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.