- WEALTHY: A bad lesson learned (Andrew Gordon)
- HEALTHY: Eating your way to healthy weight loss (Jon Herring)
- WISE: Anne Frank on making things happen
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- How to put a good idea to work (Michael Masterson)
- Feedback Friday: Tiffany’s marketing "problem"
- It’s Good to Know… when you’re sick and feeling kinda down
- Add "denouement" to your vocabulary
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The Problem With a Strong Market
By Andrew M. Gordon
Last year, the market taught us a bad lesson – that you don’t always have to do your homework before investing. That’s because it was a good year for virtually all kinds of investments. When the market is going strong, even your clueless mother-in-law can make money in it.
But behind the all-around market growth was a sobering countertrend: Fewer companies did well. The markets rose so high only because the companies that did outperform did so in such a big way.
It wasn’t easy to pick individual companies to do well last year. This year – with overall earnings growth expected to fall into the single digits – it could be even tougher. The market promises to be less forgiving to those who think they can smell a sweet stock without doing any digging.
To keep on top of the market, make sure to do your homework before you make an investment. If that’s not possible, get expert advice you can trust.
[Ed. Note: Andrew Gordon, ETR's financial expert, is the editor of our new investment service, INCOME. Each month, he uncovers specific stocks that promise safety (first and foremost), along with much higher-than-average profit potential.]
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
Anne Frank
Making Your Ideas Soar
By Michael Masterson
Think about how many good ideas you have had or been a part of in the past, either in casual conversation, in business meetings, or at conferences and trade shows. How many of them did you execute? And how many somehow slipped away?
To keep a good idea going forward, you can’t leave it alone. You need to exert a lot of good force behind it right away, and then you have to keep that force building as time moves on. Getting a jump on the idea as soon as you get it creates the initial force … and getting specific tasks accomplished to propel it forward, even if they aren’t done perfectly, adds to it.
It’s what I call the "Ready. Fire. Aim." approach to making things happen.
Let me give you an example of what I mean …
When I was in college, I spent one summer working for a guy who had a business installing above-ground pools. It took three of us – my boss, me, and another worker – about three hours to install one of those pools, from start to finish. We were putting up about three pools a day, and my boss was charging $300 a pool. The other guy and I were being paid about $50 a day to work 10- to 12-hour shifts.
It didn’t take much more math than I had (very basic – I was an English major) to figure out that my boss was making a lot of money. His expenses (truck, gas, equipment, etc.) couldn’t have been more than $100 a day.
That’s what gave me the idea to go into the pool business on my own the following summer. (This is the business I talked about in ETR #1723 – "Setting Standards: Speed vs. Excellence.") But I knew I didn’t have the get-up-and-go to do it myself, so I pitched the idea to a couple of my friends, Peter and Eric.
Peter had just gotten married and didn’t have the luxury to fool around like his single buddies. He needed to start making good money fast. When he heard me talk about how much my boss made, he realized we could do the same if he could just get something started before Eric and I got bored with the idea and went on to something else.
Peter didn’t waste time trying to learn about pool construction, printing up business cards, or buying tools. He went home, pulled out the Yellow Pages, picked up the phone, and began calling companies that were selling above-ground pools.
The next day, he called to tell me that he had gotten us an "audition" with one of them.
"An audition? What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "we’ll put up one of their display pools for free. And if they like our work, they’ll begin recommending our installation service to their customers.
"What kind of pools do they sell?" I asked.
"I didn’t ask any questions," he said. "I just told the guy that we could do a great job and so he offered us a chance."
Despite the fact that we knew nothing about the type of pool this company was selling – and that neither Peter nor Eric knew anything at all about pool installation – we agreed to give it a shot.
The next Saturday, at six o’clock in the morning, the three of us were in the company’s display lot, looking at a pool that was much bigger and more complicated than anything I’d ever put up.
"So what do we do first?" Peter asked me, while the owner of the company peered at us through his office window.
"Just act like you know what you are doing," I whispered.
That pool fell down three times before we got it up correctly. It took us 12 hours, but we did a good job and got our first recommendation to one of the company’s customers. We did a good job on that one too (and a lot faster), and started getting regular recommendations. A month later, we had three crews working for us, and we were each making more than $500 a day.
We worked for about 15 weeks non-stop, including weekends, and at the end of the summer I had paid back all my college loans, invested about $15,000 into remodeling my parents’ house, and bought myself a little car.
That was my first experience as an entrepreneur … and it never would have happened were it not for Peter’s willingness to get us into the business before we had done any planning or preparation.
Ready. Fire. Aim.
That’s the same approach Alex Tew, a college-bound 21-year-old, took when he realized his bank account was overdrawn and he needed cash to pay for his school expenses. With only a month to go before classes began, he stayed up one night and brainstormed money-making ideas … until he came up with one that seemed especially exciting.
The concept was relatively simple. He would sell blocks of advertising space on a website for $1 per pixel. His goal was to sell a million pixels.
Tew had a bit of experience designing websites, but he was hardly an expert. And he didn’t have time to learn more about it or fiddle around with a business plan. So he went to work and threw together the best site he could with a very modest investment of $100. He called it MillionDollarHomePage, and had it up and running in two days.
Since he knew the general public wouldn’t buy space on his website until he had some momentum going, he asked his friends and family members to kick things off by buying the first 1,000 pixels. He used the money from those initial sales to write and send out press releases to the local media, which responded very favorably to the quirky story. Before long, it got national attention.
Within two weeks, Tew had sold $40,000 worth of pixels – enough to cover his entire tuition. When the media in 35 other countries picked up the story, demand soared. Within five months, he reached his crazy goal of selling a million pixels.
On January 11 of 2006, he sold the last ad space on his site for $38,000, putting him well over his million-dollar goal. "I’ve spent probably about $40,000 maintaining the site and publicizing it," he told the press, "so there’s been some expense associated with it. Still, it’s a healthy profit at the end of the day."
The "Ready. Fire. Aim." approach is responsible for most of the business success I’ve had. It’s an approach that, for better or worse, has always come naturally to me.
Looking at it from the outside in, it can seem to be impetuous or even foolish. But for me, it feels like something I have to do in order to have any chance of succeeding.
The next time you have a good idea, tell yourself, "Ready. Fire. Aim." And give it your best shot. In my experience, that will get you close enough to your target.
[Ed. Note: In 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.]
Five Minute Real Estate “Day Trades” Yield Investor $90,000
Steve Cook literally buys and sells homes within five minutes while sitting at his desk.
In the last two months alone, Steve Cook made $30,000, $41,000 and $19,000 on three quick real estate deals – so simple he never even touched the keys.
The return on these “day trades” is infinite, because the initial investment required is Zero.
Find out how you can use the same day trading strategies to skyrocket your income.
Kam Weiler
Contributing Editor, Main Street Millionaire
5 More Ways to Boost Your Metabolism and Start Burning Fat
By Jon Herring
Losing weight does not require you to put yourself through months of self-sacrifice. You simply have to (1) do a few things that will increase your body’s metabolic rate and (2) replace high-calorie, low-nutrient foods with those that promote health.
Yesterday, I gave you two ways to maximize your fat-loss efforts. Here are five more:
- Don’t skip breakfast. This is the meal that is most commonly skipped, and many of the people who do it think they are doing themselves a favor by eliminating those calories. Nothing could be further from the truth. Numerous studies have shown that eating a protein-rich, low-glycemic breakfast is essential for healthy weight loss.
- Eat healthy fats. One of the biggest weight-loss myths is that "fat makes you fat." The truth is that healthy fats can help make you thin. These are the fats you find in nuts, fish, fish oil, naturally raised meats, olive oil, and avocados.
- Manage your blood sugar levels. Maintaining stable, low blood sugar levels is one of the best things you can do to prevent your body from storing fat. Do it by avoiding sweets, processed foods, and starchy carbohydrates.
- Drink green tea or water. These are, by far, your two healthiest beverage options, and they both help to maintain a healthy metabolism.
- Alternate between interval exercise and resistance training. By exercising with resistance, you build muscle. Muscle is active tissue, so the greater your muscle mass is, the higher your metabolic rate will be. And by exercising in intervals at high intensity, you not only burn fat and calories during your workout, but for many hours afterward.
Feedback Friday: Tiffany’s Marketing "Problem"
In his recent article, "You’ve Got to Wonder about Tiffany & Co," Michael suggested that the luxury jeweler should be actively pursuing its best customers. Many of our readers weighed in on the subject. Here’s what a few of them had to say…
"I love your ETR letters, great insights and advice – thank you!
"Anyway, I had a thought about your recent article about how Tiffany was not marketing enough to you for repeat business. I am not a marketing professional, but I was wondering if they did not target you with targeted ‘mailings’ because they didn’t want to inundate you or inconvenience you with ’spam’… to let you know that they are not like the average retailer, that they have more class… just a thought.
"I do agree that they should probably send you a few reminders a year about gifts for some holidays and special occasions, but I think that is what the catalog is for."
- Ed Pok
Wilmington, DE
"You miss the point about Tiffany’s aversion to contacting repeat customers. If your perspective of the ‘middle class’ had not degenerated so, you would realize that Tiffany likes its ’snob appeal,’ and it would be degrading to have their customers think their business was ‘needed.’
"An example is Packard Motors. At one time, Packard catered to the elite. Late in their history, they began to market cars affordable to the new ‘middle class’ and their image was completely shattered. Result? No more Packard.
"This is what almost happened to Tiffany, but they reverted to their old ways and now only one percent of the population can afford their merchandise. Why grovel?
"If your senses were not so dulled by years of prosperity, you would know that wealthy people are masochistic. They like being taken to the cleaners, whether buying jewelry, yachts, Ferraris, mansions, Starbucks coffee, you name it.
"The people to whom you give expensive gifts realize that you are expressing your generous nature, and they show their appreciation. Tiffany, on the other hand, is showing their own appreciation by ignoring you. And they have exactly the customer base they want and deserve."
- Steve Hilsz
"Is it possible that the reason Tiffany doesn’t push back-end sales more is because of their target market? If some of their target market makes comments like ‘I felt like I was at Macy’s’ (which gave me such a great laugh due to how snobbish it sounds), maybe their target market wouldn’t like being up-sold. It might strike them as… rather proletariat.
"As for me and my family, I’ve just recently determined that when we buy jewelry it will probably be investment-grade estate jewelry. By the way, I really enjoy ETR."
- Brandon Wilhite
Winona Lake, IN
It’s Good to Know: When You’re Sick and Feeling Kinda Down
Henri Matisse took up painting to battle boredom when intestinal problems hospitalized
him in the 1890s. And Mathew Brady became the Civil War’s best-known photographer after an illness damaged his eyesight.
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: Denouement
"Denouement" (day-noo-MAWN) – from the French for "to untie" – is the outcome of a complex sequence of events.
Example (as used by Todd Gitlin in The Twilight of Common Dreams): "Of course, the crusaders were losers in the short run, but Europe’s storytellers have traditionally awarded them the righteous victory and not dwelt on the embarrassing denouement."
[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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