Enjoy This Christmas Message about Having a Wonderful Life

It is that time of year ... xx xx

One of my favorite movies xx xx


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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

And for that, I salute you.

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!

In closing, I have two more items for you.

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.

Second, watch the short and funny video with 10 things about Santa Clause you most likely did not know!

Insert youtube video embed code here …


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)

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.

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!

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.

Be Thankful for Our Abundant Life

The Air Seems Gloomy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yes indeed, the air seems full of doom and gloom.


Our First Thanksgiving celebration!

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 Be Thankful!

Let me start by providing a brief history of our Thanksgiving celebration and offer a different outlook based on a more abundant perspective.

Here is a brief history of our first Thanksgiving celebration and while reading it, you too will feel it is indeed a time to Be Thankful!

The 1620 voyage from England to America was more than 3,000 miles and beset by autumn storms.

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.

Already weakened by their two-month voyage, most of the passengers failed to survive the first few months in their new homeland.

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.

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.

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 Be Thankful!


Our Abundant Life

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 Be Thankful!

In the last century child mortality has dropped 90%, while our life span has doubled.

Average per capita income worldwide has tripled.

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.

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 Be Thankful!

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.

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.

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.

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.


Celebrating Your Abundant Harvest

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.

Actually, there's just something about waking up from a turkey-induced coma that can give you a completely fresh perspective.

Here is one more perspective and the final item for you to think about during this season for us to Be Thankful. 

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.

Our nation’s financial condition reflects how many, or how few, of its citizens are now motivated to plan and farm well.

To some, it seems easier to camp out and protest than work day and night to create something of worth.

Plus, these days there is much criticism of those who plant aggressively, farm tirelessly and enthusiastically, and harvest abundantly.

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.

If you create an abundant harvest, you will have critics and you have this entire movement as your enemy.

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.

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.

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.

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 Be Thankful!

If you have a green thumb, overalls, and work shoes in your closet … I am here to join in your celebration!

Yes, this is a time to Be Thankful!  We have our dignity, our acquired skills, and our willingness to work.

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.”

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!

Together, let us Be Thankful for the abundance we have and the abundant future in front of us.

Now go out there and have a Happy Thanksgiving and Enjoy “Turkey Day!”

I Hope You Enjoy the Posts. Let Me Know What You Think.

 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.

Prosperity Is Based on How You Use Your Life Energy

Your mind is the creator of your life so you want to use its energy wisely.

In addition to being an entrepreneur and a business owner, you need to be 100% responsible for your results.

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.

The truth is that you have no control over the outside world but you do have control over your thoughts and actions.

When the world gives you lemons, don’t complain about getting lemons but take action and make lemonade.

You need to learn to take deliberate action in the direction of your dreams.

If you think the economy is bad, or if you have lost your job, take action and reinvent yourself.

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.

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.

That way you can focus your mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial energies towards getting the things you do want.

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.

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.

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.

It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn how to become a manifestor and not be a victim of reality.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!

How to Accomplish More in Less Time

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.

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.


Napoleon 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.” 


So how can we use the power of our mind to accomplish more in less time?  We need to program ourselves for success.


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.


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.


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.


That is why it is so important to carefully consider the kind of information you feed your mind.


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.


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. 


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.


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.


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.


When you program yourself for success, you can use the power of your mind to accomplish more in less time.


It takes a while but many Internet Marketing entrepreneurs learn how to program themselves for success.  


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.


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.


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. 


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.


Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!

Learn the Secret of Marketing to the Affluent

You most likely have had this experience.

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.

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.

What you most likely noticed in this type of exchange is that there is no differentiation of their offering; they focus on price.

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.

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.

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.

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.

While driving home from the showroom, he said aloud to himself “Gee, I wish I could afford one of those.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

Their profile is comprised of three parts.

First, they are fiercely independent and will not take no for an answer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Several of the E-factors include insecurity, fear of being thought of as takers, pride, love, guilt, and greed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!

Learn the Secrets of Automatic Influence for Your Internet Marketing Business

A 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.

This post will present the study of compliance and understanding which psychological principles influence the tendency to comply with a request.

These principles are frequently referred to as weapons of influence.

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.

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.

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.

It will be increasingly important for the society to understand the how and why of automatic influence.

Here is a brief example of the genius of Coca-Cola and their use of persuasion, influence, and selling.

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.

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.

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.

Here is a look at three strategies from the great and advertising mind of Coca-Cola.

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).

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.

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.

There you have three of Coca-Cola’s ideas about content marketing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!

Learn How to Use the Place Strategy that Supports Premium Prices

America divides into niches and subcultures.

Each individual belongs to at least one of each but most belong to several of each.

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.

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.

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.

In the subculture space, you can find deer hunters who use only bow and arrow and deer hunters who only hunt in the Midwest.

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.

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.

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.

Place in this context is not necessarily a geographic place but a niche or subculture.

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.

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.

Lesson 1 – Avoid loading the wagon and then wonder who might buy what you have to offer.

Lesson 2 – Avoid one product, one size fits all approach. Modify, reposition, repackage what you have for different markets or different segments.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Since this is the first post on this blog for the year, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Prosperous New Year!

Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!

A Lesson from Santa about the Future of Humanity

Many people feel badly this holiday season about what they can’t do for, or provide to, their families.

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?

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.

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.

Here is the lesson.

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.

One common enemy is scarcity. Our mission is survival. Our goal is abundance.

We want the best system of enterprise and minimal interference to produce the most wealth, distributed to the most people.

Since we are all in this together, we must all be in balance.

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.

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.

It is important to understand and control the balance between enterprise and government.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Be ready to create, and execute in unexpected ways, and of course be ready to provide for the Future of All Humanity.

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.

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.

Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!

You can join me and ennoble your efforts to build a better future! Check-out this Success Roadmap

Please be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!

Positioning Yourself and Your Business for Maximum Success

Positioning is admittedly an advertising buzzword but it is legitimately one of the most important marketing concepts you will ever consider in your business career.

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.

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.

Positioning Strategy 1 – How to Describe What You Do to Attract the Customers You Want.

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.

Positioning Strategy 2 – How to Price.

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.

Be sure to sell quality, value, service, and unique benefits; do not sell price.

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.

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.

Positioning Strategy 3 – How to Make Your Image Work for You.

To be perceived as successful and trustworthy in your business, you must match the image of a successful business in your field.

Places of business, product packaging, literature, and advertising, all are subject to the same image concerns as are individual appearances.

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!

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.

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.

Positioning Strategy 4 – Self-Appointment.

When we are kids, our parents “appoint us” old enough to stay home alone or old enough to babysit our younger brothers or sisters.

At work, employers or supervisors “promote us” as qualified to do a certain thing or handle a certain responsibility.

This conditioning is not particularly useful when you step into the world of owning your own business.

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.

Business success just is not conferred upon you.

Power and influence is not granted – it is taken.

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.

How do you do this? Write books, give teleseminars, build lists of customers interested in your product or service.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!

Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!

The Key Tools of Marketing and the Weapons of Influence

Before 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.

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!

Here are the 7 Key Tools of Marketing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tool 5. Personal Contact. Personal contact is the most potent form of marketing so do it often and have quality conversations with your prospects.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Here are the 6 Weapons of Influence that need to be considered when preparing your message.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As a result, it will be important to understand the how and why of automatic persuasion using the weapons of influence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Finally, a great book to read is "Influence" by Robert B Cialdini as it explains The Psychology of Persuasion.

In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, learn some tips about Being No 1 on Google, and learn how to Be Savvy with Your Money like the insiders at aspenIbiz The Conspiracy For Your Money Blog.

Be sure to share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message… thanks!

Finding Balance with Career Changes

What would it be like to quit your job and start over in a more appealing career?

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.

However the real obstacles to a midlife career change may reside in your own mind.

Here are several myths surrounding a midlife career change and these keep people from pursuing their dream job.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If you are ready to take the professional plunge into a new career then you should “Go for it” with these words of caution.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Please share this post with anyone that you think would benefit from this message!

The Law of Resources – An Idea Will Not Get Off the Ground Without Adequate Funding

If 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.

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.

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.

You will get further with a mediocre idea and a million dollars than with a great idea alone.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Remember, an idea without money is worthless. Be prepared to give away a lot for the funding.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You can find the money at home. Donald Trump would never have gotten anywhere with out Dad’s millions behind him.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Law of Acceleration – Successful program are not built on fads, they are built on trends

A fad is a wave in the ocean and a trend is the tide.

A fad gets a lot of hype and a trend gets very little.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Coleco died but the kids live on. Acquired by Hasbro, the Cabbage Patch Kids are now being handled conservatively and doing quite well.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Forget fads. And when they appear, try to dampen them.

But the best and most profitable thing to ride in marketing is a long-term trend.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Law of Hype – The Situation Is Often the Opposite of the Way it Appears in the Press

This year (circa 2011) marks the 100th birthday of IBM and over these years, when IBM was successful, the company said very little.

When things are going well, a company does not need the hype. When you need the hype, it usually means you are in trouble.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Law of Failure – Failure is to be expected and accepted

Too many companies try to fix things rather than drop things. “Let’s reorganize to save the situation” is their way of life.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Patton’s reward? Eisenhower fired him.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.