10 Ways to Stretch Your Advertising Budget
1. Use your ads for more than just space advertising. There are ways of getting your advertising message in your prospect’s hands at a fraction of the cost of space advertising. The least expensive is to order an ample supply of reprints and distribute them to customers and prospects every…
Direct-Mail Marketing Secret: The Postdated Check Offer
“The trouble with us in America isn’t that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy.” – Louis Kronenberger Here’s something that, if you can afford to do it, can triple your sales. It goes like this … In your ad…
Choosing The Right Home, Part II: How Expensive A House Do You Need?
How much of your net worth should be invested in your home? That depends. When you are starting out, your home may represent most of your wealth. It may be all of it. But as you start saving and investing, you’ll want to gradually decrease that percentage from most of…
New Year’s Resolution Progress Update
So what are your top four goals for 2003? In what way do you plan to be wealthier? Healthier? Wiser and happier? If you didn’t do so at the beginning of the year, here’s your second chance to write them down and make a list of what you need to…
Are You a Creative or Reactive Leader?
“Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.” – George Lois If you want to advance quickly in the business you work for or accelerate the progress of the business you own, you’ve got to become better at starting things, at…
Direct-Marketing Dilemma: Is It Better to Create or Buy Your Product?
There are plenty of good reasons to create and manufacture your own unique product if you are in the direct-marketing businesses. Most obviously, you can lower production costs. Lower manufacturing costs give you a greater product margin and that can allow you to sell your initial product (and thereby establish…
Buying Investment Real Estate: Knowing When the Price is Right
“You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.” – Rosalynn Carter To scout for potentially profitable real-estate deals, begin by looking at the actual sales prices in the neighborhood you’re targeting. Your local tax assessor’s office should have this information, and…
Your Reaction to New Business Opportunities
I sent a memo to IT last week reporting on a clever and very effective scheme that one of our competitors is using to make a lot of money. His response was to explain to me “what’s wrong with what he’s doing” and “why our way is better.” There…
Is It Really Possible To Leave the Office at 5 O’Clock?
Way back when TT was a Lt. Col. U.S. Army Action Officer in the Pentagon, he was criticized by his superior for leaving work everyday at 5 o’clock (as Gen. Westmoreland had “ordered” them to do at the time), while everyone else stayed until 7 or 8. “Your problem,” he…
The Single Biggest Investment Opportunity of 2003
Dear Investor, As the head of one of the most powerful investment groups in the world, I have access to intelligence and ideas the average investor never hears about. For example, I recently had a private conversation with one of the world’s most successful hedge-fund managers. (This man’s fund rose…
One of the Most Debilitating Myths About Leadership
We almost hired TH for the job. He would have made a lot of money — maybe $400,000 a year. TH had a very impressive résumé and said almost everything right in the interview. The stumper? When my partner asked him how he would handle a specific problem, he…
Put It In Writing
A very common question among businessmen: Is it necessary to “paper” deals? During the 25 years I’ve been in business, more than 90% of the deals I’ve made have been oral. Usually, the process is some version of this: I’m talking with a colleague/competitor about what I’m doing/he’s doing and…