The Hidden Weakness of Using Other People’s Money to Finance Your Growth
“Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears.” – Robert W. Sarnoff If you can sell stock in your company to finance your growth, some financial advisors would urge you do so. If you are creditworthy, bankers will tell you to borrow what…
READ MOREMailing the Same Piece Twice: Yes or No?
Rule of thumb: Sending the exact same piece to the same list approximately 8 to 10 weeks after the initial mailing usually generates 40% to 60% of the original response. How to make the decision: Say you need a 1% response to be profitable. Your initial mailing generates 4%. Half…
READ MORENo-Money-Down Real Estate – Does It Really Work?
“No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or ‘get rich’ in business by being a conformist.” – J. Paul Getty Russ Whitney acknowledges that the promise that you can buy real estate with no money down draws a lot of skepticism. “But,” he says, “try telling that…
READ MOREMaking Smart Use of Your Business Cards and Fax Covers
“You have to recognize when the right place and the right time fuse and take advantage of that opportunity. There are plenty of opportunities out there. You can’t sit back and wait.” – Ellen Metcalf You routinely hand out business cards and send faxes — so why not take advantage…
READ MOREMake Your Business 12 Times More Powerful
“When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe If you work hard on the hiring process and…
READ MOREHow to Spot Really Good Investment Deals
“Magnificent promises are always to be suspected.” – Theodore Parker Dr. Steve Sjuggerud, ETR’s resident stock expert (and as conservative an investor as you can find), recently detailed a 6-step method on how to determine whether a trading system might be worth your time and money. 1. The first…
READ MOREAvoid This Extremely Common “Mega” Mistake
“I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.” – Garrison Keillor Your business is growing at a good rate. Every year, you boost it forward by creating one or several new product lines or divisions. One of these products becomes a favorite of yours. You…
READ MOREThe Easiest Way I Know of to Make a Ton of Money
A joint venture is a business deal in which you and one or more other people join forces to make some bucks. Usually, joint ventures are for a specified purpose and period of time. Sometimes, they have broader purposes and last for years. Let me give you an example. KY…
READ MOREDistinguish Your Business
“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” – Gertrude Stein (“Sacred Emily,” Geography and Plays, 1922) Great companies are not excellent at everything they do. Great companies tend to be great at one thing, good at another thing, and acceptable in all other areas. This is…
READ MOREIncrease Your Flow of Sales Leads with a “Bait Piece”
The “bait piece” is an informative booklet, white paper, or special report addressing some aspect of the problem your product or service helps the reader solve. You offer a free copy of your booklet or report to any prospect who inquires about your product or service. For example, you can…
READ MOREProfits and Money – Very Different Motivators
“The only lifelong, reliable motivations are those that come from within, and one of the strongest of those is the joy and pride that grow from knowing that you’ve just done something as well as you can do it.” – Lloyd Dobens and Clare Crawford-Mason (“Thinking About Quality”) DZ (a…
READ MOREFraud Alerts on Your Credit Card
According to Ron Lieber writing in The Wall Street Journal, “banks and retailers have an army of computers sniffing out unusual spending patterns, and every year they freeze spending on thousands of credit cards with little or no warning.” Unfortunately, many of these cards are held by honest consumers…
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