tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3670912398758461692023-11-15T07:35:18.969-07:00Mike with aspenIbiz's BlogHi … my name is Mike Farrell! Welcome to my official blog at aspenIbiz. Here you will find tips and techniques about Internet Marketing, Financial Education, Wealth Creation Strategies … and a few other topics. Finally, I am an American globalist, having lived and worked in more than 20 countries on all continents except Antarctica, so you can also keep up with my latest adventures.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-7086170245243237882012-12-25T22:32:00.000-07:002012-12-25T22:32:34.265-07:00Enjoy This Christmas Message about Having a Wonderful LifeIt is that time of year ... xx xx<br />
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One of my favorite movies xx xx<br />
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It is aired often this time of year because it is in the public domain so it is FREE to TV stations. It has several life lessons however one that stands out is that while George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) never achieved great celebrity status or prominence or wealth, his participation in many people’s lives mattered a great deal.<br />
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If you get a chance, give yourself a small gift of time and be sure to spend it watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” this holiday season.<br />
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Another gift you can give yourself is to go somewhere alone, sit quietly, and run a movie of your own making; make your own version of It’s a Wonderful Life.”<br />
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Think of the good days; the good people; the genuinely interesting and worthy work you have done; the satisfaction you have received from the tasks completed and goals achieved, even from goals attempted but missed.<br />
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Think of the ways in which you have done something as small as making a dour person laugh or generously over-tipping an especially hard-working person.<br />
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Think of something as big as creating and sustaining good jobs, creating and sharing beneficial information; being of real service to clients, patients, customers, or members of the community.<br />
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You will most likely have had a Wonderful Business and a Wonderful Life, at least on the good days; and ultimately, it is only the good days that matter.<br />
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And for that, I salute you.<br />
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Use your self-made movie to think and stay positive. Use it as a basis to keep inner-directed and focused so you decide and strive to get exactly what you want. Use this as the way to make the New Year your best year ever!<br />
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In closing, I have two more items for you.<br />
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First, I hope you enjoy this special time of year and my wishes for you include having a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Best Wishes for a Prosperous New Year.<br />
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Second, watch the short and funny video with 10 things about Santa Clause you most likely did not know!<br />
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Insert youtube video embed code here …<br />
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Finally, as we begin to think about the new year in front of us, and the goals we set for our-self, consider one of the greatest wealth creating things you can do for you and your family; become an entrepreneur and get self-employed using the Internet. Learn more here (bitly link to sfm)<br />
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I invite you to be sure to Read More of my Posts on my Internet Marketing blog at aspenIbiz BlackBox; Obtain Some Tips About Being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, my Affiliate website; Learn How to be Savvy with Your Money Like the Insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money blog, and How to Live Longer at aspenIbiz My Life’s Advantage Today site.<br />
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I trust you enjoyed this post so be sure to Like it on Facebook, Tweet it on Twitter, or Bookmark & Share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!<br />
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This is a DRAFT version of this post so please return to this blog in a few days to view the FINAL version of this post.<br />
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Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-31093218604510296682012-11-22T23:22:00.003-07:002012-12-22T19:39:52.863-07:00Be Thankful for Our Abundant Life <br />
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<b>The Air Seems Gloomy.</b><br />
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This time of year it is easy to be gloomy and feel down in the dumps. The fun times of Summer and Fall are over; the days are getting colder, it is feeling more like winter, and there is less sunshine each day because there are few and fewer hours of daylight.<br />
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Add to this our feeling that it has been a tough year (circa 2012) with several natural disasters and a toxic presidential election season here in the U.S. it is easy to be grumpy, full of anxiety, and in a state of flux.<br />
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Here in Colorado we experienced a tough fire season in June with the Front Range seemingly ablaze from Boulder to Colorado Springs. On live TV, one Tuesday evening near Colorado Springs, 350 homes just vaporized due to the intense heat and firestorm outside of Colorado Springs.<br />
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Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of the tri-state region of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut in late October one week before the presidential election. As a result, close to 60M people were impacted by losing power, cell phone service, Internet access, and running water for many days.<br />
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Also, this year (circa 2012) we were in the thick of our presidential election season with an excessively large number of attack ads on TV, continuous mudslinging by candidates, robo calls, and junk mail. After counting the votes, the country appears to be deeply, although fairly evenly, divided with the popular vote of 59M to re-elect President Obama and 57M voting for Mitt Romney.<br />
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And now we have the incumbent members of the Administration and Congress saying the people have voted and they have a mandate. The dictionary definition of mandate is to win an election convincingly or with a significant majority. A difference of 2 Million votes, out of 116M cast, is less than 2 percent which is hardly a majority or the mandate that is being espoused by many of the incumbents.<br />
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This outcome, and the associated mandate rhetoric, adds to the polarization of our country with a belief that consensus seems so difficult and there are ongoing feelings of despair.<br />
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Attention is now focusing on the looming financial cliff … which is a term to describe the sudden increase in taxes and decrease in government spending aiming to reduce the size of the national debt. Most economists feel as though the sudden changes would plunge the country into another recession, especially given the fact that the country has been so dependent on fiscal stimulus over the past number of years.<br />
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It is being reported that 90% of America’s citizens will be impacted and on average the taxes for each citizen will increase by $3,500 if our legislators do nothing and we fall off the financial cliff. This situation and all the discussion about the approach to resolve the financial cliff is yet again adding to our feelings of despair, anxiety, and flux.<br />
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Yes indeed, the air seems full of doom and gloom.<br />
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<b>Our First Thanksgiving celebration!</b><br />
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While these are indeed trying times, and the media loves to talk about how bad things are, as we approach Thanksgiving, I have a few items for us to think about and suggest that we all <b>Be Thankful!</b><br />
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Let me start by providing a brief history of our Thanksgiving celebration and offer a different outlook based on a more abundant perspective.<br />
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Here is a brief history of our first Thanksgiving celebration and while reading it, you too will feel it is indeed a time to <b>Be Thankful!</b><br />
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The 1620 voyage from England to America was more than 3,000 miles and beset by autumn storms.<br />
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The Pilgrims arrived in the New World in November of 1620. Since it was during the early part of winter, it was very difficult for them to find food and build shelter.<br />
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Already weakened by their two-month voyage, most of the passengers failed to survive the first few months in their new homeland.<br />
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Fortunately, native people already lived in the Massachusetts Bay area. These native people were called Wampanoag and they shared their knowledge of local crops and navigation with the “coat-men” as they called the English. They helped the colonists survive.<br />
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The English colonists we call Pilgrims celebrated days of thanksgiving as part of their religion. But these were days of prayer, not days of feasting.<br />
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Our national holiday, “Turkey Day” really stems from the feast held in the autumn of 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag to celebrate the colony's first successful harvest. It was truly a time to <b>Be Thankful!</b><br />
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<b>Our Abundant Life</b><br />
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Next, let’s advance about 400 years to today and take a little different perspective by thinking about the advances, listed below, that have occurred in the past 100 years. These items are the next reasons to <b>Be Thankful!</b><br />
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In the last century child mortality has dropped 90%, while our life span has doubled.<br />
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Average per capita income worldwide has tripled.<br />
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It takes a significantly smaller amount of our weekly or monthly earnings to feed ourselves as groceries cost 13 times less than they did in the 1870s. We have more money to spend on other items than feeding ourselves.<br />
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Poverty has declined more in the last 50 years than it did in the previous 500 years. Seventy percent of the people who are classified as being at a poverty level have running water, in-door toilets, housing, refrigerators, TVs, cell-phones, and cars. This means that 70% of people at the poverty level have items that were only dreamed about by, and would be luxuries of, the wealthiest like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and John Rockefeller … who were mega millionaires in the past century. And the reality is that we’re just getting started with these advances. There are huge forces at work that will soon bring an even greater world of abundance to us and it is indeed a time to <b>Be Thankful!</b><br />
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And, just in the past few months, while we were being savaged by fire-storms, hurricanes, and a toxic election season, we are seeing significant advances on the economic front.<br />
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The wage gap between workers in China and the USA is shrinking. Only ten years ago, the wage gap difference was 22 times; today it is down to just under 10; and in 2015 the wage gap is likely to be under five. As a result, there is a Revival in American Manufacturing which will provide a boost for our economy.<br />
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The global energy map is being redrawn with the resurgence of oil and natural gas production in the USA. This is spurring economic activity, potentially reducing the gas and electricity prices, and changing the role of global energy trade. By 2020, the U.S. is projected to become the largest global oil producer and a net exporter by 2030 surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia, This energy comeback for America is a once-in-a-generation opportunity and is planting the seeds for boosting our economy and providing energy independence for the USA.<br />
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Just like the Pilgrims who were appreciative of their life of abundance and indulged in our first Thanksgiving celebration, we should Be Thankful we live in a time and place, where even though it seems as if we are in a state of flux and anxiety, we can be like the Phoenix (who rose from its own ashes) and reboot our careers and our lives to indeed have an abundant future.<br />
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<b>Celebrating Your Abundant Harvest</b><br />
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Finally, it is indeed almost Turkey Day... which means you're probably going to be spending a lot of time in airports, hiding out from relatives, and relaxing on the couch -- all of which are great times to catch up on some reading, reflecting on our lives, and giving thanks.<br />
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Actually, there's just something about waking up from a turkey-induced coma that can give you a completely fresh perspective.<br />
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Here is one more perspective and the final item for you to think about during this season for us to <b>Be Thankful. </b><br />
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In calendar terms, Thanksgiving follows harvest as the seasons are circular. The autumn harvest follows the Spring planting and a long, hot Summer of farming. Planting is motivated by the harvest so the more you harvest, the more likely you will be to plant aggressively and farm tirelessly and enthusiastically.<br />
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Our nation’s financial condition reflects how many, or how few, of its citizens are now motivated to plan and farm well.<br />
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To some, it seems easier to camp out and protest than work day and night to create something of worth.<br />
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Plus, these days there is much criticism of those who plant aggressively, farm tirelessly and enthusiastically, and harvest abundantly.<br />
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There is an evil anti-achievement, pro-entitlement, socialist-communist movement once again attempting to assert itself, weaving through politics and public policy, media, and academia.<br />
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If you create an abundant harvest, you will have critics and you have this entire movement as your enemy.<br />
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You may think you are merely running an exceptionally successful hardware store in Omaha (for example) but you are actually part of an epic battle.<br />
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So I too wish for you a harvest that all will envy; and a home your enemies can’t stop taking pictures of and gossiping and griping about. By creating such harvest, you are making the greatest possible contribution to the cause.<br />
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Warren Buffet may feel guilty, in his advanced age about his wealth, but he should not as his companies employ over 200,000 people. Not only should he pay less tax than his secretary, he should get a free pass. We all owe him.<br />
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I am here and writing this message to be about the harvest of you my reader. Not to demand more of it; not to feed those who skipped the spring planting or summer’s work, but to join in your celebration. It is indeed a time to <b>Be Thankful!</b><br />
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If you have a green thumb, overalls, and work shoes in your closet … I am here to join in your celebration!<br />
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Yes, this is a time to <b>Be Thankful!</b> We have our dignity, our acquired skills, and our willingness to work.<br />
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Let’s end with a great story from Earl Nightingale about the pastor who stopped alongside the road and walked over to speak with a farmer at work. The pastor praised the magnificent farm God had blessed the farmer with. The farmer replied, “Yes, I have been blessed. But you should have seen this place when God had it all to himself.”<br />
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This is a good time to thank my family, my friends, my business associates, and all those who have been inspired by my work and benefited by our interactions. God bless all of you!<br />
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Together, let us Be Thankful for the abundance we have and the abundant future in front of us.<br />
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Now go out there and have a Happy Thanksgiving and Enjoy “Turkey Day!”<br />
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I Hope You Enjoy the Posts. Let Me Know What You Think.<br />
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In closing, be sure to Read More of my Posts on my Internet Marketing blog at <a href="http://www.myaspenibizblackbox.com/" target="_blank">aspenIbiz BlackBox</a>; Obtain Some Tips About Being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.mygtmpartners.com/" target="_blank">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, my Affiliate website; Learn How to be Savvy with Your Money Like the Insiders at <a href="http://www.mycfymblog.com/" target="_blank">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money blog</a>, and How to Live Longer at <a href="http://www.mylifesadvantagetoday.com/" target="_blank">aspenIbiz My Life’s Advantage Today site</a>.<br />
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Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-6678810252864645172012-05-29T20:52:00.000-06:002012-12-22T20:12:29.472-07:00Prosperity Is Based on How You Use Your Life Energy<span style="font-family: Arial;">Your mind is the creator of your life so you want to use its energy wisely.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">In addition to being an entrepreneur and a business owner, you need to be 100% responsible for your results.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">When you do this, you take charge of what you allow in your mind and become a manifestor of results, both good and bad and do not allow yourself to become a victim of reality.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The truth is that you have no control over the outside world but you do have control over your thoughts and actions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">When the world gives you lemons, don’t complain about getting lemons but take action and make lemonade.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">You need to learn to take deliberate action in the direction of your dreams.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">If you think the economy is bad, or if you have lost your job, take action and reinvent yourself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Learn how to create a mindset of abundance as opportunity is always out there; yes you may have to knock on doors to find it but it is there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Start paying attention to what you want in life. Get out of your unconscious behavior and old comfort zones; open your eyes to what you truly want.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">That way you can focus your mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial energies towards getting the things you do want.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">When you have a clear understanding of what you want, and why you want it, this clarity is power for manifesting that results that you desire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">One method to help you identify what you want, is to identify what you do not want. Carry a small notebook with you and jot down everything that comes to mind on what you do not want. For example, I do not want to give my personal power and prosperity away to the news media because it makes me feel depressed and down about the future. So now I pay more attention to what TV and radio shows I follow and include shows or news segments with educational information that can help me improve my business.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Prosperity is indeed a decision that you make on how to use your life energy to get the right mindset and develop marketing strategies to take your business to a new level with like-minded people.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn how to become a manifestor and not be a victim of reality.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">It looks easy but being an Internet Marketing entrepreneur is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from your Peak Performance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">A great book to read is "The New Psycho-Cybernetics“ edited and updated by Dan S. Kennedy as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.whoismikefarrell.com/" target="_blank">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.mygtmpartners.com/" target="_blank">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.mycfymblog.com/" target="_blank">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!</span></div>
Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-48341893937862514982012-04-30T15:30:00.001-06:002012-06-03T15:14:04.286-06:00How to Accomplish More in Less Time<span style="font-family: Arial;">Being a
successful Internet Marketing entrepreneur requires you to have a quality
mindset. If you don’t have a good inner
game, your outer game is going to be below average.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Sadly, most entrepreneurs do not recognize the important fact that they must value their minds as their most important asset in generating income, creating wealth, and happiness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Napoleon </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Hill, who wrote Think and Grow Rich, said that “You have absolute control over but one thing – your thoughts. If you fail to control your mind, you will control nothing else. What you hold in your mind today will shape your experiences of tomorrow.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">So how can we use the power of our mind to accomplish more in less time? We need to program ourselves for success.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Your subconscious mind does not know right from wrong; it simply receives and files thoughts. It does exactly what the conscious mind tells it to do. According to scientists, your subconscious mind will hold more information than all the libraries in the entire world put together. Your power to be whatever you want starts with your desire and commitment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Program new information into your computer that makes you feel good about yourself and allows you to use your potential. New beliefs created from your new thoughts will enable you to stay motivated to do whatever it takes to reach your goals or dreams.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">As the most important organ in the body and a highly sophisticated memory bank, the mind works upon the information and data you feed into it every day; and with it, creates the reality of your life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">That is why it is so important to carefully consider the kind of information you feed your mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Everything you think, true or false, good or bad, goes from the conscious mind and imprints on the subconscious mind. That information is translated into a picture. So whatever information is programmed into your subconscious mind about your abilities, your potential, and your worth, is what you believe to be true and becomes your self-image.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Too often, you don’t see your real talents and skills; you simply see the information that has been programmed into your computer from outside sources and your outdated thoughts (whether it is beneficial or detrimental to you). And your self-image, whether real or illusionary, is a foundation upon which your entire future is built. You will simply act out the type of person you conceive yourself to be based upon your own beliefs about yourself. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The bottom line for us as self-employed entrepreneurs and business owners is that the sole means by which you may control your destiny is through your thinking processes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">When you consider the brain as a computer, you can act only in a manner that will match the pictures of who you think you are and what you think you can do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The great news is that you have the power today to reprogram yourself with new, empowering information that will change your life for the good, forever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">When you program yourself for success, you can use the power of your mind to accomplish more in less time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn how to program themselves for success. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">It looks easy but being an Internet Marketing entrepreneur is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from Programming for Success.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">A great book to read is "The New Psycho-Cybernetics“ edited and updated by Dan S. Kennedy as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.whoismikefarrell.com/" target="_blank">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.mygtmpartners.com/" target="_blank">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.mycfymblog.com/" target="_blank">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!</span></div>Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-81044415593005379602012-03-31T15:10:00.001-06:002012-05-09T11:27:15.590-06:00Learn the Secret of Marketing to the Affluent<br />
You most likely have had this experience.<br /><br />You go to a store or a trade show with the objective of purchasing something. You present yourself as a ready, willing, and able buyer.<br /><br />You make it real clear that price was not the key concern yet the sales person was busy selling features and functions of the product and the product’s price. They made no attempt at presenting themselves as the go-to guy or gal.<br /><br />What you most likely noticed in this type of exchange is that there is no differentiation of their offering; they focus on price.<br /><br />The thing most marketers and sales people fail to get about affluent clients or customers is that they are, by and large, NOT interested in learning a lot of technical information about WHAT they are going to buy.<br /><br />Do you know that a very significant percentage of the affluent population pulled themselves up by their bootstraps … they have gone from poor to rich.<br /><br />Many came from stark or relative poverty, or other difficult circumstances, and are still very much governed by having been poor. They never disconnect emotionally from this past no matter how successful and wealthy they become.<br /><br />As an example, Walt Disney was once driving from Disneyland to his home when he saw and stopped briefly to admire a particular new car in a showroom window.<br /><br />While driving home from the showroom, he said aloud to himself “Gee, I wish I could afford one of those.”<br /><br />It was a half hour later that it occurred to him … “Hey, I can afford that” … so he turned around and drove back to the dealership and bought himself that car.<br /><br />This reveals a little something about the self-made affluent … while most have unrestricted spending power they are in reality, conflicted about money. They battle guilt, fear, anxiety, and abhor waste.<br /><br />However, as an Internet Marketing entrepreneur, you may very well find your best customers or clients in the segment of the economy that is comprised of the affluent self-made business owners and entrepreneurs so it is a good idea to learn the secrets of marketing to the affluent.<br /><br />The personality of the affluent is sharply drawn, with little ambiguity, so they can be the easiest of all to market a wide variety of goods and services to … however you need to understand their profile.<br /><br />Their profile is comprised of three parts.<br /><br />First, they are fiercely independent and will not take no for an answer.<br /><br />Second, they are great admirers of the qualities that got them where they are and if they admire you, they will reward your with their business.<br /><br />Third, they are searching for value as they define it. They know the value of a dollar and tend to pride themselves on being smart about money and getting good deals.<br /><br />Examples of this profile include: Donald Trump who bought his oceanfront manor as a bargain during a foreclosure proceedings and recouped his investment by selling all the antiques, antique furniture, and art that came with it and replacing the items with reproductions; the late Sam Walton who drove old pickup trucks; and Warren Buffet who buys his suits off-the-rack, his winter coats in the summer, and brings his lunch to work in a brown paper bag.<br /><br />What is key to know about selling to the affluent is that their buying behavior is driven by emotions, known as the E-factors and then justified, if necessary, after the fact with logic.<br /><br />Several of the E-factors include insecurity, fear of being thought of as takers, pride, love, guilt, and greed.<br /><br />You can profit significantly by giving serious though in how you present your products and services so they are in sync with these E-factors of the affluent.<br /><br />Many business people have a hard time in terms of selling to affluent clients. They need to learn they only need to provide enough information about how a product works to satisfy a buyer’s curiosity and to reassure them that you are the most knowledgeable resource about the product they are interested in obtaining.<br /><br />Most affluent buyers are not in the hunt for in-depth technical product knowledge; they are in search of the go-to guy who they can trust to make the best decisions and prescribe the best solutions for them.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the secret of Marketing to the Affluent. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires; they know their WHO.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, to stay focused, and to add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes Marketing to the Affluent.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from Marketing to the Affluent.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />A great book to read is "No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent“ by Dan Kennedy of Glazer Kennedy Inner Circle (GKIC) as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post. <br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.whoismikefarrell.com/" target="_blank">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz <a href="http://www.mygtmpartners.com/" target="_blank">My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.mycfymblog.com/" target="_blank">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.<br /><br />Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-82728043804888882592012-02-28T10:25:00.004-07:002012-04-02T12:06:15.433-06:00Learn the Secrets of Automatic Influence for Your Internet Marketing BusinessA key skill for Internet Marketers to master is the use of hypnotic writing, sometimes referred to as copywriting, in their marketing campaigns. This skill is necessary in order to get leads and customers to take the action you want them to take.<br /><br />This post will present the study of compliance and understanding which psychological principles influence the tendency to comply with a request.<br /><br />These principles are frequently referred to as weapons of influence.<br /><br />It is important to know these principles as they are used by effective professionals who request you purchase something, you make a donation to something, or you vote for someone.<br /><br />When used effectively, these principles have the ability to produce a distinct kind of automatic, mindless compliance from people … it is a willingness to say yes without thinking first.<br /><br />In this ever-accelerating pace and informational crush of modern life, this particular form of unthinking compliance will be more and more prevalent in the future.<br /><br />It will be increasingly important for the society to understand the how and why of automatic influence.<br /><br />Here is a brief example of the genius of Coca-Cola and their use of persuasion, influence, and selling.<br /><br />For more than 100 years, Coca-Cola has been one of the world’s foremost practitioners of what they call “one-way storytelling.” You and I call that an advertisement.<br /><br />Coke is looking around and realizing that the 30-second television ad won’t take them where they want to go next. So they are turning to the tool that is quickly becoming the most important strategy for smaller businesses and that is content marketing.<br /><br />For anyone who still thinks that content marketing is some kind of fad, take a look at the thinking (and dollars) going into Coca-Cola’s marketing strategy, aimed at doubling worldwide consumption of Coke by the year 2020.<br /><br />Here is a look at three strategies from the great and advertising mind of Coca-Cola.<br /><br />1st – “Liquid and linked” is the phrase Coke’s marketing team is using to describe its developing content strategy. A giant company like Coca-Cola creates countless “stories” every year in the form of a mobile app one day, a viral video another, and a really good television ad the third day. These individual pieces of content are bound together just like the “glass” of Coke gives shape to the whole endeavor. There is a balance between control (keeping your content linked by a coherent idea) and chaos (allowing your content to be liquid and to wander around the Net being shared and even altered along the way).<br /><br />2nd – The 70/20/10 content plan is a nice framework for a complex content marketing strategy. In this framework, 70% of the content is low-risk bread and butter content. It is less controversial, less risky, and takes less time to prepare. 20% of the content is more in-depth, takes more time and energy to create, and connects more deeply with a well-defined segment of your audience. It innovates off of what is working with your target market and audience. The final 10% is high-risk content. It is the brand new ideas, the wild, hair raising stuff that might work; of course it might also fail.<br /><br />3rd – Content excellence is to avoid creating noise. Without excellence, the time you spend on content marketing will be entirely wasted. If you can’t create content that is very good, you need to either get better or you need to partner with someone who has the talent to create content that is worth your audience’s attention.<br /><br />There you have three of Coca-Cola’s ideas about content marketing.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn about the strategy of Content Marketing. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, to stay focused, and to add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the strategy of Content Marketing.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from Content Marketing.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />A great book to read is "Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion“ by Robert B. Cialdini as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.<br /><br />Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-64059841140676934162012-01-31T15:48:00.005-07:002012-02-09T12:47:18.552-07:00Learn How to Use the Place Strategy that Supports Premium PricesAmerica divides into niches and subcultures.<br /><br />Each individual belongs to at least one of each but most belong to several of each.<br /><br />Understanding how that niche or subculture membership and affinity, stretches the price elasticity of just about all goods and services, can put a great deal of lost money into your bank account.<br /><br />Simplistically, niches are occupational and vocational; subcultures are by interest, belief, and activity. For example, insurance salespeople are a niche and deer hunters a subculture.<br /><br />By further subdividing niches and subcultures, you get life insurance salespeople, property and casualty insurance salespeople, and specialized property and casualty; you can even find a niche of insurers for collector cars and rare art works.<br /><br />In the subculture space, you can find deer hunters who use only bow and arrow and deer hunters who only hunt in the Midwest.<br /><br />Most people have very strong identification with, and affinity to, whatever niches, sub-niches, and subcultures to which they think they belong to and they tend to buy a lot of things somehow linked to those niches and subcultures.<br /><br />The deeper the commitment to niche or subculture, the less price matters for the precisely matched product. More price elasticity exists when moving a generic product to the niche.<br /><br />Several key links about product / place / pricing must be cut. One link that must be cut is the value, in your mind, of the ingredients that comprise the product. Another link that must be cut is that some product comprised of the exact same ingredients may be readily available at a substantially different price, at a different place. Cutting this link is essential.<br /><br />Place in this context is not necessarily a geographic place but a niche or subculture.<br /><br />Again, price pressure goes up, if you can move a product from generic or mainstream, to niche or subculture. This why we add value to a generic product; it makes it customized or match a specific niche or subculture or client or customer.<br /><br />Here are several key lessons to follow in order keep from being stupid with your Place Strategy. You must learn to make your sales in a competitive vacuum or you must get comfortable with selling at dirt-cheap, forced-down prices with nominal or commodity like profits.<br /><br />Lesson 1 – Avoid loading the wagon and then wonder who might buy what you have to offer.<br /><br />Lesson 2 – Avoid one product, one size fits all approach. Modify, reposition, repackage what you have for different markets or different segments.<br /><br />Lesson 3 – Avoid treating all places (such as media) the same. While there is undoubtedly some cross-over between The Robb Report, New Yorker, and Town & Country, do not put the same generic add in all 3 magazines and expect stellar results; it will not happen.<br /><br />Lesson 4 – Do not miss out on “unique” place opportunities. Nationally, or locally; offline or online, there are lots of unique place and media opportunities. Find and decide on these first; then work backwards to modify or engineer a version of your product or service for that place.<br /><br />Lesson 5 – The riches are in the niches so don’t insist on one, simple business instead of a dozen small, market-matched vertical business under one umbrella. Some want to push out their generic offer to everybody and anybody instead of modifying and customizing their offering into a dozen niche markets because it is too much work; avoid this stupid thinking.<br /><br />Lesson 6 – Almost everybody works harder than necessary for each dollar they make than selling in a place that limits price rather than a place that liberates it. For example, a John Wayne figurine sells in a lot of places for $15, $20, maybe $25 however in Cowboys & Indians Magazine, it can sell for $135 because people looking for cowboy stuff know they can go to this place, find what they are looking for, and don’t need to look all over, even if the price is less expensive. As an enticement, the seller might even add a simple ebook with a bio and list of John Wayne movies as a way of creating a simple John Wayne package, justifying the higher price in the mind of the buyer and differentiating themselves from those just selling the figurine. In this example, go where buyers of cowboy stuff go. <br /><br />Lesson 7 –There is an app that lets you wave your phone over any item’s bar code in any store and instantly get prices on that item from Amazon and other e-commerce discounters. Avoid selling something easily commoditized and price compared in a place where such comparison is easy as that spells DOOM. If you insist on creating interest, offline, for item “x” in a new prospect’s mind, and then drive that prospect online, you are a market maker for six billion competitors and you are asking to be Google slapped. Learn to make sales in a competitive vacuum or you must get comfortable with selling dirt-cheap, forced-down prices and nominal profits.<br /><br />If you follow these 7 lessons, you are able to get price out of the mind of a buyer of the products and services of your business. If you do not follow them, you will always be in a position where price is always an issue in the mind of the buyer and you will likely be challenged and always be suppressed by competition and commoditization.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Place Strategy. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Place Strategy.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Place Strategy.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />A great book to read is "No B.S. Price Strategy“ by Dan S Kennedy as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post. <br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.<br /><br />Since this is the first post on this blog for the year, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Prosperous New Year!<br /><br />Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-51197968192386530072011-12-24T17:49:00.003-07:002011-12-24T17:54:37.894-07:00A Lesson from Santa about the Future of HumanityMany people feel badly this holiday season about what they can’t do for, or provide to, their families.<br /><br />The big question is do they feel badly enough, that on December 26th before sunrise, they will be determinedly at work learning a new trade, developing a more valuable and marketable skill, seeking a better job, starting a business on the side, or otherwise striving to be sure that the next time the Santa season rolls around, they are better able to enjoy it and give their family a top experience?<br /><br />It is clear this past year was a year of recession, high unemployment, and low confidence. We are at a turning point, most likely a breaking point, and the future is looking far more entrepreneurial than corporate. Kiss goodbye any expectations of a fat corporate job coming your way.<br /><br />So let’s use this post to provide a secret from Santa which is a lesson in economics and learn how we can use it for the Future of All Humanity.<br /><br />Here is the lesson.<br /><br />We either live or we die. To live we must consume. To consume we must produce. When we produce a surplus, we can exchange the surplus. We create a market to sell our surplus and buy what we need or desire.<br /><br />One common enemy is scarcity. Our mission is survival. Our goal is abundance.<br /><br />We want the best system of enterprise and minimal interference to produce the most wealth, distributed to the most people.<br /><br />Since we are all in this together, we must all be in balance.<br /><br />Our economic system consists of individuals (we the people), enterprise (which are businesses) and government. The job of enterprise is to create wealth for the individuals of the enterprise. Government’s job is to create a climate for creating wealth but in doing so, it is a net consumer of wealth as the only way government obtains money is by taxing the wealth, the income, or both, of businesses and individuals.<br /><br />Wealth is anything that has value that people are willing to work for and pay for. Wealth is basic economics – creation, production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.<br /><br />It is important to understand and control the balance between enterprise and government.<br /><br />Over time, government may grow faster than enterprise through “creep”; it happens slowly but surely. With higher wealth consumption, and lower wealth production, we are less rich because an expanding government becomes a net consumer of wealth with less enterprise to produce wealth.<br /><br />As Santa says, when you learn the lessons of basic economics, you know a lot. Combined with the concepts of freedom, you can do a lot. Now, how can we use this lesson for the Future of All Humanity?<br /><br />Well, entrepreneurs are the ones out there making an impact. They are starting up businesses, building things, creating jobs, and raising the standard of living throughout the world. In reality, they are the ones that have been creating all the jobs in the past 30 years. So entrepreneurs are the future of the world.<br /><br />In addition, have you noticed that the world is changing faster than our current education system can handle? While there are many dedicated and amazing teachers and professors in our current system, they are just fighting a losing battle. It is clear that large chunks of our education system are moving online and this change is being lead by information marketers.<br /><br />By being an entrepreneur, by being an information marketer, or having a business helping entrepreneurs and information marketers start and grow their businesses, you are about the Future of All Humanity … you are creating jobs and providing education.<br /><br />Inspired by this lesson from Santa, make a New Year’s resolution to spend your time in the upcoming year (circa 2012) to obtain education and learn to be an entrepreneur. Work, mentor, teach, and inspire others to be entrepreneurs. The time you spend gaining the knowledge and applying the principles of entrepreneurialism will be for gain, good, and success; not loss, evil, or failure.<br /><br />Be ready to create, and execute in unexpected ways, and of course be ready to provide for the Future of All Humanity.<br /><br />I trust this post, with a lesson from Santa, has provided some background about economics, our freedom to choose, entrepreneurialism, information marketing, and inspiration to impact the Future of All Humanity.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to Read More of my Posts on my Internet Marketing blog at aspenIbiz BlackBox; Obtain Some Tips About Being No 1 on Google at aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners, my Affiliate website; Learn How to be Savvy with Your Money Like the Insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money blog, and How to Live Longer at aspenIbiz My Life’s Advantage Today site.<br /><br />Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!<br /><br />You can join me and ennoble your efforts to build a better future! Check-out this <a href="http://bit.ly/qs06WU">Success Roadmap</a> <br /><br />Please be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-21332474032322843322011-11-29T17:45:00.003-07:002011-12-12T14:20:50.269-07:00Positioning Yourself and Your Business for Maximum SuccessPositioning is admittedly an advertising buzzword but it is legitimately one of the most important marketing concepts you will ever consider in your business career.<br /><br />One of the definitions of positioning is the controlling how your customers and prospective customers think and feel about your business in comparison to other, similar businesses competing for their attention.<br /><br />Here are several positioning strategies that may seem obvious but many people overlook the obvious and cost themselves a lot of money as a result. <br /><br />Positioning Strategy 1 – How to Describe What You Do to Attract the Customers You Want.<br /><br />Let’s start with the name of your business. The best business names telegraph what the business does. For example, Dunkin Donuts is better than Starbucks. At the start, Apple and Amazon were mystery names however obviously they are now hugely successful brand name companies. The question you have to ask is whether or not you want to invest an enormous amount of money and patience in creating awareness and understanding of what your name represents or to start with a name that clearly represents what your business is and does.<br /><br />Positioning Strategy 2 – How to Price.<br /><br />You don’t ever want to be in a business that obtained its customers with the lure of “lowest prices.” You cannot build long-term customer retention via the cheapest price. The way you get a customer has great impact on how you will sell to that customer again. There will always be someone willing to offer a cheaper price. If the only thing binding your customers to your company is the lowest price, your business will be as fragile in its tenth year as in its tenth week.<br /><br />Be sure to sell quality, value, service, and unique benefits; do not sell price.<br /><br />One of the most interesting things about price is not its impact on profit and income but its impact on positioning. Often, under-pricing sends the wrong message. The business owner thinks he is optimizing sales by offering the lowest price possible but he actually creating skepticism and causing discerning customers to look elsewhere.<br /><br />In the New Economy, the successful businesses, based on factors other than low or aggressively competitive pricing, outnumber successful businesses that feature low or lowest price promises by at least 500 to 1. Be sure to play the odds.<br /><br />Positioning Strategy 3 – How to Make Your Image Work for You.<br /><br />To be perceived as successful and trustworthy in your business, you must match the image of a successful business in your field.<br /><br />Places of business, product packaging, literature, and advertising, all are subject to the same image concerns as are individual appearances.<br /><br />We are taught that you can’t judge a book by its cover but we can’t help but judge a book by its cover. You will be judged that way, too!<br /><br />Most businesses are better served by thinking about their marketing tools as “salesmanship in media” rather than as “advertising.” In simple terms, copy is king. Message matters most. Yes, the wrong presentation for a given market can sabotage event the best message. But the more common error is a beautiful presentation of – nothing.<br /><br />Ultimately, there must be appropriate marriage of substance and style to make your image work for you. Customer’s expectations must be met and exceeded, anxiety avoided, reassurance given by the image presented by you, your staff, your physical location, and your marketing material.<br /><br />Positioning Strategy 4 – Self-Appointment.<br /><br />When we are kids, our parents “appoint us” old enough to stay home alone or old enough to babysit our younger brothers or sisters.<br /><br />At work, employers or supervisors “promote us” as qualified to do a certain thing or handle a certain responsibility.<br /><br />This conditioning is not particularly useful when you step into the world of owning your own business.<br /><br />Please understand that you do not need anybody’s permission to be successful. If you wait for someone to grant you the permission to be successful, you will wait a long, long time.<br /><br />Business success just is not conferred upon you.<br /><br />Power and influence is not granted – it is taken.<br /><br />Expert positioning is all about self-appointment, self-promotion, and self-aggrandizement. Make this note: you become a promotable expert by decision, acquisition, and organization of information, pronouncement, and promotion. Not by anointment by some authority on high.<br /><br />How do you do this? Write books, give teleseminars, build lists of customers interested in your product or service.<br /><br />Your positioning decision is the difference between a six-figure income and a seven-figure income based on investor partnering potential, with many clients, as this is the income-multiplying power of positioning. <br /><br />In positioning yourself and your business for success, you have to clearly determine who you are, then drive that message home to your marketplace. It is also important to make the right decision as the marketplace will usually accept the positioning you chose for yourself, and present to others, as you really are in control of the positioning.<br /><br />Many high profile business leaders, including the Oracle of Omaha, suggest that if you don’t focus on positioning yourself as an online entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually they say, it will be an uphill battle.<br /><br />This suggestion is attracting current and former doctors, CEOs, and other members of the corporate workforce that are seeking a way to leave their established and lucrative careers. They are in pursuit of new opportunities in the world of Social Media and Internet Marketing so they can generate income, prestige, independence, and financial rewards that exceed the levels obtained by most in their previous careers.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />A great book to read is "No B.S. Business Success in the New Economy" by Dan S Kennedy as it was the source of some of the material contained in this post. <br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.<br /><br />Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!<br /><br />Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-89811855350531070062011-10-31T21:18:00.004-06:002011-11-10T13:26:17.933-07:00The Key Tools of Marketing and the Weapons of InfluenceBefore you can have your ultimate, fine-tuned business, you must turbo-charge every aspect. Use the 7 Key Tools of Marketing and the 6 Weapons of Influence to get peak performance out of your business.<br /><br />This post will identify and briefly explain each of the 7 Key Tools of Marketing. It is important to understand that once the mechanics of setting up and operating these 7 Key Tools is performed, it is the message that will influence the reader to take the action you want them to take. There are 6 Key Weapons of Influence and this post will briefly introduce them. It is the combination of the mechanics of marketing, or the 7 Key Tools of Marketing, and the message principles, or the Weapons of Influence, that enable your business to be successful!<br /><br />Here are the 7 Key Tools of Marketing.<br /><br />Tool 1. Advertising. If you have the budget for it, advertising has the broadest reach and creates the most top-of-mind awareness. Here is what you must do to create high response-generating advertising. Be distinctive. Capture attention with a screaming headline. After your headline hooks them, the copy or the message in the body of your ad has to keep them reading. Be sure to include a Call to Action.<br /><br />Tool 2. Direct Mail. A successful direct mail campaign depends on how regular and consistent your mailings are. First, use color as much as you can. Second, put messages on the envelopes. Third, think about the way you sort your own mail to increase the chances of the envelope being opened. In conclusion, use direct mail as a weapon for attacking your dream prospects.<br /><br />Tool 3. Corporate Literature. Consider corporate literature to be like your direct mail pieces. Your brochures must draw from your education-based marketing efforts and should be a miniature version of your pitch or core story. It must have riveting data however remember that facts tell but stories sell. Use the same graphics that you use in your presentations, advertisements, and direct mail pieces to enhance cohesion of your marketing efforts.<br /><br />Tool 4. Public Relations. If you throw splashy events such as trade show parties and benefits for your clients, you are doing PR work. PR also includes press releases, building relationships with the press to get articles written about you, and affiliating with strong forces that can help you such as trade associations and community groups. Most companies do not have a cohesive, highly effective public relations effort, yet it can work miracles for building your fame, even if you are a small company, especially with the reach and pervasiveness of the Internet.<br /><br />Tool 5. Personal Contact. Personal contact is the most potent form of marketing so do it often and have quality conversations with your prospects.<br /><br />Tool 6. Trade Shows and Market Education. Trade shows are a great way to provide product and market related information to your prospects. When done properly, it can take you from obscurity to the top of the market in a single event. If not done properly, it can be a big waste of money. Follow these three rules to have a great trade show. 1. Get noticed. 2. Drive traffic. 3. Capture leads.<br /><br />Tool 7. Internet. The Internet can create an awesome opportunity for your business or it can become your worst nightmare overnight if some competitor learns how to utilize it better than you. As an example, Amazon struggled in its early years but it still took $1B in market share from other booksellers. Because Amazon grew with the Internet, it reached the $1B in sales in four years. Prior to the Internet, other bookstore chains took 50 years to reach $1B in sales. Here are the five key activities to perform on the Internet. 1. Capture leads. 2. Build a relationship. 3. Interact as much as possible. 4. Offer a webinar. 5. Convert traffic to sales.<br /><br />It is important for all these key tools of marketing to work together. Your content and your message should be, of course, consistent and all the duplicated, or syndicated, content be cross-referenced in some manner.<br /><br />Here are some important questions to ask as a way to ensure the key tools of marketing are effective. Are all your articles on your website? Are they available as downloads? Are they available to site visitors so they can be shared and or mailed to others by your site visitors? Does your content generate leads for your business? Do you offer free education as a way of building your leads list?<br /><br />As mentioned at the beginning of this post, it is important that the weapons of influence (contained in your content, your pitch, your storyboard) are used to get your prospects to take the action you want them to take.<br /><br />To help you understand the power of the weapons of influence, do you feel as if you are an easy mark for the pitches of peddlers or fund-raisers? Do you find yourself in possession of unwanted magazine subscriptions or tickets to various charity events? Why is it that a request stated in a certain way, is rejected while a request asking for the same favor in a slightly different way will be successful? The key is the psychology of persuasion, sometimes referred to as the weapons of influence.<br /><br />Here are the 6 Weapons of Influence that need to be considered when preparing your message.<br /><br />Weapon 1. Reciprocity. This rule is the old give and take and says that we should try to repay in kind what another person has provided us.<br /><br />Weapon 2. Commitment and Consistency. Like other weapons of influence, this rule is quite simply our desire to be, and to appear to be, consistent with what we have already done. As an example, if we buy a small item, we are frequently asked if we would like to supersize it, or buy another item for 50% (as an example) more; all presented to us at the same time. This is part of the up-sell process.<br /><br />Weapon 3. Social Proof. This rule states that we determine what is correct when we find out what other people think is correct. Said another way, we think we will make fewer mistakes by acting in accord with social evidence than contrary to it. This is why testimonials are so popular for a product; they make us think that if all the people in the testimonials like or are using the product, how could we be wrong for also using it.<br /><br />Weapon 4. Liking. This rule is based on the fact the most of us would prefer to say yes to the requests of someone we know and like. As trivial as it may seem, prospects are more likely to purchase from a sales person if the sales person were similar to the prospect in terms of age, sex, religion, politics, and several other factors such as recreation, and even career, activities.<br /><br />Weapon 5. Authority. We are trained from birth that obedience to proper authority is right and that disobedience is wrong. This message is carried forward in the legal, medical, military, and political systems we encounter as adults. Advertisers frequently harness the respect and influence accorded to doctors in our culture by hiring actors to play the role of a doctor and speak in a positive way about a product. The message from the doctor, an authority figure, can sway or influence prospects to purchase the product.<br /><br />Weapon 6. Scarcity. The appeal for something of interest increases when we learn that it will soon become unavailable. This is based on the rule of scarcity. There is a secondary source of power, or influence, with the scarcity principle. As opportunities become less available, we lose freedoms and we hate to lose freedoms we already have. Whenever free choice is limited, due to the scarcity of something, the need to retain our freedom makes us desire them significantly more than we did previously.<br /><br />By understanding and using these weapons, you have the ability to produce a distinct kind of automatic, mindless compliance from people that have a willingness to say yes without thinking first.<br /><br />With the ever-accelerating pace and information crush of modern life, this form of hypnotic writing that generates unthinking compliance will be more and more prevalent in the future.<br /><br />As a result, it will be important to understand the how and why of automatic persuasion using the weapons of influence.<br /><br />The 7 Key Tools of Marketing and the 6 Weapons of Influence are being used by The New Professionals as a driving force for their success with their home-based businesses. As The New Professionals are becoming The Next Millionaires, this makes a home-based business opportunity very appealing for many seeking a career change.<br /><br />Many high profile business leaders, including the Oracle of Omaha, suggest that if you don’t focus on being an online entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually they say, it will be an uphill battle.<br /><br />This suggestion is attracting current and former doctors, CEOs, and other members of the corporate workforce that are seeking a way to leave their established and lucrative careers. They are in pursuit of new opportunities in the world of Social Media and Internet Marketing so they can generate income, prestige, independence, and financial rewards that exceed the levels obtained by most in their previous careers.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "Influence" by Robert B Cialdini as it explains The Psychology of Persuasion. <br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about <a href="http://www.GTMPartners.com">Being No 1 on Google</a>, and learn how to <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">Be Savvy with Your Money</a> like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.<br /><br />Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-21569772798753970912011-09-30T22:02:00.003-06:002011-10-24T12:43:39.664-06:00Finding Balance with Career ChangesWhat would it be like to quit your job and start over in a more appealing career?<br /><br />If you are an older worker, youi may think that a major career change would require overcoming too many obstacles to be worthwhile like age discrimination, new technology, or a salary cut.<br /><br />However the real obstacles to a midlife career change may reside in your own mind.<br /><br />Here are several myths surrounding a midlife career change and these keep people from pursuing their dream job.<br /><br />Myth 1. I am too old to make a career change. Without changing your perception of your capabilities, you will never make a successful career change. Unfortunately, while younger workers are often expected to explore different career paths, older workers are not encouraged to do so. And if you have progressed up the corporate ladder to an enviable position, friends and family may be shocked you would consider leaving success for uncharted waters. With this much pressure to stay put, it can be easy to allow your dream job to remain only a dream. Some serious soul-searching is needed to understand how and why you want your career to change, so you will have the conviction to stand up to others.<br /><br />You can have access to one of the most powerful tools for self-improvement and goal attainment, so necessary in making a career change, by learning the techniques of Psycho-Cybernetics. In the book “The New Psycho-Cybernetics” Dan Kennedy updates the work of Maxwell Maltz. Kennedy explains that by using the techniques covered in this book, you will be able to improve your self-image and overcome limiting beliefs especially the myth that you are too old to make a career change.<br /><br />Myth 2. If I make a career change, I will be starting at the bottom. Even though you may be new at a company, you are not the newbie you were when you entered the workforce. You have gained an impressive array of skills, plus you have professional wisdom and perspective acquired only through time. The key to bypassing entry-level status is to market these assets in your next interview.<br /><br />Your life story and experience have greater importance and market value than you probably ever dreamed. The best way to make a difference in this world is to use your knowledge and advice to help others succeed. You can get paid, and bypass the entry-level status, by sharing your advice and how-to-information. <br /><br />Myth 3. This old dog can’t learn new tricks. Says who? Of course there will be a learning curve to any new career you try. But isn’t having a new professional challenge part of why you seek this change? The goal is to find your innate strengths and interests.<br /><br />Said another way is that once you know Why you want to do something, you will figure out How to do something… it is just natures way. Why is the reason we get out of bed in the morning. If you spring out of bed, you have a Why that is real, defined, and you believe in. If you have difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, then you need to find your Why. Simon Sinek provides examples in his book “Start with Why”. The Wright Brothers had a Why that was to develop a technology that would change the world. Steve Jobs of Apple had a Why which was to create value by disrupting the status quo in certain industries. Henry Ford wanted to provide a means of transportation for the common man not just to provide a faster horse. The power of learning something new comes from that part of our brain called the limbric brain and this power is astounding. It can influence us to do things that seem illogical or irrational. Without this power there would be no small businesses; there would be no exploration; there would be very little innovation; and there would be no great leaders to inspire all these things.<br /> <br />If these myths are stopping you from pursuing a career change in your midlife, expand your thinking about your capabilities instead of focusing on what you see holding you back. Also, consider that accepting these myths is easier than taking a risk. If you were to read the book “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek, it would fan the flames inside you, lead you to levels of excellence you never considered attainable, and debunk the myths surrounding a midlife career change.<br /><br />If you are ready to take the professional plunge into a new career then you should “Go for it” with these words of caution.<br /><br />Keep your expectations realistic. If you have been fantasizing that your dream job will be the antidote to your personal and professional troubles, you may be glorifying what a new career can really do. Research the economic outlook and job duties for your new career.<br /><br />Give it time. Deciding to venture into a new career can mean changes in your work environment, coworkers, income, and how you view yourself. Even if your new position is something you have always wanted to do, all these changes can be a shock. Before calling it quits, allow enough time to let the dust settle and adjust to your new profession.<br /><br />Know yourself. You have a history of professional and personal experience to draw from when determining your natural strengths. Think about what you truly enjoy, what you do well, and what you are proud of. Is there a underlying theme?<br /><br />Another opportunity being considered by many seeking a career change is a home-based business opportunity. A home business can offer people a way to update their skills and use new tools to create new income opportunities. It can empower seasoned workers, seeking to a make a career change, to venture out on their own as entrepreneurs and grow in confidence, versus being consumed by the fear associated with a shrinking job market.<br /><br />Technology is available to everyone at home and it is even better than what you can get in a large company. The best tools and support needed to run a home-based business are now available to individuals at an affordable cost. This makes a home-based business opportunity very appealing. <br /><br />Many high profile business leaders, including the Oracle of Omaha, suggest that if you don’t focus on being an online entrepreneur, being self-employed, or being a small business owner, it will be a very tough road in the months and years ahead; actually they say, it will be an uphill battle.<br /><br />This suggestion is attracting current and former doctors, CEOs, and other members of the corporate workforce that are seeking a way to leave their established and lucrative careers. They are in pursuit of new opportunities in the world of Social Media and Internet Marketing so they can generate income, prestige, independence, and financial rewards that exceed the levels obtained by most in their previous careers.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "Linchpin" by Seth Godin as it explains to each of us how we can make an indispensable contribution to something we care about. <br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.<br /><br />Please share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message!Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-87628723488183786692011-08-29T18:40:00.003-06:002011-09-02T10:47:21.743-06:00The Law of Resources – An Idea Will Not Get Off the Ground Without Adequate FundingIf you have a good idea and you are reading this article with the thought in mind that all you need is a little marketing help, let me through cold water on that thought.
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<br />Even the best idea in the world will not go very far without the money to get it off the ground. Inventors, entrepreneurs, and assorted idea generators seem to think that all their good ideas need is professional marketing help.
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<br />Nothing could be further from the truth. Marketing is a game fought in the mind of the prospect. You need money to get into a mind. And you need money to stay in the mind once you get there.
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<br />You will get further with a mediocre idea and a million dollars than with a great idea alone.
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<br />Some entrepreneurs see advertising as the solution to the problem of getting into prospects’ minds. Advertising is expensive. It cost $9,000 a minute to fight World War II. It cost $22,000 a minute to fight the Vietnam War. A one-minute commercial shown during the Super Bowl in 2011 cost you $6 M for a one minute spot.
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<br />Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had a great idea. But it was Mike Markkula’s $91,000 that put Apple Computer on the map. For his money, Markkula got one-third of Apple.
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<br />Ideas without money are worthless. Well … not quite. But you have to use your idea to find the money not the marketing help. The marketing can come later.
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<br />Some entrepreneurs see publicity as a cheap way of getting into prospects’ minds. “Free advertising” is how they see it, so be sure to liberally create, upload, and distribute Free Press Releases.
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<br />Some entrepreneurs see venture capitalists as the solution to their money problems. But only a tiny percentage of entrepreneurs ever succeed in finding the funding they need this way.
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<br />Some entrepreneurs see corporate America as ready, willing, and financially able to get their off-spring off the ground. Good luck as you will need it. Very few outside ideas are ever accepted by large companies. Your only real hope is finding a smaller company and persuading it of the merits of your idea.
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<br />Remember, an idea without money is worthless. Be prepared to give away a lot for the funding.
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<br />In marketing the rich often get richer because they have the resources to drive their ideas into the mind. Their problem is separating the good ideas from the bad ones and avoiding spending money on too many products and too many programs.
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<br />Unlike a consumer product, a technical or business product has to raise less marketing money because the prospect list is shorter and media is less expensive. But there is still a need for adequate funding for a technical product to pay for brochures, sales, presentations, and trade shows as well as advertising.
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<br />Here is the bottom line. First get the idea, then go get the money to exploit it. Here are some short cuts you could take.
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<br />You can marry the money. Georgette Mosbacher married Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher. Three years after their marriage, Ms. Mosbacher bought a Swiss cosmetics firm. Where did she get the money? It came from venture capitalists; distributors in Switzerland and Japan; plus her husband’s resources. One year after her purchase, the sales were up 30% and she sold out at a heft profit.
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<br />You can divorce the money. Frances Lear arrived in New York at the age of 61 freshly divorced from her husband who produced the TV show “All in the Family.” Determined to launch a magazine for women over 40, she spent $25 million and by the fifth issue, Lear’s magazine had 350,000 readers.
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<br />You can find the money at home. Donald Trump would never have gotten anywhere with out Dad’s millions behind him.
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<br />You can share your idea by franchising it. Tom Monaghan was able to put Domino’s Pizza on the map by pursuing an aggressive program of franchising his home delivery idea.
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<br />The more successful marketers front load their investment. In other words, they take no profit for two or three years as they plow all earnings back into marketing.
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<br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Resources. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires and it is difficult to benefit from their idea without resources. Money makes the marketing world go around. If you want to be successful today, you will have to find the money you need to spin those marketing wheels.
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<br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Resources.
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<br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not just a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Resources as your idea will not get off the ground without adequate funding.
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<br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.
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<br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.
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<br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.
<br />Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-31661464255354071292011-07-29T16:49:00.004-06:002011-08-01T09:44:26.947-06:00The Law of Acceleration – Successful program are not built on fads, they are built on trendsA fad is a wave in the ocean and a trend is the tide.<br /><br />A fad gets a lot of hype and a trend gets very little.<br /><br />Like a wave, a fad is very visible but it goes up and down in a big hurry. Like the tide, a trend is almost invisible but it is very powerful over the long term.<br /><br />A fad is a short-term phenomenon that might be profitable but a fad does not last long enough to do a company much good. Furthermore, a company often tends to gear up as if a fad were a trend. As a result, the company is often stuck with a lot of staff, expensive manufacturing facilities, and distribution networks.<br /><br />A fashion, on the other hand, is a fad that repeats itself. Examples are short skirts for women and double breasted suits for men. Halley’s Comet is a fashion because it comes back every 75 years or so.<br /><br />When the fad disappears, a company often goes into a deep financial shock. What happened to Atari is typical in this respect. And look how Coleco Industries handled the Cabbage Patch Kids. Those homely dools hit the market and started to take off. Coleco’s strategy was to milk the kids for all they were worth.<br /><br />Hundreds of Cabbage Patch novelties flooded the toy stores. Pens, pencils, crayon boxes, games, clothing. Two years later, Coleco racked up sales of $776 million and profits of $83 million. Then the bottom dropped out of the Cabbage patch Kids. A few years later, Coleco went into Chapter 11.<br /><br />Coleco died but the kids live on. Acquired by Hasbro, the Cabbage Patch Kids are now being handled conservatively and doing quite well.<br /><br />Here is the paradox. If you were faced with a rapidly rising business, with all the characteristics of a fad, the best thing you could do would be to dampen the fad. By dampening the fad, you stretch the fad out and it becomes more like a trend.<br /><br />You see this in the toy business. Some owners of hot toys want to put their hot toy name on everything. The result is that it becomes an enormous fad that is bound to collapse. When everybody has a Ninja turtle, nobody wants one anymore.<br /><br />The Ninja turtle is a good example of a fad that collapses in a hurry because the owner of the concept got greedy. The owner fans the fad rather than dampening it.<br /><br />On the other hand, the Barbie doll is a trend. When Barbie was invented year ago, the doll was never heavily merchandised into other areas. As a result, the Barbie doll has become a long-term trend in the toy business.<br /><br />The most successful entertainers are the ones who control their appearances. They do not overextend themselves. They are not all over the place. They do not wear out their welcome.<br /><br />Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Parker, made a deliberate attempt to restrict the number of appearances and records the King made. As a result, every time Elvis appeared, it was an event of enormous impact. Elvis himself contributed to this strategy by overdosing early and severely dampening his future appearances, as did Marilyn Monroe and James Dean.<br /><br />Forget fads. And when they appear, try to dampen them.<br /><br />But the best and most profitable thing to ride in marketing is a long-term trend.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Acceleration. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires and it is difficult to benefit from all the hype. They work hard to maintain a long-term demand for their product and to never totally satisfy the demand … they enforce some scarcity.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Acceleration.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Acceleration as successful program are not built on fads, they are built on trends.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.whoismikefarrell.com/">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.mygtmpartners.com/">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-13288702892529692502011-06-30T17:35:00.007-06:002011-07-29T17:10:47.817-06:00The Law of Hype – The Situation Is Often the Opposite of the Way it Appears in the Press<div>This year (circa 2011) marks the 100th birthday of IBM and over these years, when IBM was successful, the company said very little.<br /><br />When things are going well, a company does not need the hype. When you need the hype, it usually means you are in trouble.<br /><br />Young and inexperienced reporters and editors tend to be more impressed by what they read in other publications than by what they gather themselves. Once the hype starts, it often continues on and on.<br /><br />No newspaper has received more hype than USA Today. At its launch a number of years ago were the president of the United States, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. The residue of this initial hype is still so great that most people can not believe USA Today is a loser.<br /><br />History is filled with marketing failures that were successful in the press. The Tucker 48, the U.S. Football League, the personal helicopter, and polyester suits. The essence of the hype was not just that the new product was going to be successful. The essence of the hype was that existing products would now be obsolete.<br /><br />Polyester was going to make wool obsolete. The personal helicopter was going to make the roads and highways obsolete. The Tucker 48 with its cyclop’s eye headlight would revolutionize the way Detroit makes automobiles however only 51 were ever built.<br /><br />These predictions violate the law of unpredictability. No one can predict the future, not even a sophisticated reporter for the Wall Street Journal. The only revolutions you can predict are the ones that have already started.<br /><br />Did anyone predict the overthrow of communism and the Soviet Union? Not really. It was only after the process had started that the press jumped on the “crumbling communist empire” story.<br /><br />Forget the front page. If you are looking for clues to the future, look in the back of the paper for those innocuous little stories.<br /><br />Over the years, the greatest hype has been for those developments that promise to single-handedly change an entire industry, preferably one that is vital to the American economy.<br /><br />Remember the helicopter hype after World War II? They hype was that every garage would house a helicopter, making roads, bridges, and the entire automobile industry obsolete overnight. Did Donald Trump get a helicopter? Did you get yours? The Donald actually did get his.<br /><br />From time to time, no-frills food makes the headlines. It is reported that this development will revolutionize the packaged-goods industry. Brands are out. People will read the labels and buy products on their merits rather than on the size of the brand’s advertising budget. It is all hype.<br /><br />But for the most part, hype is hype. Real revolutions do not arrive at high noon with marching bands and coverage on the 6 pm news. Real revolutions arrive unannounced in the middle of the night and kind of sneak up on you.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Hype. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires and it is difficult to benefit from all the hype.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Hype.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Hype is often the opposite of the way it appears in the press.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.</div>Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-59610686282443130972011-05-29T22:06:00.003-06:002011-08-01T15:28:15.940-06:00The Law of Failure – Failure is to be expected and acceptedToo many companies try to fix things rather than drop things. “Let’s reorganize to save the situation” is their way of life.<br /><br />Admitting a mistake and not doing anything about it is bad for your career: A better strategy is to recognize failure early and cut your losses. Many years ago, IBM should have dropped copiers and Xerox should have dropped computers years before they finally recognized their mistakes.<br /><br />The Japanese seem to be able to admit a mistake early and then make the necessary changes. Their consensus management style tends to eliminate the ego. Since a large number of people have a small piece of a big decision, there is not stigma that can be considered career damaging. In other words, it is a lot easier to live with “We were all wrong” than the devastating “I was wrong.” <br /><br />This egoless approach is a major factor in making the Japanese such relentless marketers. It is not that they do not make mistakes, but when they do, they admit them, fix them, and just keep coming.<br /><br />The hugely successful WalMart has another approach that enables the company to deal with failure. It is called Sam Walton’s “ready, aim, fire” approach. It is an outgrowth of his penchant for constant tinkering.<br /><br />Walton was well aware that nobody hits the target every time. But at WalMart, people aren’t punished if their experiments fail. As WalMart’s chief executive said in a Business Week article, “If you learn something and you’re trying something, then you probably get credit for it. But woe to the person who makes the same mistake twice.” <br /><br />WalMart is different from many large corporations because, so far, it appears to be free of an insidious disease called the “personal agenda” that can creep into any corporation. Marketing decisions are often made first with the decision maker’s career in mind and second with the impact on the competition or the enemy in mind. There is a built-in conflict between the personal and the corporate agenda. <br /><br />This leads to failure to take risks. (It is hard to be first in a new category without sticking our neck out). When the senior executive has a high salary and a short time to retirement, a bold move is highly unlikely.<br /><br />Ever junior executives often make “safe” decisions so as to not disrupt their progress up the corporate ladder. Nobody has ever been fired for a bold move they did not make.<br /><br />In some American companies nothing gets done unless it benefits the personal agenda of someone in top management. This severely limits the potential marketing moves a company can make. An idea gets rejected not because it is not fundamentally sound but because no one in top management will personally benefit from its success.<br /><br />One way to defuse the personal agenda factor is to bring it out in the open. 3M uses the “champion” system to publicly identify the person who will benefit from the success of a new product or venture. The successful introduction of 3M’s Post-It Notes illustrates how the concept works. Art Fry is the 3M scientist who championed the Post-It Notes product, which took almost a dozen years to bring to market.<br /><br />While the 3M system works, in theory the ideal environment would allow managers to judge a concept on its merits, not on whom the concept would benefit.<br /><br />If a company is going to operate in an ideal way, it will take teamwork, esprit de corps, and a self-sacrificing leader: One immediately thinks of Patton and his Third Army and its dash across France. No army in history took as much territory and as many prisoners in as short a period of time.<br /><br />Patton’s reward? Eisenhower fired him.<br /><br />Small companies are mentally closer to the front line than big companies. They have not been tainted by the Law of Failure. That might be one reason why they grow more rapidly and are viewed as the engine to revive the economy.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Failure. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires nor can they predict the future.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Failure.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Failure as no one can predict the future with any degree of certainty.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-61612531928813479992011-04-28T21:08:00.002-06:002011-04-28T21:13:03.595-06:00The Law of SuccessEgo is the enemy of successful marketing.<br /><br />Objectivity is what’s needed.<br /><br />When people become successful, they tend to become less objective. They often substitute their own judgment for what the market wants.<br /><br />Donald Trump is an example of people blinded early by success and untainted by humilty. And when you are blind, it is indeed hard to focus.<br /><br />Trump’s strategy was to put his name on everything, committing the cardinal sin of line extension. Denial seems to go hand in hand with a big ego. When first meeting the Donald, he will frequently begin with a discussion about how people accuse him of having a big ego; which he denies. However, while he is speaking, it is hard to avoid noticing big T symbols all around; so much for the sermons about not having a big ego.<br /><br />Success is often the fatal element behind the rash of line extensions. When a brand is successful, the company assumes the name is the primary reason for the brand’s success. So they promptly look for other products to plaster the name on.<br /><br />Actually it is the opposite. The name did not make the brand famous (although a bad name might keep the brand from becoming famous). The brand got famous because you made the right marketing moves. In other words, the steps you took were in tune with the fundamental laws of marketing.<br /><br />You got into the mind first. You narrowed the focus. You preempted a powerful attribute.<br /><br />Your success puffs up your ego to such an extent that you put the famous name on other products. Result: early success and long-term failure as illustrated by the actions of Donald Trump.<br /><br />The more you identify with your brand or corporate name, the more likely you are to fall into the line extension trap. It can’t be the name, you might be thinking when things go wrong. We have a great name. Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.<br /><br />One aspect of the problem is the allocation of time; too many industry activities, too many outside board meetings, too many testimonial dinners.<br /><br />According to a recent survey, the average CEO spends 18 hours a week on outside activities. The next time waster is internal meetings with approx 17 hours a week attending corporate meetings and 6 hours a week preparing for those meetings.<br /><br />Since the typical top executive works 60 hours a week, this leaves only 20 hours for everything else including managing the operation and going down to the front line. No wonder the chief executives delegate the marketing function, which is a big mistake.<br /><br />Marketing is too important to be turned over to an underling. If you delegate anything, you should delegate the chairmanship of the next fund-raising drive; like the VP of the US attends state funerals, not the president.<br /><br />The next activity to cut back is the time spent on the meetings. Instead of talking things over, walk out and see for yourself. As Gorbachev told Reagan, “It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.”<br /><br />Small companies are mentally closer to the front than big companies. That might be one reason why they grow more rapidly and viewed as the engine to revive the economy. They have not been tainted by the law of success.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Success. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires nor can they predict the future.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Success.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Success as no one can predict the future with any degree of certainty.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.whoismikefarrell.com/">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.mygtmpartners.com/">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.mycfymblog.com/">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-3579775554279993802011-03-31T18:19:00.003-06:002011-03-31T18:31:14.980-06:00The Law of Unpredictability – Unless You Write Your Competitor’s Plans, You Can’t Predict the FutureMost marketing plans make assumptions about the future.<br /><br />Have you ever noticed that even with hundreds of computers and an army of meteorologists, no one can predict the weather more than three days in advance? So how do you expect anyone to predict what the market conditions will be like in one to three years?<br /><br />Failure to forecast competitive reaction is a major reason for marketing failures. Yet there are those who would say that America’s big problem is the lack of a long view and that American management is too short term in thinking. Without including a forecast of the future, in marketing plans, wouldn’t things be even worse?<br /><br />On the surface, those concerns are real. But it is important to understand what is meant by long terms versus short term. Most of corporate America’s problems are not related to short-term marketing thinking; they are related to short-term financial thinking.<br /><br />Most companies live from quarterly report to quarterly report. That is a receipt for problems. Companies that live by the numbers, die by the numbers.<br /><br />For example, General Motors was doing fine until the financial folks took over and put the focus on the numbers instead of the brands. That allowed Alfred P. Sloan’s plan of differentiated brands to fall apart. Every division head, in order to make their short-term numbers, started to chase the middle of the market. Over time, this approach contributed to the bankruptcy in 2009.<br /><br />Good short-term planning is coming up with that angle or word that differentiates your product or company. You then setup a coherent long-term marketing direction that builds a program to maximize that idea or angle. It is not a long-term plan, it is a long-term direction.<br /><br />For example, Tom Monaghan’s short-term angle at Domino’s Pizza was to come up with that home delivery idea and build a system that delivered pizzas quickly and efficiently. His long-term direction was to build the first nationwide home delivery chain as rapidly as possible.<br /><br />Monaghan determined he could not own the words, home delivery, until he had enough franchises to afford national advertising. He accomplished both objectives and today Domino’s is a multi-billion dollar company with a significant share of the home delivery business. Monaghan did it all without a complex, 10-year plan.<br /><br />So what can you do? How can you best cope with unpredictability? While you can not predict the future, you can get a handle on trends, which is a way to take advantage of change.<br /><br />One example is American’s growing orientation toward good health and wellness. This is estimated to be The Next Trillion $ industry and it has barely gotten started.<br /><br />However, the danger in working with trends is extrapolation. Many companies jump to conclusions about how far a trend will go. For example, if you believed the prognosticators of a few years ago, everyone today should be eating fish or chicken; however hamburger sales are still doing just fine.<br /><br />Equally bad as extrapolating a trend is the common practice of assuming the future will be a replay of the present. When you assume that nothing will change, you are predicting the future just as surely as when you assume that something will change. Remember Murphy’s Law, the unexpected always happens.<br /><br />While tracking trends can be useful tool in dealing with the unpredictable future, market research can be more of a problem than a help. New ideas and concepts are almost impossible to measure. People do not know what they will do until they face an actual decision.<br /><br />For online marketers, this is where keyword research is very helpful. By using keyword research tools, the online marketer is able to learn what ideas, concepts, trends, and products are in demand based on what people are searching for online. In addition, market profitability, and the amount of competition, can be determined based on good keyword analysis with the right keyword research tools.<br /><br />One final note that is worth mentioning is that there is a difference between predicting the future and taking a chance on the future. Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Popping Corn took a chance that people would pay twice as much for high-end popcorn. This was not a bad risk in today’s affluent society.<br /><br />No one can predict the future with any degree of certainty nor should they have marketing plans that try to predict the future unless they are writing the marketing plans of their competitors.<br /><br />Marketing is a battle of ideas. If you are to succeed, you must describe your value and deliver sustainable results. Without capability, you had better have a low price; a very low price.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Unpredictability. They learn to identify their target market with keyword research and keyword research tools as they know they can not guess what the market desires nor can they predict the future.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Unpredictability.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Unpredictability as no one can predict the future with any degree of certainty.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.whoismikefarrell.com/">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.mygtmpartners.com/">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.mycfymblog.com/">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-29613332024621152692011-02-27T20:44:00.002-07:002011-02-27T20:48:23.391-07:00The Law of Singularity – Only One Move Produces Sustainable ResultsMany marketing people see success as the sum total of a lot of small efforts beautifully executed. They think they can pick and choose from a number of different strategies and still be successful as long as they put enough effort into the program. They seem to think that the best way to grow is the puppy approach - get into everything.<br /><br />If they're not with the leader, they often end up trying to do the same as the leader but they try to be a little better or try a little harder. However, trying harder is not the secret of marketing success.<br /><br />Whether you try hard or try easy, the differences are marginal. Furthermore the bigger the company, the more the law of averages wipes out any real advantage of a trying-harder approach.<br /><br />History teaches that the only thing that works in marketing is the single, bold stroke. Furthermore, in any given situation there is only one move that will produce substantial results.<br /><br />Successful generals study the battleground and look for that one bold stroke that is least expected by the enemy. Finding one is difficult. Finding more than one is usually impossible.<br /><br />Military strategist and author B. H. Liddell Hart calls this bold stroke "the line of least expectation." The Allied invasion came at Normandy, a place whose tide and rocky shore the Germans felt would be an unlikely choice for a landing of any scale.<br /><br />So it is in marketing. Most often there is only one place where a competitor is vulnerable. And that place should be the focus of the entire invading force.<br /><br />What works in marketing is the same as what works in the military; the unexpected.<br /><br />Hannibal came over the Alps, a route deemed impossible to scale. Hitler came around the Maginot Line and sent his panzer divisions through the Ardennes, terrain the French generals thought impossible to traverse with tanks. (As a matter of fact, he did it twice - once in the Battle of France and again in the Battle of the Bulge.)<br /><br />The automobile industry is an interesting case in point. In recent years there have been only two strong moves made against GM. Both were flanking moves around the GM Maginot Line. The Japanese came at the low end with small cars like Toyota, Datsun, and Honda. The Germans came at the high end with super-premium cars like Mercedes and BMW.<br /><br />With the success of Japanese and German flanking attacks, General Motors was under pressure to commit resources in an attempt to shore up the bottom and the top of its lines.<br /><br />GM made the fateful decision to build many of its midrange cars using the same body style. Suddenly, no one could tell a Chevrolet from a Pontiac, Oldsmobile, or a Buick. They all locked alike. Its’ look-alike cars weakened General Motors in the middle as Ford broke through with the Sable. And then the Japanese jumped in with Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti. General Motors, weak across the board, spun into bankruptcy during 2008 after the start of the Global Financial Crisis.<br /><br />To find that singular idea or concept, marketing managers have to know what's happening in the marketplace. They have to be down at the frontline in the mud of the battle. They have to know what's working and what isn't. They have to be involved.<br /><br />Because of the high cost of mistakes, management can't afford to delegate important marketing decisions. That's what happened at General Motors.<br /><br />When the financial people took over, the marketing programs collapsed. Their interest was in the numbers, not the brands. The irony is that the numbers went south, along with the brands.<br /><br />It's hard to find that single move if you're hanging around headquarters and not involved in the process.<br /><br />Marketing is a battle of ideas. If you are to succeed, you must have a single successful move to describe your value and deliver sustainable results. Without one, you had better have a low price; a very low price.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Singularity. They learn to identify their target market and focus on a single successful move to promoting products that will appeal and add value to their target market.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Singularity.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Singularity where only one move produces sustainable results.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.aspenIbiz.blogspot.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-59875352249990170392011-01-28T12:09:00.003-07:002011-08-01T15:24:57.593-06:00The Law of Candor – Admit a Negative and the Prospect Will Give You a PositiveIt goes against corporate and human nature to admit a problem. For years, the power of positive thinking has been drummed into us and “think positive” has been the subject of endless books and articles.<br /><br />So it may come as a surprise to you that one of the most effective ways to get into a prospect’s mind is to be candid and first admit a negative, then twist it into a positive.<br /><br />Avis is only No 2 in rent cars.<br /><br />With a name like Smucker’s it has to be good.<br /><br />What’s going on here? Why does a dose of honesty work so well in the marketing process?<br /><br />First and foremost, candor is very disarming. Every negative statement you make about yourself is instantly accepted as truth. Positive statements, on the other hand, are looked at as dubious at best especially in an advertisement.<br /><br />You have to prove a positive statement to the prospect’s satisfaction. No proof is needed for a negative statement.<br /><br />“With a name like Smucker’s it has to be good.” Most companies, especially family companies, would never make fun of their name. Yet the Smucker family did, which is one reason why Smucker’s is the No 1 brand of jams and jellies. If your name is bad, you have two choices: change the name or make fun of it.<br /><br />Avis is only No 2 in rent cars so why go with them? They must try harder. Everybody knew that Avis was second in rent cars.<br /><br />So why go with the obvious? Marketing is often a search for the obvious. Since you can’t change a mind once it is made up, your marketing efforts have to be devoted to using ideas and concepts already installed in the brain. You have to use your marketing programs to “rub it in.” No program did this as brilliantly as the Avis No 2 program.<br /><br />The explosive growth of communications in our society has made people defensive and cautious about companies trying to sell them anything. Admitting a problem is something that very few companies do.<br /><br />When a company starts a message by admitting a problem, people tend to, almost instinctively, open their minds. Think about the times that someone came to you with a problem and how quickly you got involved and wanted to help. Now think about people starting a conversation about some wonderful things they are doing. You probably were a lot less interested.<br /><br />Now with that mind open, you are in a position to drive in the positive, which is our selling idea. Some years ago, Scope entered the mouthwash market with a good tasting mouthwash thus exploiting Listerine’s truly terrible taste.<br /><br />What should Listerine do? It certainly could not tell people that Listerine’s taste was not all that bad. That would raise a red flag that would reinforce a negative perception. Things could get worse. Instead, Listerine brilliantly invoked the law of candor: “The taste you hate twice a day.”<br /><br />Not only did the company admit the product tasted bad, it admitted that people actually hated it (now that’s honesty). This admission setup the selling idea that Listerine “kills a lot of germs.”<br /><br />The prospect figured that anything that tastes like disinfectant must indeed be a germ killer. A crisis passed with help of a heavy dose of candor.<br /><br />One final note: The law of candor must be used carefully and with great skill. First, your negative must be widely perceived as a negative. It has to trigger an instant agreement with your prospect’s mind. If the negative does not register quickly, your prospect will be confused and will wonder, “What is this all about?”<br /><br />Next you have to shift quickly to the positive. The purpose of candor is not to apologize. The purpose of candor is to setup a benefit that will convince your prospect.<br /><br />This law only proves the old maxim: Honesty is the best policy.<br /><br />Marketing is a battle of ideas. If you are to succeed, you must have a unique attribute to focus and describe your value. Without one, you had better have a low price; a very low price.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Candor. They learn to identify their target market, focus on promoting products that will appeal and add value to their target market.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Candor.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Candor when you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Also, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.<br /><br />Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Prosperous New Year!Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-13516799468589265002010-12-30T14:57:00.005-07:002010-12-30T15:16:16.378-07:00The Law of Attributes – Every Attribute Has an Opposite Effective AttributeIn a previous (Feb 4th 2010) blog post about <a href="http://aspenibiz.blogspot.com/2010/02/law-of-exclusivity-ries-trout-as.html">The Law of Exclusivity</a>, a point was made that you can’t own the same word or position that your competitor owns. You must find your own word to own. You must seek out another attribute.<br /><br />Too often a company attempts to emulate the leader. “They must know what works,” goes the rationale, “so let’s do something similar.” This is not good thinking.<br /><br />It is much better to search for an opposite attribute that will allow you to play off against the leader. The key word here is opposite so similar will not do.<br /><br />The leading cola drink was the original and thus the choice of older people. Pepsi successfully positioned itself as the choice of the younger generation.<br /><br />Since Crest owned the word cavities, other toothpastes avoided cavities and jumped on other attributed like taste, whitening, breath protection, and baking soda.<br /><br />Marketing is a battle of ideas. So if you are to succeed, you must have an idea or attribute of your own around which to focus your efforts. Without one, you had better have a low price; a very low price.<br /><br />Some say all attributes are not created equal. Some attributes are more important to customers than others. You must try and own the most important attribute to your target prospects and customers.<br /><br />For example, cavity prevention is the most important attribute in toothpaste. It is the one to own. But The Law of Exclusivity points to the simple truth that once an attribute is successfully taken by your competition, it is gone. You most move on to a lesser attribute and live with a smaller share of the category. Your job is to seize a different attribute, dramatize the value of your attribute, and thus increase your share.<br /><br />Here is another example. Burger King was unsuccessful when it tried to take the attribute “fast” from McDonald’s. What should Burger King have done? Use the opposite attribute? The exact opposite attribute, “slow” would not do for a fast food place however the there is an element of slowness in the broiling concept.<br /><br />To drive the concept into a prospect’s mind, Burger King needed a term or attribute to describe it’s new concept … it came up with the “flame-broiled taste of Burger King.” This new concept for Burger King, at the time, created fear and terror in the boardroom at McDonald’s … this is always a good sign of an effective program. <br /><br />Marketing is a battle of ideas. If you are to succeed, you must have a unique attribute to focus and describe your value. Without one, you had better have a low price; a very low price.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Attributes. They learn to identify their target market, focus on promoting products that will appeal and add value to their target market.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Attributes.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Attributes as for every attribute, there is another attribute that is opposite and effective.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.<br /><br />Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-48217747132251738192010-11-30T12:17:00.005-07:002011-08-01T15:11:38.876-06:00The Law of Sacrifice – You Have to Give Up Something in Order to Get SomethingThe Law of Sacrifice is the opposite of the Law of Line Extension. If you want to be successful today, you should give something up.<br /><br />In the world of business and marketing, there are three areas to sacrifice: product line, target market, and constant change.<br /><br />The first area to review is the product line.<br /><br />Where is it written that the more you have to sell, the more you sell?<br /><br />Marketing is a game of mental warfare. It's a battle of perceptions, not products or services. In the mind of the prospect, Eveready was the long-time leader in batteries and then new technology arrived-as it does in most industries. The first technology to change the battery business was the heavy-duty battery. What would you call your heavy-duty battery if you had the No.1 name in batteries? You'd probably call it the Eveready heavy-duty battery, which is what Eveready did. Soon after, the alkaline battery arrived. Again, Eveready called it the alkaline battery. It seemed to make sense.<br /><br />Another company, P.R. Mallory then introduced an alkaline batteries only product line and the company gave the line a better name; it called them Duracell.<br /><br />The power of the sacrifice (meaning it gave up a broad product line) for Duracell was in being able to put the "long-lasting battery" idea in the mind of the customer. Duracell lasts twice as long as Eveready said the advertising.<br /><br />As a result of this success, Eveready was forced to change the name of its alkaline battery to "the Energizer" but it was too late. Duracell had already become the leader in the battery market.<br /><br />One more example of the law of sacrifice is from the retail industry. Many retail chains that are successful have a pattern or formula of a narrow focus with in-depth stock. Here are some examples.<br /><br />In the retail field, generally the big successes are the specialists:<br /><br />- The Limited - Upscale clothing for working women.<br />- The Gap - Casual clothing for the young at heart.<br />- Benetton - Wool and cotton clothing for young swingers.<br />- Victoria's Secret - Sexy undergarments.<br />- Foot Locker - Athletic shoes.<br />- Banana Republic - Safari wear.<br /><br />(When a clothing chain with a name like Banana Republic can be successful, you know we live in the age of the specialist.)<br /><br />Let's review the second area of sacrifice which is the target market.<br /><br />Where is it written that you have to appeal to everybody?<br /><br />Take the cola field. Coca-Cola got into the prospect's mind first and built a powerful position. In <br />the late fifties, for example, Coke outsold Pepsi more than five to one. What could Pepsi-Cola do to go against Coke's powerful position?<br /><br />In the early sixties, Pepsi-Cola finally developed a strategy based on the concept of sacrifice. The company sacrified everything except the teenage market and then it brilliantly exploited this market by hiring its icons: Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Don Johnson.<br /><br />Within one generation, Pepsi closed the gap and to be within 10 percent of Coca-Cola in total U.S. cola sales. (In the supermarket, Pepsi-Cola actually outsells Coca Cola.)<br /><br />In spite of Pepsi-Cola’s success the pressure for enlarging the tent is always present. In the mid 80s, it succumbed to the temptation and according to a report in Advertising Age, "Pepsi-Cola Co. had outgrown the Pepsi generation. In a major marketing shift, flagship Pepsi will be pitched as the soft drink for the masses."<br /><br />"Gotta have lt" became Pepsi's new theme and the advertising promotions showed older people like Yogi Berra and Regis Philbin drinking Pepsi.<br /><br />According to Fortune magazine, “Coca-Cola is still the world's most powerful trademark. When an also-ran like Pepsi-Cola develops a narrowly focused strategy that puts it within an eyelash of the leader, why would it change its powerful strategy?”<br /><br />Finally, the third sacrifice area is constant change.<br /><br />Where is it written that you have to change your strategy every year at budget review time?<br /><br />If you try to follow the twists and turns of the market, you are bound to wind up off the road. The best way to maintain a consistent position is not to change it in the first place.<br /><br />A little over 20 years ago, People Express was a startup airline carrier and it had created a brilliant "niche" position. It was the no-frills airline that flew to no-frills cities at no-frills prices. People used to get on a People Express plane and say, "Where are we going?" They didn't care as long as it was cheap enough.<br /><br />What did People Express do after it became successful? It tried to be all things to all people. It invested in new equipment like 747s. It started to fly the heavily traveled routes to places like Chicago and Denver as well as Europe. It also bought Frontier Airlines. It added frills like first-class sections.<br /><br />People Express then promptly lost altitude and only escaped bankruptcy court by selling itself to Texas Air which did it for them.<br /><br />Good things come to those who sacrifice.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn the Law of Sacrifice. They learn to identify their target market, focus on promoting products that will appeal to the target market, and to stay the course with persistent effort and not have constant change.<br /><br />To accomplish this, they use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to identify a target market, stay focused, and add value to their target market. They learn to leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Sacrifice.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Sacrifice as you have to give up something in order to get something.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, my affiliate website, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-7497895291710304862010-10-30T19:14:00.004-06:002011-08-01T15:09:37.668-06:00The Law of Line Extension – There Is an Irresistible Pressure to Extend the Equity of the BrandIf violating any of the laws of marketing was a punishable offense, a large portion of corporate America would be in jail.<br /><br />By far the most violated law of marketing is the law of line extension. What’s even more diabolical is that line extension is a process that takes place continuously with almost no conscious effort on the part of the corporation. It’s like a closet or desk drawer that fills up with almost no effort on your part.<br /><br />One day a company is tightly focused on a single product that is highly profitable. The next day the same company is spread thin over many products and is losing money.<br /><br />Take IBM. Over the years, IBM has been a mainframe computer company that made a ton of money. Then they evolved into a company that had everything, midrange computers, personal computers, pen computers, workstations, software, networks, telephones, and of course professional services. They even tried to get in the home computer market with the PCjr.<br /><br />Along the way, IBM spent millions on copiers (later sold to Kodak), Rolm (sold to Siemens), Satellite Business Systems (shut down), the Prodigy network (which evolved into an ESPN website and a Yahoo content portal), as well as software products including SAA, TopView, OfficeVision, and OS2.<br /><br />In the early 2000s, IBM was close to collapsing under its own weight. It diversified, sold off, or closed down most of these product lines and focused on world wide professional services.<br /><br />When a company becomes incredibly successful, it invariably plants the seeds for its future problems.<br /><br />Take Microsoft, without a doubt the most successful company in the software field. Microsoft has been heard to say it intended to aggressively seek the dominant share in every major software applications category in the personal computer field with a goal to have as much as a 70 percent share in every major software category.<br /><br />Microsoft Corp has continued on its quest in line extension with online products (MSN), games (Xbox), and smart phones and mobile devices (Windows Mobile). Even with challengers in all these categories, as of 2008, MSFT had a global annual revenue over $60B with nearly 90,000 employees in 105 countries. It develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices.<br /><br />However, there continues to be ominous signs of softness in Microsoft’s overall strategy.<br /><br />Whom does that sound like – IBM? Microsoft is setting itself up for a collapse along the lines of IBM ten years earlier.<br /><br />When you try to be all things to all people, you inevitably end up in trouble. “I’d rather be strong somewhere,” said one manager, “than weak everywhere.”<br /><br />In a narrow sense, line extension involves taking the brand name of a successful product and putting it on a new product you plan to introduce.<br /><br />It sounds so logical. But marketing is a battle of perception, not product.<br /><br />There are as many ways to line extend as there are galaxies in the universe. And new ways get invented every day. In the long run and in the presence of serious competition, line extension almost never works.<br /><br />In spite of evidence that line extensions don’t work, companies continue to pump them out. Here are some examples<br /><br />Ivory soap. Ivory shampoo?<br />Life Savers candy. Life Savers gum?<br />Bic pens. Bic lighters?<br />Tanqueray gin. Tanqueray vodka?<br />USA Today. USA Today on TV?<br /><br />Why does top management believe that line extension works, in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary? One reason is that while line extension is a loser in the long term, it can be a winner in the short term (previous blog post titled The Law of Perspective). Management is also blinded by an intense loyalty to the company or brand.<br /><br />More is less. The more products, the more markets, the more alliances a company develops, the less money it makes. “Full-speed ahead in all directioins” seems to be the call from the corporate office. When will companies learn that line extension ultimately leads to oblivion?<br /><br />Less is more. If you want to be successful today, you have to narrow the focus in order to build a position in the prospect’s mind.<br /><br />In the conventional view, a business strategy usually consists of developing an all-encompassing vision. In other words, what concept or idea is big enough to hold all of a company’s products and services on the market today as well as those that are planned for the future?<br /><br />In the conventional view, strategy is a tent. You stake out a tent big enough so it can hold everything you might possible want to get into.<br /><br />For many companies, line extension is the easy way out. Launching a new brand requires not only money, but also an idea or concept. For a new brand to succeed, it needs to be first in a new category (previous post titled The Law of Leadership). Or the new brand needs to be positioned as an alternative to the leader (previous post titled The Law of the Opposite). Companies that wait until a new market has developed often find these two leadership positions already preempted. So they fall back on the old reliable line extension approach.<br /><br />The antidote for line extension is courage, a commodity in short supply.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs resist the pressure to extend the equity of their brand. As a result, they participate in Affiliate Marketing programs. They use various methods, tools, and follow a traffic formula to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to add value and leverage the equity in their list and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Line Extension.<br /><br />It looks easy but marketing is not a game for amateurs. Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Line Extension as there is an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of their brand.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, my affiliate website, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-70251303162353397862010-09-30T22:37:00.002-06:002011-08-01T15:06:54.496-06:00The Law of Perspective – Marketing Effects Take Place Over an Extended Period of TimeIs alcohol a stimulant or is it a depressant?<br /><br />If you visit almost any bar and grill on a Friday night after work, you would swear that alcohol was a stimulant. The noise and laughter are strong evidence of alcohol’s stimulating effects. Yet at 4:00 in the morning, when you see a few happy-hour customers sleeping it off in the streets, you would swear that alcohol is a depressant.<br /><br />Chemically, alcohol is a strong depressant. But in the short term, by depressing a person’s inhibitions, alcohol acts like a stimulant.<br /><br />Many marketing moves exhibit the same phenomenon. The long-term effects are often the exact opposite of the short term-effects.<br /><br />Does a sale increase a company’s business or decrease it? Obviously, in the short term, a sale increases business. But there is more and more evidence to show that sales decrease business in the long term by educating customers not to buy at “regular” prices.<br /><br />Aside from the fact that you can buy something for less, what does a sale say to a prospect? It says that your regular prices are too high. After the sale is over, customer’s tend to avoid a store with a “sale” reputation.<br /><br />To maintain volume, retail outlets find they have to run almost continuous sales. It is not unusual to walk down a retail block and find a dozen stores in a row with “Sale” signs in their windows.<br /><br />Have the automobile rebate programs increased sales? The rise of auto rebates has coincided with a decline in auto sales. U.S. vehicle sales have declined for five straight years in a row.<br /><br />There is no evidence that couponing increases sales in the long run. Many companies find they need a quarterly does of couponing to keep sales on an even keel. Once they stop couponing, sales drop off.<br /><br />In other words, you keep those coupons rolling out not increase sales but to keep sales from falling off if you stop. Couponing is a drug. You continue to do it because the withdrawal symptoms are just to painful.<br /><br />Any sort of couponing, discounts, or sales tends to educate consumers to buy only when they can get a deal. What if a company never started couponing in the first place? In the retail field the big winners are the companies that practice “everyday low prices”; companies like Wal-mart and K Mart and the rapidly growing warehouse outlets. <br /><br />Yet almost everywhere you look you see yo-yo pricing. The airlines and supermarkets are two examples. Recently, however Proctor & Gamble made a bold move to establish uniform pricing which could become the start of a trend.<br /><br />In everyday life there are many examples of short-term gains and long-term losses, crime being an example. If you a rob a bank for $100,000 and wind up spending 10 years in jail; you either made $100,000 for a day’s work or $10,000 a year for 10 years of labor. It all depends on your point of view.<br /><br />Inflation, or the recent government stimulus (cash for clunkers comes to mind), can give an economy a short-term jolt but in the long run, inflation leads to recession or a Great Deflation as is being experienced in the U.S. at this time (circa 2010).<br /><br />In the short term, overeating satisfies the psyche but in the long run it causes obesity and depression.<br /><br />In many other areas of life (spending money, taking drugs, having sex) the long-term effects of your actions are often the opposite of the short-term effects. Why then is it so hard to comprehend that marketing effects take place over an extended period of time?<br /><br />Take line extension. In the short term, line extension invariably increases sales. The beer industry clearly illustrates this effect.<br /><br />Look what happened to Coors. The introduction of Coors Light caused the collapse of Coors regular; which today sells one fourth of the volume it used to sell.<br /><br />In the short term, both brands can co-exist and do well. But in the long term, line extension was bound to undermine one or the other of the two brands. Once the decline starts, it is almost impossible to stop.<br /><br />Unless you know what to look for, it is hard to see the effects of line extension, especially for managers focused on their next quarterly report. (If a bullet took five years to reach a target, very few criminals would be convicted of homicide.<br /><br />In other areas of marketing, the short-term / long-term line extension effects occur much more rapidly. Let’s look at what happened to Donald Trump. At first, The Donald was successful. He then branched out and put his name on anything for which the banks would lend him money; hotels, casinos, condominiums, an airline, and a shopping center. Many asked, what is a Trump? What does Trump mean?<br /><br />Fortune magazine called Trump an investor with a keen eye for cash flow and asset values, a smart marketer, a cunning wheeler-dealer. The Donald has been on the cover of many magazines.<br /><br />At various points in time, Trump has declared bankruptcy. What made The Donald successful in the short term is exactly what cause him to fail in the long term – line extension.<br /><br />It looks easy, but marketing is not a game for amateurs.<br /><br />It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs recognize marketing effects take place over an extended period of time and as a result, they use various methods and tools to build relationships with their leads and customers. They build websites that create trust. They collect name and email addresses using an Optin form on a Landing Page. They use email systems with both auto-responders and broadcast capabilities in order to send messages to their leads and customers. These email messages frequently send information, provide knowledge, and occasionally promote an offering. Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse and shop. Over an extended period of time, skilled Internet Marketers are able to use hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to get leads and customers to take the action they want. This is how they learn to add value and be successful in the world that includes the Law of Perspective.<br /><br />Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Perspective as marketing effects take place over an extended period of time and requires not only perspective but also persistence.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.<br /><br />In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, <a href="http://www.WhoIsMikeFarrell.com">WhoIsMikeFarrell</a>, learn some tips about being No 1 on Google at <a href="http://www.myGTMPartners.com">aspenIbiz My Go-To-Market Partners</a>, my affiliate website, and learn how to be savvy with your money like the insiders at <a href="http://www.myCFYMBlog.com">aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog</a>.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-83251662817884637482010-08-31T20:00:00.006-06:002010-08-31T20:09:26.979-06:00The Law of Division - Over Time A Category Will Divide Into Two or More CategoriesLike an amoeba dividing in a petri dish, the marketplace can be viewed as an ever-expanding sea of categories. During my career as a management consultant with Deloitte, I experienced this Law of Division many times.<br /><br />I joined Deloitte when the consulting profession, within the Big 4 (Big 8 at that time) Accounting and Consulting firms, was in its formulative stage. At that time, the consulting business was a single entity.<br /><br />Over time, we divided into Advisory Services, Implementation Services, and Quality Review Services. These various service categories further divided into Strategy, Operations, Organization, and Technology specialties. These categories divided again according to industry specialties such as Telecommunications, Technology, Financial Services, Healthcare, Consumer Product Goods, and so forth.<br /><br />Another division occurred according to geography in terms of Emerging Markets and the Industrialized Regions; and then there was another layer of specialty in terms of the Americas, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Americas), as well as APAC (Asia Pacific Countries) regions.<br /><br />While at times these layers of granularity and focus were done for internal purposes, a majority of the time it was the marketplace valuing expertise according to these categories. Each step of the way, we would face new competitors and had to learn how to adapt to these new entrants to the consulting business.<br /><br />Like the consulting business, the automobile industry started off as a single category. Three brands (Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth) dominated the market. The category then divided and today we have luxury cars, moderately priced cars, and inexpensive cars. We also have full-size cars, intermediates, and compacts. And we have sports cars, four-wheel-drive vehicles, RVs, SUVs, and minivans; another example of the ever-expanding sea of categories.<br /><br />In the television industry, ABC, CBS, and NBC once accounted for 90 percent of the viewing audience. Now we have network, independent, cable, pay, and public television with both instore, interactive, and even IPTV networks (niche oriented programming streaming across the internet) … ever watch CNBC online? This programming is available on both my cable TV network and on my PC or laptop (at no charge).<br /><br />Beer started the same way. Today we have imported and domestic beer; premium and popular-priced beers; light, draft, and dry beers; we even have non-alcoholic beer. <br /><br />Each segment is a separate and distinct entity. Each segment has its own reason for existence. And each segment has its own leader which is rarely the same as the leader of the original category.<br /><br />In the computing world, IBM is the leader in mainframes; HP in mid-range computers; Dell and Apple in laptops; and Sun, now a part of Oracle has been the leader in workstations.<br /><br />Instead of understanding this concept of division, many corporate leaders hold the naïve belief that categories are combining. Synergy and its kissing cousin, the corporate alliance, are the buzzwords in the boardrooms around the planet.<br /><br />We saw AOL and Time Warner combine to take advantage of the convergence of television, music, publishing, and computing. How did that work out?<br /><br />Benefits from synergy, and mega mergers, are seldom realized. Categories are dividing, not combining, into a sea of niche categories (and this is well described by Chris Anderson in his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is to Sell Less of More).<br /><br />The riches are in the niches.<br /><br />The way for the leader to maintain its dominance is to address each emerging category with a different brand name as General Motors did with Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac.<br /><br />What keeps leaders from launching a different brand to cover a new category is the fear of what will happen to their existing brands. General Motors was slow to react to the super-premium category that Mercedes-Benz and BMW established. One reason was that a new brand on top of Cadillac would enrage GM’s Cadillac dealers.<br /><br />Contrast this with an operating principle of Andy Grove, former CEO and Chairman of the Board of Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor chip maker and one of the world’s most admired companies, where “only the paranoid survive.” Essentially this principle drove Intel to cycles of survival and leadership based on an ability to cannibalize themselves and make the leap to cross the chasm into the next product area. They were continually dividing successful product areas into new categories generating wildly successful and profitable new markets and avoided joining others at the bottom of the high tech abyss.<br /><br />As an Internet Marketing professional, you need to understand the Law of Division. As a product category divides, there are leadership opportunities to rush in and become No 1 in one or more of the new categories.<br /><br />Timing is also important but you have to have the courage or the money to hang in there long enough for the category to develop.<br /><br />It is better to be early than late. You can not get into the prospect’s mind first (as described in Law No 1 of Leadership) for a category unless you are prepared to spend some time waiting for things to develop.<br /><br />Many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs are using techniques and tools like mind-mapping, keyword research, Attraction Marketing Formula, Magnetic Sponsoring, and MindMeister to conduct the market research and plan a successful marketing campaign. They then use the power of MyStory marketing, brand You Inc, and hypnotic writing skills, in their marketing campaigns, to deal realistically with the position of their brand and the strategy they want to pursue in the world that includes the Law of Division.<br /><br />The goals is to not emphasize why their offering is better, feature and function-wise, over a competitor’s but to develop a message that is recognized, accepted, and agreed to so that it will seduce and persuade a customer, in the new category, that what is offered to the target market is real and will work for them.<br /><br />Marketing is not a battle of products. It is all about the strategy you use to benefit from the Law of Division and if you are not the leader then you must monitor the marketplace and as a category divides, be prepared to rush in to be No 1 in one or more of the new categories.<br /><br />You can find out more about Internet Marketing and home-based businesses by reading updates that will be posted at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />Finally, a great book to read is "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout. It is the source of some of the material provided in this article.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367091239875846169.post-88624661323246414282010-07-13T15:22:00.006-06:002010-07-14T17:42:17.942-06:00Shanghai Is Not What You Would Expect When You Visit the World’s Largest Emerging MarketIn 1982, early in my Management Consulting career with Deloitte, a Big 4 (Big 8 at that time) Accounting and Consulting firm, I made my first to trip to China. I was on an engagement in the Middle East at the time and our client was Saudi Arabian Airlines. I was based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia however worked with clients and traveled extensively throughout the region.<br /><br />As part of the project, I had the opportunity to visit Hong Kong and Beijing however every one told me to avoid Shanghai as it was dreary and in the dumps. Today, Shanghai is not the kind of city most expect to see when they visit the world’s largest Emerging Market.<br /><br />Amazingly, the Pudong area, which is ground zero of the hustle and bustle of Shanghai and representative of the China Dream, did not even exist 20 years ago.<br /><br />Construction on the New Open Economic Development Zone, which has grown to become China’s pulsing financial and commercial hub, only really began in the early 1990s, right around the time the nation’s economy embarked on a two-decade long, double-digit annual growth rate transformation.<br /><br />This (the unapologetically capitalistic city seems to scream out) is what, Made in China, built for us.<br /><br />While the Developed world spent the better part of the last few decades buying knick-knacks they didn’t need with money they didn’t have, China Inc. got busy both producing those same products, and lending the world’s consumers the money with which to buy them. The result is one of the largest trade imbalances in modern economic history. At a staggering $2.4 trillion, the Middle Kingdom’s foreign reserve stockpile is by far the largest in the world. And, although a not-insignificant $900 billion of those reserves are held in steadily depreciating greenbacks (not to mention a large euro holding), the Chinese are wasting no time converting those paper cash piles into tangible asset stakes.<br /><br />Also, China has been on a resource-buying binge over the past ten years, inking deals with major mining companies from Africa to Australia, South America, The Middle East and all over Asia.<br /><br />Just last month China signed more than $8.8 billion of new commercial and mining deals with resource giant Australia, despite its southern neighbor’s onerous new resource profits tax laws. The Middle Kingdom’s voracious industrialization inhaled around $41.7 billion worth of Australia’s minerals in 2009, including almost $20 billion of iron ore and concentrates.<br /><br />Last year China also became Brazil’s number one trading partner when it agreed to lend $10 billion to Petrobras in return for guaranteed oil supply over the next decade. I invite you to read <a href="http://bit.ly/9TXkMF">here</a> my recent article “Energy is One of the 5Es of the Evaluation Framework” that contains a discussion about this transaction between Brazil and China. Other projects between China and its South American BRIC counterpart included a $5 billion steel plant at the Acu port in Rio de Janeiro. This deal represents China’s largest ever investment in Latin America’s richest resource economy and its biggest foreign steel-plant investment.<br /><br />The world’s fastest growing economic superpower is also looking closer to home in an effort to feed its unwavering appetite and to divest itself of paper promises.<br /><br />“Central Asia is rich in mineral resources, particularly rare metals, copper and gold that China needs for economic growth,” President Hu Jintao announced on a recent visit to Central Asia, where he signed gas and nuclear agreements and promised cooperation in port construction and transportation infrastructure. I invite you to read <a href="http://bit.ly/d3Of2k">here</a> my recent article on China and rare earths.<br /><br />Conspicuously absent from these and a slew of other high profile deals were the “emerged” markets. While the Petrobras deal was going down, for instance, politicians in the US were eagerly handing out hundreds of billions of other people’s dollars to Goldman Sachs (via AIG), and bribing its citizens to purchase new kitchen appliances, most of which were probably made in China anyway.<br /><br />Of course, all this stimulation comes at a terrible cost. Not only must the US economy swallow the opportunity cost (of the goods and services that might have been produced had those trillions not been siphoned off to bailout the nation’s failed banking, insurance, and auto industries), it must also contend with seemingly uncontrollable debt loads.<br /><br />Barely 9 months into the current financial year, the US in the past few weeks, passed the $1 trillion annual deficit mark. Though marginally smaller than last year’s total at this point, such a figure is hardly a cause for celebration.<br /><br />The world’s most indebted economy – on a gross basis – is also notching up a worrying tally of single day records.<br /><br />The Washington Times reports:<br />- The largest one-day increase in USA national debt was on June 30 (circa 2010) and it totaled $165,931,038,264.30.<br />- This one day amount is bigger than the entire annual deficit for fiscal year 2007.<br />- It is larger than the $140 billion in savings the new health care bill will produce over its first 10 years.<br />- The one day amount works out to nearly $1,500 for every US household, or more than 10 times the median daily household income.<br /><br />And now that the future demand has been brought forward, through “Cash for Clunkers” and other government stimulus and spending programs, the USA is struggling to keep its economy afloat. The citizens of the USA have allowed their government to essentially spend their personal savings AND their future earnings.<br /><br />Meanwhile, China is struggling to cool its own economy down. It is all the government can do to keep a lid on growth at 11.9%, the figure recorded in the first quarter of this year. Stronger domestic demand and a rebound in exports forced the International Monetary Fund to upwardly revise its outlook for China’s 2010 GDP, from 10% to 10.5%. Housing prices are still rising by an incredible 12.4% per month, according to the latest available figures, even after Beijing introduced a series of tightening measures aimed at dampening real estate speculation. I invite you to read <a href="http://bit.ly/aucMjO">here</a> one of my recent blog posts about China trying to cool their economy.<br /><br />Almost nobody expects China to keep such a breakneck pace. In fact, many are warning of sharp corrections ahead. As many are well aware, nothing moves up or down without (sometimes major) corrections. Straight lines are for geometry classes, not markets. Over the long haul, however, the trend is pretty clear. I invite you to read <a href="http://bit.ly/aXAwI0">here</a> one of my recent blog posts about the Chinese economy being out of control.<br /><br />While it may seem like it is Time to Exit the Dragon, it’s difficult to imagine the emerging middle-class consumers of China returning to the lot of lowly-paid factory workers without a struggle. It is almost as difficult to imagine an American working for less than the minimum wage but it might soon be a reality for the American worker. This situation will probably awaken the Free Agent Entrepreneurial desire among many to consider a shift from a W2 wage system to a 1099 ownership system and lifestyle. I invite you to read <a href="http://bit.ly/dwnsXv">here</a> an article about Looking to Retool as a Digital Entrepreneur.<br /><br />Many still see China as a ripe buying opportunity but this is not the kind of wealth creating opportunity that you are likely to see in the headlines of the evening business news and that is why those who know they need to be savvy with their money, like the insiders, belong to a wealth creating community.<br /><br />They gain the necessary financial education and they obtain association with, access to, and membership in a wealth creation community to regain control over their financial lifestyle. As a result, they obtain examples of alternative wealth creation strategies such as debt reduction, asset protection, and wealth acceleration with investments in items such as precious metals, water rights, oil, natural gas, potash mines, food commodities, or gold mines … perhaps investments in energy assets that are inherently useful like oil rigs, hydropower, or methanol plants … things hard to build, difficult to replace, and costly to substitute … definitely not financial stocks, definitely not retail stocks, definitely not commercial property.<br /><br />I trust this article provides a little more insight into the global economy and while some may say it is Time to Exit the Dragon, others highlight what may be ripe buying opportunities among a handful of Chinese companies that trade in US Indexes, or as ADRs, and have extremely attractive valuations.<br /><br />It is wise to monitor world affairs and consider alternative wealth generating strategies. I will provide updates in future articles and at my blog over the next few weeks.<br /><br />In closing, I want to thank Joel Bowman of Agora Financial as he was the source of some of the materials about the breakneck growth in China mentioned in this post.Blog of Mike Farrell with aspenIbizhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03327154077421767467noreply@blogger.com0