Go Ahead and Prove All the Naysayers Wrong!
I had the pleasure of being one of the speakers at the ETR Wealth Building Bootcamp this past October. I especially enjoyed spending time with so many motivated attendees who were clearly very serious about improving their lives. My presentation was “Keys to Building Wealth With a Small Business” —…
One Very Good Way to Make a Very Nice Living as a Retired Person
The following is an account of how my friend BM is going to be living one day soon. All of the numbers are real. All he has to do to realize his dream is convince himself to let his son and brother run his main business for him . .…
What You Can Learn About Marketing from the Vioxx Debacle
Merck, the company that sold the infamous painkiller Vioxx, will soon be fighting off thousands of class-action suits by Americans who feel they were harmed by the drug. Ever since the announcement that Vioxx could be linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, lawyers have been “trolling…
What My Speech Coach Taught Me About Success
I love writing ETR. And the larger its readership gets (420,000 now and counting), the better I like it. A growing audience means more income opportunities for the staff and a bigger theater to air my thoughts. Writing for a large group is exciting — but speaking to one fills…
When Audacious Advertising Works Against You
An article in Inc. Magazine titled “Over the Edge” made the point that lots of businesses today, hoping to create a name for themselves or break into new markets, are relying on increasingly dramatic advertising campaigns. One example: a promotion for a hair-replacement product developed by Maverick Marketing that showed…
Why I Don’t Care About Unemployment Rates
The unemployment rate in December 2004 was 5.4%, the newspaper tells me. Then it goes on to compare that to unemployment rates in prior Decembers. Who cares? I don’t. And neither should you. It doesn’t matter how many millions of people are out of work in America. Or, for that…
When Your Portfolio Cries For Help
Unless you make a point of staying on top of the latest business and investment trends, it’s a good idea to have a professional look over your portfolio every once in a while. (Kind of like bringing in your car for its annual check-up to get it purring again.) Your…
To Discover Cutting-Edge Trends, Look for Signs of Unusual Activity
When you are taking a look at your competitors this year — and you should be doing this at least once a year — keep an eye out for signs of unusual activity. New marketing and product trends begin with little eruptions here and there. They are seldom widespread —…
What Donald Trump Can Teach You About Direct Marketing
I never thought of Donald Trump as a direct marketer. In fact, from what little I had seen, he seemed largely ignorant of the principles of DM. For instance, on the first season of “The Apprentice,” the two teams had to come up with an ad campaign for a company…
Don’t Make Excuses . . . Just Apologize
Your customers are usually smarter than you think. Some of them are even smarter than you are. I used to work for a business that thought differently. When we created products, we thought, “Why kind of idiotic stuff will they fall for next?” When we wrote advertising copy, we always…
Recruiting Salespeople to Grow Your Microbusiness
It’s very exciting! You’ve just come up with a great idea for starting your own business. You’ve done the legwork, you’ve followed the advice in ETR’s Microbusiness Program to perfect your plans, and now you’re looking forward to having financial freedom in your not-too-distant future. But there’s just one hitch.…
Don’t Put It Off Any Longer – Retire Next Year!
Let’s talk about retirement. Everyone will have his or her own idea of the perfect retirement, but there are some elements we can probably all agree on. An ideal retirement would have you waking up each morning feeling good about yourself . . . looking forward to every minute of…