such as replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, tinting windows to reduce heat absorption, installing light sensors and water-saving devices. He expects annual savings to be $500,000.
“The nice thing about green is that you don’t necessarily have to be an [ardent] environmentalist,” Rosen said. “There is a direct connection between green and profits or losses; I believe, the greener, the more profitable.”
Any regrets over the years? None, he said. “Even incredibly stupid decisions were valuable,” Rosen said. “I learned to think through things differently.” He also pointed out that he had to sacrifice to achieve his goals but “if you have a passion for something, you’ll put in the effort required.”
Rosen earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1961 from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, and then served three years in the United States Army as an officer in Germany and South Korea. He began his career in sales in New York City at the prestigious Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where his father had also worked.
Eventually, Rosen joined the Disney Co. in California as director of hotel planning, and then moved to Orlando when the company began work on Disney World. After parting ways with Disney, he became his own boss, buying the 256-room Quality Inn on International Drive in 1974.
With Rosen Shingle Creek, the company now owns more than 6,300 guest rooms in central Florida, approximately six percent of the area's total rooms.
A few years ago, he donated land and provided funding to build the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management.
By Teresa O’Dea Hein, Managing Editor
Five Great Money Books for Young Adults
So you want to learn more about personal finance but don't know where to begin? Finding information is not a problem. The amount of advice out there is overwhelming, especially when you're first starting out and aren't sure exactly what you're looking for -- or what you're doing. The trick is to find those gems of wisdom that'll teach you the basics of money management without leaving you feeling like you were hit by a bus.
Here are five great books that make finances simple. Whether you're looking for a basic guide to navigate your finances, a self-help book to start investing or a motivating tool to finally take your money habits seriously, there's something for every beginner here.
Each book is easy to understand -- no math major required -- and all come recommended not only from me but from several of my colleagues at Kiplinger's. I've included the list price for each book, but you can find them at drastic discounts on the Web. Either way, they're well worth the investment. (They also make great gifts, parents!)
Life After School Explained
By Cap & Compass ($13.95)
If you're clueless and overwhelmed by what lies in store after you untie yourself from Mom and Dad's purse strings, this is a good book to get your feet wet. It's short and humorous and doesn't weigh you down with a lot of confusing terminology.
I read it cover to cover in about two hours and actually understood what it said -- without my eyes glazing over once. It's sprinkled with witty anecdotes, pop culture references and comic strips to keep the mood light, even though it discusses such heavy-weight topics as choosing a health insurance plan, filling out tax forms and investing your money. It also covers lighter-yet-important subjects, such as how to avoid looking stupid at a business meal, what to wear on your first day of work and what to look for in a good apartment.
Life After School Explained is written by a team of young professionals who draw largely from their personal experiences in the real world. Its focus is for those who don't know anything about living on their own, which, whether we want to admit it or not, is probably most of us. It's basic, straight forward and a cinch to understand.
Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties
By Beth Kobliner ($15)
For a deeper understanding of financial principles to guide you through young adulthood, this is your bible. Here you'll find a collection of life's basic lessons on buying insurance, paying off debt, buying a home, saving money on taxes, managing your daily finances and investing for the long term.
But just because it's comprehensive doesn't mean it'll bog you down. Get a Financial Life is surprisingly readable, yet works well as a reference, too. Chapter one is a 12-page summary of the entire book - "a cheat-sheet for time-pressed readers," Kobliner calls it -- imparting quick financial wisdom on the book's entire range of topics. Then you can read the individual chapters for more information. Plus, the end of each chapter is capped off with a CliffsNotes-type summary to make sure you didn't lose anything in translation.
It's specifically written for the twenty- and thirty- something crowd, so you get tidbits of wisdom on topics and goals that you actually care about (for example, how to protect yourself when renting, how to pay off student loans and how to find the right mix for your investments when you're young). Get it. Read it. Reference it often.
The Wealthy Barber
By David Chilton ($14)
A big turn-off to reading a book about money is the snooze factor. Many are about as entertaining as a textbook. The Wealthy Barber, however, takes a novel approach to the self-help book -- it's written in a narrative.
It's the story of three young adults who realize that they don't know squat about how to create a long-term financial plan for their future. They turn to a parent for help who points them to an unlikely expert: The local barber, who managed to turn a low-wage job into a comfortable lifestyle with millions of dollars in the bank. The secrets imparted are simple and easy to follow, and it illustrates that you don't have to have a six-figure salary to live the good life.
"I have a very good friend who hands it out to almost anyone he knows and to kids when they graduate high school or college," says one of my colleagues at Kiplinger's. "It ain't hip or cool, but it's decidedly simple." Agreed. The Wealthy Barber certainly isn't a John Grisham novel, but at 211 pages it was readable and inspiring. I easily finished it in a weekend with plenty of time to re-evaluate my own long-term financial picture.
Debt-Free By 30
By Jason Anthony and Karl Cluck ($14)
Most of the personal finance books for young adults are about how to get started on the right foot. Which is great, but what if you've already taken a misstep? This book is written by two self-described money misfits who spent their twenties piling up credit card and other debt, only to find their lives were being controlled by their poor money choices. "Death by plastic," Anthony and Cluck call it, and it wasn't pretty. Debt-Free by 30 is their first-hand tale of how they dug themselves out of the hole and got on the path to financial freedom. The job wasn't easy, as the authors are quick to point out, but it was worth it.
Don't let the word "debt" in the title stop you in your tracks. Anthony and Cluck know the topic is a weighty one, but they keep the mood light with jokes, financial IQ quizzes and humorous, blunt language that'll awaken your inner financial slacker to the error of its ways -- and motivate you to take action. (Hint: "Make your own damn frappuccino!")
Debt-Free By 30 covers the basics of prioritizing your debt, finding extra money to pay it down faster and handling situations in which you might be tempted to rack up more debt. Methodically paying off your credit cards may not sound sexy, but this book will make you a believer and give you the tools to pull it off.
Saving for Retirement (Without Living Like a Pauper or Winning the Lottery)
By Gail MarksJarvis
What the heck is a stock or a mutual fund anyway, and why should I care? Pick up almost any book about investing, and you'll soon drown in a tsunami of terminology and complicated math to answer that question. But here is a book that actually manages to make sense of investing without confusing you along the way. MarksJarvis gives you a solid foundation of understanding of how investments work -- and how to make them work for you -- before diving in to the different kinds of investment products and accounts. What a crazy concept.
MarksJarvis doesn't try to impress you with her well of knowledge. Instead, she comes across as a patient and humble parent or teacher taking the time to make sure you know what you're doing. Saving for Retirement is a good size (228 pages) and the table of contents looks intimidating at first. But that's just because the book is broken down into small, easy-to-digest headings. That makes for quick referencing later.
Investing for the long-term should be a top goal for every young adult, and this book gives you the nitty gritty details you seek without sending your head into a spin. It's very thorough, yet simple to understand without making you feel like an idiot.
By Erin Burt
Here are five great books that make finances simple. Whether you're looking for a basic guide to navigate your finances, a self-help book to start investing or a motivating tool to finally take your money habits seriously, there's something for every beginner here.
Each book is easy to understand -- no math major required -- and all come recommended not only from me but from several of my colleagues at Kiplinger's. I've included the list price for each book, but you can find them at drastic discounts on the Web. Either way, they're well worth the investment. (They also make great gifts, parents!)
Life After School Explained
By Cap & Compass ($13.95)
If you're clueless and overwhelmed by what lies in store after you untie yourself from Mom and Dad's purse strings, this is a good book to get your feet wet. It's short and humorous and doesn't weigh you down with a lot of confusing terminology.
I read it cover to cover in about two hours and actually understood what it said -- without my eyes glazing over once. It's sprinkled with witty anecdotes, pop culture references and comic strips to keep the mood light, even though it discusses such heavy-weight topics as choosing a health insurance plan, filling out tax forms and investing your money. It also covers lighter-yet-important subjects, such as how to avoid looking stupid at a business meal, what to wear on your first day of work and what to look for in a good apartment.
Life After School Explained is written by a team of young professionals who draw largely from their personal experiences in the real world. Its focus is for those who don't know anything about living on their own, which, whether we want to admit it or not, is probably most of us. It's basic, straight forward and a cinch to understand.
Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties
By Beth Kobliner ($15)
For a deeper understanding of financial principles to guide you through young adulthood, this is your bible. Here you'll find a collection of life's basic lessons on buying insurance, paying off debt, buying a home, saving money on taxes, managing your daily finances and investing for the long term.
But just because it's comprehensive doesn't mean it'll bog you down. Get a Financial Life is surprisingly readable, yet works well as a reference, too. Chapter one is a 12-page summary of the entire book - "a cheat-sheet for time-pressed readers," Kobliner calls it -- imparting quick financial wisdom on the book's entire range of topics. Then you can read the individual chapters for more information. Plus, the end of each chapter is capped off with a CliffsNotes-type summary to make sure you didn't lose anything in translation.
It's specifically written for the twenty- and thirty- something crowd, so you get tidbits of wisdom on topics and goals that you actually care about (for example, how to protect yourself when renting, how to pay off student loans and how to find the right mix for your investments when you're young). Get it. Read it. Reference it often.
The Wealthy Barber
By David Chilton ($14)
A big turn-off to reading a book about money is the snooze factor. Many are about as entertaining as a textbook. The Wealthy Barber, however, takes a novel approach to the self-help book -- it's written in a narrative.
It's the story of three young adults who realize that they don't know squat about how to create a long-term financial plan for their future. They turn to a parent for help who points them to an unlikely expert: The local barber, who managed to turn a low-wage job into a comfortable lifestyle with millions of dollars in the bank. The secrets imparted are simple and easy to follow, and it illustrates that you don't have to have a six-figure salary to live the good life.
"I have a very good friend who hands it out to almost anyone he knows and to kids when they graduate high school or college," says one of my colleagues at Kiplinger's. "It ain't hip or cool, but it's decidedly simple." Agreed. The Wealthy Barber certainly isn't a John Grisham novel, but at 211 pages it was readable and inspiring. I easily finished it in a weekend with plenty of time to re-evaluate my own long-term financial picture.
Debt-Free By 30
By Jason Anthony and Karl Cluck ($14)
Most of the personal finance books for young adults are about how to get started on the right foot. Which is great, but what if you've already taken a misstep? This book is written by two self-described money misfits who spent their twenties piling up credit card and other debt, only to find their lives were being controlled by their poor money choices. "Death by plastic," Anthony and Cluck call it, and it wasn't pretty. Debt-Free by 30 is their first-hand tale of how they dug themselves out of the hole and got on the path to financial freedom. The job wasn't easy, as the authors are quick to point out, but it was worth it.
Don't let the word "debt" in the title stop you in your tracks. Anthony and Cluck know the topic is a weighty one, but they keep the mood light with jokes, financial IQ quizzes and humorous, blunt language that'll awaken your inner financial slacker to the error of its ways -- and motivate you to take action. (Hint: "Make your own damn frappuccino!")
Debt-Free By 30 covers the basics of prioritizing your debt, finding extra money to pay it down faster and handling situations in which you might be tempted to rack up more debt. Methodically paying off your credit cards may not sound sexy, but this book will make you a believer and give you the tools to pull it off.
Saving for Retirement (Without Living Like a Pauper or Winning the Lottery)
By Gail MarksJarvis
What the heck is a stock or a mutual fund anyway, and why should I care? Pick up almost any book about investing, and you'll soon drown in a tsunami of terminology and complicated math to answer that question. But here is a book that actually manages to make sense of investing without confusing you along the way. MarksJarvis gives you a solid foundation of understanding of how investments work -- and how to make them work for you -- before diving in to the different kinds of investment products and accounts. What a crazy concept.
MarksJarvis doesn't try to impress you with her well of knowledge. Instead, she comes across as a patient and humble parent or teacher taking the time to make sure you know what you're doing. Saving for Retirement is a good size (228 pages) and the table of contents looks intimidating at first. But that's just because the book is broken down into small, easy-to-digest headings. That makes for quick referencing later.
Investing for the long-term should be a top goal for every young adult, and this book gives you the nitty gritty details you seek without sending your head into a spin. It's very thorough, yet simple to understand without making you feel like an idiot.
By Erin Burt
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Five Things You Must Know Before Buying a Car
Car Dealer Reveals Insider’s Credit Secrets to Save You Money
The offers sound enticing—0% interest, no money down, low monthly payments and huge discounts. With offers like these, you’re sure to get a good deal on a car, right? Not necessarily. Seems like there’s always a catch or fine print. And that’s why most people hate buying a car. They rank it right up there with getting a root canal—downright painful. The basic problem is that most people don’t understand how car dealerships operate. So they wind up paying too much.
That’s where Mark Marine comes in. A long-time car dealer and author of the book, “Kick the Dealer...Not the Tires!” (Motom Publishing), Marine believes consumers need to understand the role their credit plays when buying a car. And shocking as it may sound having good credit does not automatically mean you’ll get the best deal. “You may not want to hear this but the people getting the best price on a car are people with bad credit,” says Marine. “The car-buying experience is designed to allow dealers to make up profits lost on bad-credit sales by making bigger profits on good-credit sales.”
That’s why Marine stresses the importance of understanding credit. He offers five key points that he thinks all consumers should know before they even consider buying a new vehicle:
1. Check your credit report. Most credit reports contain inaccurate information. It’s up to you to correct it—there’s no government agency that requires the credit report companies to amend mistakes to your report.
2. Good credit means you’re ripe for abuse. When you have good credit, banks place fewer restrictions on your loan and that allows dealers to charge you more. So it’s crucial to know your lender’s conditions on your loan up-front.
3. Bad credit means the bank protects its money. When you have bad credit, the bank places more restrictions on the loan. That gives dealers less wiggle room to add on extras and options. But bad credit still means you have fewer options when borrowing money.
4. Get pre-approved before you visit any car dealer. That way you know the conditions placed on your loan up front. Then the dealer is forced to make a deal that fits the conditions outlined by the bank—again, eliminating that profit wiggle room.
5. Have an exit strategy. Don’t let the lust for leather seats and a premium sound system melt your brain. When buying a car, keep in mind at some point you’ll sell that car. So you have to be smart. You’ll pay much more for options than you’ll recoup when selling it down the road.
Marine says he also wants people to know that when it comes to their credit, the best thing they can do is pay their bills on time. If they fall behind, he warns them to beware of ‘credit repair’ scams. “There is no such thing as credit repair,” says Marine. “These companies claim they can hide or remove negative information from your credit report, even if that information is true. But they can’t. What’s even worse is that after they’ve ‘repaired’ your credit, your score drops even lower than before you went to them.”
When it comes to your credit and buying a new car, Marine advises consumers to be informed. Check your credit score, get pre-approved first, and plan your exit strategy. “A car purchase will affect your economic life for roughly three to seven years,” says Marine. “That’s a long time to be stuck in a bad deal. Get pre-approved.”
Visit www.kickthedealer.com for more information about Mark Marine.
By Editor
The offers sound enticing—0% interest, no money down, low monthly payments and huge discounts. With offers like these, you’re sure to get a good deal on a car, right? Not necessarily. Seems like there’s always a catch or fine print. And that’s why most people hate buying a car. They rank it right up there with getting a root canal—downright painful. The basic problem is that most people don’t understand how car dealerships operate. So they wind up paying too much.
That’s where Mark Marine comes in. A long-time car dealer and author of the book, “Kick the Dealer...Not the Tires!” (Motom Publishing), Marine believes consumers need to understand the role their credit plays when buying a car. And shocking as it may sound having good credit does not automatically mean you’ll get the best deal. “You may not want to hear this but the people getting the best price on a car are people with bad credit,” says Marine. “The car-buying experience is designed to allow dealers to make up profits lost on bad-credit sales by making bigger profits on good-credit sales.”
That’s why Marine stresses the importance of understanding credit. He offers five key points that he thinks all consumers should know before they even consider buying a new vehicle:
1. Check your credit report. Most credit reports contain inaccurate information. It’s up to you to correct it—there’s no government agency that requires the credit report companies to amend mistakes to your report.
2. Good credit means you’re ripe for abuse. When you have good credit, banks place fewer restrictions on your loan and that allows dealers to charge you more. So it’s crucial to know your lender’s conditions on your loan up-front.
3. Bad credit means the bank protects its money. When you have bad credit, the bank places more restrictions on the loan. That gives dealers less wiggle room to add on extras and options. But bad credit still means you have fewer options when borrowing money.
4. Get pre-approved before you visit any car dealer. That way you know the conditions placed on your loan up front. Then the dealer is forced to make a deal that fits the conditions outlined by the bank—again, eliminating that profit wiggle room.
5. Have an exit strategy. Don’t let the lust for leather seats and a premium sound system melt your brain. When buying a car, keep in mind at some point you’ll sell that car. So you have to be smart. You’ll pay much more for options than you’ll recoup when selling it down the road.
Marine says he also wants people to know that when it comes to their credit, the best thing they can do is pay their bills on time. If they fall behind, he warns them to beware of ‘credit repair’ scams. “There is no such thing as credit repair,” says Marine. “These companies claim they can hide or remove negative information from your credit report, even if that information is true. But they can’t. What’s even worse is that after they’ve ‘repaired’ your credit, your score drops even lower than before you went to them.”
When it comes to your credit and buying a new car, Marine advises consumers to be informed. Check your credit score, get pre-approved first, and plan your exit strategy. “A car purchase will affect your economic life for roughly three to seven years,” says Marine. “That’s a long time to be stuck in a bad deal. Get pre-approved.”
Visit www.kickthedealer.com for more information about Mark Marine.
By Editor
The 5 Secrets to Buying Stocks
Quite a couple of weeks, eh? While not quite the chain of 25-sigma events the folks at Goldman Sachs think they saw, this is the most volatile the stock market's been in five years ... and the exotic hedging techniques we've invented over the past few years don't actually seem to be protecting anyone from anything.
As noted money manager Wally Weitz wrote in a recent shareholder letter, "These are the times that active money managers earn their fees."
Or are they the times that try men's souls?
Still, you don't need to be a professional money manager to start protecting your portfolio against short-term volatility, and positioning it to achieve superior long-term returns. Many of the best money managers, including Wally Weitz, have achieved their fantastic performance without doing anything quite so fancy.
Take Martin Whitman, for example. His Third Avenue Value (TAVFX) fund has crushed the market by more than seven percentage points annually over the past five years, and it's trailed the S&P 500 index just once since 2000.
That's an incredible track record that we'd all be wise to replicate -- and Marty's happy to let us do so. In his last shareholder letter, he revealed five of the key secrets to his success.
In no particular order
To be your own expert money manager, simply:
1. Buy cheap.
2. Buy quality.
3. Buy to hold.
4. Buy with minimal expenses.
5. Buy without leverage.
If you can consistently follow all five of those tenets, you're on your way to making more money in the stock market -- and three of them are so simple that you'd be silly not to be doing them already.
The three easies
"Buy to hold" means sticking with stocks unless, as Whitman writes, "there has occurred a permanent impairment in underlying value" of a stock. Such an impairment would occur, for example, if all 11 of Pfizer's (NYSE: PFE) drugs in late-stage testing were rejected by the FDA, or if Disney (NYSE: DIS) lost a challenge to its Mickey Mouse trademark.
Having the patience and confidence to hold the stocks you buy through inevitable volatility (except when a permanent impairment has occurred) will automatically reduce your tax bill and trading expenses. Do even better by keeping commissions to 1% to 2% of your investments.
Finally, don't invest money you can't afford to lose, and don't borrow money to invest. While leverage can increase your returns in good times, it will dramatically increase your losses in bad times. That's not the way to preserve capital and earn steady returns.
The harder two
Buying cheap and buying quality are more esoteric concepts. Put them together, and Whitman's essentially demanding that we all be smart investors.
But Whitman has a very clear definition of cheap: "Issues at prices that reflect substantial discounts from readily ascertainable NAVs [net asset values] ... [and whose] NAVs will increase by not less than 10% per year compounded." The classic Whitman example here is Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM), which Whitman bought cheap, and which has returned nearly 45% annually over the past five years.
To find stocks like Brookfield, start with companies such as Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC), and Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), which are already trading for low-ish price-to-book multiples, and decide whether they're quality.
Easier said that done?
While "quality" will always be in the eye of the beholder, Whitman's definition is clear. It means having a strong financial position, competent management, and a business that is understandable.
Perhaps that's why Whitman has opened a position in homebuilder MDC Holdings (NYSE: MDC). It's trading for a little more than its book value, but it boasts $668 million in cash and more than 20% insider ownership, and it's poised to weather the real estate downturn. It may also explain why Whitman has steered clear of Bear Stearns, a complicated financial institution that has seen several hedge funds collapse over the past few weeks as a result of links to subprime lending.
Johnny 5 functioning 100%
At our Motley Fool Hidden Gems small-cap investing service, we follow every one of Whitman's tenets; not coincidentally, we share the opinion that MDC Holdings is a "buy." But we focus exclusively on small caps, because we believe they represent one of the few sectors where individual investors can gain an informational advantage over institutional money.
While recent volatility has our small caps often running up or down 10% in a single day, our long-term returns have us more than 30 percentage points ahead of the market on average. That's what happens when you buy cheap, buy quality, and buy to hold.
You can take a look at all our Hidden Gems research and recommendations -- including today's brand-new issue, releasing at 12 noon ET -- by joining the service free for 30 days. Click here for more information.
By Tim Hanson
As noted money manager Wally Weitz wrote in a recent shareholder letter, "These are the times that active money managers earn their fees."
Or are they the times that try men's souls?
Still, you don't need to be a professional money manager to start protecting your portfolio against short-term volatility, and positioning it to achieve superior long-term returns. Many of the best money managers, including Wally Weitz, have achieved their fantastic performance without doing anything quite so fancy.
Take Martin Whitman, for example. His Third Avenue Value (TAVFX) fund has crushed the market by more than seven percentage points annually over the past five years, and it's trailed the S&P 500 index just once since 2000.
That's an incredible track record that we'd all be wise to replicate -- and Marty's happy to let us do so. In his last shareholder letter, he revealed five of the key secrets to his success.
In no particular order
To be your own expert money manager, simply:
1. Buy cheap.
2. Buy quality.
3. Buy to hold.
4. Buy with minimal expenses.
5. Buy without leverage.
If you can consistently follow all five of those tenets, you're on your way to making more money in the stock market -- and three of them are so simple that you'd be silly not to be doing them already.
The three easies
"Buy to hold" means sticking with stocks unless, as Whitman writes, "there has occurred a permanent impairment in underlying value" of a stock. Such an impairment would occur, for example, if all 11 of Pfizer's (NYSE: PFE) drugs in late-stage testing were rejected by the FDA, or if Disney (NYSE: DIS) lost a challenge to its Mickey Mouse trademark.
Having the patience and confidence to hold the stocks you buy through inevitable volatility (except when a permanent impairment has occurred) will automatically reduce your tax bill and trading expenses. Do even better by keeping commissions to 1% to 2% of your investments.
Finally, don't invest money you can't afford to lose, and don't borrow money to invest. While leverage can increase your returns in good times, it will dramatically increase your losses in bad times. That's not the way to preserve capital and earn steady returns.
The harder two
Buying cheap and buying quality are more esoteric concepts. Put them together, and Whitman's essentially demanding that we all be smart investors.
But Whitman has a very clear definition of cheap: "Issues at prices that reflect substantial discounts from readily ascertainable NAVs [net asset values] ... [and whose] NAVs will increase by not less than 10% per year compounded." The classic Whitman example here is Brookfield Asset Management (NYSE: BAM), which Whitman bought cheap, and which has returned nearly 45% annually over the past five years.
To find stocks like Brookfield, start with companies such as Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC), and Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S), which are already trading for low-ish price-to-book multiples, and decide whether they're quality.
Easier said that done?
While "quality" will always be in the eye of the beholder, Whitman's definition is clear. It means having a strong financial position, competent management, and a business that is understandable.
Perhaps that's why Whitman has opened a position in homebuilder MDC Holdings (NYSE: MDC). It's trading for a little more than its book value, but it boasts $668 million in cash and more than 20% insider ownership, and it's poised to weather the real estate downturn. It may also explain why Whitman has steered clear of Bear Stearns, a complicated financial institution that has seen several hedge funds collapse over the past few weeks as a result of links to subprime lending.
Johnny 5 functioning 100%
At our Motley Fool Hidden Gems small-cap investing service, we follow every one of Whitman's tenets; not coincidentally, we share the opinion that MDC Holdings is a "buy." But we focus exclusively on small caps, because we believe they represent one of the few sectors where individual investors can gain an informational advantage over institutional money.
While recent volatility has our small caps often running up or down 10% in a single day, our long-term returns have us more than 30 percentage points ahead of the market on average. That's what happens when you buy cheap, buy quality, and buy to hold.
You can take a look at all our Hidden Gems research and recommendations -- including today's brand-new issue, releasing at 12 noon ET -- by joining the service free for 30 days. Click here for more information.
By Tim Hanson
Monday, September 3, 2007
Ten Ways To Make The Most Out Of An Affiliate Program
If you wish to enter the very promising world of affiliate marketing, here are ten tips that would definitely help you maximize potential profit from the system.
1. Focus on a particular area of interest. You can’t sell products that target different markets. It is better to concentrate on one specific field, study its ins and outs, and work your way around its demands. To illustrate, if you choose dogs as an area of interest, research on the places where dog lovers gather online. Then look for an affiliate program that offers products which cater to their needs.
2. Choose an advantageous affiliate program. There are some things to consider when choosing the most profitable affiliate program. First among these is the salability-commission ratio. Usually, products which are difficult to sell offer a higher commission, whereas products that are easy to sell offer lower percentage cuts. Try to find an advantageous balance. Look for a product that is easy to sell and offers an attractive commission. Additionally, you should also consider the credibility and reliability of the affiliate program. Do they actually pay? Do they pay on time? Are their products worth something? These are but a few of the things you have to clarify before committing yourself to their terms.
3. Build a focused and content-filled site. You will primarily sell the affiliate products in your site. But if your site does not attract that many visitors, sales conversion is virtually impossible. Create a site that focuses on the area of interest you have chosen, and populate it with rich, informative content that people would love to read. Just like that famous line from the movie Field of Dreams, “build it and they will come.”
4. Market your site. People would not automatically know about your site, so you have to advertise it across the web. Submit it to search engines, exchange links with well-visited sites, and promote it in online communities. You have to spread the word that your site exists, and that it’s good.
5. Market the product. Once a consistent influx of visitors is established, it’s time to promote the affiliate product you’re selling. This is usually done through a sales page that can be accessed from your site. A sales page is an article full of praises or the product. Things like “it changed my life,” “the secret that they don’t want you to know,” “be a millionaire in one week,” and the likes are not uncommon lines for sales pages. But they work. Hire a professional ghostwriter to write a sales page for you.
6. Discard anonymity. Anonymity is a common thing on the internet, but it is bad for a business venture. People would rather deal with someone they know, rather than a username like B1GB3N or R2D2. Give your real name. You could choose to keep your contact information undisclosed however, until you become sure that the other party is likewise worthy of your trust.
7. Build a network. Befriend other affiliate marketers. Share information about the best deals, the most effective strategies, and perhaps, even some lists of potential buyers. Remember, the world is all about a network of contacts. Each person you know would eventually help you out at one point. There is no reason why the internet should be any different.
8. Build a list. It is not enough that a visitor visits your site. You have to keep him. He may not purchase any of your available products now, but there’s no telling that he won’t decide to buy your future offerings. So build a list by encouraging them to sign up. Create a free service that would make them keep in touch. Remember, a lost visitor is a lost sale.
9. Protect your link. Your affiliate link is the one thing that would inform your chosen affiliate program that you were the one who was responsible for a particular sale. Link theft is rampant these days, which is unfortunate, because in affiliate marketing, your link is your bread and butter. So protect your affiliate link at all costs.
10. Do not limit yourself to one affiliate program. Join as many as you can without losing the focus of what you want to sell. The greater the variety of the products you offer, the more chances that one will be bought. Joining affiliate programs is free, so might as well make the most out of it.
Andre Foisy
1. Focus on a particular area of interest. You can’t sell products that target different markets. It is better to concentrate on one specific field, study its ins and outs, and work your way around its demands. To illustrate, if you choose dogs as an area of interest, research on the places where dog lovers gather online. Then look for an affiliate program that offers products which cater to their needs.
2. Choose an advantageous affiliate program. There are some things to consider when choosing the most profitable affiliate program. First among these is the salability-commission ratio. Usually, products which are difficult to sell offer a higher commission, whereas products that are easy to sell offer lower percentage cuts. Try to find an advantageous balance. Look for a product that is easy to sell and offers an attractive commission. Additionally, you should also consider the credibility and reliability of the affiliate program. Do they actually pay? Do they pay on time? Are their products worth something? These are but a few of the things you have to clarify before committing yourself to their terms.
3. Build a focused and content-filled site. You will primarily sell the affiliate products in your site. But if your site does not attract that many visitors, sales conversion is virtually impossible. Create a site that focuses on the area of interest you have chosen, and populate it with rich, informative content that people would love to read. Just like that famous line from the movie Field of Dreams, “build it and they will come.”
4. Market your site. People would not automatically know about your site, so you have to advertise it across the web. Submit it to search engines, exchange links with well-visited sites, and promote it in online communities. You have to spread the word that your site exists, and that it’s good.
5. Market the product. Once a consistent influx of visitors is established, it’s time to promote the affiliate product you’re selling. This is usually done through a sales page that can be accessed from your site. A sales page is an article full of praises or the product. Things like “it changed my life,” “the secret that they don’t want you to know,” “be a millionaire in one week,” and the likes are not uncommon lines for sales pages. But they work. Hire a professional ghostwriter to write a sales page for you.
6. Discard anonymity. Anonymity is a common thing on the internet, but it is bad for a business venture. People would rather deal with someone they know, rather than a username like B1GB3N or R2D2. Give your real name. You could choose to keep your contact information undisclosed however, until you become sure that the other party is likewise worthy of your trust.
7. Build a network. Befriend other affiliate marketers. Share information about the best deals, the most effective strategies, and perhaps, even some lists of potential buyers. Remember, the world is all about a network of contacts. Each person you know would eventually help you out at one point. There is no reason why the internet should be any different.
8. Build a list. It is not enough that a visitor visits your site. You have to keep him. He may not purchase any of your available products now, but there’s no telling that he won’t decide to buy your future offerings. So build a list by encouraging them to sign up. Create a free service that would make them keep in touch. Remember, a lost visitor is a lost sale.
9. Protect your link. Your affiliate link is the one thing that would inform your chosen affiliate program that you were the one who was responsible for a particular sale. Link theft is rampant these days, which is unfortunate, because in affiliate marketing, your link is your bread and butter. So protect your affiliate link at all costs.
10. Do not limit yourself to one affiliate program. Join as many as you can without losing the focus of what you want to sell. The greater the variety of the products you offer, the more chances that one will be bought. Joining affiliate programs is free, so might as well make the most out of it.
Andre Foisy
The REAL Info Products Secret and How to Get Out of the Cycle
Most “info-products” revolve around Internet marketing, and get rich quick schemes. Everyone is looking for that instant “secret” that will guarantee them overnight success without spending the start up capital of a real brick and mortar business.
Selling those seekers a package of “secrets” that cost between $5 and $5000 that probably have a few real nuggets of really effective techniques and are 95% filler is a great way to spend your time and money. IF you are the one selling the secrets. It really doesn’t matter if you give away your truly secret marketing tips, because 99% of the people that order your product will never read it, or act on it.
I’m not trying to sell you an info product here, it’s just a fact that most people don’t do anything… although they want too. They just don’t have the time, or motivation to put the effort into learn how to be a webmaster.
The real info product secret for those that have no technical skills or writing ability is:
1.) Pick a topic
2.) Pay someone to develop it
Have you ever wondered how some “guru’s” churn out info-products, and endorsements faster than light? It’s because many of them have others doing all the work for them. They don’t write their copy (they spend several thousand dollars on it), they don’t write the info-product (they spend several thousand dollars on it), and they don’t even do most of their marketing (they do joint ventures with others).
That’s where all those info-products that basically say “do what I do!” fail for the average Internet user. It won’t stop them from buying the next info-product that comes along and tells them it has all the “secrets.”
Let’s summarize:
1.) You purchase e-books and info products for secrets that will tell you how to make money on the web.
2.) You don’t do anything with the information, because you don’t have the skills or thousands of dollars.
3.) You buy whatever the guy sells you on the backend because that first e-book you read was great (and your hoping this one will give you the missing pieces).
How do you get out of the cycle?
1.) Admit that you have wasted a lot of time and money on something that doesn’t work for you since you don’t have the skills required.
2.) Decide if you want to learn the skills required to create a niche website, e-book, or info product. If you DON’T want to learn all that stuff, decide to have someone make it for you. There are companies like Stmadeveloper that will help you make those ideas a reality for less than some of those info products you wasted your money on.
3.) Give up, recognize the fact that you aren’t ever going to do anything on-line to make money. Just stop doing the cycle….. you are smarter than that and they are preying on your hope.
There is really only one true secret to making money on the web. Get a space of your own, make it valuable to others, make it “sell,” and promote it through effective methods.
Good luck on your journey.
Ed Charkow is a leading marketer for several companies and has helped many start their own presence on the Internet at an affordable rate. You can contact Ed at http://www.stmadeveloper.com
http://www.yop2.com
Selling those seekers a package of “secrets” that cost between $5 and $5000 that probably have a few real nuggets of really effective techniques and are 95% filler is a great way to spend your time and money. IF you are the one selling the secrets. It really doesn’t matter if you give away your truly secret marketing tips, because 99% of the people that order your product will never read it, or act on it.
I’m not trying to sell you an info product here, it’s just a fact that most people don’t do anything… although they want too. They just don’t have the time, or motivation to put the effort into learn how to be a webmaster.
The real info product secret for those that have no technical skills or writing ability is:
1.) Pick a topic
2.) Pay someone to develop it
Have you ever wondered how some “guru’s” churn out info-products, and endorsements faster than light? It’s because many of them have others doing all the work for them. They don’t write their copy (they spend several thousand dollars on it), they don’t write the info-product (they spend several thousand dollars on it), and they don’t even do most of their marketing (they do joint ventures with others).
That’s where all those info-products that basically say “do what I do!” fail for the average Internet user. It won’t stop them from buying the next info-product that comes along and tells them it has all the “secrets.”
Let’s summarize:
1.) You purchase e-books and info products for secrets that will tell you how to make money on the web.
2.) You don’t do anything with the information, because you don’t have the skills or thousands of dollars.
3.) You buy whatever the guy sells you on the backend because that first e-book you read was great (and your hoping this one will give you the missing pieces).
How do you get out of the cycle?
1.) Admit that you have wasted a lot of time and money on something that doesn’t work for you since you don’t have the skills required.
2.) Decide if you want to learn the skills required to create a niche website, e-book, or info product. If you DON’T want to learn all that stuff, decide to have someone make it for you. There are companies like Stmadeveloper that will help you make those ideas a reality for less than some of those info products you wasted your money on.
3.) Give up, recognize the fact that you aren’t ever going to do anything on-line to make money. Just stop doing the cycle….. you are smarter than that and they are preying on your hope.
There is really only one true secret to making money on the web. Get a space of your own, make it valuable to others, make it “sell,” and promote it through effective methods.
Good luck on your journey.
Ed Charkow is a leading marketer for several companies and has helped many start their own presence on the Internet at an affordable rate. You can contact Ed at http://www.stmadeveloper.com
http://www.yop2.com
The Number 1 Biggest Secret to Selling on Ebay
Ebay.com is a Tool. It is an awesome tool that can be used to make you tons of money in a short period of time without alot of work or effort on your part. But there is a big secret about using ebay.com to really explode profits and over 90% of ebay.com users know nothing about it.
It is a concept used by big name marketing experts like Dan Kennedy, Joe Vitale, John Carleton, and others. So what is this amazing little secret? Only this: selling to the same customers over and over.
Dan Kennedy imparticular has stressed how this can really explode your profits, here’s why; first, you already know they are interested in what you are selling because they have bought from you before. They trust you and your customer service and if you have kept in touch with them the right way they feel like they “know” and “like” you. People buy from people they know and like.
Second, every dollar you spend to advertise your product goes alot farther if the customer seeing and responding to your ad buys from you again and again. This way you can eventually build up a loyal customer base and spend your marketing efforts on there people and much less on “getting new customers”. Remember people buy more easily from those they know and like so it’s much easier to make higher profits from responsive people than from a “cold market”.
So how does Ebay.com tie into all this? Well lets look at selling on the internet in general. First for $0.35 cents you can list your item where people come looking for it intending to buy. This is so important simply because getting a steady stream of visitors to a website so you can capture their email address either takes a lot of Search Engine Optimization, alot of time, or alot of money, and in most cases all three.
The secret to using ebay.com is in both after the auction and your “about me” page. First when an auction ends you should have the buyers email address to contact them concerning payment, etc. You just got their email address for further communication. The first email you send them should attempt to help them “get to know” you. You should also show excellent customer service by leaving good feedback and following up via email after the auction to ask them if they recieved the item and if they are happy with their purchase. Mention that you occasionally offer great deals that are for past customers only as your way of saying thank you. Try to be specific about the deals like “free shipping” or “25% off your next purchase” or a package deal that you don’t offer to anyone else. Then ask them to opt in to your newsletter to find out when these sales happen. If you can, offer them a free gift for opting in to your newsletter, this increases response rates.
The second way to use ebay.com is the about me page. On this page always have a link to your website where customers can order similar products or “reorder” an item they may have purchased before. Once you get them to your webpage try to get them to opt in toyour newsltter by offering them some kind of free gift as a bribe.
So remember the real secret to using ebay.com for exploding profits is selling to the same customers over and over again. Getting new customers is much more expensive then selling to ones that already know and like you.
Jennifer Parks is the author of Selling on Ebay the Blog which offers free software, information, secrets, and tips for selling on ebay.
http://blog.infomean.com
It is a concept used by big name marketing experts like Dan Kennedy, Joe Vitale, John Carleton, and others. So what is this amazing little secret? Only this: selling to the same customers over and over.
Dan Kennedy imparticular has stressed how this can really explode your profits, here’s why; first, you already know they are interested in what you are selling because they have bought from you before. They trust you and your customer service and if you have kept in touch with them the right way they feel like they “know” and “like” you. People buy from people they know and like.
Second, every dollar you spend to advertise your product goes alot farther if the customer seeing and responding to your ad buys from you again and again. This way you can eventually build up a loyal customer base and spend your marketing efforts on there people and much less on “getting new customers”. Remember people buy more easily from those they know and like so it’s much easier to make higher profits from responsive people than from a “cold market”.
So how does Ebay.com tie into all this? Well lets look at selling on the internet in general. First for $0.35 cents you can list your item where people come looking for it intending to buy. This is so important simply because getting a steady stream of visitors to a website so you can capture their email address either takes a lot of Search Engine Optimization, alot of time, or alot of money, and in most cases all three.
The secret to using ebay.com is in both after the auction and your “about me” page. First when an auction ends you should have the buyers email address to contact them concerning payment, etc. You just got their email address for further communication. The first email you send them should attempt to help them “get to know” you. You should also show excellent customer service by leaving good feedback and following up via email after the auction to ask them if they recieved the item and if they are happy with their purchase. Mention that you occasionally offer great deals that are for past customers only as your way of saying thank you. Try to be specific about the deals like “free shipping” or “25% off your next purchase” or a package deal that you don’t offer to anyone else. Then ask them to opt in to your newsletter to find out when these sales happen. If you can, offer them a free gift for opting in to your newsletter, this increases response rates.
The second way to use ebay.com is the about me page. On this page always have a link to your website where customers can order similar products or “reorder” an item they may have purchased before. Once you get them to your webpage try to get them to opt in toyour newsltter by offering them some kind of free gift as a bribe.
So remember the real secret to using ebay.com for exploding profits is selling to the same customers over and over again. Getting new customers is much more expensive then selling to ones that already know and like you.
Jennifer Parks is the author of Selling on Ebay the Blog which offers free software, information, secrets, and tips for selling on ebay.
http://blog.infomean.com
Friday, August 31, 2007
The Easy Way to Make Money on eBay
(ARA) - For a mom working from home, a part-time second job, or as a hobby that pays, you can make extra money selling on eBay. All you need is a computer and a few hours.
Ruth G., a homemaker in Rexburg, Idaho, who's been an eBay seller for some time says, "I have a 17-month-old son and another baby on the way, so [making] a real financial contribution to our family budget AND [being] at home as a mom is very important to me. In just a couple of hours a week, I am able to meet our financial goals, leaving me plenty of time to do the things that are really important to me in life."
Many folks out there are curious about eBay. How do you build up your buying score? How does PayPal work? What is involved in the auction process? These are just a few questions about getting started as an auctioneer, and they all get answered in "eBay Tips For Dummies," just part of the Auction Success Kit. This downloadable "book" provides the answers.
Also included are 14 bonus chapters that provide what you need to get started and be successful. Chapter topics include: streamlining your eBay business by leveraging eBay technologies; fast and effective techniques for finding items to sell; and starting and automating your eBay business. These books reveal some of eBay's best kept secrets, and advice on how to get bids. Included in the kit is a free, 14-day trial to BidFuel.com, a membership service that offers access to everything required, including the inventory you're going to sell.
BidFuel.com is an eBay sellers' inventory supplier, offering literally thousands of products with member discounts of up to 90 percent off. They keep the products so you don't need to store, pack or ship anything. BidFuel takes care of it all.
As reported on "60 Minutes Wednesday," In 2001, 50 million people were using the eBay Web site. Today, more than 125 million people worldwide use the site, with people buying and selling more than $1,000 worth of merchandise every second. "eBay seems to have tapped into something uniquely American and entrepreneurial… where anyone can be a buyer or a seller," says correspondent Charlie Rose. "As many as 150,000 people have literally given up their jobs to create their own businesses selling on eBay."
The BidFuel Auction Success Kit is the ORIGINAL eBay starter kit. Gain financial independence, pay off debt, or earn extra cash with this free offer at www.auctionsuccesskit.com/tips.
*For Dummies is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Used here by license.
Copyright © 2006, ARA Content
Ruth G., a homemaker in Rexburg, Idaho, who's been an eBay seller for some time says, "I have a 17-month-old son and another baby on the way, so [making] a real financial contribution to our family budget AND [being] at home as a mom is very important to me. In just a couple of hours a week, I am able to meet our financial goals, leaving me plenty of time to do the things that are really important to me in life."
Many folks out there are curious about eBay. How do you build up your buying score? How does PayPal work? What is involved in the auction process? These are just a few questions about getting started as an auctioneer, and they all get answered in "eBay Tips For Dummies," just part of the Auction Success Kit. This downloadable "book" provides the answers.
Also included are 14 bonus chapters that provide what you need to get started and be successful. Chapter topics include: streamlining your eBay business by leveraging eBay technologies; fast and effective techniques for finding items to sell; and starting and automating your eBay business. These books reveal some of eBay's best kept secrets, and advice on how to get bids. Included in the kit is a free, 14-day trial to BidFuel.com, a membership service that offers access to everything required, including the inventory you're going to sell.
BidFuel.com is an eBay sellers' inventory supplier, offering literally thousands of products with member discounts of up to 90 percent off. They keep the products so you don't need to store, pack or ship anything. BidFuel takes care of it all.
As reported on "60 Minutes Wednesday," In 2001, 50 million people were using the eBay Web site. Today, more than 125 million people worldwide use the site, with people buying and selling more than $1,000 worth of merchandise every second. "eBay seems to have tapped into something uniquely American and entrepreneurial… where anyone can be a buyer or a seller," says correspondent Charlie Rose. "As many as 150,000 people have literally given up their jobs to create their own businesses selling on eBay."
The BidFuel Auction Success Kit is the ORIGINAL eBay starter kit. Gain financial independence, pay off debt, or earn extra cash with this free offer at www.auctionsuccesskit.com/tips.
*For Dummies is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Used here by license.
Copyright © 2006, ARA Content
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Review:The Insider Secrets to Selling on eBay
By Frank Fortunato
It seems that the gap between people making money on eBay and people making money training people to make money on eBay is closing quickly. Here is one of the latest entrants into the latter category. Touted as the "World's Greatest eBay Training Course," the second generation "The Insider Secrets to Selling on eBay" is priced at a hefty $197.
But then more than a mere book on the topic, this is a five-pound multimedia package containing 338 side-tabbed loose-leaf pages, a color pictorial binder, a DVD, 5 CDs, and for good measure, a flamboyant 3' X 2'color poster spelling out in pictures the program's itinerary. We reviewed Derek Gehl's eBay training package to determine if it justified its price — and the time investment.
Gehl, the CEO of the Internet Marketing Center based in Vancouver, an Internet marketing consulting company, began, we are told, nine years ago in a basement with an advertising budget of $25. Now he says the company is worth $60 million. IMC trains entrepreneurs in all aspects of Internet selling via consulting, traveling seminars, newsletters and catering to niche markets such as this eBay training package produced by Gehl and his "Advanced eBay Mentoring Team." The elaborate text breaks down into 30 "lessons" presented in six "steps," with the text augmented by the six discs.
The Discs: The Good, The Bad, The Annoying
Certain discs can be exasperating. Such is the case with Disc 1, the only DVD in the set, in which Gehl, sitting at a desk, pontificates for the full 37 minutes, interrupted only briefly for slides of his points. The presentation is part sales-pitch, part pep-talk on what the average person can accomplish using the system, and part a summation of the program with cues to the other discs' various topics. It seems mainly superfluous, at times, annoying.
The second disc features audio of Gehl interviewing the head of his team on avoiding eBay pitfalls, useful over-the-shoulder listening for those so disposed, but probably would have been better in a video format. Disc 5, touted as "inspirational," contains three interviews of eBay sellers helped by IMC, (including the seller of the Double WizDog Indoor Dog Potty,) again somewhat useful for picking up selling strategies, but it tends to be nearly as much an infomercial as informative.
On the other hand, Disc 4 is a marvelous resource of nearly 300 hyperlinks to virtually every needed page on eBay and to tools, products, software, freeware, third-party vendors and sourcing for all aspects of eBay selling. The links on the disc can be accessed alphabetically or by lesson number, referenced in the text. The sites range from Craig's List to something called "fatfingers," a site that helps find sales with misspelled product names that are overlooked in searches, thus becoming bargains for those who can find them. In between is an outstanding Internet cornucopia of business resources, including sites probably unknown to many eBay sellers. This disc is an excellent Internet business 'Rolodex.'
Disc 3 features three video tutorials with step-by-step instructions on setting up eBay and PayPal accounts, finding viable product to sell on eBay and setting up an eBay Store. It is comprehensive, well-done and referenced to the text.
On Disc 6, you will find a free download link to an eBook titled "The Internet Marketing Center's 10-Step Formula to eBay Success," which the purchaser of this program is free to sell at any price they like, ad-infinitum. The point is to help novice sellers get their feet wet on eBay (and no doubt provide advertising for the IMC.)
The Text: Covering the Basics — and Then Some
The 338 pages of text are the meat of the program and are certainly comprehensive. The information imparted at the beginning of Step I is suitable for those who have never heard of eBay, much less visited the site. It included advice on which eBay site to use (U.S., Germany etc.,) registering on the site, selecting a user ID, bookmarking pages, on to the advise to bid before trying to sell, signs of scams and so on. The text is so detailed that it is not until page 21 that the feedback system is explained.
But then by Lesson 4 of the 6 in Step I, the information becomes more trenchant, such as the advice to use a three-tier formula for identifying moneymaking eBay product:
1. Is the item scarce? Scarcity determines saleability if the buyer cannot find it elsewhere, such as a rare and collectible movie poster, unique antiques or an MP3 player that has sold-out in stores.
2. Is the item desirable? An expression in bookselling is that there is "new gold and old junk," meaning a 200-year-old book is not valuable if no one is interested in it, whereas the latest Harry Potter book is white-hot. Successful items on eBay are usually desired by many people, which tends to make them hard to find, adding to their allure.
3.Is the item in demand now? Using the example of the MP3 player, the text points out how they were in very high demand when first released, but cooled off as the initial rush of buyers obtained them.
When deciding what to sell on eBay, it's advised that you "mine your own skills and interests," for several good reasons, starting with the fact that if you have knowledge or expertise in an area, you will seem credible as a seller. The lessons go on to give good advise on the need for research and how to accomplish it, citing on-site eBay resources and eBay approved software. The section ends with detailed suggestions for one of the most venerable strategies in commerce — find and steal winning formulas from the competition.
Profit Margins and Product Sourcing
As the book progresses, it picks up steam. The four lessons in Step II deal with determining profit margins — again spelled out for novices. They cover the "big 3" product sources: wholesale, drop-shipping and liquidations. And, more interestingly, you get solid, detailed advice on contacting manufacturers and their wholesale suppliers and convincing them to do business with you. (Far from guaranteed if you are not a large volume vendor.) Here there are requisite questions to ask of suppliers, such as how to get access to catalogs and samples (always offer to pay for samples), what the pricing and minimum quantity policies are, shipping terms and so on. You also learn the four things never to say to wholesalers:
Don't say you work from home.
Don't ask if they will do business with an eBay seller.
Don't say you don't have enough money to pay for a minimum order.
Don't try to negotiate price upfront. Instead, gather information, determine your requirements then return to negotiate price.
While this may seem a bit furtive, it is solid real-world advice, as is the final note in this section: "If a supplier says he will not sell to anyone doing business on the Internet do not try to change his mind, move on to another supplier."
Step III deals in detail with creating and formatting sales from headers through ad copy to photos, category selection, keywords, payment, shipping strategies and attracting good feedback. Most useful are the 23 pages devoted to an often-neglected aspect of successful eBay selling — writing sales copy. The author points out, and I agree, that many headers and item descriptions, even by veteran eBay sellers, are woeful, in that the items are not described in detail, the prose is not engaging or professional in style and tone, and basically neither welcoming nor persuasive to potential bidders.
However, the writer encouragingly explains that producing sales copy is not an art like creating poetry, fiction or drama, but a science, that can be learned. Again we are advised to filch: in "advanced search" under "Completed Listings" you can seek out examples to emulate as well as those to avoid. Here is what to look for:
Items with the highest selling prices and most bids to determine if the product description or header contributed to the success.
Items with the lowest number of bids and selling price for the same reason.
Items with many bids but lower selling prices from similar products to again determine if the description affected the sell-through price.
Description, of course, is only one factor in creating successful eBay sales. Other aspects such as sourcing, category selection, images and graphics are also covered at length, including eight pages on choosing the right category and 10 pages on keyword selection. In the six pages devoted to simply shooting and preparing images for sales, for example, there are "ten photo secrets," each with paragraphs of explanation that is typical of the detail accompanying most topics in the book.
Growing Your Business
Step IV contains 20 pages on all aspects of starting and growing an eBay store and using eBay and third-party automation tools. Resources for the various issues include all eBay free and subscription services, third-party tools such as Andale, Vendio, Auctiva, Terapeak and HammerTap and freeware including SaleHoo Alerts, an eBay-endorsed wholesale research tool, and Ifanview, image editing software that's much cheaper than Photo Shopwith many free features, again, with hyperlinks to the sites on Disc 4. Steps V and VI are devoted to sophisticated promotional strategies and growing a business off eBay and into international markets. At a total of 100 pages, the boast that these sections contain tips that cannot be found "anywhere" is probably true. Included in the newer innovations mentioned is RSS (really simple syndication,) a means of 'feeding' auctions directly to blogs, other Web sites and anyone who requests it in real time, automatically.
While RSS has been available on eBay discussion boards and for news announcements for over a year, it remains relatively unknown among many sellers. The advantage is that they could use it to notify their best customers when they have new products for sale. RSS requires a reader and there are dozens of free RSS readers available, including NewsGator, Rojo, Bloglines, My Yahoo, My MSN and Google Reader, among others. The latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers can read and save RSS feed links.
The Bottom Line: Best for Newbies
Whether or not this is the "world's greatest" eBay training course is open to conjecture, but it's quite possibly the most comprehensive. With its near-maniacal attention to detail and sheer scope, "The Insider Secrets to Selling on eBay" is not for the lazy, serendipitous or hobby seller; just reading and viewing it all can take days.
Topic by topic, much information offered here is more forthright and real-world useful than many books on eBay, including some by specialists, and it is a better training tool than certain expensive conferences and seminars we have attended. But then the price — $197 and $20 shipping to the U.S., may be prohibitive to many eBay novices except those who intend to sell high-ticket items or make eBay their fulltime business. (Though there is a complicated discount 'launch deal' available on the Web site.) Save for those who are struggling or have hit a brick wall on the site, eBay veterans will be turned off by the amount of basic material here; but that said, even the most savvy eBay sellers will probably find something new in this sprawling package.
Frank Fortunato is a regular contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com.
It seems that the gap between people making money on eBay and people making money training people to make money on eBay is closing quickly. Here is one of the latest entrants into the latter category. Touted as the "World's Greatest eBay Training Course," the second generation "The Insider Secrets to Selling on eBay" is priced at a hefty $197.
But then more than a mere book on the topic, this is a five-pound multimedia package containing 338 side-tabbed loose-leaf pages, a color pictorial binder, a DVD, 5 CDs, and for good measure, a flamboyant 3' X 2'color poster spelling out in pictures the program's itinerary. We reviewed Derek Gehl's eBay training package to determine if it justified its price — and the time investment.
Gehl, the CEO of the Internet Marketing Center based in Vancouver, an Internet marketing consulting company, began, we are told, nine years ago in a basement with an advertising budget of $25. Now he says the company is worth $60 million. IMC trains entrepreneurs in all aspects of Internet selling via consulting, traveling seminars, newsletters and catering to niche markets such as this eBay training package produced by Gehl and his "Advanced eBay Mentoring Team." The elaborate text breaks down into 30 "lessons" presented in six "steps," with the text augmented by the six discs.
The Discs: The Good, The Bad, The Annoying
Certain discs can be exasperating. Such is the case with Disc 1, the only DVD in the set, in which Gehl, sitting at a desk, pontificates for the full 37 minutes, interrupted only briefly for slides of his points. The presentation is part sales-pitch, part pep-talk on what the average person can accomplish using the system, and part a summation of the program with cues to the other discs' various topics. It seems mainly superfluous, at times, annoying.
The second disc features audio of Gehl interviewing the head of his team on avoiding eBay pitfalls, useful over-the-shoulder listening for those so disposed, but probably would have been better in a video format. Disc 5, touted as "inspirational," contains three interviews of eBay sellers helped by IMC, (including the seller of the Double WizDog Indoor Dog Potty,) again somewhat useful for picking up selling strategies, but it tends to be nearly as much an infomercial as informative.
On the other hand, Disc 4 is a marvelous resource of nearly 300 hyperlinks to virtually every needed page on eBay and to tools, products, software, freeware, third-party vendors and sourcing for all aspects of eBay selling. The links on the disc can be accessed alphabetically or by lesson number, referenced in the text. The sites range from Craig's List to something called "fatfingers," a site that helps find sales with misspelled product names that are overlooked in searches, thus becoming bargains for those who can find them. In between is an outstanding Internet cornucopia of business resources, including sites probably unknown to many eBay sellers. This disc is an excellent Internet business 'Rolodex.'
Disc 3 features three video tutorials with step-by-step instructions on setting up eBay and PayPal accounts, finding viable product to sell on eBay and setting up an eBay Store. It is comprehensive, well-done and referenced to the text.
On Disc 6, you will find a free download link to an eBook titled "The Internet Marketing Center's 10-Step Formula to eBay Success," which the purchaser of this program is free to sell at any price they like, ad-infinitum. The point is to help novice sellers get their feet wet on eBay (and no doubt provide advertising for the IMC.)
The Text: Covering the Basics — and Then Some
The 338 pages of text are the meat of the program and are certainly comprehensive. The information imparted at the beginning of Step I is suitable for those who have never heard of eBay, much less visited the site. It included advice on which eBay site to use (U.S., Germany etc.,) registering on the site, selecting a user ID, bookmarking pages, on to the advise to bid before trying to sell, signs of scams and so on. The text is so detailed that it is not until page 21 that the feedback system is explained.
But then by Lesson 4 of the 6 in Step I, the information becomes more trenchant, such as the advice to use a three-tier formula for identifying moneymaking eBay product:
1. Is the item scarce? Scarcity determines saleability if the buyer cannot find it elsewhere, such as a rare and collectible movie poster, unique antiques or an MP3 player that has sold-out in stores.
2. Is the item desirable? An expression in bookselling is that there is "new gold and old junk," meaning a 200-year-old book is not valuable if no one is interested in it, whereas the latest Harry Potter book is white-hot. Successful items on eBay are usually desired by many people, which tends to make them hard to find, adding to their allure.
3.Is the item in demand now? Using the example of the MP3 player, the text points out how they were in very high demand when first released, but cooled off as the initial rush of buyers obtained them.
When deciding what to sell on eBay, it's advised that you "mine your own skills and interests," for several good reasons, starting with the fact that if you have knowledge or expertise in an area, you will seem credible as a seller. The lessons go on to give good advise on the need for research and how to accomplish it, citing on-site eBay resources and eBay approved software. The section ends with detailed suggestions for one of the most venerable strategies in commerce — find and steal winning formulas from the competition.
Profit Margins and Product Sourcing
As the book progresses, it picks up steam. The four lessons in Step II deal with determining profit margins — again spelled out for novices. They cover the "big 3" product sources: wholesale, drop-shipping and liquidations. And, more interestingly, you get solid, detailed advice on contacting manufacturers and their wholesale suppliers and convincing them to do business with you. (Far from guaranteed if you are not a large volume vendor.) Here there are requisite questions to ask of suppliers, such as how to get access to catalogs and samples (always offer to pay for samples), what the pricing and minimum quantity policies are, shipping terms and so on. You also learn the four things never to say to wholesalers:
Don't say you work from home.
Don't ask if they will do business with an eBay seller.
Don't say you don't have enough money to pay for a minimum order.
Don't try to negotiate price upfront. Instead, gather information, determine your requirements then return to negotiate price.
While this may seem a bit furtive, it is solid real-world advice, as is the final note in this section: "If a supplier says he will not sell to anyone doing business on the Internet do not try to change his mind, move on to another supplier."
Step III deals in detail with creating and formatting sales from headers through ad copy to photos, category selection, keywords, payment, shipping strategies and attracting good feedback. Most useful are the 23 pages devoted to an often-neglected aspect of successful eBay selling — writing sales copy. The author points out, and I agree, that many headers and item descriptions, even by veteran eBay sellers, are woeful, in that the items are not described in detail, the prose is not engaging or professional in style and tone, and basically neither welcoming nor persuasive to potential bidders.
However, the writer encouragingly explains that producing sales copy is not an art like creating poetry, fiction or drama, but a science, that can be learned. Again we are advised to filch: in "advanced search" under "Completed Listings" you can seek out examples to emulate as well as those to avoid. Here is what to look for:
Items with the highest selling prices and most bids to determine if the product description or header contributed to the success.
Items with the lowest number of bids and selling price for the same reason.
Items with many bids but lower selling prices from similar products to again determine if the description affected the sell-through price.
Description, of course, is only one factor in creating successful eBay sales. Other aspects such as sourcing, category selection, images and graphics are also covered at length, including eight pages on choosing the right category and 10 pages on keyword selection. In the six pages devoted to simply shooting and preparing images for sales, for example, there are "ten photo secrets," each with paragraphs of explanation that is typical of the detail accompanying most topics in the book.
Growing Your Business
Step IV contains 20 pages on all aspects of starting and growing an eBay store and using eBay and third-party automation tools. Resources for the various issues include all eBay free and subscription services, third-party tools such as Andale, Vendio, Auctiva, Terapeak and HammerTap and freeware including SaleHoo Alerts, an eBay-endorsed wholesale research tool, and Ifanview, image editing software that's much cheaper than Photo Shopwith many free features, again, with hyperlinks to the sites on Disc 4. Steps V and VI are devoted to sophisticated promotional strategies and growing a business off eBay and into international markets. At a total of 100 pages, the boast that these sections contain tips that cannot be found "anywhere" is probably true. Included in the newer innovations mentioned is RSS (really simple syndication,) a means of 'feeding' auctions directly to blogs, other Web sites and anyone who requests it in real time, automatically.
While RSS has been available on eBay discussion boards and for news announcements for over a year, it remains relatively unknown among many sellers. The advantage is that they could use it to notify their best customers when they have new products for sale. RSS requires a reader and there are dozens of free RSS readers available, including NewsGator, Rojo, Bloglines, My Yahoo, My MSN and Google Reader, among others. The latest versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers can read and save RSS feed links.
The Bottom Line: Best for Newbies
Whether or not this is the "world's greatest" eBay training course is open to conjecture, but it's quite possibly the most comprehensive. With its near-maniacal attention to detail and sheer scope, "The Insider Secrets to Selling on eBay" is not for the lazy, serendipitous or hobby seller; just reading and viewing it all can take days.
Topic by topic, much information offered here is more forthright and real-world useful than many books on eBay, including some by specialists, and it is a better training tool than certain expensive conferences and seminars we have attended. But then the price — $197 and $20 shipping to the U.S., may be prohibitive to many eBay novices except those who intend to sell high-ticket items or make eBay their fulltime business. (Though there is a complicated discount 'launch deal' available on the Web site.) Save for those who are struggling or have hit a brick wall on the site, eBay veterans will be turned off by the amount of basic material here; but that said, even the most savvy eBay sellers will probably find something new in this sprawling package.
Frank Fortunato is a regular contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com.
Save Money With Pricing Secrets
Written by EditorsChoice
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
If you want to save money on that next purchase, it can help to know the pricing secrets of retailers. Here are a couple of those secrets.
The Minimum Advertised Price
Pricing may not make much sense at first look. Why, for example, does whole wheat pasta cost three times as much as regular pasta, when regular white-flour pasta requires the extra trouble and expense of taking parts of the wheat out? Of course, economists will tell you that price is determined by what the market will bear, and that is certainly an important principle to understand, but does it always apply in real life? Sort of.
Lets start with a look at the "manufacturers suggested retail price." Sometimes also called the "list price," what does this really represent. In theory, of course, it is the price that the manufacturer suggests to the retailer. In practice, it is generally the maximum price a retailer can charge. (Who really wants to buy something that is priced higher than the MSRP?)
There is another price that manufacturers suggest to retailers, though. It is the MAP, or "minimum advertised price." This is not an absolute minimum that retailers can sell for (and they certainly want to sell for more if they can), but they risk upsetting suppliers if they sell for less than this. How can a manufacturer convince a retailer to carry a product if competing retailers are selling it so cheap that it is difficult to make a profit on it?
To determine (approximately) what the MAP is, you should check several stores for a product. If they are all advertising the product on sale for around the same price, it is probably close to the MAP. The big box stores often stick to the MAP in their sale advertisements. You can sometimes find sales that price the product below the manufacturers minimum advertised price at small stores. Smaller stores have less to risk by angering suppliers, so check the smaller stores to save money.
Be aware, though, that some stores will sell below the MAP because they are selling incomplete products. If it is a computer, for example, you might have to buy a keyboard and speakers separately. If others are selling a complete product, compare the total cost of everything you need to get a product that is functional at these "discount" stores.
Prices Ending In 99
We all know that $29.99 might as well be $30, so why do retailers use this ploy? There is a simple explanation: Because it works. Even if you automatically round up a price like this, you may not have looked at it in the first place if it said $30. This is because we process information from left to right, so you see the "2" before anything else, and this is more appealing than a "3".
Your mind is thinking "20-something dollars" versus "30-something dollars." Even if your next thought is "Oh, it's $30," you are already looking at the product. That certainly makes you more likely to buy it than if you never stopped to look at it.
Also, retailers get caught in this game whether they like it or not. For example, once gasoline retailers started pricing a gallon using ".9" cents, how could any of them stop? Imagine if all the other gas stations had gas at $2.99 and 9/10 and one had $3.00 on the sign. The difference on ten gallons would be a penny - not worth driving further. But us drivers just see that they are the most expensive.
What can you do with this knowledge? You might save money by always rounding up those prices and so being less tempted to buy - which you probably already do. Also be aware that the 9/10 caught your eye at the gas station, but a penny or a tenth of a penny savings won't justify going out of your way. You'll save more money just stopping at the first reasonable station.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/save-money-with-pricing-secrets-205264.html
About the Author:
Copyright Steve Gillman. To learn more Unusual Ways To Make And Save Money , and how you can get free e-courses and e-books, visit his website: http://www.UnusualWaysToMakeMoney.com
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
If you want to save money on that next purchase, it can help to know the pricing secrets of retailers. Here are a couple of those secrets.
The Minimum Advertised Price
Pricing may not make much sense at first look. Why, for example, does whole wheat pasta cost three times as much as regular pasta, when regular white-flour pasta requires the extra trouble and expense of taking parts of the wheat out? Of course, economists will tell you that price is determined by what the market will bear, and that is certainly an important principle to understand, but does it always apply in real life? Sort of.
Lets start with a look at the "manufacturers suggested retail price." Sometimes also called the "list price," what does this really represent. In theory, of course, it is the price that the manufacturer suggests to the retailer. In practice, it is generally the maximum price a retailer can charge. (Who really wants to buy something that is priced higher than the MSRP?)
There is another price that manufacturers suggest to retailers, though. It is the MAP, or "minimum advertised price." This is not an absolute minimum that retailers can sell for (and they certainly want to sell for more if they can), but they risk upsetting suppliers if they sell for less than this. How can a manufacturer convince a retailer to carry a product if competing retailers are selling it so cheap that it is difficult to make a profit on it?
To determine (approximately) what the MAP is, you should check several stores for a product. If they are all advertising the product on sale for around the same price, it is probably close to the MAP. The big box stores often stick to the MAP in their sale advertisements. You can sometimes find sales that price the product below the manufacturers minimum advertised price at small stores. Smaller stores have less to risk by angering suppliers, so check the smaller stores to save money.
Be aware, though, that some stores will sell below the MAP because they are selling incomplete products. If it is a computer, for example, you might have to buy a keyboard and speakers separately. If others are selling a complete product, compare the total cost of everything you need to get a product that is functional at these "discount" stores.
Prices Ending In 99
We all know that $29.99 might as well be $30, so why do retailers use this ploy? There is a simple explanation: Because it works. Even if you automatically round up a price like this, you may not have looked at it in the first place if it said $30. This is because we process information from left to right, so you see the "2" before anything else, and this is more appealing than a "3".
Your mind is thinking "20-something dollars" versus "30-something dollars." Even if your next thought is "Oh, it's $30," you are already looking at the product. That certainly makes you more likely to buy it than if you never stopped to look at it.
Also, retailers get caught in this game whether they like it or not. For example, once gasoline retailers started pricing a gallon using ".9" cents, how could any of them stop? Imagine if all the other gas stations had gas at $2.99 and 9/10 and one had $3.00 on the sign. The difference on ten gallons would be a penny - not worth driving further. But us drivers just see that they are the most expensive.
What can you do with this knowledge? You might save money by always rounding up those prices and so being less tempted to buy - which you probably already do. Also be aware that the 9/10 caught your eye at the gas station, but a penny or a tenth of a penny savings won't justify going out of your way. You'll save more money just stopping at the first reasonable station.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/save-money-with-pricing-secrets-205264.html
About the Author:
Copyright Steve Gillman. To learn more Unusual Ways To Make And Save Money , and how you can get free e-courses and e-books, visit his website: http://www.UnusualWaysToMakeMoney.com
8 Money Secrets From Warren Buffett
We all have someone whom we admire and respect. For me one person on my shortlist is Warren Buffett who is sometimes referred to as the "Sage of Omaha". I first heard about Buffett back in 2001 when I first started getting serious about investing and so I started reading all the titles with his name on it. Off course Buffett hasn't actually written any of them but they were priceless none the less.
If you have never heard of Buffett, Forbes currently ranks him as the third richest man in the world and he is arguably the world's greatest investor. He has amassed his fortune by making astute investment decisions and investing in businesses. Here is what I have learnt from Buffett:
1. Rich Is A State Of Mind
"I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute." - Warren Buffett
The difference between being poor and being rich is really just a state of mind. Poor people think thoughts of poverty and lack, rich people think thoughts of abundance and prosperity. Your beliefs are going to determine the way you perceive wealth, the decisions you make and the way you act towards it.
2. Success Is More Than About Your Bank Balance
When asked by CNBC what is the secret to success, Buffett replied "If people get to my age and they have the people love them that they want to have love them, they're successful. It doesn't make any difference if they've got a thousand dollars in the bank or a billion dollars in the bank... Success is really doing what you love and doing it well. It's as simple as that. I've never met anyone doing that who doesn't feel like a success. And I've met plenty of people who have not achieved that and whose lives are miserable."
3. Spend Less Than You Earn
"Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks." -Warren Buffett
It seems like common sense advice and you've no doubt heard financial experts preaching about it for years. You can't possibly get ahead financially if you're spending more than your paycheck. Buffett is famous for living a simple and frugal lifestyle. He is the only billionaire I know that still lives in the same house he bought back in 1958 for $31,500. He drove a 2001 Lincoln Town Car for years which he bought second hand. Buffett has a net worth in excess of $52 billion and yet lives off an annual salary of $100,000. The relative percentage of his spending based on his overall net worth is minuscule.
4. Avoid Consumer Debt
The sooner we realize that consumerism is a social plague that has been propagated by billion dollar marketing machines to keep you shackled to your job, the sooner we can stop spending money on useless stuff. It is a fool's game to spend today so that you can work tomorrow to pay it off. It is a losing proposition because one day your working days are going to be over but the debt is still going to be hanging over your head. Clever marketing has convinced our society that to be happy you have to have more, be more and do more. Buffett abhors consumer debt instead choosing to use debt wisely by leveraging it in investments.
5. You Are Who You Associate With
"It's better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you'll drift in that direction." -Warren Buffett
If you want to succeed financially you need to associate with people who are most conducive to encouraging and cheering on your financial journey. If the people you associate with see money as evil, object to capitalism and find wealth a foreign concept then your financial health and well being is going to be influenced by their views. Whether we like it or not we are all influenced to some extent by the people we spend our primary time with. If you aspire to achieve financial security then you need to find a mastermind of people in your life whom you can all encourage and help each other.
6. Gambling Is A Fools Game
"Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1." - Warren Buffett
While we are young and naive we choose to take risks with our money that are dumb and stupid. Trying to hit a home run with your money every time is a losing proposition with long term consequences. To chase investments that offer a high rate of return you must also assume that it also comes with a higher rate of risk. Bill Gates once quipped "Warren's and my betting has always been confined to $1 bets" when talking about them paying poker together. If two billionaires take risk management this seriously, it's time we average punters did the same thing.
7. Give Back To The Community
"Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars." - Warren Buffett
They say that to have more you need to give more. A contradiction in terms, maybe, but it's a simple truth that is as enduring as time. As the bible says "It is more blessed to give than to receive -Acts 20:35". Buffett has announced in 2006 that he was giving away over $30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation making it at the time of writing the largest charitable donation in history. He also contributes large sums to his children's charitable foundations.
8. Generosity and Abundance Goes Hand In Hand
"Even though Ben Graham [Buffett's mentor] had everything he needed in life, he still wanted to give something back by teaching, So just as we got it from somebody else, we don't want it to stop with us. We want to pass it along too." - Warren Buffett
A famous bible quote goes: "What benefit will it be to you if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?" - Mark 8:36. The path to wealth isn't a solo endeavor. How sad would life be if you come to the end of your life and there is no one to share it with. So as you journey on your path to financial abundance remember that there will be many people who generously helped you on your journey so it is only fitting to pay it forward when the opportunity arises. Generosity with your time, with your money, with your resources are great virtues to have. The greatest ally to building a strong friendship is to help others achieve what they want from life.
I leave you with this last quote "You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong." - Warren Buffett
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/8-money-secrets-from-warren-buffett-205447.html
About the Author:
Being 4 Eva Young is not about age, it's about attitude. 4 Eva Young is dedicated to inspire, motivate and encourage anyone who is young at heart to live a life of significance filled with peace, joy, and contentment. For more information visit: http://www.4evayoung.com
If you have never heard of Buffett, Forbes currently ranks him as the third richest man in the world and he is arguably the world's greatest investor. He has amassed his fortune by making astute investment decisions and investing in businesses. Here is what I have learnt from Buffett:
1. Rich Is A State Of Mind
"I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute." - Warren Buffett
The difference between being poor and being rich is really just a state of mind. Poor people think thoughts of poverty and lack, rich people think thoughts of abundance and prosperity. Your beliefs are going to determine the way you perceive wealth, the decisions you make and the way you act towards it.
2. Success Is More Than About Your Bank Balance
When asked by CNBC what is the secret to success, Buffett replied "If people get to my age and they have the people love them that they want to have love them, they're successful. It doesn't make any difference if they've got a thousand dollars in the bank or a billion dollars in the bank... Success is really doing what you love and doing it well. It's as simple as that. I've never met anyone doing that who doesn't feel like a success. And I've met plenty of people who have not achieved that and whose lives are miserable."
3. Spend Less Than You Earn
"Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks." -Warren Buffett
It seems like common sense advice and you've no doubt heard financial experts preaching about it for years. You can't possibly get ahead financially if you're spending more than your paycheck. Buffett is famous for living a simple and frugal lifestyle. He is the only billionaire I know that still lives in the same house he bought back in 1958 for $31,500. He drove a 2001 Lincoln Town Car for years which he bought second hand. Buffett has a net worth in excess of $52 billion and yet lives off an annual salary of $100,000. The relative percentage of his spending based on his overall net worth is minuscule.
4. Avoid Consumer Debt
The sooner we realize that consumerism is a social plague that has been propagated by billion dollar marketing machines to keep you shackled to your job, the sooner we can stop spending money on useless stuff. It is a fool's game to spend today so that you can work tomorrow to pay it off. It is a losing proposition because one day your working days are going to be over but the debt is still going to be hanging over your head. Clever marketing has convinced our society that to be happy you have to have more, be more and do more. Buffett abhors consumer debt instead choosing to use debt wisely by leveraging it in investments.
5. You Are Who You Associate With
"It's better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you'll drift in that direction." -Warren Buffett
If you want to succeed financially you need to associate with people who are most conducive to encouraging and cheering on your financial journey. If the people you associate with see money as evil, object to capitalism and find wealth a foreign concept then your financial health and well being is going to be influenced by their views. Whether we like it or not we are all influenced to some extent by the people we spend our primary time with. If you aspire to achieve financial security then you need to find a mastermind of people in your life whom you can all encourage and help each other.
6. Gambling Is A Fools Game
"Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1." - Warren Buffett
While we are young and naive we choose to take risks with our money that are dumb and stupid. Trying to hit a home run with your money every time is a losing proposition with long term consequences. To chase investments that offer a high rate of return you must also assume that it also comes with a higher rate of risk. Bill Gates once quipped "Warren's and my betting has always been confined to $1 bets" when talking about them paying poker together. If two billionaires take risk management this seriously, it's time we average punters did the same thing.
7. Give Back To The Community
"Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars." - Warren Buffett
They say that to have more you need to give more. A contradiction in terms, maybe, but it's a simple truth that is as enduring as time. As the bible says "It is more blessed to give than to receive -Acts 20:35". Buffett has announced in 2006 that he was giving away over $30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation making it at the time of writing the largest charitable donation in history. He also contributes large sums to his children's charitable foundations.
8. Generosity and Abundance Goes Hand In Hand
"Even though Ben Graham [Buffett's mentor] had everything he needed in life, he still wanted to give something back by teaching, So just as we got it from somebody else, we don't want it to stop with us. We want to pass it along too." - Warren Buffett
A famous bible quote goes: "What benefit will it be to you if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?" - Mark 8:36. The path to wealth isn't a solo endeavor. How sad would life be if you come to the end of your life and there is no one to share it with. So as you journey on your path to financial abundance remember that there will be many people who generously helped you on your journey so it is only fitting to pay it forward when the opportunity arises. Generosity with your time, with your money, with your resources are great virtues to have. The greatest ally to building a strong friendship is to help others achieve what they want from life.
I leave you with this last quote "You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong." - Warren Buffett
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/8-money-secrets-from-warren-buffett-205447.html
About the Author:
Being 4 Eva Young is not about age, it's about attitude. 4 Eva Young is dedicated to inspire, motivate and encourage anyone who is young at heart to live a life of significance filled with peace, joy, and contentment. For more information visit: http://www.4evayoung.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)