2008 Planning for the New Year

Every year between Christmas and New Years, I write my goals for the following year. I get very excited thinking about the prospect of the next year. This year is no different.

I love writing goals because it’s a time to dream, imagine, and visualize your life a year from now. I aim high on my goals and many times do not achieve them in the original timeframe. But… I always end up way ahead of my start point and usually achieve the goal eventually.

Last year in 2007, I felt a little unbalanced in my goals. They were almost solely business related. This year, I intend to create balanced goals that include family goals, health goals, and personal development along with my business goals.

This year, I am using the Franklin Covey Method of goal setting. I want to see if the method helps me achieve the goals by the deadline instead of a few months after the fact like I usually do. I plan to carry my planner with me everywhere by using it instead of a wallet.

If you want to join me in planning, Franklin Covey offers a FREE TEMPLATE to print from your computer. You can place it into a three ring binder or paste the goals template into a journal.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE FRANKLIN COVEY PLANNER TEMPLATE

Best of luck to everyone in the coming year.

Plug the Leaks in your Bucket – Reducing Expenses

I was reviewing this year’s business revenues compared to last year’s revenues. I estimated that we increases our revenue by about 64% - give or take a percent according to what happens by the end of the month.

This sounds great but my expenses also grew tremendously. If you look at the analogy of a water bucket, the water represents our income while the bucket represents are ability to hold on to that money. Each expense symbolizes a hole or leak in our income bucket.

Most of us don’t realize it but our finances are filled with leaks – that morning coffee and donut, the desire for a fancy car, our wasteful lifestyle, etc., etc., etc. create a steady and constant drain. These hidden leaks leave most people scratching their heads in disbelief and asking, "Where did my paycheck go?"

Where is the first place to look for your leaks?

Yes, your recurring month expenses like your electric bill, cable, internet, phone, insurance, and cell phone.

Why?

Because... You can usually find savings in these areas that will not affect your lifestyle.

For example, I was paying for over double the minutes on my cell phone than my monthly usage therefore saving $90 per month. In my business, I changed my phone plan to fit my business needs and will save $40 per month. Because of poor reliability, I searched for a new provider for my internet service. By moving to a new provider and bundling all of my services, I am actually saving money.

With the pace of technology and rapid changes in industries, it’s a good idea to shop around and check each of these services every one to two years.

How to Get Out of a Mental Slump

Anyone who meets me realizes almost instantly that I maintain a high energy, positive outlook but every once in a while, even I feel a little down – business downturns, pressures at home, money issues can all have a profound negative effect on our lives.

Last week, I was in one of the worst mental slumps for a long time. I caught a bad cold, rental check for my facility was due, new enrollments were down for the month, had a long time student call it quits, etc. Whenever this happens, I proactively work to turn my attitude around as quickly as possible.

How do I turn my attitude around?

Step 1: Identify that there is a problem – You can’t fix what you deny. Admit to your self that your attitude is not where it should be that day.

Step 2: Determine your predominate negative thoughts – Are your debts getting you down? Is your job affecting your attitude? Is it your relationships at home?

Step 3: Think about the worst-case scenario – Ask your self the worst thing that could happen. Many issues that we worry about are not as bad as we think.

Step 4: Do everything to stop the worst-case from happening – If I feel that I need more students for a healthy business, I start prospecting and advertising to ensure that I fill the pipeline with more students. Taking action almost always gives me relief to my worries.

Step 5: Listen to Self Improvement Tapes – I grab my IPod and start listening to Anthony Robbins, Tom Hopkins, Zig Ziglar, and Stephen Covey. For you Frugalist out there, you can get audio books for FREE by using Limewire and listen to the MP3 on your computer.

Step 6: Read Book on the Problems you want to solve – If you have relationship problems, read Dr. Phil books. If you are worried about retirement, read the Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. If you want to create abundance, read The Secret. If you want to become more effective, read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Step 7: Meditation: I meditate daily. During my meditation, I visualize myself with the qualities and life that I want.

Step 8: Fake it until you make it: In my martial arts classes, I explain to my students that to become a Black Belt you need to start acting like one now. If you want to develop certain qualities, pretend you’re an actor and start acting the part now. Before you know it, you will not be acting anymore.

Sources of Passive Income for Business Owners

Owning a business provides many opportunities to create sources of passive income that interconnect and enhance your business. Passive Income is income generated from sources that require some upfront work and provide a steady stream of income without additional work.

Purchase Rental Property

I know that I hate writing my monthly rental check because the money that is virtually thrown away. I feel that business owners should consider owning their business’s property.

Owning your property is like paying yourself. To maximize the benefits of commercial property ownership, you should setup a separate entity (corporation, LLC) for the management of the property. Your current business should still pay rent every month to this separate entity. There are too many reasons for setup a separate business for the commercial real estate to explain here. Speak to your accountant about your best options and the benefits.

If you have multiple individual units to rent, then you are creating a great passive income stream. To reduce the amount of your time invested in managing the property, you can hire a property management company to manage the details.

Vending Machines

Placing vending machines at your business is a great form of passive income. Since I own a Martial Arts School, we offer water and energy drinks. Coca Cola provides and services the machine FREE as long as you purchase the drinks from them. The cost per case is cheaper than you can get in a store.

Our vending machines earn about $60 per month. We need to fill the vending machine only once every month although we could easily let it sit for two months without any problems.

Don’t limit the vending machine idea to drinks. It could be a snack machine, gumballs, or “a grab a stuffed animal with a claw” game. Take a step back, look at your business, and find the machine that fits.

Fund an IRA

This is a no-brainer. Investing money in mutual funds, stocks, and bonds generates a passive income over the long run. This means investing for the long haul – no day trading.

I recently read many blog posts about investing and market timing. I believe market timing is difficult because we do not have a crystal ball to read the future.

But…

Here’s a method that I use to discipline myself to buy low and sell high. First, pick mutual funds you wish to purchase, preferably in different asset classes. Then, decide the percentage of your total you wish to invest. Finally, at the same time every year rebalance your portfolio to the chosen percentages.

For example, if you invest 25% of your money in 4 mutual funds, after a year check the totals and sell stocks with more than 25% and buy the mutual funds with less than 25%. This method forces you to buy low and sell high once a year.

Writing Articles

E-zines are popping up everywhere on the internet. Writing articles assist you in promoting your business and provides valuable back links to your websites to increase traffic. At the same time, some of them pay you for the submission or share advertising dollars. This is a win-win.

For more information, read my article Making Money on Your Articles. Currently, Helium is producing the most passive income for me.

Write a Book or E-book

Writing a book is easier than ever with the advent of self publishing. Writing an e-book will not only generate additional revenues but will also propel you and your business to the status of the Obvious Expert.

Blog or Website Income

Providing great web content will generate traffic to your website or blog. Earning additional passive income is as easy as adding Adsense ads to your site or getting involve in affiliate marketing.

Do you have any other ideas for generating passive income? Leave a comment and share with other readers.

Overcoming Procrastination

Procrastination is the act of putting off important tasks in favor of low priority items. Do you find yourself checking e-mail instead of finishing that important project or watching TV at home instead of completing that home improvement project? These are signs of procrastination.

What are you procrastinating to do in your life? Sit down for a minute and think about one decision and activity that is important but you are avoiding. In small business, I found that procrastination is the main killer of results that I have ever experienced.

Break it into smaller activities
Break a large task into activities that take about 30 minutes each. Most people do not get started because the project seems too big. Creating smaller chunks makes the big project seem palatable.

Set a Time Limit
Time yourself for activities. When I write, I give myself 30 minutes to write 400 words. People tend to procrastinate and most of the activity happens right before the deadline.

In other words, most activities take less time than we estimate. If you give a student an assignment that is due next week, the student will delay starting until the day before the due date. If you give the same student, a due date of tomorrow, the student would start today.

Developing tight deadlines for you and your staff is one of the best ways to overcoming procrastination.

Focus more on starting a task than finishing
The old adage of “"The journey of 1000 miles begins with one step" is so true when it comes to procrastination. The hardest part of any project is motivating yourself to start.

Sometimes when I want to motivate myself to write a procedure that I was avoiding or any other activity, I just say that I am going to at least open a Microsoft Word document and create a title. Of course, most of the time, I find that I write much more than I expected.

Forget about Perfectionism
Think of everything as a rough draft especially in creative endeavors. Perfectionism stifles creativity so give yourself a break and relax. grant yourself permission to start without worrying if it’s perfect. You will be surprise how well things turn out if you turn off that self-critic in your mind.

Change your Attitude
Sometime, we develop a hugely negative attitude about important activities. Handle this with some positive self-talk. Ask yourself “how will finishing this task benefit me?” Develop a vision in your mind’s eye of how the finished project will make you feel and what your life will look like after completing it.

What is your Heroic Mission?

We are all on a heroic mission whether we realize it or not. When you strip away the surface of running a business, supporting your family, and paying bills, what is left is your heroic mission – your passion. At times, I find myself focusing too much on the other stuff and forgetting about my Heroic mission.

As a Martial Arts business, I defined my heroic mission three years ago as Inspiring Excellence. I direct all my efforts towards this mission. We don’t teach just kicking and punching – we teach a system for children and adults to strive for the extraordinary.

The heroic mission of your business or life is like any story with peaks and valleys. Think of any story, for example King Arthur or a more modern example of Rocky, where the hero goes through a series of tests and at their lowest point is the turnaround to their greatest victory.

What is your Heroic Mission? Define it and write it down. Everyday ask yourself if your actions are in accordance with your heroic mission. If they are not, immediately change your course.

When you are at your deepest despair, I have always found that this is just before my greatest success. What would have happened if you were like most people and quit? You’d miss out on your greatest successes. No, not you! Because you are on a heroic mission – your extraordinary. When you hit a low in your life, the answer is to push harder because you know that success is just around the corner.

Here’s some fellow blogger that I believe are on their Heroic Mission:

Go To The Ant – She is on a journey for financial freedom. Her mission is to create an emergency fund of $5400 and currently, she saved $1787.50 towards her goal. Way to go!

No Impact Man - Colin Beavan ventured on a year long project to have zero impact on the environment. All of this while living in New York City. His story is simply amazing!

Working For Financial Freedom – She and her husband are working to pay down a $58,345.16 debt. Since March 28, 2007, they managed to pay off $30,019.20. I can only say wow.

Do you want to create a better life and business today? Invent and act on your Heroic Mission today!

The Best Gift to Give Your Children for the Holidays

During the Christmas holiday, most families are racing around to find the perfect gift for their children. As your children get older, you may be tempted to give a gift of money to them. Your children will most likely frivolously spend this money on an IPod, video games, etc.

Best gift for the season – Fund in IRA for your children

When our son turned 18, I convinced my wife that we should gift money into an IRA. Funding an IRA is the gift that keeps on giving. Since we funded an IRA at such an early age, we are ensuring a good retirement for him.

How does funding an IRA keep giving?

1. Our son receives a bigger tax refund. For a $2000 deposit, he receive over $500 back on his taxes. How’s is that for a Christmas present.
2. Our son has $4500 in the IRA and is 22 years old. Even if we never invested again, this IRA at 8% annual return would be worth over $100,000 by retirement.
3. It’s awesome estate planning. If we kept this money in our own investments, eventually it would become part of our estate and subjected to death tax.
4. We protected the money. In other words, our son cannot spend it prematurely without sustaining an early withdraw fee. This fact keeps his hand out of the cookie jar.
5. We are teaching him a valuable lesson about saving. He’s proud of the fact that the balance is going upward, therefore, giving him confidence and security for his future.

Best part of this gift is now our son is carrying the torch. He inspired me to write this blog because he asked how much he could put into the IRA this year. I am very proud of him and glad that he has learned a valuable lesson.

Demember Theme: Creating Checklists and Schedules

These two projects took huge amounts of my time over the last month but the payoff is more free time. I found some bugs in the Quickbooks integration and waiting for the vendor to fix them so I have been unable to calculate my November results. It's killing me!!! because I keep a close eye on my result.

Demember Theme: Creating Checklists and Monthly Schedules

I noticed an ebbing flow every month appearing in the business. This month I want to take all of the activities that cannot be automated and create checklist and monthly schedules to perform against.

It appears that missing specific activities diminishes my results significantly. We test students for belts at the end of the month and this influences the timing of the activities.

Here’s a quick list of activities by week:

Week One:
Start our marketing campaign for the month
Send out e-newsletter
Week Two
1. Weekly e-mail with special offer
2. Create Test List
3. Identify Upgrades and Renewal Students
4. Order Belts and Take equipment inventory (we save on shipping by doing this once a month)
Week Three
1. Weekly e-mail with special offer
2. Invitations to Renewal Students
3. Schedule Renewal Conferences
4. Hand out Test Applications
Week Four
1. Weekly e-mail with special offer
2. Perform Renewal Conferences
3. Test Certificates
4. Exam Graduation

This is just some of the main activities during the month. I want to create a written form and checklist as a template for renewals and new students. Well, it’s off to work for me.

Key Strategy III: MVP - Most Valued Program

I feel that as part of my overall strategy to become the Million Dollar Business that I will require a real estate investment at some point. There is something appealing about owning the property where you run your business.

To discover more about Real Estate investment, I purchased some books on the subject. The first one, I read, was Trump University Real Estate 101: Building Wealth with Real Estate Investments by Gary W. Eldred. He talks about making your property the MVP or Most Valued Property in the area.

If you watch house flipping shows, this is exactly what they do to properties. They purchase a property and add a few upgrades - granite counter tops, paint, expand a bedroom, etc. Then, they sell the house for a profit. The house flipper, in a sense, increase the value of the property.

MVP - Most Valued Program

I adapted this strategy to apply to my business. I call it the MVP or the Most Valued Program. Instead of competing with other programs for a market share of students, you attempt to increase the perceived value of your program.

The idea is to become the most valuable program and set your tuition accordingly regardless of what your competitors are charging.

Ways to Making Your Business an MVP

1. Create a Fantastic Sales Presentation - A great sales process highlights the benefits of your program. To maximize it's value, paint a picture of what your program will provide them.
2. Crisp and clean environment - Make sure your business is the cleanliest around.
3. Develop a top level curriculum - Your curriculum should address not only the basic moves but also should act as a personal development tool.
4. Provide superb student services - Follow up with the students consistently.
5. Systematize everything - People love consistent service. Systematizing assists you to provide great service while saving you time.

These are just a few ideas for making your MVP business. With a little imagination, you can indefinitely continue to improve your systems.

Pearl S. Buck Charity and Creating Abundance for yourself

We kicked off our Pearl S. Buck Sponsor a Child Program. Christopher Grasso from Pearl S. Buck International spoke to our students about the children they sponsor in Asian countries and their lifestyle.

To demonstrate the effect that one dollar per day can have on these childrens lives, he took a dollar bill and ripped it into four parts. Each part represents the four basic needs that one dollar provides Food, Education, Medical Care, and Social Needs. Its amazing how kids start paying attention when someone starts ripping a dollar bill. Some of the children told me afterwards that they thought he was crazy for ripping the dollar bill.

As part of our fundraiser, Ester and I decided to donate $25 per new enrollment. Giving to charity brings up an important question.

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Why do most wealth-building experts agree that giving part of your earnings to charity actually creates wealth?

From David Bach, the Automatic Millionaire, to T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, to Jack Canfield, Chicken Soup profess the value of tithing. I noticed the same effect in Ester and my life. Every time we donate, whether it was to the Alabama project or giving stuff to the Womans Place, afterwards, we experienced a windfall of good fortune.

So whats the secret? Is it Karma maybe, but I think the answer lies in a change of mindset. Donating your time and/ or money puts you in an abundance mindset. Yes, thats the key. Nothing will assist you more than maintaining that abundance mindset than giving.

It makes sense. Think about it. The reason people do not give is that they feel they cant afford it. This thinking is a scarcity mindset. Truthfully, our school goal means that if everyone in our school donates $1 and convinces one other person to give $1, we meet our goal. I dont know many people that cant afford $1 and if anyone does feel this way, I believe that this scarcity mindset is hurting them more than you can believe.

Create an abundance mindset for yourself today and donate to a good cause. If not money, donate your time and start the abundance process for yourself today.

Click Here to donate and stimulate your abdundance mindset today.

Turning Problems into Opportunities

Yesterday, I got the all-to-familiar call from the parent of a student. They were asking to cancel their membership. In the past, this phone caused huge levels of stress for me. Understand that I put a lot of time into each student and feel a personal connection with them and their family.

How did I change my perspective?

Now, I view these phone calls as opportunities. You see, I realize now that in most cases the reason for quitting is more then the student becoming dissatisfied. Most of the time, it’s that their life situation has changed and they are reaching out for help. They are looking for a solution.

By offering them a solution, you not only re-gain a customer but you also increase their loyalty.

Take 3 steps to turning problems into opportunities.

Active listening – Be attentive and completely listen to them. Ask questions that get the customer or student to talk through their problems.
Focus on Solutions – Once you completely listen to the customer, offer solutions that solve the problem.
Resell the benefits – Sometime a customer forgets why they started receiving a service. Ask questions that prompt the customer to talk about the benefits they’ve received so far.

Using these three steps assists bringing the customer back to you. What happened during my call? The student decided to stay. Another touchdown for the home team!

Website Automation

I completed my QuickBooks integration. They had to teak the system slightly but all in all the process went great. This integration will save me at least 12 hours of work per month.

This week, website automation hits the top of my priority list. I want website inquiries to opt-in to my services and the prospect information entered directly into my contact management system. Once I complete this, prospects that opt-in will receive a series of e-mails to lure them into inquiring further about our school.

I started writing e-mails that the opt-in prospects will receive. I completed three e-mails so far. I have the first day, two week, and one month completed. I want to add a three day and one week e-mail.

The American Millionaire and the Fisherman

I just finished a book called The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss. After reading this book, I realize that Americans work way too hard for our paycheck. Our buying habits and thinking makes us almost prisoners for the American way of life. Did I mention that we live this life at the expense of our poorer countries in the world?

The book relays a great story that really hit home for me.

The American Millionaire and the Fisherman

An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctors orders. After a phone call from home that upset him, he walked out on the dock and saw a single fisherman in a small boat with several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the fisherman on the catch.

The American inquires, "How long did it take you to catch the fish?"

The Mexican answers, "Only a little while."

"Why don't you stay out longer and catch some more fish, returns the American."

"I have enough for my family and to give to some friends," the fisherman said as he unloaded the boat.

"Then what do you do with the rest of your time?"

He smiles and says, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, and stroll the village in the evening while I sip wine and play guitar. I have a full and busy life, senor."

The American laughs. "Sir, Im a Harvard M.B.A and can help you. You should spend more time fishing so that you can buy a bigger boat and hire a crew. Before you know it, you can buy more boats and increase the haul."

He continues, "Instead of selling to a middleman, you could sell directly to customer,then you could expand the enterprise.The best part is that you could eventually sell the business stock as an IPO and become a millionaire."

The fisherman asks, "How long will that take?"

The American replies, "15-20 years, 25 tops"

"Then What?"

"Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll the village in the evenings while you sip wine and play guitar with your Amigos..."

The moral of the story is living your life now, not for some long-term goal that may or may not happen.

This book gives very practical advice on how to reduce the number of hours you work and still enjoy the same salary. I think its a-must read for everyone working too hard for the American Dream.

Integration from Contract Management Systems with QuickBooks

This month, I said the theme of this month is automation. I made my first step in automating my systems by integration my contract and contact management system with QuickBooks.

The service costs about an extra $81 per month, but I feel this is well worth the cost.

Why?

Because… Currently, I am entering everything into QuickBooks myself. This takes at least 12 hours of time every month. Now, I hit a button and my system synchronizes with QuickBooks and bam, I’m done. The alternative would be to pay an accountant to enter the data. My books were getting more and more complex so I think that I eventually would have needed an accountant to sort out everything. Therefore, the integration was a wonderful and relatively inexpensive solution.

I save time, money, and heartache all in one.

Next Automation Project

My next step in automation is to write ten letters that I can e-mail on a weekly cycle to new prospects. I started to discipline myself to ask new prospects for their e-mail address.

Why do I like e-mail campaigns better than mailed campaigns?
1. I write the e-mail once and my contact management system sends them automatically. For mailed campaigns, there is prep work and expense each time.
2. E-mail allows the prospect to opt out. Opting out is a great indication that the prospect is not interested in your service any more. Mail generally does not give that kind of feedback.

Okay, I am off to writing.

October Results and November's Theme

Our October results were great. We set a goal of $9,000 and we exceed it with a final tally of $10,041. Our goal is to sustain this amount for November.

Monthly Themes

I decided each month to work on a monthly theme to remain focused. November’s theme is AUTOMATION. I am going to work on anything that will automate my daily tasks. I already have many ideas for automation and will speak about it through the month.

Possibly the Best Business/ Career Advice You’ll Ever Receive!

Because some of my freelance writing through e-zines and my blogs, I received several e-mails from people asking for some business advise. The six months ago, I begin really stretching myself way outside my comfort zone personally and professionally. Now some people noticed and asked me for advice.

The main question is “how do I make more money?” I must say I am very jaded in my opinions about this – almost a renegade. Every time I talk about business matters, people tell me that I am crazy. I have heard so many people say that “I can’t do that” or “It won’t work”. Only to find that it does work.

So what is the secret?

Don’t think about making money – think about creating more free time.

Yes, it’s that simple. What most people are looking for is not more money but more time. We think that more money will equate to more freedom and time. Not so!

The problem, you see, is that most people have a 9 to 5 attitude towards making money. To make X amount of money, I need to work X amount of hours. This is far from true. When I worked as a Customer Service Manager, I discovered that people tend to grow into their day. I know that to perform most mission critical activities at work takes about 2 hours and they fill the rest of the day with meaningless activity so that the boss will think you are a good worker.

How to free up more time and make more money

• Refused to perform useless daily tasks
  
• Concentrate on the most important tasks – I can almost guarantee that the tasks you avoid are the important ones. Discipline yourself to do them first… especially if they are money-generating activities.
  
• Set time limits to perform the important tasks – jobs seem to grow exponentially according to the time limit set. I prefer setting small time-limits for completion and break large jobs in the small task possible. For example, write a 400 word article in 30 minutes
  
• Automate everything – anything that you can put on autopilot, do it today.
• Turn off your e-mail - E-mail tends to manage your priority instead of you. E-mails stuck you into urgent but unimportant requests. I suggest turning off your e-mail while working on the important tasks.

Freeing up time will not only give you a piece of mind but it will also force you to make more money. I know this works because my business income continued to rise higher as I seem to work less.

Do you think I am crazy?

Breakthrough Psychological Barriers

For October, a made the goal of reaching $9,000 in income which is $1,000 higher than my best month. I focused on the right things - new enrollments, and upgrade. Last week, I smashed that goal and $50 away from making $10,000.

I have three days to find $50. Why is it so important to achieve $10,000? Because… $10,000 represents a psychological barrier and a huge landmark. One year ago, it seemed almost unachievable, and now it seems inevitable. I find once the landmark is achieved it’s easier to repeat the results.

On the other side of the coin, last month was the most expensive month. I had some huge unexpected added expenses. My business landlord back charged us for all of the additional maintenance for the last year. The cost was an additional $1500. One of my goals is to buy commercial property so that this stuff will not happen. Plus, I had some lawyer fees to pay in the amount of $500.

Next month, my goal will be to maintain the $10,000 in income and reduce my business expenses by $2000.

Filed Under Simple Living

Cutting Out Coffee

Okay, I am not quite cutting out coffee, but I am cutting out purchasing coffee from the Bagel Shop next door. Every morning, I stop by and grab a cup of coffee there. I decided to save the Styrofoam and make my own coffee instead.

I figured out that cutting out one 16oz cup of coffee per 5 day work week saves you a whopping $438.20 per year. I bet many of you are drinking more than one cup a day. Thats almost $1000 per year. For someone making $50,000, that equals 2% of your yearly salary. Can you believe that!? 2 PERCENT in coffee.

For you scientists out there, check my calculations yourself.

(Cost of one 16oz coffee per workdays
$2/day) X (5 workdays) X (52 weeks) = $520 per year

Cost of Coffee at Home
One pound of coffee makes 600oz of brewed coffee or 37.5 - 16oz cups per pound

Ground Starbucks from the grocery store costs about $12 per pound.
($12 per pound) divided by 37.5 = $0.32 per cup
($0.32/day) X (5 workdays) X (52 weeks) = $83.20 per year

Grand Total: $438.20 per year

Its interesting how expenses can add up everyday like doing 150 pushups for a year adds up to 52,000. David Bach"s Latte Factor in action.

9 Interview Tips for a Great Radio Show Appearance

Yesterday was my first radio interview with Bruce Barber. His new weekly show, airing in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York called “The Real Life Survival Guide”, features useful tips for living, based on interviews with people from all walks of life, sharing personal experiences and advice. Check out his new website at http://www.reallifesurvivalguide.com/. The interview stemmed from a blog I posted on “Halloween Safety Tips” at my other blog at timrosanelli.blogspot.com.

How did he find my blog? You guessed it, Google! I am starting to see the dividends for my work on Article Marketing.

I hate to go into things blind so I researched how to be a Radio Show Guest and wanted to share these tips with my audience.

9 Tips for keeping your composure during radio interview

1. Write down 3 points – You should write down three points in advance that you want to slip into the conversation. Instead of writing a whole paragraph, just write one or two words to remind you of each point. This way you can free talk about the point instead of reading it off a cue card.
   
2. Remain calm and focused – If you tend to get over-excite in these situations, consciously attempt to slow yourself down. If you start stumbling over words, it helps to stop for a second, take a quick breath, and continue with your point.
   
3. Watch your body posture – If it’s a phone interview, I prefer to stand over sitting because you tend to project and communicate more assertively. If you are sitting, find a comfortable chair and sit with good posture – no slouching. In fact, you should try to sit on the edge of the seat and lean forward slightly.
   
4. Give more than yes or no answers – When the interviewer asks a question, avoid giving just a quick yes or no, or a short answer. The interviewer asks questions to engage your topic. The audience will view short answers as dull. Talk fully about each point.
   
5. Talk enthusiastically about your topic – Nothing can ruin an interview more than not sounding enthusiastic. People respond positively to enthusiasm -- It’s contagious. So in turn, the audience gets enthusiastic about your topic, too. Don’t be afraid to show that passion you have for your topic.
   
6. Stay on topic – When the host asks a question, staying on topic is very important. By drifting too far off topic, the audience will label you as flighty. Give a sufficient answer to each question then let the interviewer engage the next question.
   
7. Use lead-in statements – Some examples of lead-in statements are “That’s a great question” or “I am glad you asked that”. Lead-in statements give you time to formulate a precise answer and further engage the host and audience.
   
8. Keep the tone conversational – Talk to the interviewer as if you are carrying on a conversation with a friend -- forget about the fact that an audience is listening. Occasionally, you should throw the host’s name into the conversation. It shows respect to the host and makes the conversation appear more personal and genuine.
   
9. Be graciousness – Let the host and audience know how it’s an honor to be guest and your excited to talk to them.

By observing these nine simple tips to performing a great radio or TV interview, you will project that confident and enthusiastic image that will make your interview shine. After the interview, follow the interview up with thank you note to the producer. Who knows? Maybe, you’ll become a regular guest.

The Scariest Movie This Year

Autumn arrived and the leaves are changing with the coming of cooler weather. With Halloween just around the corner, we watched some horror movies, but last night, I watched possibly the scariest movie ever. No, it was not the new Rob Zombie version of Halloween or John Carpenter's 1408. No, these didn't come close.

What's the movie that scared this tough Martial Artist.

MAXED OUT!

Maxed Out is about the rising consumer credit card debt in America. I swear this movie had me tossing and turning all night.

I felt empathy for the poor that these credit card companies victimize.

I felt sad how the people at collection agencies thought of peoples lives like a sport, laughed and turned a blinded eye on the damage they inflict.

I could not believe that credit card companies extend credit to people they know can't afford it because "they are the most profitable."

Folks, I barely watch TV but this is definitely worth the education.

So what to do?

• Become an strong advocate of simple living-- to live a Spartan lifestyle by choice.
• Kill all consumer debt -- I have some small business debts that I am going to destroy.
• Become more frugal with my business spending

If you have debt, please watch this movie. It's an eye opener

Key Strategy II: Creating More Value

My second key strategy is to create more value. Look at it this way.

In business, you have two choices:

1. Offer really low prices and get more customers
2. Ask for higher prices and add more value to the customers

Dan Kennedy says that if you want a miserable business existence compete for price with the competition. Do you really want to roll in the mud for the lowest prices? Imagine, competing with Wal-Mart or McDonalds. You will never be able to compete with them for price.

What you can do is go for the higher end niche that they are not in. The great thing is that there’s a huge market for high-end stuff. Also, think of it this way. Is it easier to service 200 customers or 100 customers? Of course, 100 customers are easier to service.

How do you increase your prices? By adding value to service and/ or quality.

Ideas for Increasing Your Product or Service’s Value

• Systematize your sales and marketing systems – Customers love consistency. Your sales process should be simple, straightforward, and most of all, always the same. By measuring results, you can make small changes and see how they affect your results.
  
• Benefits, Benefits, Benefits – Talk passionately about your product or service’s benefits to everyone who will listen.
  
• Red, White, and Blue service – Roll out the Red Carpet when people walk in, Make your facility White Glove clean, and Give Blue Ribbon service. The combination of these three things will cost you almost nothing but will make your product or service worth more money.
  
• Becoming the Obvious Expert – This is a link to my first key strategy
  
• Provide Something Unique – Customer’s will pay more money for things they cannot find elsewhere.

Well, I guess you get the idea. I am committed to improving everything about our service and finished with rolling in the mud with my competition.

How about you?

Request for a Radio appearance

Check this out! I spoke about my idea of becoming the Obvious Expert. In support of this goal, I wrote several articles and posted them on the internet in over 25 e-zine. For more information about this strategy, see my article on Article Marketing 101.

Today, I opened my e-mail and found a request from Bruce Barber from Barber Productions at www.barberproductions.com for a phone interview on the Connecticut Pubic Radio. He read an article I wrote “Halloween Safety Tips: How to Trick-or-Treat Safely with Your Children” at Associated Content.

Wow, it amazing how once you get the ball rolling how it starts to gain momentum.

Everything is negotiable

Here’s a quick tip that will save you and your business tons of money. On every purchase or service, automatically ask for 10% off to 15% off. I personally go for 10% because it’s easy to calculate in my head.

It never hurts to ask. Don’t worry if they say no. Remember, the answer is always no if you don’t ask for the discount.

I’ve had some great success with this technique. My wife and I bought a house from a builder, NV Home. Now, they obviously go through great efforts to create a sales presentation that makes you feel like you’re getting a great deal.

Don’t let it fool you. They gave us $40,000 dollars in incentives like a finished basement, wood floors, and granite countertops. After the presentation, we said we want an additional $10,000 off the base price and the site premium waive (this site premium is a new extra fee that builders are throwing in).

The sales representative talked to their manager and they called back to say “Yes”. By the way, you need to be willing to walk away if you don’t like the deal. When I talked to friends about this, they couldn’t believe that you can negotiate with the builder then they add that the builder must have been desperate to meet a quota. Yes, they may have been desperate but how would you know if you did not ask. Again, the answer is always no if you don’t ask the question.

Home Selling – The Secret that Realtor’s Don’t Tell You!

My wife and I are selling our house and I realized a secret that a Realtor won’t tell you.

What’s the Secret?

It’s not the Realtor’s job to get maximum value (read highest price) for your home. Getting maximum value is your job!

So what is your Realtor’s job?

The Realtor’s job is to sell your house – quickly, even if that means sacrificing the value of your home. Your home is most people’s greatest asset but most people listen to their realtor and crave into reducing the price of their home. Of course, your realtor will give plenty of reasons – “It’s a poor market” … “You need to sell it before the Day on the Market makes it stale”.

The Reason for this trend

Look at it from a money aspect. Your realtor, if only one side of the transaction, get 3% or less of the sell. The longer your house is on the market the more work it creates for them.

We own a beautiful townhouse worth about $400,000 in a very desirable area. My wife and I staged our house like a pro with fresh paint, immaculately clean, and removing extras. My realtor wanted us to reduce our house price by $10,000 because we had it on the market for two months.

$10,000 reduction in price equals a straight $10,000 loss to our net worth.

What does it mean to the realtor?

Well, a $10,000 loss for us only means a $300 loss for the realtor at 3%. Oh yeah, we negotiated a 2.5% rate so it’s only a $250 loss. This loss for the realtor is off of about a possible $10,000 to 12,000 commission. It’s even more if one of his clients buy your home.

Tips for gaining maximum value for your home

Traffic is King – The more people that see your home the better. Never say no to a showing if at all possible. Marketing guru, Dan Kennedy, would say that you want to find the buyer who your house features resonate to. Don’t worry about the all the buyer who say no, because it only takes that one yes.

On a side note: Is cleaning your home for these extra visitors worth it? Yes. Think about it. For an extra $10,000 dollars, how many hours would you need to work at you job to make $10,000. If you make $50,000 per year, that’s about $24 per hour. Oh yeah, after taxes, $50,000 equals 33% less or $16.08 per hour. That $10,000 dollars is worth 621 work hours.

Staging your Home - My wife and I visited plenty of houses in a search for our next home. Wow, I could not believe how poorly some houses show. Staging your home helps achieve maximum value for your home.

When we put our home on the market, I found and followed the tips at HGTV website. Click the following link to check it out:
HGTV Design Tips and Techniques

Statistics show staging helps homes sell significantly faster and gains equity increase of almost 5.8% (see home buying statistics). Another interesting point is these advantages are true even in a down market.

Make Realtors Love to Show Your Home – By say yes to all requests for showing and staging your home, Realtors will see your house as an easy possible sell and will love showing your home. That’s what you want don’t you.

Success Thinking: Meeting Your Monthly Income Goals

This month, I set the business goal of achieving $9,000 in gross income. Last month was a huge let down so I wanted to kick it up a notch this month. Amazingly, after only four days this month, I am more than half way to my goal. I guess the marketing seeds I planted last month started to blossom.

This brings me to a great point. When you set stretch goals for yourself, sometimes the number appears daunting at first. Most people take the approach of counting up to the goal. I think this is a recipe for disaster.

Why?

Because look at it this way -- if your goal is say $8,000 dollars this month, most people will break it down by week or … $2,000 the 1st week, $4,000 the 2nd week, etc. If after the first week, we make $1,500 then the second week, we need to make $2,500 to catch up.

So what is our focus now?

That you’re behind! The law of attraction says that your attracting the behind feeling into your life. You watch as ever week gets even worse until you finally give up, resigning to do better next month.

There’s a better way

Instead of counting up to our goal, everyday break the month into a daily goal. For example, your goal is $8000 and there’s 30 days in the month.

$8,000 divide by 30 = $266.67
On the first day, you attempted to make $266.67.

If you earned $4,600 by day 19,
$8000 minus $4,600 = $3,400 left to earn. Divide $3,400 by 11 days left equals $309.09.

This process puts your focus on the right questions (see blog on Power of Focus for information). Now, you’re morning question is “How can I make $309.09, today?”

These types of questions attract answers and action into your life that will help you achieve your goals.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Remember Clint Eastwood’s Classic movie, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. I love the scene with the final showdown between Clint Eastwood and the other main characters at the graveyard. This showdown represents what the month of September was like for my business.

The Good…

In September, I focused on Website Design and article marketing to help my search engine rank. The results were outstanding! I wrote five articles and posted them on the e-zine websites.

In September, I increase my visits from 293 to 417 and my hits launched from 3996 to 16814. The articles were only online for the last two week! I added a lot of new and interesting content to my website which I think accounts for the increase in number of hits. I also saw a huge increase in the amount of AdSense dollars that I received last month. They swelled from only $0.30 to $12.02. Since I posted my last two articles just last week and the others were only posted two weeks ago. It will be interested how much I make from AdSense this month.

The last good thing that I saw at the end of the month was a great increase in the number of appointment for new students. I bet it will have a giant effect on this month.

The Bad…

In September, I saw to many membership cancellations. We had a week school closing because I tested for my 5th degree Black Belt. Every time I schedule a school closing, I loose students. I do not see any traveling in my future and one of my goals for the next year in getting a leadership team in place and to find students that I can mentor into teachers.

The Ugly…

Last month basically stunk for revenues. I was almost $1700 below the prior month – ouch that hurts. Why? First, September I held no special events and had no Birthday Parties scheduled. Second, it seems that everything you do in business has a lag. In other words, a bad September means that I was not doing the right things in July or August. I planted some good seeds in September and hopefully, we’ll see them take root in October.

October WIT (Whatever It takes) Goals

* Generate $9000 in Gross Revenues through my business
* 5-10 New Enrollments – I’ll increase my marketing
* Create $100 in passive income – I plan to write 5 more articles this month. I want to get this portion up to $1000 of passive income. That way, I could plow most of the money earned through the business back into the business.
* Nutritional Self-Defense Meal Planner Cards – I am working with a nutritionist to make a meal planner card to assist on weight loss. I will offer the cards for free shortly at my school website, www.maximpactkarate.com. I will use these cards to attract new visitors to my website, into my karate and kickboxing program, and to entice people to sign up for my newsletter. It may take a little time to complete because I may need to copyright the cards.
* Finish writing an E-book – I have an e-book that I am close to finishing. I will offer it online for a small fee and use it as part of my introductory packet for new students.

Man, am I getting excited just writing all of these things down. Like the final showdown in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, it's time to stare down The Bad and The Ugly so that The Good wins the duel.

Review of CashCrate

Are you looking for some start up cash for a business? CashCrate is the answer for you.

I learned about CashCrate from Amy Bass at www.mydebtfreegoal.com. Did you know that you can get paid for participating in surveys and completing offers?

I am the hyperactive type so I figured I try CashCrate out, while I listened to some audio books. I wanted to test it out for my readers. It surprised me with how user friendly the interface is and how much money you make. I devoted five hours of time in one hour intervals. After five hours, I made $84.25 in cash. That equals about $16.85 per hour or equivalent to a $35,000 full time job. Not Bad!

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Tips for getting the most from CashCrate:

1. Give really information - You need to provide really information, your phone number and e-mail address. The e-mail address can not be a temporary one too. They are constantly on the look out for fraud so inaccurate information will keep your offers from clearing.
2. Speed tip – I used my Google Toolbar’s AutoFill function to quickly fill my name, address, phone number, and e-mail address. I figured this out for the last two hours of work. It saves a lot of extra typing and time.

If you’re looking for some extra cash, CashCrate is the way to go. Click on the banner below to sign up today.

Making Money on Your Articles

I promised to write about making money on the articles that you write. I believe the good article writing could produce a nice passive income. For each quality article, you will generate about an average of $20 per month.

Let’s run the numbers
If you write 1 article per day for one month, that equals 30 articles in the first month. At $20 per article, you score a passive income of $600 in the first month. For each month that you repeat this performance, you double your money.

Sound’s great, doesn’t it?

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Three models of income generating online magazines

1. Upfront Payment & Paid for Performance
2. Purchased
3. AdSense model

Upfront Payment & Paid for Performance

These websites either pay you upfront for the article or pay according to the number of page views.

Associated Content – They are quickly becoming one of my favorite online publishers. They pay upfront for a quality articles between $3-20 per article. You also get a performance payment of $1.50 for 1000 page views. If you target a popular topics, I can see the possibility of hitting 1000 pages quickly

Helium – Helium pays for page views. The pay rate depends on your articles ratings, the amount advertisers will pay for that category, and number of page views.

Purchased Articles

Constant Content – They let you place your articles up for sale and take a finders fee. I have not used their service yet so I can’t tell you about their performance, but it may be worth a shot.

AdSense Model

The AdSense Model gives you some or the entire AdSense dollar your article earns. These sites require you to enter your AdSense Id number.

InfoSweet – Shares 50% of AdSense Revenues
Articlecodex.com - Shares 50% of AdSense Revenues
Articletrader.com - Shares 50% of AdSense Revenues
Articlewise.com - share 100% of AdSense Revenues
Earnticle.com - Shares 50% of AdSense Revenues
Ezinearticles.com - Shares 50% of AdSense Revenues
Hotwebtools.com - Shares 100% of AdSense Revenues
Oocuz.com - Shares 100% of AdSense Revenues
Savvify.com - Shares 100% of AdSense Revenues
Xomba.com - 50% of AdSense Revenues
VDOX.com - Shares 100% of AdSense Revenues
Freeblogarticles.com - Looks like it shares AdSense money. Could not find documentation but it lets you add your AdSense ID.

Let me know if I missed any good ones by adding a comment below.

Doing the right things

To grow our business to the million dollar level, we must do the right things. I know what the right things are – calling prospects, enrolling new student, upgrading students into higher value programs, selling retail, follow up on calls, etc. I know all the right buzz words but the power is in the execution.

Execution is the key!

I need to work on the perfect execution of my business systems. Discipline myself to constantly and consistently target the correct activities every day. My List of 5 keeps me focused on these activities.

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Article Marketing

The last few weeks, I worked on article marketing. I wrote 5 articles last week. I posted 3 articles and I am waiting for Associated Content to approve for more 2 articles. The results are profound. I have three websites that I am promoting - this blog, my personal blog, and my business website. My goal is to create at 5 articles for each website.

Since posting my first articles, I noticed my visits per day almost doubled. That’s from only one article! Also, I am generating some additional revenues from Adsense. Although my main purpose of this blog is to grow my business, I see great potential in creating a passive source of revenues from writing. How much of an increase in Adsense have I experienced? From three articles in one week, I generated about $5 each in additional revenues.

The internet is a wonderful thing. Any writers looking for additional revenues or possibly a full time career should consider article marketing. The next few days, I will write how to make it a possibility.

Looking for help write articles fast? Check out my post on Article Speed Writing.

Do you have a Financial Offense and Defense?

Fans, from all over, swarm to watch their favorite teams play NFL football. It’s amazing to watch high level competitors take the field and battle for the win. For a professional football team to remain a top contender on the field, they require a strong offense and defense to win. Our financial security has two sides also and without both sides we will lose in the end.

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Financial Offense

What is your money earning potential? That’s your financial offense. Most people display a pretty good offense. That means constantly achieving a higher and higher income level. Any awesome football team creates a winning strategy for their offense. With our financial offense, we need strategies too.

Offensive Strategy

Increase your income – If you have a salaried or hourly job, one of the best offense strategies is to constantly increasing your salary. For business owners, your offensive strategy is to increase and maximize the value of your time. David Bach, one of my favorite finance authors, in his book, Start Late, Finish Rich outlines a Four Week Action Plan to Get a Raise. David takes you through the steps to get a 10% raise. It works because I used it to get a raise at my customer service job. I received a 13% raise in 6 weeks by receiving a promotion. David Bach also outlines steps to increase your business by 10%. I took his advice and raise my student tuition by over 10% with almost no negative repercussions.

Create Multiple Streams of Income – Living with one source of income is a dangerous game. I set up numerous streams of revenue within my business. At one time, I relied on only student tuition as my only source of income. If tuition was down that month, I sat on the verge of financial ruin. Now, I operate with many streams. Some examples of streams of revenue for my business are tuition, retail, special events, birthday parties, drink machine. In addition, I have other ventures online through affiliate marketing, article marketing, online store sales and Adsense.

Passive Income – Any activity that you do once and profit from for a long time is Passive Income. Passive income ranges from stock and mutual fund investments, to writing articles online, and online store sales. Anything you can do once and enjoy a constant drip of income is passive.

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Financial Defense

I find that defensive money strategies are often ignored or non-existent. Defensive money strategies entail not spending everything you have so you can fund more offensive strategies. What’s the use of earning a million dollars, if you spend a million and half? This mindset results in you becoming broke the same as if you make $30,000 and spend $35,000. Wealth is not how much you make, it how much you have leftover.

Defensive Strategy

Simple Living - Make simple living your strategy for life. The fact of the matter is that the less you spend the less stress you have. These days because of the excessive impact of marketing, I find it hard to separate between needs and necessity. For necessity, we only need food, water, and shelter and everything else is fluff.

24 hour Purchase Rule - Before you buy anything ask yourself “Do I really need this?” “Would I cease to exist without this item?” If you answer No, place the item back on the shelf and wait 24 hours to think it over. Most items, you will not return to buy.

I try hard to develop both an offensive and defensive strategy. I always had a great offense but the defense took me time to develop.

Helium – Write and earn Cash

Catch the wave of writers writing articles and earn money … Try www.helium.com now.

It is a great way to get you, your business, or website noticed. At the same time, you can generate a passive income from your articles. Click on the banner below for more information.

After signing up, Helium will send you a confirmation e-mail make sure you read it completely and activate your account.

Helium uses PayPal to submit payment so you need an active PayPal account. All you need to do is enter your PayPal e-mail address. Helium pays out once you earn $25. You can click on the Earnings & Payment button to watch your earning grow. Once you reach the $25 minimum, hit the Request Payment button to receive your cash.

I like the competitive nature of Helium because articles are rated by other writers. The five best rated articles get the most exposure in each category. This means articles ranked higher by members earn more money.

Three factors affect the amount paid-out:
1. Quality – Higher rated articles earn more than lower ranked articles
2. Reader Draw – Some topics draw a larger number of reader than others
3. Advertisers – Advertisers pay more for certain topics than others

Are you having trouble writing articles? Read my blog on Article Speed Writing.

Article Speed Writing

Okay, I started my article marketing campaign. I submitted two articles last week. Then, Wham! I was hit with writer’s block. I started researching different books and I wanted to tell you about a book that really helped me call Article Speed Writing.

Article Speed Writing teaches you how to write content quick, about 500-600 word article in a half hour. By using the secret formula, I jumpstarted my writing and back on track writing articles to submit online.

Here’s some great things I learned through the program:

* How to do lighting fast research on any topic and learn enough to write an article in minutes…
* How to target keyword to drive more search engine traffic to your article.
* How to use the Golden Formula to step by step create a high quality article in less than 30 minutes.
* How to stimulate more ideas when you can’t think of how to start your article.
* How to write multiple unique articles using the same keywords.
* And much, much more.

I high recommend the article speed writing program and wanted to help my readers get started writing articles. I am sure that this program will help other writers like myself and make more money with the added benefit of save time.

You can read more about Article Speed Writing here. Read over the information and see for yourself how it can help you.

Associated Content

Associated Content is a place where writer's, amateur and professional, can submit content online on virtually any topic. Besides the fact that Associated Content will gain you exposure, it’s also a paid to write program where they pay you upfront for your articles and also provide you a performance bonus for page views.

Associated Content pays between $3 - 10 per article depending on the article quality with the average around $4. The performance bonus is $1.50 for 1000 page views. The payments from Associated Content are via Paypal.

The great thing about Associated Content is that the earning potential is great. Say you write 4 articles per day for 30 days. At the end of the month, you would earn $480 in upfront payments. If you earn an additional $1 performance bonus per month for each article then you create a residual income of about $120 which will go up every month.

In order to submit articles, you must be at least 18 years old and a US citizen. You must submit articles with unique content, decent quality (good grammar, spelling, etc.) and a minimum of 400 words.

You can submit articles on almost any topic. Here’s some topic suggestions: Business Profile, Travel Guide, Stock Tips, Humor Clip, How-to Guide, Product Review, Tech Advice.

When submitting articles, make sure that you submit them as Non-exclusive to Associated Content. This allows you to submit the article to other online magazines like Helium.

One last thing, I submit my articles to Associated Content first. Once you receive the payment, you can submit to other online magazines. Why? My first article was rejected because they found it on other sites and thought it was not unique or copied content.

Okay, there you have it. Everything about Associated Content. You can read more about Associated Content here.

Article Marketing 101

Okay, I hit on a great idea that has to do with my key strategy of becoming the Obvious Expert. ARTICLE MARKETING!!! Yes, these days with the internet the pen is definitely mightier than the sword.

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So what is Article Marketing, you may be asking?

Well, article marketing is writing articles and posting them for free at article websites. I already found over 25 sites. As a dug deeper into the article marketing world, I found many distinct benefits of providing your well-written articles.

It’s free
First, you gain the notoriety and prestige that comes with being a published writer. At the same time, you will propel your Obvious Expert status. All this for the best price... FREE!!!

Links to your website
Second, the articles provide the ability to backlink to your website. This will increase your traffic and hopefully your leads. Backlinks also help increase your search rankings on search engines like Yahoo and Goggle.

Some sites pay you
What?! That’s right. You heard it here. You can get paid for your articles too. Some sites pay you upfront, others split Adsense money with you, and finally, some put you’re articles up for sale.

Viral Articles
Once you submit your articles, these websites submit your articles to other websites for use (still giving you the credit). This means that people have a better chance to see your writing and visit your website.

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I spent most of this week signing up for these websites and I finished posting my first two articles today. I am really looking forward to seeing the results of my efforts. I’ll keep you posted.

Over the next week, I will go into more details about each site and provide an extensive list of links.

Key Strategy: Becoming the Obvious Expert

Elsom Eldridge Jr. and Mark L. Eldridge co-wrote a must read book called, How to Position Yourself As the Obvious Expert.(Click on the picture to get your copy) Becoming the obvious expert in my community is one of my key strategies in building a million dollar business and I will speak about it often.

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Three reasons to becoming the Obvious Expert in your business

1. Increase in leads – You will automatically attract more prospects by increased referrals. Since starting to work on this strategy, I have had new students arrive with at my doors and they tell me that they heard our school is the best around. Many times, they were referred by people that never took my classes!

2. Command a Higher Customer Value – People expect to pay more for an expert. Everyone’s heard that old adage, “you get what you pay for.” Higher tuition rates/ prices also make giving special discounts easier and customers appreciate them more.

3. Hear Less Sale Objections & Higher Lead Conversion – Most prospects are sold on your business’s value before walking in the door.

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Keys to positioning yourself as the Obvious Expert

1. Define your Unique Selling Proposition – What makes you unique from your competition?

2. Get Published – Write articles for magazines, send out newsletters or ezines, and publish articles on free web-based magazines.

3. Perform Informative Lectures – Provide valuable Lectures to organizations in your community

4. Wow them with Seminars – Host events that attract people and possible added income to your business

5. Create at Terrific Content-based Website – Provide lots of valuable information on your website to pull in more people

6. Community Activism – Coordinate charity or community events for a admirable cause.

Over the course of my quest, I will explore these ideas plus many more in order to elavate my business to the status of the Obvious Expert.

Improving Search Engine Rank

On my List of 5 today, one task is to improve traffic to my website.

Websites are an invaluable marketing tool for any company, but in order for customer find you, your website must come up through search engines. Search Engines rank sites higher if they have more backlinks to there page.


Here's a list of free directorys that I posted my website on to improve my traffic and ratings:

ProLink Directory
Submit Web Link General Directory
AAAWebDirectory.com
iExtreme Directory
iwebdirectory - Internet Web Directory: One time $1.99 charge for a lifetime membership
Perfect Directory
Free Web Directory
TWMD
Add Your Link
FAT64.NET
Internet Web Directory
MyBillionLinks.com Directory
Nuclear Land
Triple W Directory

Submitting to all of these sites was quite time comsuming but over time, it will be well worth the effort. I love tasks that involve one time upfront work but the benefits last indefinitely.

If you know of any more directories, please share with our reader by posting information in the comments below. Thanks.

Power of Focus

I took the Anthony Robbins 30 day Personal Power II program. I highly recommend this program to all my reader. The investment is well worth it.

I especially liked Disc 6 which talks about the power of focus. Our focus determines the results or outcomes in our life. We can access tremendous power by controlling the focus of our minds. Our focus depends on how we evaluation thing and an evaluation is nothing more than questions we ask yourselves on a daily basis.

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Disempowering Versus Empowering Questions

We have a constantly rolling movie of thoughts in our heads called self-talk. When we evaluate our personal situation, our self talk comes in the form of questions. These questions can be disempowering or empowering.

Disempowering questions are questions that leave us feel helpless and do not offer solutions to our current situation. For example, asking yourself, “Why am I not making enough money?” “How did I get so much in debt?” are disempowering questions. As you can see, these questions are self defeating, and ineffective.

Empowering questions stimulate your mind to think of solution to our problems. Examples of empowering questions are “How can I make more money, today?” “What activities can I do today to make more money?”

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Amy Bass: Real Life Example of the Power of Empowering Questions

Her and her husband had accumulated a substantial debt of $72,900. After reading, Dave Ramsey’s book, The Total Money Makeover, Amy decided to make a change. Instead of asking the disempowering question "How am I ever going to pay down this debt?", she asked the empowering question, "How can I make more money to pay down this debt?" With four kids, she decided to make her money through online marketing and through online programs like CashCrate. The best is that you can follow her progress online at her blog, www.mydebtfreegoal.com which I found to be a treasure trove of terrific information.

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30 Day Challenge: Your List of 5

After listening Anthony Robbin’s idea about the power of focus, I took the idea and applied it by using what I call my “list of 5”. Everyday, I ask myself the empowering question, “What money making tasks can perform today?” I write the tasks down in my Franklin Planner and rank them in order of importance. Then, I start with the most important and continue down the list with the intent to complete at least 5. This List of 5 has really driven some awesome results over the summer. Summer is usually a slow time in my industry. With the list of 5, I created alternate sources of revenue like a Summer Camp and stayed focused on marketing activities like flyer runs, public demonstrations, postcards, etc.

My challenge to you is to try my List of 5 idea for 30 days and let me know if you experience any results by commenting below.

Beginning of a Quest

Okay, here we go. The Million Dollar Quest. The BIG 1,000,000. Yes, I am committing to grow a 1M business and write about each step. Along the way, I am going to share my monthly gross revenues. It’s a little scary thinking that I will be sharing my gross revenues to the world.

Why should you tune in?

Well, growing a 1M business will not be easy. The quest will require me to grow mentally, to develop the millionaire mindset. I do the research and you, the reader, gain the knowledge for free. I spent approximately $10,000 last year on personal development; traveling to find mentors, purchasing programs, reading books (I am a speed reader and read 44 books last year), and networking. This year, I plan to boil all this down to simple actionable items for you to use.

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In the beginning…

After 8 years of teaching martial arts at a gym in Lambertville, New Jersey, I heard a rumor that one of the gym branches was closing. I thought it was high time to start my own martial arts school. That was three years ago. I moved back to my hometown of Dublin, Pennsylvania and began my dojo as a two day per week part time adventure at a local church gymnasium by only investing $1000.

Since then, my dojo grew. I had to move into the Dublin Shopping Center because of my growing student count and operate the school with a full five day schedule. My final personal victory came at the beginning of this year when my business started generating enough revenue for me to leave my corporate job as a customer service manager. It was a stretch but the best thing I ever did.

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Why share?

Why share this personal information about my business with the world.

1. For charity – Ever year, I join about 100 other martial arts in Greenboro, Al (one of the poorest counties in America) and build homes for the poor. Ever year, I have a goal to raise $1000 to the cause. This year, I will match 50% of all the money raised. If this journal is adding value to your life, please give back even $5 to the raise the house fund. If I get 200 readers to donate $5 each, I will reach my goal. Don’t mind if I shamelessly promote this cause throughout the year. Also, I am going to post the amount raised on the sidebar. Please click here to help and pick Tim Rosanelli & Ester Sabidussi - Maximum Impact Karate as the team.

2. Motivation – In order to keep this journal interesting, I need to stay motivated to get interesting material to write about.
3. Accountability – Nothing like making a goal public to hold yourself accountable. I am a very competitive person and don’t wish to look like a fool.
4. Better Service – I know that this kind of focus is going to help my dojo. I will need to teach exciting classes to retain my students, provide suburb service, develop my internal team, and change students’ lives for better testimonials.

Let the quest begin…