A Book You Really Need to Read

OK, I want to be clear on this one, I mean you really need to read this book whether you are a salesman or not. I just finished reviewing it and I think it can help anyone that wants more out of life in the way of wealth and simply in the way of happiness. This book was authored by award winning salesmen and entrepreneurs Neil Franklin and Jack Spirko.

They call the book, the definitive book on how to sell and I think they are spot on. It is just that they don’t just teach you how to sell in regard to product as a professional sales person, they also teach you the philosopy of effectively selling yourselves in all walks of life. Here is one of my favorite quotes from the book,

“Deep inside you exists another person. That person has the knowledge, expertise, experience, and wisdom to guide you throughout your life. It’s the real you. We use the term real because most of us live our lives as actors, fulfilling various life roles as we have been conditioned to do so since leaving the innocence of childhood“

This book is indeed deep and even a tiny bit spiritual but it is actually very easy to read and understand. I am going to read it again because like most books that are really deep you get more each time you read through it. Here is another quote that might make that a bit more clear,

“As the child matures, the programming by parents and society continues. Now this young adult has to get admitted into a competitive university, get his first job, or possibly ask for a raise if underpaid. The sad part is that at age five, he would have known exactly what to do and would have asked fearlessly.”

Again I highly recommend you have a look at picking up a copy of this book, it is one I can honestly say is worth far more then the cost. Spend just a bit of time learning to adapt some of these principals to your life and indeed the return of investment will be huge. You can even preview and read the first 12 pages of the book at this link.

~ Cost Cutter

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Learn How to Write a Busiess Plan

Writing a business plan can be a daunting task the first time you do it. So many would be great entrepreneurs have a great idea and need funding for it, some even self fund or boot strap their business and they all have big plans. They will tell you how big their company will be some day or why you should invest your money but most do not have a formal business plan.

Just this last week I was presented with a new idea that I really thought was excellent and the entrepreneur was clearly working hard and committed to getting the product to market. She was excited, smart and full of enthusiasm and of course wanted me to invest in her idea.

Now here is the reality the venture could be huge or a huge flop and that risk is always present so the risk is not why I turned her down. Nope it was the lack of a business plan that did it. She even had great packaging and was lined up to do trade shows and meet some perspective buyers from major retail chains. The risk is still there so I must make a risk assessment as an investor.

How I make a risk assessment

This is pretty simple I know the results if the product totally flops that is a 100% loss right? Yet what a business plan will tell me is what I can expect to see in gross sales and return of investment at various levels of success. How can an entrepreneur expect investment if they can’t even tell me the return I will get and in how long if things go right, mostly right or moderately successful. I need the numbers for all those out comes to weigh the risk reward, without that I can’t even get started.

I also may not understand the market, the supply chain, the competition and the total market cap and opportunity in a new niche.   I need it spelled out and I need to understand the marketing that the company will use to communicate its message to the world. Additionally if I am to put my money or even just partner with assistance/consulting with a company need to know their vision.  More importantly I need to know they understand their own vision. All of these things are addressed with a proper business plan. Even if you don’t want investors you need a business plan to be sure you have your own vision right, your own risk/reward ratio strait and to help you make the right decisions.

How do you do it? Easy turn to one of my heroes in business, Donald Trump for some free assistance. Trump University offers a free How to Write a Business Plan course you can sign up for and lean a ton from. I also recommend the excellent free business templates available from Score. They have templates for business plans, financial work sheets and other needs.

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Four things I would start doing online to make money as a newbie

It seems like forever ago when I first built my first website. In fact it was more then 10 years ago and at times it is easy to loose touch with how overwhelming it is for a brand new potential internet entrepreneur who wants to get started today. So I though I would share four ways a new person can begin to get started. None are all that hard but none can be complete with out learning more, these are just starting points.

1. Get a blog and do some blogging for dollars. I suggest you try not to be to obvious about this because Google has begun to give the smack down to bloggers that do this. I recommend you never use the name of the companies that you go through to find business on your blog as you are just asking for problems. What I can simply say is go to google and search for “get paid to blog” and you will find many options.

Now you are going to have to blog for about 90 days and do so at least 4 times a month to qualify for these types of services. Once you do however, you can and will make money. I won’t go deeper right now but will make some specific how to details available in the future. Let me just say that anyone that wants to can put an extra 500-1500 a month into their income column can just by doing this.

2. Learn the very basics of website design and publishing, even a tiny bit of say PHP programming can go a long way. Today if you can slap together a website you can make some money. Spend the money for a good design software and take a course on it at a community college or a CEU class at a university. Total investment may be about 1,000 dollars and it may make you a lot more then any degree will. You don’t have to be a great designer but at least be able to build simple sites, you can out source the actual “graphics” work.

Most sites are nothing but a header, a footer and some pictures. Outsource your graphics and build a site. Make your first site about something you just love to talk about and don’t worry if you make a dime on it. All you need at first is the “ability” to build and design sites. Learn how to do it and do not rely on site builders they are to limiting. Today if you can publish content there are countless ways to make money. Oh and you can pay your tuition with one months worth of blogging with suggestion number one above.

3. Start with affiliate marketing and take your skills from item two to build unique websites that provide information, build email lists and sell a few products around a niche. Later you may and honestly should create your own products and keep all your profits but in the beginning you are learning how to market and sell online so dedicate all your efforts to doing so.

A great source of items that others have made that you can sell for about a 50% commission can be found at Click Bank. Odd are there is a product about any subject you can think of. Most sell in the 50 dollar range and pay about 25 dollars in commission. You don’t have to make anything, deal with customers, etc. This is not a long term way to get rich but it is a great way to learn and earn at the same time.

4. Become an adSense Affiliate and a Yahoo Publisher, neither pay the big money they used to but they are both very passive ways to earn some extra money. In time with enough sites anyone can pull in a hundred dollars a month at least. Remember invest 100 dollars a month from age 18-65 in quality funds in a tax deferred or sheltered account and you are a multi millionaire.

The key with adSense and Publisher is make your ads blend into your sites. The inexpensive wine site I reviewed a few days ago does a good job at this. Use back ground colors that match, make the links the same color as links on your site and above all no borders for the ads. Then be sure to put the ads in prominent spots on your site, don’t hide them remember you want people to click on them.

So there you go 4 places to get started with making money online. Each has its on benifits and challenges yet if you commited to learning how to at least do all four in the next 6 months you are well on your way to truly building a solid and passive online income. In time you out source more and more and you don’t do all the work yourself. Yet in the beginning it is important to be sure you understand things, learn what you want and what you don’t want.

More then that learn to make some money asap and again bloggin for dollars is a 100% guaranteed way to start the income flow. From there you can branch out, learn more and keep building.

One more important thing. Don’t buy over priced crap, info courses and other bullshit. There are countless gurus out there, well countless self appointed internet marketing gurus that claim to have the secret to making money. They are mostly full of crap and even the ones with good info unless you learn the fundamentals first it won’t do you any good.

Start with free advice and perhaps use some of the online video courses that don’t cost to much. Learn basics, learn “how to” and then you can develop “what to” on your own terms. I promise you one of the surest ways to kill of your future in making money online is buying one to many 297 or 997 dollar how to courses.

Don’t buy that crap, start with a blog, learn to make sites, practice with affiliate products and sell ad space along the way with Google and Yahoo. Look for solid how to advice and instruction and limit your spending on “education” to 50 dollars or less a month (other then stuff like the college course I mentioned) and you will in time work things out. Gurus exist not to make you rich, they exist to enrich themselves with your dollars.

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Outsource your IT and Development

Especially for the small to mid sized business owner I am a huge fan of outsourcing. There are certain functions that you should never outsource and these I consider to be “outsourcing your soul”. So if you business builds custom cabinets and you outsource cabinet construction that to me means you no longer make cabinets you simply sell them. Yet would most small cabinet shops really have the resourses and in house knowledge to maintain a web presence or if they do a lot of business online to deal with something as complex as web hosting colocation?

Even a “high tech company” will generally not be able to provide for all of its needs with in house talent especially the countless individuals that work from home building websites that sell a variety of services and products. I have often used services like RentACoder for my needs but honestly that has been hit or miss with quality and time to delivery.

One resource you may want to consider is Momentum which acts as a single source of contact and more importantly accountability for all your IT outsourcing needs. I cannot over state the value of accountability when you are outsourcing technology projects. So just what type of IT needs can you outsource to momentum? A few things like

• Media Design
• Server Management
• Application Development
• Programming Work
• Data Back Ups
• And even on demand consulting

Today you can easily and inexpensively run a business with the proper use of outsourcing. Whether you are a small to mid sized business or an individual internet based entrepreneur, services like Momentum offer an excellent way to leverage your business and compete with much bigger companies by being more nimble and adaptable to challenges and opportunities.

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Consider Northern Trust for Wealth Management

My primary goal here at this blog is to help the average person learn simple ways to build above average wealth. As you begin to build wealth the key is to make sure you have the right wealth management team.  Northern Trust is a premier provider of banking, asset management and asset servicing to affluent families and individuals and leading institutions worldwide.

With a proven track record Norther Trust a company I can recommend with out any hesitation.  They also offer some exception free financial resources.  For more information visit their website and check out the Global Economic Research link.  You work hard for your money and it should be hard at work for you.  It should also be protected because as I have posted about before we have the potential to see a recession that could make 1978 look like the “good old days”.

Now I am no gloom and doom forecaster but it is more then probable right now that we are in for some tough times.  Many entrepreneurs are used to going it alone, I have been guilty of it myself.  Yet when it comes to investing, asset protection and preserving the future of your family’s future alone is a very bad choice.  Rely on professionals and that is what you will find at Northern Trust Banking & Asset Management.

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Can you pass the entrepreneurship test from Donald Trump

We talk a lot about building wealth and being prepared here and when it comes to both a true master is Donald J Trump. Well I just found this very cool, entrepreneurship test provided for free by Trump University. I took it and got an over all score of an 8 out of a 10 and in the areas where I scored low I very much agreed. These are actually areas I have “shored up” these specific areas with team members, partners and employees.

I was very impressed with the accuracy of the profile produced. The entire test is 36 simple questions you just click where you feel the area applies to you on a 1-5 scale. It took me perhaps 5 minutes to complete. If you want to see how you stack up against Donald Trump then give his entrepreneurial test a shot.

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My Heros in Business and Investing

If you really want to be successful financially you have to follow the intuitive wisdom of the 12 year old that plays Pop Warner Football. That 12 year old sees himself as Bret Farve or Randy Moss or whoever his favorite player is when he takes the field. In his head he hears the crowd and when he makes the catch, tackle or completes a pass for a second he is that superstar.

When you want to build wealth and success you need to do the same thing. You need your own heroes to follow and model yourself after. Here are some of mine and why I follow their lead.

Donald Trump - I admire Donald Trump for a large number of reasons. His success as an entrepreneur and real estate investor of course speaks for itself. On the personal side, Trump often comes across as a real jerk but that is just who he is. Believe it or not I admire that as well, despite being in the public eye he does not try to make the public happy. He is who he is and if you don’t like it, tough! I respect that a great deal.

Trump is also completely honest with people (this is a big part of why he is considered a jerk) about the way he sees things. I never have felt that Trump is someone with a hidden political agenda, he is a patriot, a success and a tough business person with a world class team around him. Trump has also put great deal of effort into establishing educational programs for real estate investing and other financial education programs.

Richard Branson - Branson is a real entrepreneur and has a life envied by many but experienced by very few. Despite being amoung the richest people in the world though he is remarkably down to earth and even reasonably accessible. When you hear him interviewed you think he could just be a bit of an eccentric British guy that lived next door to you.

He owns Necker Island where he maintains his primary residence which was recently featured as the number one celebrity home ahead of Hugh Hefner and Bill Gates! Yet if you met him in a bar tomorrow he would sit down and have a beer or three with you. He has failed more times then he has succeeded in building companies yet he keeps doing it because he loves being a true entrepreneur.

Warren Buffett - Warren began working in his fathers broakrage firm at the age of 11 and never looked back. Known as “America’s most successful investor” I can’t help but admire him. Buffett employed a three pronged approach

• Generals: undervalued securities that possess margin of safety and meet expected return-to-risk characteristics
• Arbitrages: company events that are not related to broader market changes, such as mergers and acquisitions, liquidation, etc.
• Controls: build sizable holdings, ally with other shareholders or employ proxies to effect changes in companies

This approach has made him one of the richest men in the world but was actually a very “safe approach” to investing.

Jimmy Buffett - No not Warren’s brother and that is no typo either. I am talking about party hardy, parrot head, Margaritaville singing Jimmy Buffett from Mobile Alabama. Jimmy speaks to my fun side, the part of me that takes 15 days off, lays on a beach and just lets everyone else deal with my businesses two times a year. He is my “someday” archetype. The old man I want to be when all my battles have been fought and I fish on the beach and drink rum from a coconut.

There is more to Jimmy though, Mr Jim is rich my friends, very, very rich! He has worked branding magic around the “Margaritaville” theme and now owns bars, merchandising and a premium Tequila label. At the same time he has only done what he loved doing. When he first went to Nashville he was rejected by 18 consecutive record label executives, so he kept playing bars and clubs and being who he was.

The rest is history and now despite not having a top ten record in two decades he still sells out just about every show he does and his fans still want more. There are Buffett fans (Parrot Heads) from 8 - 80 and their numbers continue to grow. Why, Jimmy created an image, a brand and did so by being himself. To me that makes him a very successful business person.

Henry Ford - Henry could never have gotten into college even with a bribe, he did not have the grades, the desire or the “book smarts” for it. Yet he is more associated with the automobile then any of the people that actually invented it. Henry took automation to the extreme and made the assembly line a reality and brought the car to the average American. That one achievement may have had more influence on the wealth and growth of the United States then any other person from his era.

Not content to just make cars though, Henry was a master of efficiency. When suppliers bid on supplying him with engines he required the crates they came in to be made to specific specifications. Wanting his business his suppliers agreed, the crates were then disassembled by his workers and formed the floor boards of the Model T. Despite that he had massive amounts of scrap wood from all the shipping crates so he teamed up with E. G. Kingsford, who was a local real-estate agent, to buy land for a massive wood production and charcoal processing plant. With all the waste in government and business today we could use some guys like Ford around.

So those are my heroes in business! I have others but those are my big ones when it comes to money, building businesses and investing. I suggest you assemble your own heroes list. Be inspired by them, know their stories and utilize that creative visualization children do so well in back yards and school stadiums to reach further then you can on your own.

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