How to Pick a Financial Planner
I have mixed feelings about financial planners. Most of them are salesmen sporting extra credentials and spreadsheets. They feel your financial pulse, tell you that you’re sick, and recommend a battery of expensive products. The companies that make the recommended products (insurance companies, stock brokerages, and sometimes limited partnerships) pay…
READ MOREIf You’re in the Advice Business
A factory worker goes to a psychic and pays $25 (or $2.99 a minute by phone). A corporate CEO calls in a Faith Popcorn, Harry Dent, or highfalutin consulting firm and pays $25,000 or $250,000. Both of them are paying for predictions about the future. Everybody wants advice. The reasons…
READ MORETurn Your Passion Into Profit
You can start your own international business by simply being yourself. Doing what you really want to do. Turning your passion into profit. Getting involved in something that moves you. The pure simplicity of this works, because there are millions of others who are passionate about the same things you…
READ MOREDeveloping the “Expert’s Edge”
It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling by direct mail, the Internet, or face-to-face, your prospects (prospective customers) will fall into one of four groups. 1. First are prospects who know a lot about your product’s niche (like alternative health or consumer electronics). They fancy themselves to be experts. Using alternative…
READ MOREHow to Write Great Headlines
When it comes to headlines, brevity is the soul of success. Not all great headlines are brief. But most are. The sure sign of the flummoxed copywriter is the six-tier, 40-word head that says just about everything that comes to mind. When a copywriter hands me a sales letter with…
READ MOREFlying With the “Gold Bugs”
In a recent issue of Reality Check, Gary North reminded his readers that he has been recommending gold for more than four years. Bill Bonner, editor emeritus of Daily Reckoning, has “nagged” his readers to buy gold for the last three years. Gary chastises those who have refused to invest…
READ MOREThe Flight of American Retirement Dollars
There are 45,000,000 IRAs in America. And for 30 years, Wall Street has enjoyed an uncontested 97% share of the trillions of dollars in those IRA funds. Well, times are changing. Hundreds of millions of dollars are fleeing Wall Street each month to the vaults of Self-Directed IRA custodians. For…
READ MOREPut Yourself in the Other Guy’s Shoes
When I tell you this story, you may think it makes me look like a jerk. But it conveys an important lesson – a lesson that will serve you well in both your business and personal life. Okay. So here’s what happened … A person I don’t know called me…
READ MOREThe Secret of Making Proposals
I submitted my first life-changing proposal to my middle-school principal. In fact, I’m dedicating this article to him – the late Dr. William C. Cooksey. And when you hear my story, you’ll understand why. Dr. Cooksey had expelled me for smoking cigarettes on school property. This wasn’t my first run-in…
READ MORECashing Out and Heading to More Affordable Pastures
A neighbor of mine is selling his $725,000 home (worth about $200,000 six years ago.) He won’t stay in South Florida because, if he wants a comparable home, he’ll have to pay … well, about $725,000. And since his new tax bill would be based on his new purchase price,…
READ MOREDoing Business Overseas: The Basics
About 25 years ago, I wrote a book for a major publisher on doing business in China. It won a good deal of praise in the business press, which surprised me … because I didn’t really know much about the subject. My experience of China had consisted of one trip…
READ MOREHow to Profit Through Referrals
A client of mine makes exclusive, expensive golf clubs – clubs that are tailor-made for his customers. His clients fit a certain profile. They are affluent, avid golfers who want to improve their golf game … and his clubs seem to help them do that. My client reasoned that his…
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