Word from the Top
Archives: Daily Issues
Issue #2679
- WEALTHY: Investing in the 800-pound gorilla (Ted Peroulakis)
- HEALTHY: How Jonny Munro lost 3 pounds a week for 3 months (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: John Dewey on learning from failure
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- The failure paradox (Robert Ringer)
- When a copywriter has to walk away from a project (John Forde)
- It’s Good to Know… about pay-per-click fraud
- Add "betimes" to your vocabulary
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Buy Quality
These are risky times for investors. We are still suffering from a financial crisis and global recession. One way to ride out the turmoil is with blue-chip stocks that keep raising their dividends.
Companies that have a history of consistently raising their dividends have outperformed the market over time. They will survive and thrive no matter what happens in the economy. The best part? They put a growing stream of cash in your pocket. Plus, steady dividend growth helps counter inflation, which could rear its ugly head as a result of rampant government spending.
You want to invest in dividend-paying companies that are dominating players in their industry. These market leaders can easily raise prices to keep up with inflation – or lower prices to crush their competitors. Recessions and downturns actually make them stronger, because the weak players in their space are flushed out and they gain market share.
Invest in the 800-pound gorilla! Here are some of my favorites:
Procter & Gamble Co. (PG)
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT)
Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)
The Coca-Cola Company (KO)
Keep in mind that the current rally could run out of steam and we could experience a major market pullback in the near term. Therefore, you may not want to take a full position in these stocks right now. Take a position over time by buying in small lots. Or wait for a market pullback to get a better entry price. These are some of the highest quality stocks around, but they are not immune to a market sell-off.
[Ed. Note: Ted Peroulakis is just one of the expert analysts at Investor's Daily Edge, ETR's sister publication. Learn more about IDE today.
You can meet IDE's financial experts - along with other top names in the industry - in person next week. Find out more here.]
"Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes."
John Dewey
Word From the Top
Here’s an excerpt from a book I’m reading that you should pay close attention to:
"This brief company history may leave the impression that our experience has been one of ever-improving results, with one success after another, each building on the one before. Nothing could be further from the truth. Progress, whether in business, an economy, or science, comes through experimentation and failure. Given that a market economy is an experimental discovery process, business failures are inevitable and any attempt to eliminate them only insures overall failure. The key is to recognize when we are experimenting and limit the bet accordingly."
Now let me tell you why you should think long and hard about the above words: They were written by a man who has built his business into the largest and most profitable privately held company in America. Koch Industries, which most people have never even heard of, has annual revenues of $90 billion – greater than those of Microsoft and Bank of America!
I suppose I was one of those people who assumed that a giant such as Koch Industries had experienced nothing but success, with each success "building on the one before." After all, how many failures can you possibly have on your way to building a company with $90 billion in revenues?
Answer: Plenty. In his book The Science of Success, Charles Kochdescribes one misstep after another that he and his team have made over the past 40 years, mistakes that cost his company tens of millions of dollars. But mistakes and losses are part and parcel of the free-market, entrepreneurial model upon which Koch Industries has been built.
This entrepreneurial model requires Koch Industries to go into each new venture as an experiment. If the experiment seems to be working, the company increases its bet as it goes along. If it isn’t working, it cuts its losses and moves on.
Translation: Failure is not a bad thing. Failure is a good thing, so long as it doesn’t become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Failure is, in fact, the Supreme Teacher, and action is the matriculation fee that allows you to enroll in the Supreme Teacher’s class.
Michael Masterson calls this the principle of accelerated failure. "To develop any complex skill," he says, "you must be willing to make mistakes and endure failures. The faster you can make those mistakes and suffer those failures, the quicker you will master the skill."
He goes on to say that you should be "happy and even eager to try and fail until you finally succeed."
That reminds me of something basketball great Michael Jordan once said: "I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed."
Most people harbor such a fear of failure that they can’t bring themselves to supply the action needed to participate in the class. There can be many reasons for this fear, and one that I believe plays a more prominent role than most people might suspect is the stigma attached to failure.Society tends to treat failure with disdain, and most people fear being frowned upon by the straight-and-narrow types who make up the bulk of the populace.
I doubt that one in a hundred people believes that "business failures are inevitable and any attempt to eliminate them only insures overall failure." But these are not the words of a Harvard Business School professor. They were written by a 40-year veteran of the Entrepreneurial Wars who sits at the top of the food chain.
Charles Koch is not telling us that we might fail. He’s telling us that we must fail. And that if we try to eliminate failure, we are guaranteed to experience overall failure – as in long-term failure. In other words, the only way to totally eliminate failure is to do nothing, which, paradoxically, guarantees a failed life.
The next time you feel a fear of failure coming over you, remember the words of Charles Koch and don’t allow the potential stigma of failure to intimidate you. When Charles Koch talks, wise people listen. I mean, how wrong can a guy worth $14 billion be?
[Ed. Note: To learn how to survive and prosper during the turbulent years ahead, check out Robert Ringer's powerful audio series Succeeding in a World of Chaos.
And be sure to sign up for a FREE subscription to Robert Ringer's one-of-a-kind e-letter A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World.] ]
Important Message If You’ve Lost Money From Your IRA or 401(K)
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 money into much smarter positions “off Wall Street”.
One 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 is currently offering the chance to gain year-in and year-out returns of 65% with 99.77% certainty – even in today’s economy.
Read on to discover how this "Off-Wall Street Cash Recovery Plan” could recoup 100% of your recession losses by September 30, 2009.
What’s the Secret to Selling Bad Products?
By John Forde
Copywriters are hired guns. We usually don’t create the products we sell, we just get hired to sell them. So how, pray tell, are you supposed to write copy that sells a product that… well… stinks?
Here’s the simple answer: You don’t.
What to do if a good client brings you something mediocre to sell?
You have a choice. Either work with the client to make the bad product better (I’m doing that right now with a newsletter that’s decent but needs to "bump it up" another 10 percent before it meets customer needs)… or bag the project altogether… and let your client know why, albeit with diplomacy.
Never berate the client. But don’t be a pushover or a sucker either.
If you want to stay on the project you must suggest possible ways to sell even better, in a consultant’s even tones and with the understanding that re-working the product might involve re-working your deal… or offer to take a kill fee and maybe even to share your research with the next copywriter who comes along.
The bottom line is that half-finished products and ideas CAN be sold without compromising your own integrity, but only if you’re willing to work with the client to make them whole. This is especially true in the information industry, where products can often be improved on the fly.
[Ed. Note: To get more of copywriting expert John Forde's wisdom and insights into marketing (and much more), sign up for his free e-letter, Copywriter's Roundtable, at www.copywritersroundtable.com. Or send an e-mail to signup@jackforde.com. Get a free report about 15 deadly copy mistakes and how to avoid them when you sign up today.
Creating a quality product and writing the copy to sell it are just two aspects of doing business. For a full rundown on starting and running a profitable, work-at-home Internet business, check out ETR's 5 Days in July business-building event. You'll discover how to set up a website, choose a product, and much more - and you WILL walk away with your own Internet business. Learn more here.]
5 Secrets to a Total-Body Fat-Loss Transformation
Imagine losing almost three pounds per week for three months. That’s what Jonny Munro did to win a body transformation contest and completely change his appearance and confidence level.
Here are his 5 secrets…
1. You must have an incentive to change.
You need to have a deep burning desire to free yourself from the fat. If you are depressed because you’ve been struggling to lose the fat, you’ll be thrilled by how good you’ll feel – physically and mentally – once you make the transformation.
2. Set a deadline.
Setting a deadline really is the key to getting yourself to take action now. In Jonny’s case, he set the deadline by entering that body transformation contest.
3. Learn more about your body, nutrition, and exercise.
Like most guys, Jonny was active when he was younger. But when he got his first real job, he started exercising less and eating more. Essentially, he went through a "reverse" body transformation and gained more than 40 pounds of fat.
When he entered the body transformation contest, he started paying attention to how his body responded to certain foods and exercise. And what he learned by doing that helped him achieve his goal even faster.
4. Focus on short-burst workouts.
Long, slow cardio won’t cut it. To transform your body, you need research-proven resistance training and intervals.
5. Base your diet on whole, natural foods.
Jonny didn’t eat perfectly for the entire 12 weeks of the contest. (He had a few big ice cream nights.) But his commitment to eating whole, natural foods – fruits, vegetables, and lean protein sources – helped him lose fat easily.
So get started with Jonny’s secrets today, and soon you’ll be looking as good – and feeling as confident and free from fat – as he does. And one day you’ll be the one inspiring others to transform their bodies!
[Ed. Note: To lose weight, you need to eat the right foods and exercise regularly. Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne can help you burn fat and build muscle with three 45-minute workouts a week. Learn how right here.
For more easy-to-implement ideas about how to live longer and feel better, sign up for ETR's free natural health newsletter.]
It’s Good to Know: Pay-per-Click Fraud
Faced with tight budgets, more and more companies are turning to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising through Google and other search engines. (In 2008, PPC represented 57 percent of Internet advertising, up from 52 percent the year before.)
PPC gives marketers a low-cost alternative to more expensive advertising methods. (You pay only when a Web surfer clicks on your ad and winds up on your website.) But the rise in PPC advertisers has also led to an increase in PPC fraud. Industry watchers estimate that between 13 and 17 percent of all PPC ad clicks were fraudulent.
Fraudulent clicks can come from competitors hoping to drive up the advertising spending of rivals. Or from users who get a cut every time someone clicks on a particular ad.
How do you combat PPC fraud? There are several services that block users from clicking on an ad more than a couple of times and investigate "networks" that pay users to click on ads to drive up their own website revenues, including Click Forensics, AdWatcher, and Anchor Intelligence.
(Source: The New York Times)
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Word to the Wise: Betimes
"Betimes" (bih-TIMZE) – from the Middle English – means (1) on occasion or (2) early; in good time.
Example (as used by Denis Donoghue in The Practice of Reading): "Some of them were poets or novelists first and critics only betimes."
[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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