A Business Question You MUST Be Able to Answer
Issue #2161
- WEALTHY: Is the market going to make a second dip? (Rick Pendergraft)
- HEALTHY: An essential mineral you may not get enough of (Anthony Colpo)
- WISE: Albert Lasker on advertising
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- The "hard part" of entrepreneurship may not be what you think (Michael Masterson)
- How to make any presentation stick in your listeners’ minds (Virginia Avery)
- It’s Good to Know… about online archives
- Add "derring-do" to your vocabulary
You Already Know Fortunes Are Made from Trading. The Question Is: WHAT Are "They" Trading Most? (And It’s Not Shares or Commodities!)
… Thirty times more trading going on than the stock market and mostly investment banks doing it. Ummm… Maybe "they" know something you don’t? Click here to learn more…
A Pattern You Need to Watch
Learning how to recognize patternsin the stock market’s movements is an easy way to know whether you should buy or sell.
And a pattern is developing in the S&P 500 right now that could save or perhaps even make you money.
In three of the last four pull-backs in the S&P, the index dropped below its 100-day moving average, then rallied back up to the 100-day moving average, only to pull back again and hit a new low. The lone exception was in October 2005. The pull-backs in April of 2005, June/July of 2006, and February/March of this year all followed this pattern.
With the market moving higher and back toward the 100-day moving average after hitting a low on August 16, you will want to be aware of this pattern and perhaps wait until it makes the second dip before investing too much money.
[Ed. Note: Rick Pendergraft is a market expert and two-time winner of the "Top Trader" award at Schaeffer’s Investment Research. In ETR’s free e-zine, Investor’s Daily Edge, Rick and a select group of market specialists will give you to-the-point analyses and tell you how you should act TODAY to make the most money with the least risk.]
"The product that will not sell without advertising will not sell profitably with advertising."
Albert Lasker
A Business Question You MUST Be Able to Answer
Most would-be entrepreneurs are motivated by an idea - an idea for some great new product.
I get all sorts of questions from such people, but I almost never hear the most important one - the one you should always ask when you get an idea for a great new product: Is this the kind of product that I can actually sell? And if so, how should I do it?
Coming up with product ideas is not the hard part of entrepreneurship. Figuring out how to sell those products profitably - that’s where the genius comes in.
Take Mike Henry, for example, who wrote me recently with a question about a product he’d like to sell. Mike has an idea for a soup recipe. He calls it "Esther’s Health Soup" after his beloved late mother, who "concocted a delicious, chicken-based vegetable soup" just for Mike’s late father, who never ate vegetables.
"Both parents are gone now," wrote Mike, "and I have a strong desire to immortalize them with this soup."
Mike doesn’t know what to do next. He talked to someone at SCORE (an organization that offers free advice to entrepreneurs), and was told that his soup would take years (and lots of money) to gain FDA approval. So he has come up with some ideas about how to market his soup himself and wants to know whether they are good avenues to pursue.
"I’m a musician," says Mike. "I play at restaurants, catering halls, and country clubs. I am especially friendly with one caterer in my neighborhood. Would that be a good outlet? Should I approach a major company and sell my formula to them?" Mike also wonders whether he should try to contact the original owner of Whole Foods Market, a man who was a family friend.
What can I say? Mike seems like a nice man. He’s endowed with an active imagination. He makes his living as a member of a band and, when the music stops, dreams of selling recipes and inventing things.
He also loves his parents and wants to immortalize them by converting a vegetable soup his mother made into a product. After reading a few books, he is puzzled about what to do. So he takes the initiative to speak to someone at SCORE - presumably a retired executive - and he gets lectured on how difficult his idea will be to execute.
I love this anecdote about SCORE, because I have always had mixed feelings about that organization. I am sure many SCORE volunteers are formerly successful businesspeople (with a smattering of blowhards and ne’er-do-wells in the mix), but there is a fundamental problem with getting your advice from people who have been out of their industry for two or three years: They lose touch with the market. Add to that hardening arteries and aching joints, and you have a non-profit organization filled with grouchy old naysayers.
Mike deserves better than he got at SCORE, simply because it would be nice to imagine Esther’s Health Soup sitting on a supermarket shelf some day. But his ignorance of business is so profound, I can’t think of what to tell him. Right now, Mike doesn’t have any business goals. His goals are purely sentimental. And a sweet dream to honor his parents just isn’t the same as having a workable business idea.
Mike’s greatest resource is the connection with the original owner of Whole Foods Market, but this guy is likely to be long ago retired and working part-time as a counselor at SCORE, discouraging young people from doing what he did.
Mike’s best bet is to start selling the soup at a local flea market or giving it away on street corners. No doubt he would be violating various public health laws in doing so, but if he sells it while it’s fresh, he probably won’t get hauled off to prison. He could also look into getting a booth at a local weekend greenmarket that features produce but also has stands that sell all kinds of other stuff, including prepared food. Or he could approach a take-out place that features dozens of kinds of soup on their menu (they’re springing up all over lately, perhaps modeled after Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi) and see if they’ll take his "on spec."
The point is, before Mike makes an investment in marketing his product, he needs to find out for sure if it’s really as good as he thinks - and by "good," I mean sellable. He won’t find that out by serving it to his friends. What are they going to say? ("Mike, I never wanted to say this when she was living, but your mom was a lousy cook.")
There is only one way to find out if your product is good, and that is to start selling it. The sooner you start selling it, the faster you will know. Most products, it turns out, are not as good as the inventor (or her son) thinks they are.
If Esther’s Health Soup starts selling like hotcakes, Mike should write back to us… and then we’ll tell him what to do next.
[Ed. Note: Michael Masterson is one of the core contributors behind ETR’s new Internet business-building program. If you’re interested in profiting from all the benefits of starting an online business, click here to join our priority notification list.]
On October 9, the Most Powerful Force in the Market Begins Again
On October 9, you could be presented with a monumental money-making opportunity as public companies begin to release reams of previously undisclosed information.
The last time this came around, sharp investors had a chance to pocket gains of 149% on Marriott… 217% on Chaparral Steel… 160% on Qualcomm… and 136% in McDonald’s.
No other predictable event results in more price movement than what I have to share with you. Position yourself properly, before October 9, and you could make more money in the next six weeks than most investors make all year.
Reader Feedback: Dead Broke to 6 Figures in 18 Months
"Just over two years ago, on a sweltering Saturday in July, my wife and I moved into a two-bedroom apartment on 141st and Broadway in Manhattan. It was in a building with trash-covered sidewalks, filthy hallways, and a broken elevator, but the rent was cheap.
"By the time dusk settled in and the street lamps flickered on, we were dead tired… and dead broke.
"After a few moments of anxiety (okay… a few hours), I began opening boxes and found a book I had recently bought but hadn’t read: Michael Masterson’s Automatic Wealth. I stopped unpacking, sat at the kitchen table, and opened it to page 1.
"18 months later, I had tripled my income to six figures, built a solid asset base of conservative investments, and started my own information-marketing business. Michael’s steady and sound advice brought me (and those who depend on me) out of poverty and set me on the road to prosperity.
"After finishing the book, I went to my part-time employer and negotiated a full-time job managing small accounts. I cleaned up a mess of poor customer-relations problems and began developing a marketing plan to increase revenues and grow the customer base. In the meantime, I was building a financially valuable skill - copywriting - and did some freelance work on the side for a magazine. Within a few months, a proposal-writing position opened at my company. I secured the job, and a raise to boot.
"I set to work proving my value - and in six months, I negotiated a raise that had more than doubled my income.
"After a couple of months, I began receiving e-mails from an executive search firm. They needed someone to run a proposal department and had somehow found me. A few interviews later, I went from being ‘the proposal guy’ to managing a small team of proposal writers, commuting weekly from New York to Chicago and being paid six figures to do it. Only 18 months after I was sitting penniless in my new kitchen with Automatic Wealth.
"Throughout all this (and even as I write this letter), my wife and I remained in our 2-bedroom apartment with the dingy hallways and the still-broken elevator. Keeping our living expenses down while our income has been rising allowed us to build a nest egg.
"In preparing for the future, I’m playing ‘chicken-entrepreneur,’ planning to achieve escape-velocity from the corporate world in the next 10-12 months.
"I look forward to meeting Michael at this year’s Info Marketing Bootcamp… and to the money-making, business-building advice I’ll receive over the three days of the conference."
Randall Frederickson
Manhattan, NY
Make Your Points More Memorable With Stories
Legend has it that a Persian king who had been betrayed by an unfaithful wife wed a virgin each night, and each morning had her beheaded. Three thousand unfortunate women lost their lives this way… until he met Scheherazade. On their wedding night, she told him a story that was so enthralling, he begged for another. She promised one for the following night … and on the following night, she promised one for the night after that. Her stories were so enchanting that this went on for 1001 nights. And then he made her his queen.
Unlike Scheherazade, your life may not depend on being able to tell a good story, but it is a powerful tool to use when giving presentations. Stories help build rapport with your listeners and make your presentations more engaging and memorable. They work whether you’re pitching a project to your boss, courting a new client, or giving a talk to an audience of hundreds.
Here’s how to do it:
- Structure your story in three parts: the setting, the problem, and the solution.
- Practice your story several times in front of friends and/or family members. Listen to their feedback, then refine the story until only the essential details remain.
- Tell the story in a conversational way - as if you were talking one-on-one to someone you know. If you use dialog, change your voice for each character.
- Remember to pause from time to time. Pausing heightens the expectation that something important is coming. It keeps your listeners’ attention.
- At the end of the story, restate the point you’re making to be sure it’s understood.
By using stories as part of your presentations, you’ll engage your audiences, forge a connection with them, and make sure your points stick with them long after the presentation is over.
[Ed. Note: Virginia Avery is a communications specialist who has trained thousands of individuals to make more dynamic presentations. Become more confident and persuasive in just two days with her Presenting Yourself Professionally workshop November 1 and 2. See www.AveryPresentations.com for details.]
The Most Important Supplement You Will Ever Take?
Magnesium could quite possibly be the most important nutritional supplement you will ever take. Without it, you can’t produce adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP), the substance that every cell in your body ultimately uses for energy.
Magnesium has a huge impact on healthy heart function. Deficiencies of this mineral have been implicated in hypertension, atherosclerosis, cardiac arrhythmia, and deadly heart attacks. Low magnesium intake has also been linked to diabetes, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, cramping, and exaggerated harmful responses to stress.
Clearly, magnesium is one nutrient you definitely do not want to skimp on - but that’s exactly what most people do. A survey by the Centers for Disease Control found that most American adults have a woefully inadequate magnesium intake. Per day, on average, Caucasian men get only 352 mg, African-American men get only 278 mg, Caucasian women get only 256 mg, and African-American women get only 202 mg. These amounts are well below the minimal recommended daily allowance of magnesium - 420 mg for men and 320 mg for women.
Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, halibut, tomato paste, spinach, artichokes, cashews, and almonds are some of the foods that are high in magnesium. But the best way to ensure optimal intake is with supplements. Avoid the oxide form of magnesium, as it is poorly absorbed by the body. Instead, use magnesium citrate, aspartate, chloride, or malate. My personal favorite is nigari, a Japanese seawater extract that is rich in magnesium chloride. Mix the nigari with water and drink it throughout the day.
Gradually increase your daily dose of magnesium until you notice a loosening of your stools. When this occurs, decrease the dosage slightly and maintain.
[Ed. Note: Anthony Colpo is an independent researcher, physical conditioning specialist, and author of the groundbreaking books The Fat Loss Bible and The Great Cholesterol Con. For more information, visit www.thefatlossbible.net or www.thegreatcholesterolcon.com. You can also read Anthony’s articles in ETR’s free natural health e-letter.]
It’s Good to Know: Online Archives
Thanks to the Internet, serious research is no longer limited to time-consuming and tedious searches through dusty library shelves and deteriorating microfilm. Below are a few online archives of historical documents that can help you, whether you’re researching geography, languages, or old news stories.
- davidrumsey.com - The David Rumsey Map Collection has more than 15,000 historical maps.
- rosettaproject.org - The Rosetta Project is an archive of all human languages.
- News.google.com/archivesearch - The Google News archive allows you to search through past copies of newspapers and magazines.
- Images.jsc.nasa.gov/index.html - This is a NASA-sponsored collection of more than 9,000 press release images (including astronaut portraits and action photos from their missions) spanning the entire manned space program.
(Source: Lifehacker)
Give Yourself a Nice Pay Raise - And A Three Day Weekend, Every Weekend
By the end of this week, you can give yourself a pay raise. How does an extra $20/hr sound… and schedule a few days vacation while you’re at it!
After a month or two, how about another raise… to $2,000 a week.
It’s happening everywhere. Ordinary people — including folks who never finished school — starting their own businesses… and making side incomes in the neighborhood of $40,000… $60,000… even $100,000 or more a year.
They’re living the American Dream. Now it’s time for you to start living it too. Click here to continue…
- Charlie Byrne
Word to the Wise: Derring-do
"Derring-do" (DER-ing DOO) - from the Middle English "dorrying don" (daring to do) - is brave, heroic, or reckless action.
Example (as used by Virginia Heffernan in a New York Times review of the PBS documentary "Orozco: Man of Fire"): "Mural painting requires derring-do, or at least permits and scaffolding, in contrast to oil painting or novel writing."
[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