The Best Source for Business Start-Up Information
Archives: Daily Issues
Issue #2268
- WEALTHY: The market research tool you won’t learn about in college (Larry Fredericks)
- HEALTHY: The skinny on losing fat (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: Francis Bacon on "insider" secrets
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Are you making this online marketing mistake? (Clayton Makepeace)
- Don’t commit this common linguistic error (Don Hauptman)
- It’s Fun to Know… about the android dental patient
- Add "bootless" to your vocabulary
How Many Automatic Income Streams Can YOU Handle?
The Internet has now come of age as the most incredible marketing tool in history.
Think about it for a moment… It’s possible to spend no more than a fiver, write a couple of basic ads, and have instant access to over millions of potential customers all in a matter of minutes!
This has created a real “sink or swim” situation. Those who master Internet secrets will profit massively. Those who don’t are simply doomed to sit on the sidelines and watch others make the real money.
Jim Sheridan’s plan banked him $187,296 in one day. The great news is – you can copy Jim’s plan exactly. The program is called Instant Internet Income and I guarantee it does exactly what it says it does.
Take a look at how Jim brought in over $187,000 in a single day!
- Patrick Coffey
"Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical."
Francis Bacon
The Best Source for Business Start-Up Information
About 50 percent of new businesses fail in the first five years, according to the Small Business Administration. But don’t let a scary statistic like that one knock you out of the running. Keep in mind that the percentage of new businesses that succeed is just as substantial.
Of course, when you’re beginning a new venture, you want to stack the odds in your favor. And there’s a proven way to do it – one that’s helped thousands of new businesses get off the ground and churn out cash for years.
The secret? Get inside your competitors’ heads.
I mean your direct competitors – the people who are already making money in the business you want to start. What they’ve learned through hands-on experience is very different from what you’re likely to learn from most academics and other business "experts."
For instance, conventional wisdom suggests that it’s necessary to do a ton of technical research before you even think of launching a new business. And in the business classes I took in college, my professors taught us quite a few ways to do that. For one thing, they stressed the importance of studying market conditions to determine whether or not a particular type of business makes sense. (Because of the current writers’ strike, for example, the production of many TV shows has been shut down. So now would not be a great time to try to start a business that caters to that industry.)
I don’t mean to knock their advice. This is certainly the kind of information that every start-up entrepreneur should be aware of and consider. Problem is, it’s easy to get bogged down in a lot of theory. And before you know it, you’ve lost the enthusiasm and momentum behind Michael Masterson’s Ready, Fire, Aim approach to starting a business.
That’s not going to happen with the "market research tool" I’m talking about.
So, how do you get people in the know to reveal the strategies they’ve used to succeed – and warn you about the mistakes they’ve made along the way? How do you get them to open up and reveal practical, nuts-and-bolts advice about running the kind of business you’re interested in? You can’t just call them up and ask. They’d probably just laugh in your face.
Here’s the trick: You talk to people who are either scaling back or retiring and are, therefore, selling their businesses.
Naturally, you’ve got to take what they say with a grain of salt. After all, they have a vested interest in presenting their business in a favorable light – especially if they think you might be a potential buyer. Still, you’re likely to walk away with some golden nuggets.
Before we go any further, let me make one thing clear. I’m not suggesting that you should mislead the seller. Fact is, you are a potential buyer. Although your primary purpose is to pick his brains, you may find that he’s offering a great opportunity. Just tell him that you’re thinking about (or are in the process of) starting a similar business, but thought you’d investigate the possibility of buying one that’s already up and running. And that may happen. You never know.
Keep in mind that he knows he may need to "kiss a few frogs" before he gets a serious buyer. So if you turn out to be just another "shopper," no harm done – and no need to feel guilty.
I know this technique works, because I’ve used it myself. It helped me turn a cash-sucking business into a profitable venture in the blink of an eye.
I had started a business to produce local cable television shows. My plan was to lease time from local cable operators, and then sell enough advertising to pay for the air time and production costs while making me a profit.
But the cable company was charging about $750 for 30 minutes of air time. And it was killing my profits. One day, while scanning the classified ads in my local paper, I saw that someone was selling a business that produced local cable television shows.
I called and scheduled an appointment. When we met, the producer shared some of the basics about his business. One of these basics – a little-known rule mandated by the FCC – turned out to be critically important to me. He told me that when cable companies charge other producers for air time, it must be done according to a specific formula. And that formula made buying air time much more affordable for me.
By following this formula, the $750 I was paying per half-hour would drop to $90. I notified the cable company – and, suddenly, a business that was losing money became profitable.
Had I not taken a few minutes to talk with the producer, I would have continued losing money until I was forced to give up.
Now, you may not get such powerful insider information every time you interview a seller. But you will certainly get a perspective that you won’t get from doing academic, impersonal research.
Here are three steps to take to put this technique to work:
1. Locate businesses that are being sold.
Classified ads are usually a fertile source of direct leads. Contact business brokers, too, which you can also find in classified ads, as well as in the Yellow Pages and on the Internet (CraigsList, for example).
2. Prepare your questions.
When you meet with a seller, come prepared. If you’ve got a good idea of the problems you’ll be facing, you’ll ask more intelligent questions.
Where will you find suppliers? How much will they charge? What competition will you face? What regulations will you encounter? Where will your best customers come from? What’s the best way to reach those customers? And on and on. The more knowledge you demonstrate about the business, the more interested you’ll appear to be to the seller.
3. Keep an open mind.
Your main purpose is to get insider information from the seller – but your conversation with him could lead to a different kind of opportunity. Maybe some sort of partnership arrangement. Or perhaps he could act as a consultant to you in exchange for a small percentage of the profits.
When it comes to getting the real facts about how to make a buck in a new business, you can’t go to a better source than a current business owner. The information you uncover could mean the difference between success and failure.
[Ed. Note: Larry Fredericks is an entrepreneur with a history of successful business dealings in retail, direct mail, the Internet, and real estate. He is also the creator of the Street Smart Business Program, which contains dozens of business-savvy techniques and strategies that you won't find in any business college textbook. For more information, click here.]
The Only Three Ways to Grow a Business
Did you know that there are only three ways to grow a business?
- Increase the number of customers.
- Increase the average transaction value.
- Increase the frequency of repurchase.
Find a way to maximize each one, and your business will experience an astonishing rate of growth.
In his "9 Pillars of Business Growth" program, acclaimed consultant Jay Abraham outlines hundreds of proven, frequently unrecognized, and almost totally underutilized ways to grow these three key areas of your business. If you own a business (or would like to), be sure to take a look at Jay’s program.
- Patrick Coffey
Reader Feedback: "I found your report very inspiring and powerful."
"Just read your Eleven Steps to Achieving Your Full Potential. I found it very inspiring and powerful. The key for me is applying the steps on a daily basis to make things happen.
"My goal in life is to create a certain level of passive income so that I work when I choose to work. Perhaps I need to clarify that into a SMART goal!"
- Martin Braunton
Auckland, New Zealand
The Triumph of Hope Over Experience
Companies that are experiencing declining results in the mail now appear to be eager to repeat those failures online.
They attract new subscribers by offering a "free report" in paid ads and PPC (pay-per-click) efforts. Then, once they’ve captured their prospects’ e-mail addresses, they direct them to a high-hype landing page.
At their very first contact with a new subscriber, these companies prove that they’re not to be trusted.
RESULT: Conversion rates stink.
But what if, instead, they offered a free report and then actually delivered a report and not a pitch?
And what if the report was packed with useful, actionable information and advice?
And what if there was not even one whiff of an offer in the report?
How would the company’s new prospects feel then?
… Like they’d found a friend, an advocate they could really trust?
… Like they couldn’t wait to hear from the company again?
… Like they had an obligation to jump at any offer the company made to them in the future?
And I’d wager their open rates and click-through rates would double or even triple.
Would they convert many of their new leads to customers? I think they’d be looking at a veritable sales explosion.
And their customer lifetime value? Off the ever-lovin’ charts!
[Ed. Note: Clayton Makepeace has spent the last 35 years creating direct-mail, Internet, and print promotions that have sold well over $1 billion worth of products. He publishes the highly acclaimed e-zine The Total Package (www.makepeacetotalpackage.com) to help business owners and copywriters accelerate their sales and profits.]
How Much Fat Can You Lose in a Week?
Viewers of "The Biggest Loser" were bewildered by the early results. In the first week, one contestant lost an astonishing 29 pounds. But in the second week, the biggest weight loss was only three pounds – and one contestant even gained a pound.
Here’s why it happened…
During the first week of any weight-loss program, when you go from eating junk food to healthy, fiber-rich food and start even the easiest of exercise programs, the body loses excess water, some body fat, and possibly even more weight as a result of "cleansing out the colon. "
A lot of factors determine weight loss – and some of them will have only a temporary effect. So if you really want to know how well you’re progressing in your fitness regimen, skip the scale. A better way is to measure your body fat percentage over time. If your gym doesn’t offer this service, you can do it at home using a body fat scale, which is different from a regular scale. You can purchase one at major retailers for about $50.
If you weigh yourself on one of these scales each week, under the same conditions each time, you’ll get a reliable picture of whether you are losing body fat.
The rate of fat loss to aim for is 0.5 percent per week. If you are following a good fat-loss program, you should be down by 4.0 percent after eight weeks.
[Ed. Note: Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne is the creator of the Turbulence Training for Fat Loss system. For a free online source of information, motivation, and social support to help you improve your health, lose weight, and get fit, sign up for ETR's free natural health e-letter.]
The Language Perfectionist: Verbal Vexation
By Don Hauptman
Can you detect anything amiss in the following two sentences?
- I even called the place and handed him the phone so that he could get verbal directions.
- A verbal agreement is legally every bit as effective as a written one.
The word verbal is often used as a synonym for spoken. But verbal means having to do with words or language, whether spoken or written. When you refer to the spoken word as opposed to the written word, use oral.
The second example above should read: "An oral agreement is legally every bit as effective as a written one."
[Ed Note: Don Hauptman was a direct-response copywriter for more than 30 years. For his direct-mail subscription packages, he won The Newsletter on Newsletters promotion award for 10 years. He also writes about the English language and is now working on a new book in that genre.]
It’s Fun to Know: The Android Dental Patient
The Kokoro Company of Japan has come up with a cutting-edge tool for training dentists: a human-like robot with a mouth full of sensors. The "Simroid" grimaces and says things like "That hurts!" It records the missteps and mistakes novice dentists make as they practice dental procedures. Training with the Simroid should also help students view their patients as people and not just sets of teeth.
(Source: LiveScience)
Take Charge of Your Future
You don’t have much spare time… you’re not exactly rolling in the bucks… and you’re no Bill Gates when it comes to technology.
We’ve heard you… and that’s why we asked Marc Charles to be our “advance scout” for profit opportunities that you can run from a kitchen table, your desktop, or out on the road.
They’ve got to be inexpensive and easy to start, without a lot of red tape or technical know-how, and still have great income potential.
There’s a reason they call this guy “The King of Business Opportunities”…why not take a look at what he’s got for you?
- Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Bootless
"Bootless" (BOOT-lis) means "useless" or "with no benefit." The word is derived from the Old English for "without advantage."
Example (as used by Peter Gay in My German Question): " Late in the nineteenth century there had been a bootless competition between Munich and Berlin as to which was more modern, more civilized."
[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, 2008
Comments