Build Up Your New Business by Breaking It Down
Archives: Daily Issues
Issue #2110
- WEALTHY: Who gives a damn about 14,000? (Rick Pendergraft)
- HEALTHY: If a 64-year-old can do this, you can too (Jon Herring)
- WISE: Michael Masterson on testing
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Make even the most insurmountable tasks manageable (David Cross)
- How to protect your invention (Michael Masterson)
- It’s Fun to Know… about the 10 worst jobs in science
- Add "boulevardier" to your vocabulary
Revealed: Probably the Biggest Red Herring in History!
While the world’s been stock watching (and losing!), the elite quietly play a different game with different rules…
Feeling cheated and disillusioned by the stock market? Sure, you may have made a good trade here… but then lost on another. The people dutifully pour their hard-earned cash into investment banks to put into the stock market for them… and those investment banks gladly oblige, for a fat fee… which they invest somewhere else! I’m no conspiracy theorist, but in my opinion the stock market is really a diversion for the masses… a distraction from where the BIG and consistent money is made… in the world’s money mountain. And when I say “Money Mountain,” I speak quite literally… the BIGGEST mountain of money on the planet. Click here to read more…
Who Gives a Damn About 14,000?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average breached the 14,000 mark for the first time back on July 17, and then dropped sharply. When the index moved above the 14,000 mark, the news was plastered everywhere. But I kept saying: "Who cares? I don’t own a single stock in the Dow!"
The herd has been trained to believe that the Dow is a good gauge for the stock market. But the Dow’s record-breaking days are not that important unless you own all 30 stocks or the AMEX Diamonds Trust (the ETF that mimics the movement of the Dow).
Don’t be a member of the herd, because the herd gets rounded up, put in a pen, and then slaughtered. Don’t believe me? Think back to 2000, when everyone was bullish. If you’d joined the rest of the sheep, you’d have gone down with the Dow, which dropped 35 percent during a two-year bear market.
Instead, look at your own portfolio and evaluate each investment on an individual basis. The headlines are just that, headlines. They give the financial reporters something to talk about… and not much else.
In his book The Art of Contrary Thinking, Humphrey Neill states "The crowd is right in the trend, but wrong at both ends." Let the media have their fun, while you do your own thing and keep track of your own portfolio.
[Ed. Note: Rick Pendergraft is a market expert and two-time winner of the "Top Trader" award at Schaeffer's Investment Research. Frequently quoted in Reuters, Business Week, Forbes, USA Today, and The New York Times, Rick recently made his debut on Bloomberg television. In ETR's free investment e-mail, Investor's Daily Edge, Rick and a select group of market specialists will give you to-the-point analysis and tell you how you should act TODAY to make the most money with the least risk.]
"Testing will be your ultimate salvation, allowing you to understand the market and keep up with its changes."
Michael Masterson
Build Up Your New Business by Breaking It Down
By David Cross
Just last month at ETR’s 5 Days in July Internet Business-Building Conference in Denver, nearly 75 entrepreneurs gathered together to start their own online businesses. If you’ve ever launched your own business – Internet or otherwise – you already know that it isn’t easy. Building a business from scratch takes hard work and lots of problem solving. While at the conference, I noticed that many of the attendees butted heads with one problem in particular – a problem that can seem insurmountable but is, in fact, quite simple to overcome.
This problem – and its solution – is common to many new experiences, including building a business, starting a new job, and working toward almost any goal. In fact, the solution is one that Michael Masterson advocates in his goal-setting program. It’s also a well-known direct-marketing technique. I like to call it the "break-it-down" approach. In the direct-marketing world, it’s known as "testing."
Here’s how it works…
When you start a new business (or any new venture), you will have mixed emotions. You’ll probably be excited because you’re finally doing something that you’ve wanted to do, so you’ll be energized and full of ideas. And you might also feel completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the project in front of you. To make the project more manageable, you need to break it down into small, individual, manageable steps.
I felt completely overwhelmed when I first took up playing the drums. Watching a video of my drumming hero, the late John Bonham, enthralled me – but when I sat down at my new drum kit, I could not even play a simple beat. And attempting anything more complex made me feel like an octopus in a pan of spaghetti – uncoordinated arms and legs flailing everywhere.
"Let’s break it down," said my teacher. "Start with your bass drum, one foot." Once I got that right, I introduced my right hand on the snare drum, and so on. I’m still mesmerized by all the great drummers, but I know now how not to get overwhelmed after learning how to break it down.
The Challenge of a New Business
The same process that helped me learn how to play the drums can help you turn your business idea from a concept into an actual functioning business.
Take, for example, two of the attendees at our July Internet conference. Thomas had an idea for a business that will help pet owners find pet-friendly hotels across the U.S. And Clarence had an idea for a business that helps people develop their full potential. (Over 40 years of training and coaching people, Clarence had developed a unique approach to doing just that.)
The strength of both Thomas’s and Clarence’s business ideas are also in some way their biggest challenges… even weaknesses.
In Thomas’s case, finding a pet-friendly hotel anywhere in the U.S. is great for any pet owner who travels with a pet. That’s what makes the idea so strong. But it’s also a gargantuan task to manage the massive amounts of information he’ll need to serve his customers.
So I suggested that he use the break-it-down approach. Instead of tackling the whole country, I recommended that he start small with a city that already attracts families that travel with their pets: Orlando.
Once he researches that single city’s pet-friendly hotels, Thomas should create a free report that people can download straight from the Internet. The report might have 10 tips for people traveling with their pets, and list three pet-friendly hotels in Orlando.
Then, Thomas should advertise this free report by using pay-per-click (PPC) ads on Google or Yahoo. Once he has a list of people who have downloaded the report, he should offer them an e-book for, say, $14.95 that lists all the best pet-friendly hotels in Orlando, perhaps along with some other tourist information about the city and surrounding areas. (He could contact Orlando’s Tourist Information Bureau to collect the details.) And then he should do the same thing with another city.
The advantage of the break-it-down approach is that Thomas can test his idea at a very low cost, and he can get his business up and running in a short period of time.
Now, let’s look at Clarence’s idea – a complete personal-development program that is applicable to many aspects of life (emotional, career, health, relationships, financial, etc.).
The problem with the idea is that only a small number of people want such a comprehensive program. Far more people want an immediate solution to an immediate, pressing problem, and they’ll search for that "quick fix" instead of trying to tackle the larger issues. Only after gaining relief from their current problem will they be interested in a longer-term approach.
Instead of trying to market his complete personal-development program, my suggestion was for Clarence to break it down. He should pick one specific problem – say, a common relationship problem – and offer a free report on improving that relationship. He would then develop a PPC campaign around that topic so his ad would pop up when someone searches Google or Yahoo for help with that specific problem. Once people download his free report, he could direct them to an offer for the part of his personal-development program that specifically addresses that problem in depth. Clarence could offer the complete program to people who have downloaded the free report or offer it as an upsell when they purchase the smaller section of the program.
You can use the break-it-down method to get your own new business off the ground or to turn a big idea for a new product or marketing promotion into something you are able to test.
Start small and tackle one manageable task at a time. As you complete each of these tasks, you’ll discover what works and what doesn’t. You’ll figure out what your target audience is looking for… and you’ll figure out early on if your idea will fly in the marketplace. You’ll master ways of creating new products and promotions more efficiently and easily, and you may even come up with ideas for more new products and promotions. And as you learn the details, you will make your business much better, stronger, and more successful.
Business owners and entrepreneurs often feel overwhelmed at the start of a new venture. But breaking down that new venture into manageable chunks does more than just help diminish the feeling of being overwhelmed. A core principle of classic direct-response marketing is always to test ideas and concepts on a small scale before rolling out to the entire market. Sometimes, new ideas are just too unwieldy to test in their entirety. But by breaking an idea down into smaller, more "testable" chunks, you can quickly discover the best way to fully take it to market.
[Ed. Note: David Cross is Senior Internet Consultant for Agora Inc. in Baltimore. If you couldn't make it to our 5 Days in July conference, where David and ETR's team of Internet marketers taught dozens of ETR readers how to build their own online businesses from scratch, you can still learn how to start your own money-making Internet business at this fall's Info-Marketing Bootcamp. Get the details here.]
What If You Could Pile Up Profits Without Busting Your Hump?
Suppose you could live your DREAM life… have plenty of time to indulge yourself, play golf, dine out, hang with the family, have fun… and get steadily richer in about 10 minutes a month?
These investors are living the DREAM. Because I showed them this incredible secret myself. Now it’s your turn. Check it out here.
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- C. Cook
Deltona, FL
To Patent or Not to Patent? That Is the Question
An ETR reader wrote in to tell me about a great new invention she came up with. But before she starts shopping it around, she wants to know if she should patent her idea first. She’s concerned that showing her invention to companies that might be interested in producing it leaves her open to the possibility that one of them might steal the idea and leave her out in the cold.
Should she patent her idea? The short answer is "yes."
To prevent others from making or selling your invention, contact the United States Patent and Trademark Office to apply for a patent. The application process is complex, and the requirements (drawings, specifications, fees, accompanying text) very strict. If granted (there is sometimes a lengthy review process), a patent usually lasts about 20 years. For more information, visit uspto.gov.
However, getting a patent is only 10 percent of the game. The other 90 percent is everything required to produce and sell the invention – and that usually costs a lot of money.
Most inventions, good or not so good, are never brought to market. Unless you have a method for doing it, you are better off investing your time and money in an Internet-based business that you can ease into. (See David Cross’s article, above.)
Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late to Get Yourself in Shape
By Jon Herring
Yesterday , I wrote about my father’s recent stroke. When I received the call about my dad’s condition, it was unexpected. But it was not a total surprise. You see, for the last 15 years, before my dad retired, his business required quite a lot of travel. And while he was away from home, his diet and his exercise routine suffered. Over the years, he gradually gained weight, and his health began to decline.
Since retiring, he has made significant improvements in his diet and his weight. Still, that decade and a half of neglect took its toll.
Fortunately, he now has a chance for a new beginning.
There is nothing like the threat of permanent disability (or even death) to wake us up to just how important our health really is. As you might expect, my father is now totally committed to a diet that will help restore his health and optimize his weight, and an exercise program that will improve his strength and fitness.
I thank God that he still has this opportunity. And I feel certain that with effort and determination, he can be functionally younger and much healthier at 66 than he was at 62. (He’s now 64.)
If you are overweight, tired and sore, and becoming more unhealthy with each passing year, I urge you to do something about it TODAY! Don’t wait until it is too late, because you might not get a second chance. With a proper diet and consistent exercise – and an early start – there is no reason that you cannot enjoy a health span that is equal to your lifespan.
It’s Fun to Know: The 10 Worst Jobs in Science
When it’s your turn to clean out the break room fridge, does it make you gag? If you think that job is gross, take comfort. The "ick factor" for some professions is much, much worse.
Here, according to the Popular Science website, are the 10 worst jobs in science:
10. Whale-feces researcher
9. Forensic entomologist ("solving murders by studying maggots")
8. Olympics drug tester
7. Gravity research subject (where subjects lie in bed for 15 to 21 days at a time so researchers can study the effects of "restricted muscle use and increased blood flow to the head experienced in space")
6. Microsoft security grunt (people who read e-mails and fix kinks in Microsoft products)
5. Coursework carcass preparer ("They kill, pickle, and bottle the critters that schoolkids cut up.")
4. Garbologist (someone who sifts through hundreds of thousands of pounds of refuse to analyze modern consumption patterns and how quickly waste breaks down)
3. Elephant vasectomist
2. Oceanographer (This one doesn’t seem so bad, though.)
And the No. 1 worst job in science: Hazmat diver ("Outfitted with fully encapsulating drysuits, these Jacques Cousteaus of the sewers swim into clouds of waste, inside nuclear reactors, and through toxic spills on America’s coasts and inland waterways.")
Turn A Single $100 Investment Into A $2,000-A-Week Profit Machine
In the next seven days, 4,589 people will leave their jobs, never go back… and have all the money they will ever need.
I would tell you that these people are “very lucky,” but the fact of the matter is that there is no luck involved.
It’s happening everywhere. Ordinary people – including people who never finished school – starting their own businesses…and making in the neighborhood of $40,000… $60,000… even $100,000 or more a year.
Even though all these people are “ordinary” in some ways, one thing is certainly “out of the ordinary” about them:
Many used the same secret to start a business on less than $100. You can do it, too. Here’s how.
- Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Boulevardier
A "boulevardier" (boo-luh-var-DYAY) – from the French – is a man-about-town, a sophisticated, worldly person who frequents fashionable places.
Example (as used by Tom Gliatto in People magazine): "Oswald, whose idea of excitement is breakfasting with a penguin, is a boulevardier: Hat cocked precariously on his head, he saunters out into the sunny city."
[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
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