- WEALTHY: The only "hot tip" that makes sense (Charles Delvalle)
- HEALTHY: Soda for breakfast? (Dr. Al Sears)
- WISE: Henry Ford on customer service
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Company policy? Who says? (Robert Ringer)
- Snubbing back in Paris (Michael Masterson)
- It’s Good to Know… if you’re looking for love
- Add the word "telluric" to your vocabulary
Learn a Lifetime of Business Secrets from Michael Masterson Himself…
WHEN: April 24, 2007
WHERE: Palm Beach, Florida
WHO: Anyone who wants to take their business to a higher level of profits
Join Michael Masterson at an exclusive retreat to learn more than 100 ways you can increase your business’s profits. He’ll show you how to take your business from where it’s at today…to where you want it to be…all within the next 12 to 24 months.
You’ll get very specific directions, very direct answers to your questions, and very frank advice.
Learn more about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity now…
- Patrick Coffey
Don’t Buy on a Hot Tip
By Charles Delvalle
Someone you just met knows someone who gave him a "hot" stock tip. He’s investing in it, and thinks you should too. Don’t do it! Investing on someone else’s hot tip – without doing your own research – will only open you up to losses.
Here’s an example. Earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), a rumor was flying around that Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI) was going to merge with XM Satellite Radio (XMSR) – and hot-tip buyers jumped on the "news." Sirius stock responded by rising over 10 percent… initially
But guess what happened when the FCC announced on the last day of the CES that they would not allow the merger to happen? The stock dropped like a rock.
So what do the gains for the hot-tip crowd look like now? If they were lucky enough to buy at or near the bottom, they might have a one to two percent gain. If they bought at the top, they’re looking at a 10 percent loss.
[Ed. Note: Charles Delvalle is a contributing editor to the Investor’s Daily Edge newsletter, and a regular contributor to INCOME, ETR’s new investment service. INCOME provides a slew of high-dividend-paying companies, with the goal of providing you with a total return (dividends plus capital gains) of at least 14 percent per year.]
"A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large."
Henry Ford
Customer Service Is a Mindset
By Robert Ringer
When I was a kid, telephones and telephone service were synonymous with AT&T. In fact, it was against the law for a person to install his own phone jacks or even use a telephone not sold by AT&T. Aside and apart from the immorality of such government-created monopolies, they breed arrogance and indifference toward customers.
After decades of having everything its way, AT&T was finally forced to compete. But it was too late. The company’s "You’re lucky to have us as your service provider" attitude was firmly entrenched at every level of the telecommunications giant.
To my embarrassment, I can remember spending more than an hour on the phone, trying to get through to someone at AT&T who could answer a simple question for me. I normally don’t allow myself to become involved in such nonproductive details, but in this instance it became something of an obsessive challenge – kind of a voice-mail-hell version of road rage.
I was stubbornly intent on proving that I could figure out the maze of options … and more options … and still more options that AT&T techies had sadistically placed in my path. And that I would finally succeed in deciphering the secret code that would lead to an AT&T human being surfacing on the other end of the line.
The good news is that I ultimately succeeded. The bad news is that the woman on the other end of the line, after listening to my homily on why all high-level executives at AT&T should be executed without trials, explained that the company was in the process of phasing out most of its employees. She went on to say that she herself expected to be fired soon, and that AT&T’s near-term goal was to save billions of dollars in salaries by forcing its customers to talk only to recorded messages.
Like all people, I have a natural tendency to resist change. IBM … Xerox … AT&T … I grew up believing that people of substance dealt only with old-line companies. I was loyal to a fault. The problem is, none of those companies had the slightest interest in my wants, my needs, or my problems.
So, as AT&T’s customer service continued to devolve from hard to deal with … to nearly impossible to deal with … to completely impossible to deal with … to an arrogant refusal to even allow a customer to speak with a live AT&T representative, I began to think the unthinkable: Change to another carrier. And finally, after decades of loyalty, I made the switch.
Everything that goes around does, indeed, come around. Consciously or unconsciously, AT&T’s top brass made the ignorant decision to treat their customers with rude indifference. It saved the company untold millions in salaries, but it also lost AT&T millions of customers.
When I need information, I don’t appreciate being led by the nose from one voice mail to another by some robotic voice. Nor do I have the time or patience to listen to a recorded list of "frequently asked questions" (especially since I have never once heard one state, let alone answer, my specific question).
Above all, I don’t want the presumptuous robot on the other end of the line to continually encourage me to go to the company’s website to search for my answer. If I had the masochistic desire to click around on its website, I wouldn’t have called in the first place. The websites of some of America’s biggest corporations are so confusing and user-unfriendly that it makes you wonder if they were designed by chimpanzees.
Every company has a mindset toward its customers. The mindset of many businesses is: "This is our policy. Take it or leave it." When it comes to dealing with a company that harbors this kind of attitude, unless there’s a compelling reason to do otherwise, I almost always opt to leave it.
By contrast, the mindset of companies that are winning the hearts and minds of both old and new customers is: "This is our normal policy, but we’ll do whatever is necessary to find a way to work around it so we can satisfy your needs."
It’s amazing to me that so many companies still don’t get it when it comes to giving customer satisfaction a higher priority than company "policy." And this is not just a giant-corporation phenomenon. It’s a problem with small businesses and independent entrepreneurs as well.
For example, a couple of weeks ago I was having lunch with a business associate at a fine restaurant. The food was superb. But when you pay 80 bucks for lunch for two people, you also expect great service.
When the waitress brought our appetizers, I asked her to please give me some cracked pepper on my salad. Though she was pleasant, she responded with, "The pepper mill is on the table." Being the peaceful, gentle soul that I am, I let it go. But what I really felt like saying was, "What I meant was that I wanted you to put some cracked pepper on my salad. I don’t like to work for my food, especially when I’m paying $80 for it."
About a month before that little incident, I had checked into a fairly high-priced hotel. I always set up a hotel room as though I were going to be there for an indefinite period of time, so the first thing I do is call housekeeping and read off my standard list of requests.
One of those standards is two extra boxes of Kleenex. Being an efficiency aficionado, I put one box on the nightstand next to my bed and another box on the desk. Why walk into the bathroom every time you need to blow your nose? Okay, so I’m strange. But so was Howard Hughes. (Hmm … maybe not such a good comparison.)
The lady in housekeeping responded to this request by telling me, "I can only give you one extra box of Kleenex."
Out of morbid fascination, I asked her why. She explained that it was a hotel policy. She added, however, that after I used up the extra box of Kleenex, she would be happy to have another box delivered to my room to replace it. How kind of her. It was beginning to feel like I was in a Saturday Night Live skit.
What we have here is a common employee disease known as "Make Up the Policy as You Go." This illness is especially prevalent in the airline industry. If you’re a ticket agent or a flight attendant who had a fight with your spouse this morning, the remedy is to vent your anger on some poor passenger whose only objective is to get from Point A to Point B with as little hassle as possible. And the simplest way to vent is to make up a new rule just for him.
Ditto with hotel employees. Trust me. There is no hotel in the world that has a policy which states: "If a guest asks for two extra boxes of Kleenex, tell him he can only have one."
I didn’t want to make Ms. Housekeeper’s illness any more painful than it apparently already was, so I simply said to her, "Not a problem. Just put your supervisor on the line and I’ll place the order with her." Remarkably, she immediately opted to change her One-Extra-Box-of-Kleenex-Per-Guest Policy and leave her supervisor out of our fascinating discussion.
Hopefully, this problem doesn’t infect your business. But if you suspect it does, I suggest you start rethinking your personnel training and your customer service "policies" right now.
[Ed. Note:Take gigantic steps toward achieving your personal and professional goals starting today with Robert Ringer's best-selling personal-development books on CD.
And sign up today for a complimentary subscription to Robert's e-letter, Voice of Sanity in an Insane World.]
How Can You Profit From Real Estate You Don’t Own?
Here’s an idea: try using a flipping technique called Wholesaling.
Your wholesale deal can be structured in a way that you never even have to take ownership of a property. Nor do you have to have cash or bank financing.
Your risks are seriously limited in a wholesale flip set up this way – yet you can still expect to make anywhere from $5,000 – $50,000 per deal.
Get an introduction to wholesaling from the master – Steve Cook. He’s done more than 300 deals, averaging $20,000 profit each – and he’s agreed to speak to a small group of ETR readers at no charge. Signing up to learn the secrets of a wholesaling master is simple, but space is limited so act now.
Kam Weiler
Contributing Editor, Main Street Millionaire
Reader Feedback: "A year from today, I will be Healthier, Wealthier, Happier, and Wiser."
"In the 15 days since I started ETR’s Total Success Achievement Program, I have noticed many changes. Writing down my goals, making an emotional commitment, and following through by re-enforcing them daily has made a huge difference in my life.
"Every activity that I now engage in, in the back of my mind I am thinking, is this contributing to any of my 4 Life Goals? I am arriving at work an hour earlier, before anyone else. (I have always been an early riser.) I am able to organize my day and review my task lists before I start. I have also been dedicating my lunch hour to reserving the conference room, where I am able to do my reading, work on my goals, and make any personal phone calls necessary.
"Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. A year from today, I know I will be Healthier, Wealthier, Happier, and Wiser than I am today."
Jacqueline E. Peters
Hollister, CA
What You Drink Is as Important as What You Eat
By Al Sears, MD
A few days ago, a patient walked into my office with one of those super-sized soft drinks from a fast-food place near my office. It wouldn’t have surprised me – except that it was 8:30 in the morning.
I wondered how common this breakfast-soda habit has become, so I did some research. It turns out that more than 15 percent of people now order a soda when they go to a restaurant in the morning. That’s a jump from less than 8 percent in 1990. And there’s an even bigger jump in the number of people who open a can of soda at home every morning: 2.5 percent, up from less than 0.5 percent 20 years ago. That’s a 500 percent increase!
What you drink is just as important for weight loss and overall health as what you eat. And both diet and regular sodas are dangerous … for different reasons.
Regular sodas spike your blood sugar almost immediately, which triggers your body to produce waves of insulin. Insulin stimulates fat production and fat storage. Diet sodas usually contain aspartame, a neurotoxin that prevents the hormone leptin from communicating with your brain. This is critical, as leptin is the messenger that tells your brain, "I’m full." As a result, you are far more likely to overeat.
The best thing to drink with breakfast is water. It’s the way I start my day. But if you need a pick-me-up, green tea is better than soda. It gives you a gentle energy boost and is full of disease-fighting antioxidants. (Even regular tea or coffee is better than soda.)
[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of The Doctor's Heart Cure, is a leading authority on longevity, physical fitness, and heart health.]
Notes From Michael Masterson’s Blog: When in Paris, Do As Parisians Do
A promotion launched by the Ile de France tourism office is hoping to neutralize a decline in the number of British tourists that’s been attributed to the snootiness of French waiters, taxi drivers, and retailers. The promotion, dubbed "C’est So Paris," instructs foreigners on how to snub back:
- Le Bof – the famous Gallic shrug. Its purpose is to deny knowledge or avoid agreement or responsibility. To affect it, raise your eyebrows as you stick out your lower lip and shrug your shoulders.
- La Moue – the pout. It is meant to convey unhappiness or disgust. To do it, purse your lips and shake your head slowly back and forth while looking as bored as you possibly can.
- Les Boules – the French gesture of exasperation. It shows that you are upset, unlucky, or sick and tired of something. Here’s how to do it: Hold your hands up with your fingers curled back toward you as if you are holding two tennis balls.
For more classically French gestures, check out the CestSoParis website.
- Michael Masterson
[Ed. Note: To read more of Michael's unedited, uncensored (and sometimes unexpected) ruminations, check out his blog here.
This April, Michael Masterson will lead 25 to 50 ambitious businesspeople through an elite 5-day program that can help dramatically increase the profitability of their businesses. Learn how you can be a part of this exclusive group and take your business to the next level here.]
It’s Good to Know: If You’re Looking for Love on Valentine’s Day
- For 20-somethings: There are 119 single (never married, divorced, or widowed) men for every 100 single women.
- For the over-65 crowd: There are 34 single (never married, divorced, or widowed) men for every 100 single women.
- To find those singles: There are 904 off-line and online dating services in the U.S.
(Source: The U.S. Census Bureau’s "Facts for Features")
How Much Money Can YOU Make By Copying This "Mistake"?
How did Vicki Smith accidentally ‘hotwire’ the Internet and turn it into the goose that laid the golden egg?
Well, imagine a huge fortress with steep, heavily defended walls and a great big, drawbridge to get through. Inside that fortress is the huge pile of wealth there is to be made on the Internet. Now imagine trying to scale those walls with no equipment and never having done anything like it before. That is what many people try to do…
But what did Vicki do? By mistake, she got ‘lost’ and wandered around the back of that fortress and found a ‘hidden’ door which lead straight in. A solid gold door which opened up a gateway to riches…
It’s an opportunity which really does work, that anyone can follow and put into practice quickly in just an hour of your spare time from home.
Read about Vicki’s good fortune…
- Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Telluric
"Telluric" (teh-LOOR-ik) means of or pertaining to the earth/soil.
Example (as used by Elizabeth Royte in a New York Times review of Wild by Jay Griffiths): "In the Amazon, the Arctic, the Australian desert, the mountains of West Papua, and on the Indonesian seas, she travels almost exclusively with indigenous people, her conduits to telluric wisdom."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007
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