Issue #2608
- WEALTHY: How to prevent 90% of your beginner real estate investing mistakes (Julie Broad)
- HEALTHY: 5 foods that keep your acid levels low (Kelley Herring)
- WISE: Walt Disney on attracting repeat business
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- You don’t need to be a movie star to have a “following” (Craig Ballantyne)
- Are you guilty of this destructive work habit? (Michael Masterson)
- It’s Fun to Know… about the bus-sized snake
- Add “blandishment” to your vocabulary
== Highly Recommended ==
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The First Step to Becoming a Millionaire Real Estate Investor
By Julie Broad
Thanks to real estate investing, I no longer have to work full-time. If I want to go hiking in the mountains with my dog in the middle of the day, I can. If my husband and I want to pop up to Whistler to ski, we do it mid-week to avoid the crowds.
That’s now. But when we were just starting out as real estate investors, we had some serious missteps. We were fined in court for fire code violations, a property manager stole rent money, we got unwanted publicity in a newspaper as “absentee owners of local crackhouse,” and we lost money on a property in one of the hottest housing markets in history.
We made some horrible mistakes – but 90 percent of them were completely preventable had we followed the advice I’m going to give you today: Know where you want to go before you start.
Ask yourself:
• Is it more important to you to find a property that doesn’t cost you money or one that doesn’t cost you time?
• Do you want to make repairs?
• Are you interested in investing for the long term or the short term?
• What is your risk tolerance?
• Do you want real estate to be your primary source of income?
• How much money can you (do you want to) dedicate to real estate versus other investments?
• What’s your current credit score?
• What’s your current financial situation?
Being clear on what you want to put in and what you expect to get out of your investments is the first step. It gives you clarity on your next steps. It also helps you avoid the reckless mistakes we made. Had we set realistic goals and taken steps toward those goals, we never would have purchased the properties that led to all the drama we experienced as newbie investors.
[Ed. Note: For more insider strategies for getting started as a real estate investor, sign up for real estate expert Julie Broad's free monthly newsletter. Get your free report for making money with real estate here.
Real estate is a great way to make money - even in this economy. But it's just one of many strategies you can use to reel in big profits. Learn how to get your hands on over $17.3 million in moneymaking ideas right here.]
“Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.”
Walt Disney
How to Build Your Entourage and Create More Loyal Customers Than Ever Before
People like to hang around winners. People want respect, recognition, and rewards. They want to be part of a group – a group that is exclusive and exciting. That’s the foundation of what I call “Entourage Marketing.”
An entourage is a group of devoted fans – in this context, an elite group of VIP customers who love your products (and buy them frequently), customers who appreciate your message, admire you, trust you, and want to be associated with you. Entourage Marketing is all about attracting these people to your online business and creating strong relationships with them.
The Top 10 Ways to Build Your Entourage
1. Create Your Own Fame
No one is going to stand up and applaud for you. You have to take action and start making a splash. So choose a niche market – a sub-group of folks who share a common interest – and “crown” yourself as their leader.
To choose your niche market, first identify your unique ability, passion, or area of expertise. Then prepare your message and deliver it to the people who will be interested in what you have to say.
At the same time, accept the fact that you can’t please everyone. The sooner you understand that not everyone is going to love you, and that some folks will even criticize you, the better you will be at creating your own fame.
2. Be a Leader
In any group, one person will always stand out and be just a half-step ahead of the rest. It’s this leader people want to be associated with.
Leaders are even more important during times of financial trouble, when folks are scared to make decisions on their own. They look to someone who has the courage to act, the guts to take risks, and the nerve to stand up to criticism. These are the characteristics that set leaders apart from followers.
Identify the key factors that separate you from your competition and start telling the world about it! Be a leader. Take charge. No one is going to do it for you. You have to stand up and deliver on your own.
3. Dream BIG
The folks in your entourage will look up to you for guidance. They want to dream big and have great things happen to them, but their fears and worries prevent them from taking action. It is up to you to do that for them.
To dream big, you must associate with the right folks, so join mastermind and peer groups that challenge you and get you outside of your comfort zone. Imagine sitting around a boardroom table with all of your business and intellectual heroes. Imagine surrounding yourself with the top advisors in your industry. That’s what it’s like when you associate with people who are smarter than you.
4. Do More Public Speaking
Every time you’ve attended a seminar, haven’t you noticed that each and every speaker, no matter how good they are, draws a crowd after their presentation?
Simply by stepping on stage and speaking, you become an expert, and that draws people to you. You become the leader. You are branded a celebrity. It’s a great way to build an entourage. You can also use teleseminars and webinars to build your entourage, but nothing beats speaking in person.
Start small, even if it means speaking to just three or four people in your office. Then move up to groups of five, 10, 15, 20 people and more.
People want to be inspired and motivated by what you have to say. If you operate your business almost exclusively online, they want to see you in person. Speaking establishes you as a real person with a genuine desire to educate and help.
5. Share Personal Details
Nothing resonates stronger with your entourage than sharing your personal struggles. While they want a leader and someone they can trust, they also want to follow someone who has had struggles of his own. The more you can tell them about what makes you tick, and the more insights you can give them into your life, the deeper they will connect with you and the more they will admire you.
Tell your entourage the deep truth about who you are and what you do. Share stories about what led you to where you are in life right now. Step out of the shadows. Don’t hold anything back.
You may remember that Alex Mandossian talked about this in his article “Are You Open With Your Marketing Interactions?”
6. Use Social Networking to Grow the Conversation With Your Entourage
There are dozens of Internet strategies you can use to build your entourage, but the most important rule to remember is to treat your readers like friends. When using social networking tools like Twitter, for example, your goal is to connect with them and add them into your entourage by conversing with them, rather than with hard selling.
7. Give Recognition to Your Best Customers
Eventually, you’ll want to bring your best customers into a paid membership website or paid monthly newsletter. This is where you can give this elite group of VIPs exclusive deals and information that they can’t get anywhere else.
You want to give the folks at this level “bragging rights” by letting them know – and letting others know – that they are the only ones who have such close, personal access to you.
8. Create Multiple Products
As your entourage grows, you must continue to create additional products for them. In fact, it’s likely that your ability to create products will never keep up with their ability to consume them. They will want as much of you as you can possibly deliver.
You should create products in all media, from MP3s to YouTube videos to teleseminars to physical products to information products. For ideas on how to expand this “back-end” product line, check out Michael Masterson’s article “Special Opportunities for Your VIP Customers.”
9. Allow Members to Ascend to Higher Levels of the Tribe
Even within your entourage, members will look for more rewards and recognition. There will always be some who will be willing to pay more money for more access to you. Expect up to 5 percent of your entourage to be “stars” who will buy at the top, no matter what you offer.
Your business should include multiple front-end offers to get new members into your entourage… then back-end offers to satisfy their appetite for more of your products… and, finally, personal coaching, the ultimate opportunity for them to have access to you.
10. Create Live “Entourage Appreciation” Events to Encourage the Group to Connect With Each Other
Occasionally host a weekend seminar for your VIPs – a premium-priced event where you bring together hundreds of people, elevate their sense of community and superiority, and encourage them to connect with each other.
Taking the above 10 steps will help you build a true entourage. And when you have that group of eager customers who love you and your message, you’ll have a powerful business that can thrive in any economy.
[Ed. Note: Craig Ballantyne - in addition to being a master Internet marketer - is a fitness expert. Check out his Turbulence Training program, which can show you how to get fit and toned with just three 45-minute workouts a week.]
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Don’t Fall Victim to Office Gossip
Office gossip is like junk food: You can pretend you don’t like it, you can even publicly denounce it, still you know you can’t completely resist it.
But try. Like so many things in life, office gossip is a temporary indulgence with long-lasting, undesirable side effects. For one thing, it damages team spirit. This is no small cost if you are concerned with team productivity. For another thing, it demeans your stature. Even your co-conspirators will think less of you for doing what they themselves know they shouldn’t do. If you consider the kinds of activities you can engage in at work, this falls into the lowest category. It’s not only unproductive, it’s destructive.
Make yourself this promise today: Gradually you will indulge less in this bad habit. Start by desisting from gossiping yourself. The next step is to maintain a neutral position when someone brings it to you. The ultimate step is to be able to discretely change the subject without seeming like a wet blanket. If you find you’re having trouble watching your tongue, try this: The next time someone attempts to get you to join him in badmouthing a colleague or employee, imagine that your comments are being broadcast to the entire company through a speaker system. Speak as closely to the truth as you can, but try not to say anything that you wouldn’t say in front of everybody.
[Ed. Note: The above was adapted from Michael Masterson's book Power and Persuasion. Pick up your copy to discover the keys to mastering the universal rules of success and unlocking your personal and professional power.]
Get Back to Basics
Do you remember using litmus paper in science class to test the pH of a liquid? You’d dip the strip into a solution of lemon juice or baking soda and see if it was acidic or basic.
But a better use for that litmus paper may be to test your pH.
Without the proper acid/alkaline balance, enzymes don’t work, oxygen delivery to cells suffers, and the body struggles to complete vital biochemical processes.
The culprit? Our modern diet.
Our meals are packed with acid-forming foods – especially sugars and refined grains, along with too much meat. And we eat too few alkaline-forming fresh foods – greens, vegetables, and fruits.
Get back to basics by aiming for at least 60 percent of your meals to be fresh and unprocessed, packed with these foods:
• Greens
• Sprouts
• Cruciferous veggies
• Citrus fruits (especially lemons)
• Fermented veggies (like sauerkraut)
[Ed. Note: One of the best ways to stay healthy and live longer is to eat good foods. Nutrition expert Kelley Herring has collected dozens of her healthiest and most delicious recipes in her e-book Guilt Free Desserts. Pick up your copy today.]
For more advice on which foods you should – and shouldn’t – be eating to stay in top health, sign up for ETR’s free natural health newsletter.]
It’s Fun to Know: The Bus-Sized Snake
Scientists working in Colombia have discovered the fossilized remains of a snake that was 43 feet long and weighed nearly a ton. If you were standing next to it, it would come up to your hip.
The fossil, known as Titanboa, dates back 60 million years. Researchers speculate that the snake lived in a tropical rainforest. It was discovered in an open-pit coalmine, one of the largest in the world.
(Source: Agence France-Presse)
== Highly Recommended ==
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Word to the Wise: Blandishment
“Blandishment” (BLAN-dish-munt) – from the Latin for “to flatter” – is speech or action that flatters and tends to coax, entice, or persuade. The word is often used in the plural.
Example (as used by Anne Rice in Vittorio the Vampire): “And that my English-speaking victims find my blandishments so pretty, accented as they are, and yield to my soft lustrous Italian pronunciations, is a constant source of bliss for me.”
[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.]
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2009
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