Issue #2664
- WEALTHY: Keeping your investment in top shape without spending a bundle (Julie Broad)
- HEALTHY: A little-lauded fruit to add to your meal plan (Jonny Bowden)
- WISE: Michael Masterson on getting something for nothing
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Giving away “Golden Nuggets” (Paul Lawrence)
- Did they say it – and if so, what did they say? (Don Hauptman)
- It’s Fun to Know… about paper money
- Add “deign” to your vocabulary
== Highly Recommended ==
A “Dumb” Way to Make Money Online
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And then repeat this process over and over. There’s no limit to how often you can keep pushing a button that can keep fattening your bank account. This is for real and 100% verifiable. To see for yourself, click here…
Real Estate 101: 3 Ways to Reduce Costs of Property Repairs
By Julie Broad
Holding good rental properties for the long term is virtually guaranteed to build your wealth. But unexpected repairs can quickly deplete your positive cash flow if you don’t take steps to minimize those expenses.
One of the best ways to keep costs down is to do the repairs and maintenance yourself – which, of course, goes for your own home too. That works … unless you don’t have the time or necessary skills. In those cases, you’ll have to hire someone to do the work.
Here’s how to do it – and avoid ugly surprises:
1. Get at least three quotes.
Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to get in touch with people to ask for a quote. So it’s tempting to get just one and quit. Don’t do it! We recently had to repair a water-damaged ceiling in one of our units. The first quote was $1,500. We got three other quotes for $600, $1,800, and $3,400. By not stopping with the $1,500 quote we were able to save $900.
2. Keep in mind that the lowest quote is not always the best one.
Ask for references and find out exactly what’s included in the quote. Many times a higher price actually turns out to be the best option because it comes from someone with a better reputation, includes everything, and has a good warranty. In the above example of the ceiling repair, the $600 quote was from an excellent contractor who had worked for us before.
3. Overestimate the cost and time it will take.
We’ve yet to hire someone to do a job where the final cost wasn’t more than we’d expected. In the example of the ceiling repair, once they pulled the drywall down they found a layer of plaster and no insulation. It ended up costing $1,200 – still less than the first quote we got for $1,500 (which likely would have ended up being more), but double what we expected to pay.
The savviest real estate investors I know agree that you should get multiple quotes and add at least 50 percent to each estimate. Do your due diligence on the contractor and the work process involved, and you’ll end up with a lot more money in your pocket.
[Ed. Note: Real estate expert Julie Broad can show you how to create your own million-dollar real estate portfolio with her new program. Find out how to get hands-on coaching and step-by-step instruction right here.]
“Give it to them free. If they like it, they will pay to get more.”
Michael Masterson
The Golden Nugget Formula for Skyrocketing Your Sales
I am a big fan of the information publishing business. It doesn’t take much in the way of capital to get started, and you need no special training. Better yet, as an info publisher I regularly enjoy 90 percent profit margins.
Today, I want to share with you the powerful “Golden Nugget” formula I use to bring in sales.
Many businesses give away samples to entice prospective customers into buying. Walk through any food court in the mall or department store perfume aisle and you’ll usually see employees handing out freebies.
According to an Arbitron “Product Sampling Study,” this can lead to a big boost in sales. Thirty-five percent of the study participants reported buying a product the same day they sampled it. Even more impressive, 58 percent said they would buy the product that they’d sampled in the future.
Giving away free samples is also effective in the information publishing business. In a way, it works even better for information marketers than it does for retailers and restaurants. That’s because you can give away your samples for next to nothing.
By e-mailing information to interested prospects or making it available on your website, you can disseminate Golden Nuggets to interested prospects at virtually no cost. Plus, you don’t have to pay an employee to stand there and hand them out.
For example, one info product I market is an instructional DVD program that teaches English to Latinos. On the website for this product, I have a link that prospects can click on to watch a free three-minute lesson. To have access to the link, all they have to do is sign in with their e-mail address.
Once I have their e-mail address, I add them to my e-mail list. And once a week, I
e-mail a free mini-lesson that teaches some new vocabulary words to everyone on that list.
All of this helps drive sales of the instructional program. From the taste they get, prospects can see that it is full of useful information. Plus, because I’m giving them so many Golden Nuggets for free, they can’t help but feel obligated to reciprocate in some way. (It’s human nature.) And what better way to reciprocate than by buying the program?
Here are the steps I recommend for giving away Golden Nuggets:
Step 1: Identify bits and pieces of information that you can pull out of your info product to give to your prospects.
These Golden Nuggets should be valuable and useful. But you don’t want to give away so much that they decide they don’t need to buy the product. You just want to whet their appetite for more.
Take iTunes. You can listen to a short clip for free. But to hear the entire song, you need to buy it.
Step 2: Determine how you’ll get those Golden Nuggets to your prospects.
I find that the best way to provide the sample is the same way as I provide the information in the product. For example, if I am marketing an audio program that teaches how to make money as a public speaker, I’d do it with an audio clip.
You can have the links to the nuggets on your website – but, in my experience, you’ll get a better response if you e-mail them directly to your prospects. (Remember, in order to do that you must get them to sign up or opt in to your e-mail list.) In the body of the e-mail, I’ll write a short paragraph telling them why the information I’m giving them is so valuable. For instance, when I send a free mini-lesson for my instructional DVD program, I might say something like “If you live in America and want to fit in, it’s really important to speak English. Just click on the link below to get today’s free lesson.”
If the nuggets are in a small file (like a text document), you can just have the prospect download it. If they’re in a large audio or video file, it’s better to create a link that they can click and immediately start watching or listening. Any competent Web programmer can do this for you.
Step 3. Measure the results.
I’m willing to bet the Golden Nuggets strategy will help you greatly increase the sales of your info products. Still, though it is low-cost in terms of dollars, it can cost time and energy to implement. So keep good records – and monitor your results to make sure the extra revenue it brings in is worth it to you.
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is a successful entrepreneur and business author who publishes more than 20 information products. For details on his program "How to Get Rich With Information Publishing," click this link.
Information publisher or not, if you're not marketing your products online, you're missing out on massive potential sales. For 12 "profit acceleration" secrets that could add millions to your bottom line, click here.]
Ready to Recoup Your Recession Losses By 9/30/09?
I don’t know about you, but I’d barely trust Wall Street and the Big Banks with the 63 dollars in my wallet right now, never mind my IRA, 401(k), and life savings!
That’s why thousands of smart Americans are now taking matters into their own hands and quietly moving their savings and portfolio “off” Wall Street… to a far safer and more profitable place I call “Liberty Street”.
One “Liberty Street” investment of as little as $1,000 has the realistic ability to quickly swell into a full year’s salary in just a few weeks’ time – and then repeat over and over again.
Another “Liberty Street” opportunity is currently offering the chance to gain year-in and year-out returns of 65% with 99.77% certainty – even in today’s economy.
The Undiscovered Superfood
By Jonny Bowden
With all the hoopla over drinks made with “superfoods” like acai, goji, and noni, we forget that some of the best superfoods on the planet are right under our noses. Better yet, they don’t cost an arm and a leg (like some of those overpriced juices).
The latest superfood to emerge is – get ready for this – plums.
Food scientist Dr. Luis Cisneros and plant breeder David Byrne judged more than 100 varieties of plums, peaches, and nectarines, and found that their antioxidant and phytonutrient content matched (or even exceeded) that of highly rated blueberries. According to Byrne, one inexpensive plum contains about the same amount of antioxidants as a handful of blueberries.
“People tend to eat just a few blueberries at a time – a few on their cereal or as an ingredient mixed with lots of sugar,” Cisneros said. “But people will eat a whole plum at once and get the full benefit.”
The researchers didn’t stop after measuring the considerable antioxidant content of plums – which, by the way, has been noted in other studies. (Plums consistently score near the top of the list of high-antioxidant foods.) They also tested the effect of the phytonutrients in the fruit on breast cancer cells – and found that they inhibited in vitro (test tube) breast cancer growth without adversely affecting normal cell growth.
“We suggest that consumers take seriously the recommendation to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables – or even more – every day,” Byrne said, “and to make sure that plums are part of that.”
[Ed. Note: For more information about natural methods that can improve your health - and help keep your weight down - check out nutrition expert Jonny Bowden's website, JonnyBowden.com. And for a free source of expert advice about what you should and shouldn't be eating, sign up for ETR's natural health e-newsletter.]
The Language Perfectionist: More Misquotations
By Don Hauptman
In one of my ETR columns last year, I set the record straight regarding a bunch of familiar quotations that are routinely garbled or misattributed, including “There’s a sucker born every minute,” which P.T. Barnum didn’t say.
There are lots more out there, so let’s look at another batch:
• “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”
This inspirational quote wasn’t coined by Vince Lombardi but by Harry “Red” Sanders (1905-1958), another football coach. Lombardi took the sentiment seriously; Sanders evidently viewed it as ironic and humorous.
• “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Edmund Burke? Nope. This admirable statement doesn’t appear in his writings. No one knows who came up with it.
• Winston Churchill is often credited with this maxim: “Make no small plans.”
The correct wording is: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood….” The author was Daniel H. Burnham (1846-1912), a prominent architect who was the driving force behind the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and helped rebuild the city after the 1871 fire.
• A second marriage is “the triumph of hope over experience.”
This witticism is often attributed to Oscar Wilde, who did borrow and tweak it. But it was originally crafted by Samuel Johnson (1705-1784) a century earlier.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
It’s Fun to Know: About Paper Money
• No trees are harmed in the making of U.S. currency. Bills are 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen.
• Counterfeiting devices are becoming more and more high-tech. To thwart them, the latest $5 bill has a security thread with 650,000 microscopic glass domes that create an optical illusion that cannot be copied (at least that’s what experts tell us).
• A 2008 study found more cocaine residue on U.S. bills than on any other world currency. (The researchers also found a significant amount of staphylococcus bacteria and fecal matter.)
(Source: Discover Magazine)
== Highly Recommended ==
Are You Embarrassed of What You Do for a Living – or Just Tired of Doing It?
One woman was both, and while her “acquaintances” at a dinner party snickered and poked fun, she had the last laugh. In as little as two weeks she started a new business for less than $99, soon had to hire additional employees to handle the work, and now lives a life without money worries of any kind.
Here’s how you can do the same, even easier and faster than she did.
Word to the Wise: Deign
To “deign” (DANE) – from the Latin for “to regard as worthy” – is to condescend.
Example (as used by Jay McInerney in Model Behavior): “Not until I pour vodka on his shirt does he deign to acknowledge my existence.”
[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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