* Highly
Recommended *
The
Billionaire Way
I
would recommend "The
Billionaire Way" program to anyone who is
contemplating a new enterprise or business start-up, or is
already in business for themselves. It enabled me to look at
my life, attributes, and habits in a refreshing new way. I
was delighted to discover that I too have a number of the traits
and qualities that many who are successful in business possess,
which I hadn't realized. I am very excited to apply the principles
that were presented in the program to my new business ventures.
A
tremendous benefit was to be able to talk with the author of
the program, Bob Cox, about my own business strategies and
ideas. Bob spent an hour on the phone with me after I finished
the program, and his personal insights and suggestions were
very helpful and inspiring.
I
know that I will often refer back to the information provided
in "The
Billionaire Way"
-
Catherine McNeil, Monte Vista, Colorado
ETR
Insider Report: an Interview With Marc Charles
By
Patrick Coffey
Marc
Charles has researched, reviewed, and dissected more than 1,000
businesses over the past 25 years. And he doesn't just talk
a good game, he puts his money where his mouth is. He's launched
dozens of profitable businesses himself.
He
prefers easy-to-start businesses that not only have tremendous
profit potential but also don't require inventories, buildings,
employees, lots of capital, or a huge learning curve.
No
wonder he's known as "the King of Business Opportunities."
That's
why we're so lucky to have Marc on our team. Every
week, he selects a business opportunity for subscribers to
ETR's Profit
Center Dispatch service.
I
wanted to know more about how he does what he does, so I caught
up with Marc over the weekend.
"I
use several criteria when selecting business opportunities
to cover in PCD," Marc
told me. "For one thing, the business must be easy enough
for just about anyone to start. Transporting nuclear waste
can be a profitable business venture ... but how easy would
it be for someone to start and run a business like that from
their back bedroom?"
Marc
went on to say, "I also look at the capital and inventory
requirements. In my experience, any business requiring a huge
inventory should be avoided by most start-up entrepreneurs.
In the digital age, there's no reason to have to stock a warehouse
full of products. On top of that, it's expensive."
Marc
likes businesses that can be run from anywhere in the world,
especially those that can be run on the Internet. In fact,
he recently helped his 14-year-old son launch a profitable
search engine optimization company that offers a unique "a
la carte" URL submission service.
But
he emphasized that there are hundreds of opportunities with
great profit potential that are not necessarily "digital." Two
that he mentioned are neighborhood used-car/repair shops and
specialty pawn shops (like QuikDrop.com).
Perhaps
the main thing he looks for is businesses with products or
services that are easy to sell. "As Michael Masterson
has pointed out time and time again," Marc said, "your
top priority when launching any new business is making that
first sale. If you know you can do that, you're already well
on your way to success."
[Ed.
Note: If you want to know more about the hot new business opportunities
Marc discovers, look into Profit
Center Dispatch.]
"Different
people bring out different aspects of one's personality."
-
Trevor Dunn
Matching
Mentors to Proteges
By
Michael Masterson
When
I read Porter Stansberry's recent article "Who
Do You Hire?", it brought to mind the
three men who have had the biggest effect on my career: PW,
JN, and BB. If you spent a year trying, you couldn't find three
more different personalities (four, if you count me).
PW
was a force of nature. Orphaned by World War II, he came to
America, wangled his way into the Ivy League, got a job as
a salesman for International Harvester, and through sheer force
of will sold $10 million worth of tractors to the Soviet Union
during the height of the Cold War.
He
made his way through life like a bull. He was at once charismatic
and frightening, intelligent yet loony. And you had to appreciate
his business genius, which was a sort of unexamined self-assurance
that he could accomplish anything. He had absolutely no capacity
for judging risk - and no interest in doing so either. When
he wanted something, he went after it. If anything was in his
way, it would get knocked over.
PW
was an amazing man to work for. He was half brilliant and half
nuts. For me, he was the perfect first mentor.
I've
been thinking about that lately. Why was I able to work so
well with this guy? Why was he able to work with me? What compromises
did each of us make - in terms of repressing our Alpha-male,
Type A instincts - in order to work together? How did we sense
that the results would be so good?
I've
written about my second mentor, JN, many times before. Like
PW, he was a very aggressive businessman. But unlike PW, he
was very much aware and in control of his behavior. JN always
knew exactly what he was doing. And although it wasn't apparent,
he carefully planned almost everything he did.
JN
was also charismatic, but he used his charm more sparingly
than PW did. His primary personality characteristic was overwhelming
intellectual and emotional intelligence. To most of his competitors
and many of his employees, he was intimidating. (And sometimes
with good reason. I have memories of JN screaming at who-knows-who
about who-knows-what behind the closed door of his office.)
JN
was, by far, the most gifted businessperson I have ever met.
But he sometimes used those gifts with force (perhaps because,
like PW, he had to pull himself out of childhood poverty).
Not
with me, though. To me, he was like a caring uncle.
From
the very first day we met, there was a certainty that we could
work very well together and make each other a lot of money.
There was something about the way our skills and habits (good
and bad) meshed that felt propitious.
My
third mentor, BB, wasn't a mentor in the traditional sense.
He wasn't older. He wasn't more experienced. So we began our
relationship as peers. But I learned as much from him as I
learned from PW or JN - and what I learned from him has been
at least as important in both generating wealth and learning
how to resist its corrupting potential.
BB
is as different from JN as JN was different from PW. Like my
other two mentors, he is highly intelligent. But unlike either
of them, he uses his intelligence to pull people to him, not
to push them around.
Where
PW was forceful, BB is gentle. Where JN was calculating, BB
is intuitive. In all the years I have worked with BB, I've
never seen him raise his voice or lose his temper. I've never
heard him say a mean thing to someone or about someone. When
he has troubles, he either keeps them to himself or he expresses
them carefully. He believes that he is responsible for the
actions and accidents of his life. They are not burdens that
can be shifted elsewhere.
He
is also someone who doesn't believe in managing people. He
prefers to surround himself with people who have something
to give and then let them do their thing. He has built a business
that is even more successful than the businesses PW and JN
built, but he's done so in a manner that is completely unique.
BB
and I are very different creatures. We look different. We speak
differently. We have entirely different personalities. But
like PW and JN, I connected with BB immediately. And like those
other key mentoring relationships, there was always an underlying,
commonly held understanding that we could help one another
succeed.
I
learned and benefited from these relationships, and I believe
they did too. Notwithstanding the successes they had all enjoyed
before joining up with me, the businesses we built together
were very good. In fact, with JN and BB, ours became their
best and most profitable ventures.
There
was something at work there. Some chemistry of personality
that spelled success.
And
I'm wondering that if my success - and their success - has
been so much due to linking up with the right partners ...
couldn't the same thing be true of other people?
Could
it be that the reason some people can't succeed is because
they don't have the ability to make the right personal connections?
And
what if that were true? Wouldn't that mean that the easiest
and fastest way to succeed is to simply find the right person
to partner with?
All
the hard work, study, and networking in the world just might
be useless unless you have the ability to figure out how to
do that.
I
want to do a study of this - find out if my theory is valid.
And if it is, I want to discover the key personality traits
that work together.
PW,
JN, and BB are probably the most obvious examples, but there
were many other people - colleagues, partners, employees, and
proteges - who made a big difference in my career. In fact,
a very significant portion of my passive income today comes
from those relationships
There
is nothing more rewarding than a relationship that works for
everyone involved. If I can learn the secret to finding those
relationships, I could help a lot more people enjoy success.
[Ed.
Note: We want to hear about the mentors who've made the biggest
impact on your business success. Did their personalities match
yours? Or were they wildly different? Tell us all about it
at ReaderFeedback@gmail.com.
Include your full name and hometown, and we may print your
e-mail in a future issue of ETR.]
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Battling
Bacteria in Unexpected Places
By
Will Newman
Bill
Rutala's job is to battle bacteria at hospitals and clinics
in the University of North Carolina's healthcare system. A
few years ago, his focus landed on computer keyboards - a common
source of bacterial exposure. And although most of these bacteria
are harmless, a few can cause problems.
After
a series of tests, Rutala found that cleaning keyboards with
a disinfecting wipe was the most effective way to eliminate
this health hazard. Even sterile water worked - but one class
of disinfectants (used in Sani-Cloth Plus, Cavi-Wipes, and
Clorox Disinfecting Wipes) kept bacteria from re-growing for
two days or more.
You
might want to pick up some of those wipes - especially if you
share your computer with other people.
[Ed.
Note: Will Newman is the editor of AWAI's The
Golden Thread
online newsletter - a free weekly alert loaded with writing and
marketing secrets, tips, and insights.]
It's
Good to Know: The Legend of the Jack O'Lantern
By
Suzanne Richardson
One
of my favorite memories of Halloweens past is hollowing out
huge pumpkins to make jack o'lanterns. We'd draw a scary face
on the tough orange hide, carve a lid out of the stem end,
and sort out seeds from the slimy pumpkin guts. (Pumpkin seeds,
lightly salted and roasted in the oven, make a tasty snack.)
Jack
o'lanterns aren't a recent addition to Halloween - though the
use of pumpkins to make them is. According to Celtic legend,
here's the story ...
A
blacksmith named Jack traded his soul to the devil in return
for being the master of his trade for seven years. Jack went
around bragging about his new skill, which prompted Saint Peter
and Jesus to pay him a visit to try to convince him to be more
humble. St. Peter offered him three wishes, hoping he would
use one of them to wish for eternal happiness in heaven. Instead,
Jack's first wish was that if someone climbed his pear tree,
the person would have to stay there until Jack allowed him
to come down. His other two wishes were similar (regarding
an armchair and his purse, both of which would trap a person
until Jack let him go).
When
the devil came after his soul, Jack used these wishes against
him. The trickery worked, and the devil fled, leaving Jack's
soul intact. But when Jack died, Saint Peter refused to let
him into heaven because his wishes had been so foolish. The
devil wouldn't let him into hell either.
As
the devil was closing the gates of hell, Jack scooped up some
burning coals in a turnip he'd been eating. He uses the glowing
turnip as a lantern to light his way as he wanders around,
searching for a place to rest his soul.
And
so, the quintessential symbol of Halloween, the jack o'lantern,
was originally made out of a turnip, a common Old World vegetable.
When the tradition arrived in America, turnips became pumpkins.
Voila! The modern-day jack o'lantern.
* Advertisement
*
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: Propitious
Something
that's "propitious" (pruh-PISH-us) presents favorable
circumstances or conditions.
Example
(as I used it today): "From the very first day we met,
there was a certainty that we could work very well together
and make each other a lot of money. There was something about
the way our skills and habits (good and bad) meshed that felt
propitious."
