Issue #2675
- WEALTHY: A powerful alternative to buy-and-hold investing (Ted Peroulakis)
- HEALTHY: Is this the cause of the autism epidemic? (Melanie Segala)
- WISE: Jack Canfield on asking for what you want
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- What Hershey and McDonald’s know about making sales (Bob Bly)
- Some things to consider AFTER you’re making money (Jason Holland)
- It’s Good to Know… about the supermarket health clinic
- Add “prink” to your vocabulary
== Highly Recommended ==
Don’t Miss Your Chance to Make $16,000 to $20,000+ a Month
Legendary copywriter and marketer Bob Bly has amassed multiple millions in the past 30 years… he made over $700,000 just last year, as our economy began to collapse… and he’s authored over 70 books – many of them best sellers.
He’s agreed to share his top strategies for earning extra cash with Early to Rise readers.
Tonight at 12:00 midnight sharp, we are going to release Bob’s step-by-step instructions for how to prosper during these difficult economic times.
He’s revealing exactly how anyone can…
- Earn 20 times more per hour than you do now, starting almost instantly…
- Write an email in five minutes that could give you nearly 5 figures in profits in a week…
- Generate thousands of dollars in NEW online revenues per week…
- Use a shockingly easy “hidden logic” method that can produce 25% – 50% more sales…
- And much MUCH more.
At midnight tonight, you can get your hands on the very same powerful secrets for skyrocketing your current income.
Keep reading ETR for all the exciting details.
Get More Bang for Your Buck With E-Minis
Conventional buy-and-hold stock investing is not working in today’s market. Trading E-Minis is a great alternative, because you can take full advantage of the market’s volatility.
You can easily make money in a market that is going up or down. You can, for example, make a bundle if you go “long” or buy an E-Mini contract and the market goes up. And if you go “short” or sell an E-Mini contract, you can just as easily make money when the market goes down. This adds an entirely new dimension of opportunity for investors.
An E-Mini is an electronically traded futures contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) that represents a smaller version of a standard futures contract. E-Mini contracts are available on the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, S&P MidCap 400, and Russell 2000 indices. One example: The E-Mini S&P 500 futures contract is one-fifth the size of the standard S&P 500 futures contract.
E-Minis have a low margin requirement, which makes trading them easy and affordable. You can get started for as little as $500 per contract. And because standard stock and index options currently have high premiums due to market volatility, your leverage and profit potential is higher with E-Minis.
E-Minis allow investors with small amounts of risk capital to participate in the Dow and S&P 500 at a fraction of the cost of purchasing the actual stocks outright. You would have to pay thousands of dollars in commissions alone to buy all the stocks in the S&P 500, for example. But by buying an E-Mini S&P 500 futures contract, you can participate in all those stocks for a commission of less than $10!
Bottom line: Start trading E-Minis if you’re looking for an exciting, highly versatile, efficient, and economical way to capitalize on the daily swings in the stock market.
[Ed. Note: Ted Peroulakis is a writer and analyst with Investor's Daily Edge (IDE), ETR's sister publication. Find out more today.
The best way to learn the ins and outs of trading (and making huge gains with) E-Minis is with the Velocity Strategy, developed by IDE editor Rick Pendergraft. Using this simple strategy, he was able to make 99.15 percent gains in 2008. Learn more here.]
“If you are not moving closer to what you want in sales (or in life), you probably aren’t doing enough asking.”
Jack Canfield
What Products and Services Sell Best in a Recession?
By Bob Bly
What products and services sell best in a recession?
Hint: This is not a trick question. The answer is the one that immediately popped into your head when I asked it.
Before you started over-analyzing this…
The products and services that sell best in a recession are the cheaper ones. That’s right – the ones that cost less.
I recently read in a biography of Milton Hershey that he believed his business was recession-proof and depression-proof because he sold an affordable product. He reasoned that, even if a person couldn’t afford new shoes or a new car or a vacation, they could always afford a nickel for a Hershey’s chocolate bar. (That was the price in those days.)
Milton Hershey was right.
According to an article in Ad News, as the economy continued to tank in the fourth quarter of 2008, the Hershey company increased its advertising budget by 23 percent. And as consumers switched from expensive premium chocolates they no longer felt they could afford to Hershey’s, the company’s net income for the fourth quarter of 2008 rose 51 percent to $82 million.
Similarly, with the restaurant business in its worst slump since 1991, McDonald’s worldwide sales rose 7.1 percent in January 2009. Diners may not be able to afford steak anymore, but they can still afford a Big Mac.
I have found the same thing – consumer preference for lower-priced goods and services during an economic downturn – to hold true for the two little businesses I run: information marketing and freelance copywriting.
In my online publishing business, my low-priced products are e-books selling in the $19 to $79 range. My mid-range products are DVD and audio CD albums selling in the $100 to $150 range. And my high-end products are multimedia programs selling in the $300 to $1,000 range.
In recent months, my customers have clearly been telling me that (a) they are worried about money, (b) they really appreciate my reasonable prices, and (c) for now, they prefer offers for low-priced products.
They are not asking for special discounts or “recession sales.” They just want me to focus on offering products that sell for under $100, which seems to be the magic recession-proof price point for my market.
Whenever I advertise mid-range or high-priced products to my customer list, I always get at least one e-mail from a reader telling me she wants to buy the product… but can’t because she has lost her job!
If you are an information marketer, I suggest that, rather than fighting this trend, you accommodate your customers by:
• Expanding your product line, especially with the lower-priced products (like e-books).
• Offering your readers more free content (such as special reports and teleseminars).
• Bundling products into packages that enable customers to get related materials at handsome discounts (e.g., buy two e-books, get the third one free).
I am also finding that offering low-priced service options works for my freelance copywriting business.
To make $10,000 as a freelancer, you can either do one $10,000 project or five $2,000 projects. These days, I am doing a lot more $2,000 projects for clients who want to continue their marketing but are focused on controlling costs.
For instance, I am saving my clients money by helping them do more marketing online and a bit less offline. We are also using marketing methods that can be tested at minimal cost before rolling out the campaigns (e.g., small test mailings of 1,000 instead of 10,000).
One thing that has worked especially well is a new service bundle I call the “Starter Package.”
Normally, I charge $500 an hour for consulting. With a 10-hour minimum, payable in full in advance, that works out to $5,000 – affordable in normal times, not so affordable during an economic crisis. With the Starter Package, I offer new clients 90 minutes of my time for a flat fee of $750.
There’s no reduction in my hourly rate. I merely allow people to start working with me for a lower initial commitment.
I picked 90 minutes deliberately. Not only is it enough time to give prospects a taste of how my advice and copy can benefit them, but it comes in at a price point under $1,000. And that is within the comfort zone of a new client who doesn’t know me all that well.
More important, the Starter Package shows prospects that I empathize with their desire to cut back on spending and have designed a service to accommodate their smaller budgets.
Interestingly, what usually happens is that, after reviewing the Starter Package offer, prospects call me to get a quote for the full service they really want. And more often than not, that’s what they choose to go with.
So while I don’t actually do a lot of copywriting and consulting under the Starter Package arrangement, it makes prospects more comfortable with me as a vendor who respects their budget concerns and limitations. And that’s been keeping my freelance business active and profitable.
[Ed. Note: Bob Bly is a freelance copywriter and the author of more than 70 books. To subscribe to his free e-zine, The Direct Response Letter, and claim your free gift worth $116, click here now.
It IS possible to make sales during a recession. As Bob Bly explained, you need to know what to sell... but you also need to know HOW to sell. Tomorrow morning, we're unveiling a brand-new power-packed program that will give you everything you need to become a master of ultra-profitable sales. Keep an eye on your inbox for this limited-time opportunity.]
Your “Off Wall Street” Cash Recovery Plan
Thousands of smart Americans just like you are no longer waiting for Obama, Wall Street or their employers for salvation from the recession.
Instead, they’re now taking matters into their own hands by quietly moving portions of their money into previously hidden high-profit investments “off Wall Street”.
One stake of as little as $1,000 has the realistic ability to quickly swell into a full year’s salary in as just a few weeks’ time – and then repeat over and over again.
Another is currently offering the chance to gain year-in and year-out returns of 65% with 99.77% certainty – even in today’s economy.
When Working on Your Business… Isn’t Actually Working
When starting a small business, your first steps should be researching your target market, developing a marketing plan, and testing offers. In other words, taking action to turn your business idea into a real business by making sure you can sell your products at a profit.
Unfortunately, many first-time entrepreneurs let their anxiety about such things as tax codes, website security, and the right corporate structure sidetrack them into spending all their time on endless rounds of research.
Sure those things become important, but only after your business is up and running. And once the business is actually making money, you can afford to hire professionals (an attorney, accountant, Web designer, etc.) to worry about them for you.
It may seem like you are working on your business while you are trying to figure these things out for yourself. But as MaryEllen Tribby, ETR’s publisher and CEO, points out (often in her “tough love” comments to attendees at our conferences):
“Instead of helping you get ahead, these things could actually be preventing you from achieving the success you want.
“Whenever you think you MUST do something to help get your business started, ask yourself, ‘Will this help me achieve my marketing goals?’ If the answer is no, it may not be worth worrying about it.”
[Ed. Note: With ETR's 5 Days in July business-building conference, you may not learn much about advertising laws or accounting practices. But you WILL get a comprehensive education in starting your own profit-producing Internet business. Get the details here.]
Just Say No to Sweet Poison
As bad as too much sugar is for you, its cousin is even worse. I’m speaking, of course, about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the sugary goo that’s been added to soft drinks, salad dressings, cakes, cookies, and cereals for over 30 years. The darling of food manufacturers everywhere, HFCS made its debut as the ideal solution for extending the shelf life and reducing the cost of producing commercially sweetened foods.
While it might have been a magic bullet for manufacturers and retailers, it’s been a bullet of a very different kind for consumers. According to nutrition expert Jonny Bowden, writing in Total Health Breakthroughs, HFCS comes with a veritable laundry list of associated health risks, including raising triglycerides and LDL cholesterol, reducing insulin sensitivity, and causing dangerous intra-abdominal fat (the kind that’s a precursor to heart disease).
Not enough to make you think twice? Here’s another frightening twist: mercury contamination!
Mercury can damage the heart, kidneys, nervous system, and immune system. In pregnant women, mercury can cross the placenta and affect the neurological development of the fetus. (Is it any wonder we’re seeing so many cases of autism and ADHD?)
The latest news regarding the dangers of HFCS came to light in late January when several news outlets published the results of two eye-opening studies. In the first study, it was reported that, in 2005, an FDA scientist tested 20 commercial products containing HFCS and found that nine were positive for mercury. If that wasn’t bad enough, the FDA, asleep on the job as usual, did not release these dangerous findings to the public until recently.
In the second study, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), a non-profit watchdog group, analyzed 55 commercial products containing HFCS that were purchased in the fall of 2008. They found that nearly 1 in 3 of the foods and beverages it tested contained mercury.
At this point you might be wondering what a toxic heavy metal has to do with high-fructose corn syrup. Was it an accident or shoddy manufacturing practices that caused mercury to be found in these foods? No. In creating the corn syrup, a mercury reagent is typically used with a caustic soda to separate corn starch from the kernel. In the process, the mercury cells can contaminate the caustic soda, which is then transferred to the corn syrup.
A spokesperson for the Corn Refiners Association claims that the industry has not used mercury reagents in the manufacturing of HFCS for several years and the study is therefore outdated. But can that really be true if the products tested in the second study were purchased off the shelf by IATP in 2008?
And even so, that feeble excuse cannot reverse the damage done to countless Americans who unknowingly ingested mercury-contaminated food for 30 or more years, clogged their arteries, and possibly affected the neurological development of their unborn children.
What’s the takeaway advice here? It’s obvious. Get high-fructose corn syrup out of your diet. The health dangers are just too alarming to ignore. Don’t wait for the FDA or food manufacturers to do the right thing. If their track record is any indication, the wait will be a long one.
[Ed. Note: Melanie Segala is the Managing Editor of ETR's free health newsletter, Total Health Breakthroughs. You can learn more about food safety and natural health solutions from today's leading experts by subscribing now.]
It’s Good to Know: The Supermarket Health Clinic
Faced with chronically overcrowded emergency rooms (often filled with patients unable to pay), hospitals across the country are partnering with supermarkets, shopping malls, and drugstores to open walk-in clinics. Patients get access to physicians, as well as “back-up” hospital services (like lab testing). And they have to pay before being seen – either with cash or insurance.
Hospitals like the arrangement. Not only do they cut down on emergency room visits and get paid up front, they establish relationships with patients that can lead to future (and more lucrative) business.
Patients like it because they can get a side salad with their flu shot.
(Source: New York Times)
== Highly Recommended ==
Transform Your Life In Only 15 Minutes A Day!
Would you be willing to set aside 15 minutes a day if it meant you could…
- Pay off your credit card bills?
- Rebuild your financial portfolio?
- Buy or sell a house?
- Grow or start a business?
- Lose weight?
- Prepare for early retirement?
I thought so.
I’d like to show you exactly how you could dramatically increase your chances of achieving these (or other) goals in 2009.
Click here to continue…
Word to the Wise: Prink
To “prink” (PRINGK) – from the Middle English for “to show off” – is to dress for show; to primp.
Example (as used by Raffaella Barker in the Daily Telegraph): “Tara has supermodel legs and is already getting used to being prinked and coiffed as she prepares for her first beauty contest in the autumn.”
[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
Similar Articles:
- None Found
Extremely helpful. Thanks for sharing the Starter Pack. I think I will start using that as well for my cients.
Dr Joan
founder of The Miracle Makers Club
see how cancer is cured