Issue #1993

• WEALTHY: The 10% rule of options trading (Charles Delvalle)
• HEALTHY: Feel like a teenager again with this natural remedy (Dr. Al Sears)
• WISE: Robert A. Heinlein on temptation

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

• Tempted by a wine cruise (Michael Masterson)
• Michael Masterson on how to get yourself out of a rut
• It’s Good to Know… about ETR’s healthy side
• Add "transmogrify" to your vocabulary

== Highly Recommended ==

The ETR 2000th Issue Celebration!

Incredible Bargains on Our Most Popular Programs

In celebration of our monumental 2000th issue, we’re having a giant SALE.  These are our lowest prices ever, guaranteed, so there’s no better time for you to take advantage.

Whether you want to start your own profitable business, invest in real estate or simply become more productive and proficient at the things you’re already doing – there are programs to help you get there faster.

These bargains will move fast – and when we run out of product, we cannot guarantee you’ll ever get the chance to buy at these prices again.  

Stop by our 2000th Issue Celebration SALE now.

- Patrick Coffey

Are You the Market?

By Charles Delvalle

To avoid getting stuck with an option contract no one wants, look at its "open interest" before you buy. Options are leveraged investments that can make you a great deal of money, but not if you don’t follow this rule.

"Open interest" tells you how many contracts are open on a particular option. The higher the number of open contracts, the more liquid it is. Liquidity is a good thing… and here’s why.

Let’s say you want to invest $1,000 in a given option. The option you’re looking at costs $100 per contract and has an open interest of 0 – which means you’re the only buyer in that market at that time. For your $1,000, you’d own 10 contracts. And since there were no contracts open on this option prior to yours, you now own the entire market.

So when the time comes to sell, who’s going to buy from you?

To make sure you can sell an option when you want to, you should own no more than 10 percent of its open interest. In other words, if open interest is 500, don’t buy more than 50 contracts. That way, you’ll pretty much guarantee that you’ll have a pool of potential buyers to sell to.

You can find the open interest of an option in Yahoo! Finance under the options menu on the left-hand side.

Remember, options are for experienced traders who have a system for figuring out not only the direction of the underlying stock but also the timing of its next move up or down.

[Ed. Note: Charles Delvalle is the managing editor of Rick Pendergraft's ETF Options Trader. Find out how Rick can help you make money - no matter what the market's doing - with this new ETR investment service.]

"Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again."

Robert A. Heinlein

Special Opportunities for Your VIP Customers

By Michael Masterson

A good way to increase the lifetime value of your customers is to sell them products and services that are outside the scope of what you can deliver yourself. An example: Dry Creek Vineyard recently sent me, as a member of their VIP Club, an invitation to participate in a cruise.

The promotion was simple – a personalized letter from Kim and Don Wallace, the "proprietors" of Dry Creek, explaining that they were "reaching out" to me about an opportunity that they "thought [I] might be interested in."

"Granted," they warned, "these opportunities are not for everyone; however, for some this could be exactly what you are looking for."

The phrasing is a little awkward, but the idea is right. Because of its VIP Club, Dry Creek has a special relationship with me. It makes sense for them to contact me and the other VIP Club members when a "VIP" sort of opportunity arises. In this case, it’s a first-class Mediterranean cruise aboard the Silversea, topped off with a few days watching some of the America’s Cup race.

I’m not a big cruise person, and I have no interest in yacht racing, but I feel pretty good about the invitation. It seems appropriate for the exclusive, upscale personality that Dry Creek has attributed to the VIP Club.

The accompanying brochure – a four-page, four-color, heavy-stock piece almost certainly provided by Silversea, but with some Dry Creek Vineyard personalization throughout – has the high-quality appearance I would expect from the VIP Club. The Dry Creek logo is printed on both covers and there is a photo and blurb about Don and Kim Wallace, "your hosts," on the second page. Like any good cruise brochure, it has some great photographs (a luxuriously appointed, spacious suite, restaurant service, a tempting plate, several photographs of wine service, and an impressive itinerary featuring some of the "port highlights").

It has a pretty good title too – Mediterranean Getaway: A Celebration of Wine, Food, and Travel – that encapsulates the image.

And, finally, there is a substantial discount for VIP Club members. Overall, it’s a well-crafted package. Despite the fact that I own two travel businesses that run tours and cruises I can never find time for, I am almost tempted to go on this one.

Why? Because of Dry Creek Vineyard’s good back-end marketing, based on these tenets:

• Sell immediately.
• Sell constantly.
• But make sure each sale is consistent with the image established by the first sale.

Think about your own back-end marketing. Do you sell something to your new customers immediately after the first sale? Do you continue to keep selling them?

If not, you have an opportunity to dramatically increase your profits. But to do a good job of it, you have to follow a few rules:

1. Put someone at your business in charge of establishing a personal relationship with your customers. (The owners of Dry Creek Vineyards have put themselves in that position.) Make sure all back-end communication comes from them.
2. Strengthen this newly established personal relationship by communicating with your customers regularly via a newsletter or some other vehicle.
3. Create some sort of VIP service so you will have a rationale to send well-heeled new customers high-priced offers.
4. While maintaining your brand, make sure you have a good variety of products, packages, and prices to offer your customers. (In the case of Dry Creek Vineyards, they can sell ordinary wines, expensive wines, wine literature, membership in a wine-tasting club, etc.)
5. To bolster your back-end offerings, look beyond the products and services you can produce yourself to joint ventures with other companies. (Dry Creek Vineyards was smart enough to hook up with an upscale cruise operator. Knowing what I know about the cruise business, I’d venture to say Dry Creek gets a considerable chunk of the $4,000 to $10,000 fee that each VIP Club member pays for a cruise ticket. That’s a lot of money for a business with an average sale that must be around $50.)

As we’ve said before in ETR, you need to have high-quality front-end products that attract new customers. But if you don’t develop a strong lineup of back-end offerings, you’ll have a hard (if not impossible) time keeping those customers you worked so hard to get.

[Ed. Note: Learn how you can be part of an exclusive group of 25 to 50 ambitious businesspeople that Michael will be leading through an elite 5-day program that can help you dramatically increase the profitability of your business here.]

== Highly Recommended ==

The $2.7 Million Difference 24 Hours Can Make

Ten days ago, I met Walter G. at an investors’ event in Dallas.  Walter is a relatively new real estate investor from Atlanta.  He told me that, like a lot of “newbies,” he was scratching and scraping practically every day, trying to build up just a little more cash and credit to do his next deal. 

But that was ten days ago… nine days ago, Walter was in a whole new league as an investor. Read On…

Anti-Aging Tip: Melatonin Does More Than Help You Sleep

By Al Sears, MD

As prescriptions – and profits – for sleep aids like Lunesta and Ambien continue to rise, drug companies often take potshots at natural remedies that actually work. Melatonin is a good example.

But melatonin does more than just help you sleep. This hormone has anti-aging properties that help you look and feel younger. And melatonin can protect your cells against diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. It also stimulates the release of human growth hormone (HGH), one of the primary hormones of youth.

Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant. It destroys disease-causing molecules called free radicals at an incredible pace. And it does something most other antioxidants can’t: It stimulates extra antioxidant enzymes that can protect against everything from wrinkles to illness.

For anti-aging benefits, take just 0.5 mg a day. To help you sleep, take between 1.5 mg and 2 mg before going to bed. If you have a chronic disease, like cancer, a stronger dose of 20 mg to 40 mg before bed is recommended.

But don’t take a higher dose without discussing it with your doctor. And women who are pregnant or nursing should avoid the use of all hormones without a doctor’s supervision.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears has prepared an in-depth report on melatonin. It's free to ETR readers.]

Treasures From the ETR Archives: Michael Masterson on How to Get Yourself Out of a Rut

[Ed. Note: Our mission at ETR is to help you reach all your goals - and to celebrate our upcoming Issue #2000, we are presenting you with some of Michael Masterson's most powerful, life-changing messages to date. To read each full article, click the link embedded in the text.]

"When you agreed to do it, it seemed like a wonderful challenge. Now, your deadline is fast approaching and you haven’t even started. Getting the job done is a priority, yet it somehow doesn’t happen. Instead, it stays there on your daily task list – highlighted for attention but never attended to."

* * * * *

"Getting stuck in a rut is a very common problem when you are trying to make any kind of a change in your life. After an initial burst of growth, you settle into a routine that is okay… but nothing great. If you continue at that level for long, you will almost surely wake up one day and wonder why you bothered to make the change in the first place.

"The interesting thing about getting stuck is that the solution is almost always to do the basic things that got you moving in the first place: to work more hours on those tasks that will create the biggest and fastest improvements for you. You probably already know what those tasks are… so if you are feeling stuck right now, get to work on them!"

* * * * *

"Getting out of a slump is all about forgetting the problems that are draining your energy and getting involved in good, energizing work. The secret is to climb out of the rut in stages. Otherwise, you won’t succeed.

"One more thing: When you feel a slump coming on, don’t ignore it. Act immediately."

ETR Contributors Weigh In On Our 2000th Issue Celebration: "Michael and his team keep on caring about how good ETR can be."

"At Issue #2000 already? It’s hard to believe.

"Trying to pick out just a handful of helpful things from all those issues… it’s a little like trying to remember your best hour spent with an old friend. Of course, everything Michael’s ever said about copywriting comes to mind. Without it, I wouldn’t be in this business… and I wouldn’t be making better than 10 times what I was when Michael, and later ETR, first came along.

"Not a day goes by that I forget that.

"All the health and wealth secrets, leadership tips, real estate, the stories and random insights… you can tell that Michael and his team keep on caring about how good ETR can be. And they put just as much effort or more into that quality standard now than when it started years ago.

"But I think one of the past ETRs that really sticks with me goes back to Issue #108, when Michael first rolled out – as far as I know – his idea about his ‘1,000 hour’ program, where you need at least 1,000 hours of practice at any life skill just to get competent… 5,000 hours for mastery… and 35,000 hours for virtuosity. ‘Deduct 30 percent,’ said Michael, ‘if you have really good coaching.’

"I can’t imagine how many ETR readers already feel like they’re getting that ‘really good coaching’ straight from ETR. But I’m pretty sure the whole ETR team has piled up enough hours to be well on their way to virtuosity. If the next 2,000 issues are anything like the first 2,000… I can’t wait to read on.

"A big thanks to the whole ETR team… and congrats!"

John Forde – editor of The Copywriter’s Roundtable and ETR contributor

It’s Good to Know: ETR’s Healthy Side

In looking through the ETR Archives to get ready for our upcoming Issue #2000, one of the things we discovered was that these are the 10 health-related subjects we’ve covered most frequently:

 1. Diet and healthy eating
 2. Exercise benefits/techniques
 3. Health warnings
 4. Disease and disease prevention
 5. Natural remedies
 6. Weight loss
 7. Aging
 8. Conventional medicine
 9. Vitamins and supplements
10. Mental health

== Highly Recommended ==

Start Making Money Today

Interested in getting a nice little side-business going on the Internet? Or maybe even from your living-room table?

But you don’t have too much money, you don’t have too much time, and you’re not exactly Bill Gates when it comes to technology. Sound familiar?

A lot of people are in the same boat. The good news is that ETR has heard you. And now we’ve done something about it…

We’ve asked our colleague Marc Charles to be on the lookout for profit opportunities that can be run from a kitchen table, your desktop or out on the road.

Criteria? They’ve got to be inexpensive, easy to start, and still have great income potential, but without a lot of red tape.

They say when you’re first getting your feet wet with a side-business, the most important dollar to make is the first one. Well, Marc is an expert at taking beginning entrepreneurs and showing you how to make that first buck. He knows, because he’s done it dozens of times for himself, his family and his friends.

If you’ve been dreaming about starting your own business… now you can get started for about the price of 2 lattes.

And get this – you could be making money literally just hours from now. Imagine the feeling of finally getting a side business launched – TODAY!

Why not go for it?

- Patrick Coffey

Word to the Wise: Transmogrify

To "transmogrify" (trans-MOG-ruh-fie) is to change completely, especially into a shape or form that is fantastic or humorously bizarre.

Example (as used by Gregg Easterbrook in an article about the potential effects of global warming in The Atlantic): "[Real estate in] Houston could decline, made insufferable by worsened summertime humidity, while the splendid, rustic Laurentide Mountains region north of Montreal, if warmed up a bit, might transmogrify into the new Poconos."

[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, on-sale now through the 28th to celebrate the 2000th issue of ETR.]

Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 5:30 am and is filed under Daily Issues .