Small Business Ideas grow your own niche market business

Dragon!

2011-08-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

Since I quit regular posting to this blog I've been busy.

I've written some books, over a hundred Squidoo lenses, and started on a journey of personal growth.

I'm having fun.

Perhaps it's time for you to start exploring all the great things you are capable of accomplishing.

A rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out.

*enjoy life*

"Our knowledge is so limited, our abilities seem so inadequate, most people see themselves as small insects - They cope by being serious about whatever crack in the sidewalk they were born into. Ignoring limitless potential within a wondrous world, they cling to the security of their limited crack. Crawl out of the crack, take a few steps down the sidewalk, then decide where you want to fly. You are the dragon."
Allan R. Wallace

They Weren't Trick Questions

2010-03-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

Q: "Do you mind if I ask you one of the most important questions you'll ever be asked in your life?" - Jim Rohn

Q: "Have you found the opportunity that's going to take care of you and your family for the rest of your life?" - Jim Rohn

When Jim Rohn asked these questions, they were based on decades of stable growth. Many people that answered yes to the second question are now out of work, waiting for jobs that will never come back. They are waiting at the station for a train that will never arrive.

Some that answered yes are still secure. Professionals may be getting more government interference, but for now they are still respected and doing just fine, thank you. Sales people will always have jobs, 'cause most people don't want their jobs and wouldn't work smart and hard at it if they took a sales position. Most other jobs though, belong to a rapidly fading past.

I've started blogging again to increase the amount of money I'm making online, and to show others how to make money online. It ain't rocket science, but it does take an adventuresome spirit willing to work smart and put in long hours for a while.

The truth: there is no "opportunity that's going to take care of you and your family for the rest of your life."

There is only challenge ahead. Self education and adaption are the only routes that ensure any level of success. With work you can make money and perhaps become wealthy, but floods of wars, falling nation states, collapsing currencies, and other calamities may sweep away all in their paths.

The future will belong to prepared (your responsibility) and adaptable (your opportunity) minds.

But first -- develop an exit plan.

Internet Businesses startup Ideas

2010-03-03T19:06:00.000-08:00

Q: Why would you want to consider using one of your internet business startup ideas?

A: Because the world economy has changed, and old ideas are doomed.

Everyone has their own reasons for wanting their own business. So why haven't they started an internet business yet? Fear and indecision are the principle reasons. With good cause. There are a huge number of choices, and an almost infinite number of ways to spend money and receive nothing but embarrassment.

That's not real encouraging.

But staying where you are just makes you a target for the laid off and fired bulldozers that are roaring through the old bureaucracies. If the government still used the measurements of the last depression, this one is already as bad -- and it's getting worse. The longer you sit where you are, the more competition you will have when you finally lose your job.

That's even less encouraging.

GOOD NEWS!

The fact you know the old style jobs are going away and not returning, puts you far ahead of all those waiting for trains that will never again visit the station.

Back to using your internet business startup ideas, and creating your own future. It takes leaving behind most of the useless stuff you were conditioned to follow in school. You can finally discover and use your skills and abilities. Use those talents school said you didn't need to develop. You can be valuable for yourself, not as part of a machine.

People that are valuable for themselves will be the new middle class and wealthy. The old middle class gets dumped out the door. They will be at the bottom of the new economy's heap of unneeded, quietly obedient humanity. They will continue to serve corporations and political parties just like they were trained in school -- even in their poverty.

They may starve.

Head over to look at this blog, it lists the different types of businesses available for different personal reasons. Consider them all. Pick one and research it. Leave the heap.

Find your own success.

Where to find small business ideas

2008-07-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

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We can see trends and act on them, such as the emergence of self as the largest employer. The jobs of the future will likely be in businesses created by you, for yourself.

I'm writing more and more on Squidoo, and I've quit writing for my blogs. For Bastiat Free University I will be doing a BFuniv tweet update most weekdays on twitter. As Seth Godin might say, my rubber band has stretched to the breaking point.

Squidoo has more tools than a blog, and most pages grow in readership over time, instead of disappearing into the archives. I've tried various archiving methods on other blogs, but with few exceptions, older post just sit there unread. If you want to try Squidoo too, there will be a link on my "lens."

It does take more time to build a quality Squidoo page, but it is fairly easy to find and improve what I've written. Something that rarely happens to these journal posts. Squidoo has a simple modular structure that allows a lot of customization.

Here is the new style I'm going to test for a while. I have a Squidoo lens that lists what I've written there. At the top of the page I will list my most recent pages, the others will be grouped by category. If you want to treat it like a blog, just look at the most recent entries.

If you find something interesting, say about business or finance, scroll down to one of the five modules and find more on the subject. I will be playing with the format - over the next few months it may change occasionally.

Go take a look, the page is (currently) titled:

"An eccentric old fellow who trains visionaries." - a lensography

The Future In One Lesson

2007-01-26T14:53:00.000-08:00

We know we are at the end of the industrial age, and we are trying very hard to enter the information age. So far the information technologies have just created faster industrial age functions.

The new age is coming - for more information consider the news article at Bastiat Free University's free registration and login page. There will also be plenty of small business and finance posts made to The BFU Journal - you will probably enjoy them also.

Personally, I have retired from most of my regular duties, including this blog. With a dozen or so web sites, I have to cut some of them if I expect to spend time in study and growth during my retirement. If you need a fix of small business advice with little self serving comment you can peruse the archives of this blog - there is some good stuff here that will not go out of date.

A quick self serving comment - but one that may be of value to you.

For over a month I have been unable to use a computer. The small business opportunity I outlined here grew by almost thirty percent during that period. This started as a test of their system, but hit break even within six months and continues to grow slowly and profitably with little further input. My total costs were less than $35.00, I expect in a year or two to be earning a few hundred a month or more for my small initial effort. Extra money is always nice. Take a look and a free trial if you wish - it is interesting.

You can find me at Bastiat Free University if you have questions.

Best to all,

Allan

Barriers created From The Mists Of Ignorance

2006-12-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

"It's not what you are that holds you back, it's what you think you are not." - Denis Waitley

Denis has it half right.

It can also be what you think you are not, and how knowledgeable you think you are that hold you back.

In fact perhaps we should reshape the entire statement.

What you think about yourself and your environment determine what you will be able to accomplish.

It may have been Zig Ziglar that said "If you think you can't, or you think you can, you are right."

This is where we scare off the college professors. The honors they have received, and those they have taken upon themselves, blind them to this following true perspective.

We know very little, and much of what we think we know is just plain wrong.

That is why belief is so much stronger than accepted fact. Our educational systems are constantly setting boundaries. Only through faith and desire have individuals again and again extended those boundaries.

In the early 1950's Roger Banister announced to the world that he would run the mile in under four minutes. Everyone thought he had lost it! The sports "experts," the medical establishment, everyone! In 1954 he did it. It has been reported that within one year, over 30 people ran faster than Banister himself. When asked how it was possible for so many people to run that fast so soon, Banister said: "It was never a physical boundary, only a mental one." - source unknown

You have the ability to accomplish much more than anyone has ever let you believe - including yourself.

Find your passion, find your own four minute miles -- break them all.

"The risks and rewards of creative entrepreneurship are greater, and of far more value to society, than illusions of security that enslave human cogs in a social machine." - Allan Wallace

Here we are talking about your own business, that is a good place to start tearing down boundaries - but don't stop there.

We are all surrounded by solid looking barriers that limit our achievement. Most such walls were erected using the mists of ignorance - run right through them.

persevere and enjoy,

Allan

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A Quick Warning Of Perhaps Major Importance

2006-12-09T20:08:00.000-08:00

I don't think I have ever done this from this blog, and only once or twice from other blogs.

I think you should put off your search for better start your own business ideas for a moment and go look at the warning about two financial tsunamis.

I at least think it is important.

Small Business Ideas Blog - time for a change

2006-11-29T12:14:00.000-08:00

There appears to be a better fit for my small business ideas than this blog.

Take a look at the prior post on the three required ideas for business success, and then look at my Squidoo lens about the three axioms of business.

It did take longer to build the Squidoo lens, but it works very well. I also don't have to play popularity games with templates, something I just could never get behind. I have good content - but with a blog that is just not enough.

Each page on Squidoo is already pulling traffic. It is easy to set up online marketing and and should draw well for a very long time. I can even easily direct the income to charities if I wish. I had planned to use the lens to direct traffic to this site, and add a few links to my other sites also, instead I will leave this site here and mainly make new lenses at Squidoo.

My updates here will therefore be infrequent.

I have over a half dozen lenses so far and I'm having great fun playing with them. For those of you with the big question, yes it is free to build a lens - just like you can have a free blog.

I figure it takes about the same time to make a quality lens as to write 3 blog posts. They are individually at least a dozen times more powerful than a post. There is also no demand or deadline requiring frequent updates, therefore no burnout.

Visit my nice niche Swiss shop, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Allan

P.S. I know many of you come here for ideas on how to start your own business, follow that link.

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Three Secrets Of A Successful Business.

2006-11-28T13:37:00.000-08:00

There are a thousand little pieces that go into creating a successful business.

There are only three that are absolutely required.

1) Be Too Early

If the market is saturated, you will be fighting the current. A saturated market is a market ready to decline, almost everyone that wants to be in this business is already in it. Consider real estate a year ago when folks were still quiting their jobs to get a license.

The commodities market has been climbing for years, and folks are still afraid of it. You will find it easy to get a job as a commodities broker, and on good terms. It will take you a year or two to build your business, just in time for folks to get excited and over commit. When all your neighbors become brokers - find your next business.

If this sounds like value investing, and how to really make long term profits in the markets, you are right.

2) Focus

This is a tough one. It is so easy to be diverted from your quest by other great opportunities.

If you expect to be a success you need to concentrate on making your one business exceptional, as opposed to having several pretty good businesses. Today only exceptional is good enough. If you apply efforts in many directions your forward progress will suffer.

3) Persist

If you started too early it will be a while before your hard work pays off. If you lose your focus and try some other ideas, one may look promising - now you are off in another direction.

The law of inertia applies to business. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, an object at rest tend to stay at rest. It still takes work to change the state of the object.

It takes a couple of years to develop a loyal client base. If you stop every six months and re-start a new venture you will never develop the momentum to become powerful.

Apply yourself.

Keep applying yourself.

Persist.

Create and sustain your own successful business.

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What Is Your Passion? build a store around it today

2006-11-17T11:23:00.000-08:00

Take the afternoon and build a specialty store that centers on your passion.

Okay, I'm a bit late on starting the vacation I mentioned in the prior post. I'll start it on Monday.

For now I've got an assignment for you.

Create your own store at Squidoo, it won't cost anything but some time, you will learn some interesting stuff, and you will be able to make money for yourself or a charity.

I built a store about Swiss Goodies and gifts, and didn't find a top Squidoo group to join to make it part of an online mall. I therefore created, for us, The Mall. Right now the only store in The Mall is mine, that presents an opportunity to you.

Think about your (family and work safe) passions, that's long enough. Now go to Squidoo and create a store based on your passions. It is fun and easy, and the results will be satisfying.

Then join my group.

Just one warning. I started my specialty store late at night, got frustrated, and didn't return to it until I started my vacation. You can avoid having this frustration by being awake when you work on your store. It's funny how easy building the store was with my eyes open.

If you have questions, e-mail me.

enjoy,

See you at The Mall.

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Time for a vacation

2006-11-15T17:32:00.000-08:00

I Think it's time to recharge the batteries. I should be back by early December.

There is a lot of good stuff in the archives to your right.

Or start some long term planning on your future.

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A Simple Way To Enhance Your Web Presence

2006-11-11T23:33:00.000-08:00

If you already have a dozen or so web sites, or if you have no web presence at all, this simple tool can be of help.

It's called Squidoo, and what it does is give you a professional looking one page site that is easy to set and forget.

They use simple to manipulate modules to add e-bay or Amazon, and just as easily remove them. There is a money making component to Squidoo, but I think for most of us that will be secondary.

If you have a dozen sites, this is one more site to add a link to and have send traffic to your sites. Even though it is new, there are already some PR5 Squidoo sites - so it can help your search engine ranking a bit also. Take an hour or two to play with it and then forget about it.

If you don't have a site, this is the easiest tool I've found. Just plug in your information, and you have a good looking "Squidoo Lens." They call the page a lens because you will use it to focus on one business or passion. You can set up many lenses if you wish. Once you have made one, you will see how simple the operation is.

Squidoo plans on sharing profits with charity, and with the lens crafters. There will be a bit of money eventually I'm sure - but the main value is a functional and good looking site. It is the ease of creation and change that will make this a fun-when-its-done project.

How often can you create a fun project in an afternoon, and have it stay meaningful for a very long time. I still have to add my picture to my lens, other than that is seems okay.

It costs nothing to sign up. In fact I signed up under beta and never followed up. I finally built my lens today and was amazed at how easy it was to do.

Take a look at my Squidoo lens built for Bastiat Free University. If you want to make your own push the green button to the right on the lens page.

Simple and fun, you may end up making several lenses. Give it a try.

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Secrets To growing Business Profits

2006-11-10T09:49:00.000-08:00

While these business secrets may be easily understood, too few business owners think about them.

These are business profit secrets you could have developed yourself with some quiet thought; perhaps you have.

All of your business ideas for increasing positive cash flow fit into two areas. First you can decrease the costs of business operation, second you can increase the per capita spend of your customers.

The costs of operation will be most evident in your fixed expenses. The key for your small business is not just the cost of your office and tools. Even most variable expenses like payroll and utilities are well understood. Since these are so apparent we won't dwell here.

Your most important business expense is the acquisition of your customers.

Your key business practice to controlling the cost of customer acquisition is measurement.

This bring us to the second secret of business profits, and of course it is related to the first secret of business profits. There are just four ways to increase your income.

get more customers

get your customers to buy more

get your customers to buy more often

get your customers to buy more expensive goods or services

These are easy to say, but difficult to accomplish. For those supposed sharpies that just count the sale and move on, they are leaving massive amounts of money behind them. A satisfied customer has a large, residual, life time value - in any business. How much value does a particular customer have?

Your key business practice to improving the value of retaining a customer is also measurement.

Before this turns into a book called Secrets Of Growing Business Profits let's summarize the measuring process. There is only way you can tell if what you are doing this week is more profitable than what you did last week. That is to measure the entire client experience process.

You can know the cost and value of that prospect walking past your mall store window. The cost per prospect is the difference in rent and expenses between this store and and one on a side street. Divide that cost difference by the number of people walking the mall, and you have a cost per prospect or cost per impression.

How many of those prospects enter your store? Divide the monthly price difference by that number and you can find a brick and mortar equivalent of cost per click. Keep measuring for the life of the customer. You want to find out how often they buy, what they buy, what percentage buy something more expensive, etc. The more you know, the better you can serve your customers.

Even with a mall store there are other methods to acquire customers. Pennysaver ads, newspaper ads - with and without coupons, radio - the list is huge. Try them all - track and measure results, and compare the life time value of the customers to their various acquisition costs.

This is the business profits secret - if you measure and compare, you will find many profitable surprises.

The value of a customer is usually not related to cost of acquisition. Your return on client acquisition dollar spent in different ways can vary widely. There are smart business owners that knowingly and willingly lose money on a first transaction. They know the average life time value of their customer.

You now know the base costs and income per type of prospect or lead - the new game is to improve profitability at each step in the process. Replace one factor - check results, modify and repeat.

Increasing your business profits is simple, don't leave all that money behind.

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The Past Is Disguised - The Future Is Hidden

2006-11-05T10:52:00.001-08:00

The Past Is disguised - individually and collectively we share a very selective memory.

Of the millions of things we see and experience each day we will retain the memory of just a few - and most of those memories will fade. Our subconscious parses our memories. We can program the subconscious or let chance program it. Either way those thing we remember vividly will be incomplete and will contain some factual error. As societies it is even worse.

"The winners write the history books," or re-write them. This is one reason to read old books and books written by people from other cultures. Their blind spots and ignorance will be different than our blind spots and ignorance. Seeing what they know to be true, and comparing it with what we know to be true can improve our vision.

Travel is another experience that reveals different cultural and historical views. Different is not necessarily threatening - it can be illuminating. Get off the tourist paths, mix with those that do not always share your opinions.

The Future is hidden, we do know there will be dramatic changes that surprise us.

Our natural vision of the future is that it will continue as it has recently. We ignore the huge individual and collective disruptions we see around us. If life has been good but is slowly declining - we expect it to stay good, and either slowly decline a bit more or recover slowly.

Even the study of great tragedy and wonderful success does not naturally teach us to expect the same as possible outcomes in our own lives. Earthquake and flood insurance are popular right after an event, and become increasingly neglected until the next big one. Life is not linear - no matter how much we ignore it - there will always be another unexpected event around the corner.

If the past is disguised and the future hidden, what do we really know?

We Have been told by amazing survivors and by the stupendously successful one fact over and over again. And for the most part we have ignored this fact.

What we think today, what we dwell on today, how we act today will in very large part determine how we think, consider and act tomorrow. Right now we all have the choice to concentrate on powerful and successful ideas, and to perform either shoddy or by choice quality actions. We are not inextricably shaped by our past or at the mercy of an unpredictable future.

The future resides in the choice of grip we use today. The thoughts we chose to hold, the emotions we let hold us, the acts we determine to perform - these are what will shape our actions tomorrow. Tomorrow is unknown - we only know that someday dramatic changes will come.

We can put your head down and surrender to the pretense that life will always be a repeat of the recent past. We can also charge ourselves to be ready to excel at whatever opportunity presents itself. We only have this power of preparation in our present - not in our past or our future.

The direction for the rest of our lives will be established in the right now, and in the right now following it. It is not so difficult to concentrate on putting in a good effort for just right now. We can do that bit of good effort and follow it up with a bit more good effort in the next right now. This is really easy.

We can think, plan, reason, act, and understand as best we can for just a moment. The only real effort is overcoming the habit of wasting moments. If we use enough of todays moments well, tomorrow's moments will be easier to use well - we will be changing our habits.

Now the real question is how much effort should we extend in-this-moment if it is the foundation of the rest of we life?

We can always, for this moment, do our best.

Why would we not want to do our best?

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Sports Performance Can Translate To A Life Of Achievements

2006-11-03T05:49:00.000-08:00

In the end, it's extra effort that separates a winner from second place. But winning takes a lot more that that, too. It starts with complete command of the fundamentals. Then it takes desire, determination, discipline, and self-sacrifice. And finally, it takes a great deal of love, fairness and respect for your fellow man. Put all these together, and even if you don't win, how can you lose? - Jesse Owens

There are so many parallels between athletics and business. If you have been a top athlete you have what it takes to succeed greatly in business - all of that training can be redirected to a new use.

Thomas A. Edison said: " What you are will show in what you do."

If you watch sports you are admiring both the skills of disciplined practice and the cohesiveness of purpose. It does not matter if you just enjoy watching or engage in sports also - you have potential for great success if you will likewise dedicate yourself to understanding success principles and consistently seek top performance.

Athletes have a head start - they know that victory starts in the mind but is completed with action.

Start your own business today - and give it the same dedication, and accept the same level of training, required to succeed in sports.

"The risks and rewards for you from creative entrepreneurship are greater, and of far more value to society, than illusions of security that enslave a human cog in a social machine." - Allan Wallace

An Advertising Jewel

2006-11-02T22:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes someone just does it right.

You have probably looked at some long sales pages and more than a few sales pages. I'll not hide this url - it says it all:

http://www.clickhereyouidiot.com/

Just a note, many of the funny and silly things on a sales letter are not there because someone thought yellow highlighter looks good on a web page. They are there because someone tested the idea and it increased their sales. A side benefit is that it gets rid of reasonable folk that wouldn't have bought but might have asked questions - saving time.

Click on the above link and read a few lines, a good guffaw always feels nice.

Best,

Allan

Servicing Your Customer - Qualifying And Eliminating Prospects

2006-11-02T07:47:00.000-08:00

Qualifying and eliminating prospects hardly seems like the proper route to customer service.

An entrepreneur is someone that solves problems for a profit.

We all understand that without customers we have no business.

Most of us understand that it is beneficial to treat customers well so they will return and recommend us to others.

Many of us understand that how we present our business and service models will influence the receptivity of our prospects.

Few of us understand that an important part of our presentation is eliminating prospects that would just waste our time.

A major part of the qualification process is possible before we ever encounter the prospect. When Grey Poupon advertised with two rich people in Royces, they attracted those with weak egos that needed reenforcement and eliminated the bargain shopper. Mailing coupons would therefore not be a reasonable part of their strategy. (I've just had two Grey Poupon readers leave, and one proclaim "but I like the taste!")

Probably the fact Grey Poupon was a success was due more to offering customers alternatives than with snobbishness - but it did work.

BMW advertises to the same insecure audience as Grey Poupon; BMW - The Driving Machine. A BMW is a well engineered auto that handles well. But so are other cars that cost considerably less. In fact BMWs are frequently bought in the used car market by folks that desire that driving capability. The majority of new BMW owners however seem to be people that want folks to know 1) they have money, 2) they have a drivers car - and many of them drive faster than their capabilities. Some may become good drivers - but they paid out that extra cash to appear to others as if they are now good drivers. The advertising worked.

Local BMW dealers may misunderstand this focused marketing and advertise based on price comparisons - attracting the wrong prospects and wasting their sales potential.

A decade or two ago when I sold real estate, interest rates were well over 10%. Most of the real estate companies that survived were listings centric - they listed a bunch of property and hoped someone would sell it. They trained their agents the same way - list, list, list.

This did create predictable cash flow, if you knew on average what percent of your listings would sell each month, the values of your listings, and what percentage of escrows would close - you could predict cash flow. For the brokers they then knew which offices were not going to make it, and could shut them down.

While I took listings, the majority of my income came through buyers. With prices dropping and interest rates high - it took a lot of effort and time to work with a seller. A buyer however was appreciative that anyone would even talk to him. On weekends I would have another buyer scheduled every two hours, if they were not ready and able to buy after two hours - I seldom rescheduled another appointment.

If the buyer seemed serious I would hand them off to another agent in the office that had time to spend with them. If they just seemed to be shopping - I handed them a competitor's card with a positive endorsement of his capabilities. My time was too valuable to spend many weekends with just one buyer. The days were long, but I could make several sales a weekend - while others were struggling to make one or two a month.

The difference was not my great ability, but my qualifying and eliminating. I did have a very high percentage of escrows close - once a prospect became a customer my job was to make them an ecstatically satisfied customer.

If it is your window display, your advertising, your marketing theme, or your web page - it should fulfill the same customer service function.

Qualifying and eliminating.

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Focus On One Great Business Idea

2006-11-01T12:39:00.000-08:00

We have suggested many small business ideas here that you can use as learning tools.

Attending virtual courses like the Entrepreneurial Start-up series will help you gain knowledge by running internet based businesses. Learning is a good thing.

But to succeed greatly requires many things.

A base of knowledge on which to build with deeper understanding

A passion for your business field

Potential clients that want what you offer

And clients that are willing to pay

Most of these small business opportunities don't offer anything to excite your passions. They provide that knowledge that will enable you to visualize how you can best help people for a profit. That is all an entrepreneur is - someone that helps others for a profit.

At some point you will be ready to take off and apply what you know and love to your own business.

When that point comes - focus will be extremely important. Drop all of these learning tools that distract you from your primary goal. For most the "multiple streams of income" approach is like spitting into the wind. It's messy and it is hard to control.

If you are at that point of developing your own business idea - cut out all the fluff. If a business is taking more time than its value, eliminate it. Put your money making effort into your primary business and those tools that will make it grow.

If you are not quite to that point yet, click on the link in this blogs title - that is a program that will help you develop a real business you will not need to close.

A business centered on your passions.

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WAHM -Work At Home, Mom

2006-10-25T11:32:00.000-07:00

I've just put together a new e-book for work at home moms, and for those that want to be work at home moms. (you can get it free for now)

There is new material, and there is some old material that has been re-edited and needed to be published.

The plan is to put the WAHM e-book on e-bay and in an amazon store with a buy now price of $10.00. I am also writing a far more extensive, investment oriented, Speculation Rules e-book that will be priced at US$49.99. I now have 5 e-books for the sites - most will be $10.00 or less. There are more books planned.

This Work At Home Mom book will be a bargain. There is encouragement, advise, and some links to work at home programs that really work - really! It is nice to know that if your priority is your family, you can live your life with them.

WAHM is for those that realize it is not what are your priorities but it is who are your priorities. Things are nice, but that is all they are.

A fulfilled life is rooted in relationships, not in things. Being a work at home mom allows you to spend time with what you feel is most important.

Guys can read it too, we have our priorities also.

That is a lot of useful material for a very low entry fee. It is probably going to be available for Christmas - e-mail it to a mom you care about.

You can get this "not quite perfect edition" if you will give me some feed back. Tell me what you liked, what confused you, and what you would like added to the final version.

If you send me timely feed back - "arwally at gmail dot com" - I'll send you a free copy of the final version also.

Download this book about becoming a WAHM - Work At Home, Mom. It's yours now, and for now it's free.

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Seth Gooden Is A Marketing Genius

2006-10-25T05:22:00.000-07:00

Unleashing The Idea Virus – by Seth Gooden

This book is a great introduction to the power of the Internet.

Seth Gooden is a marketing genius. You want proof? I own a physical copy of this best selling book and have read it several times – even though I can down load it for free.

Seth Gooden gives it away – and it becomes a best seller – that is brilliant Internet marketing.

After you read Unleashing The Idea Virus you may want to exhibit a bit of that brilliance you have.

Every small business can use a good sneezer.

Small Business Ideas For The Internet

2006-10-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

The world is changing - even if you have a small local business your need to be on the Internet.

Your competition is getting on the net.

Google maps now point out local businesses.

All the search engines are starting to reference local business in a more logical manner.

Your customers use the net to get information.

Did I mention your competition is on the net or thinking about it.

There is a learning curve to getting effective net coverage. This is not like the yellow pages - although for some of you it may be bigger. No-one will come to the door to sell you a standard format. There are kids and professors at the local college that can get you started for little money - or you can do it yourself for almost nothing.

If you use professionals - expect to pay what you would for other professional services. A great web master is part advertiser, copy writer, public relations agent, and navigation specialist. If he does it right - your customer will enjoy the site just as much as the search engines.

There is a value to having bought and used your name in terms of how the search engines will treat you. Pick your name and get something up today, you can re-do it next year if you wish. Web names are like wine - a little age is a good thing.

You can go through earlier posts on this blog if you want specifics on doing it yourself.

Think of it this way - when your customer is on your site he has chosen you. You have his undivided attention to communicate with him.

Make that time valuable to your customer.

.

Low Cost Start-up Businesses & Low Risk Business opportunities

2006-10-23T19:37:00.000-07:00

For now the Internet offers low, low cost start-up businesses and a low risk business opportunity environment.

Have you thought about how nice it would be to have your own local business and not have to work for someone else?

Have you checked into the costs of buying a local business, or starting your own? A common thought is to buy a franchise business - but those not only have up-front expenses, they also might take a percentage of your gross income. Ouch - that's like another big tax.

Now is a good time to redefine local business. You can not get more local than working in your living room or managing your business at your kitchen table.

For now it is easy to get good software to research and build your online business at a low price. You can still use natural or organic search engine results to build your business for free. You will save years and lots of money avoiding a physical local business and starting an international web based home business.

You will also save years, and lots of money, and avoid lots of frustration if you start your business with the right tools. Do it right, do it early, and start earning that income much sooner. You will also get started before regulation and competition makes business entry more difficult.

Will you need the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars that a brick and mortar business or franchise can cost?

How does less than a thousand dollars sound -- to start right and get your business running quickly?

I have two ideas, mine and some other guy's.

If you want to start today, build a solid business in a short time, and you are not afraid of work - try the other guy's.

If you want to investigate for a while, learn about Internet marketing, and start a web-based business with no start-up cost, and almost no ongoing fees - Try Mine!

Quite honestly, if you are serious and want to get your home based internet business going right, going big and going soon - the other guy's stuff is what you want.

It provides a -- low, low cost start-up businesses and a low risk Internet business opportunity.

If you want to start a business - there are no acceptable excuses not to start now.

.

Your Small Business Requires Your Commitment

2006-10-20T14:53:00.000-07:00

The choice is yours.


If you have a program you believe in - work it.


Find a small piece that needs done and do it.
Now do it again.


You can make a difference in your life,
and in the lives of others,
if you will begin right now.


Put it off and you will still be stuck in a rut.
A rut is just a grave with the ends kicked out.


If you don't have a program you believe in -
commit yourself to this
start-up Internet business idea.
Read the follow-up e-mail letters.
Do the small tasks required,
and do them often.


You can do it, or you can quit --- again.


Build up momentum and keep increasing speed,
don't stop
or
you
will
have
to
go
through
the
whole
investigate - analyze - start-up - build up
cycle

again.


The time is past for pleasing suggestions.
You know what to do.


So Do IT!



.

Are You Thrilled With Your Current Job?

2006-10-15T15:20:00.000-07:00

Most people like at least part of their job - or they would leave.

What you may like is just that you have been there a long time and you hate change even more than you hate the job.

For everybody else - today it is time to change.

You don't have to change everything - just you.

Opportunities await your action -- it is time to start moving.

If you can not decide which way to move consider your passions first. Now all you need to do is find those that share your passions, and are willing to pay to learn and experience more.

Take it to the Internet. Your knowledge and passion can create your dream job, doing what you love when you want to do it. You will not get there today - but you can start today so you will be there in a year or two. What will you be doing in two years if you don't start today?

Expect the Internet to get regulated and taxed eventually - but for now it is very easy and inexpensive to get started. Those that wait will have a harder time than you.

The Internet has the following advantages, and more:

a billion international customers waiting, all wanting something specific

inexpensive to start and build your business

inexpensive and free advertising

easy, fast, and inexpensive to test and measure alternatives

you can work when you want to - at your own pace

a quick way to start earning money

low operating expense

low regulation

easy to automate

Did I mention inexpensive?

And that list is just the start.

But to acquire all of these benefits you have to start.

Do IT!

.

Do You Have A Small Local Business

2006-10-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

Are you a web master for local businesses?

The link in the title is for business owners that want to do it themselves. The link at the end is for webmasters that want to help local businesses.

Both courses are free and full of valuable material.

Just a few short years ago, the Internet
was not really the place to
reach customers in local markets.


However, search giants such as Google
and Yahoo! are responding to a growing
shift in customer search patterns...


More people are searching for local businesses!


From SiteSell:

Sharon Odom Fling, a Webmaster and LOCAL small business
marketing expert, shows Webmasters how to tap into the huge
and desperate local business market.


As the engines meet the needs of local search, making it
easier and easier, expect local search to expand.  Due to a
positive feedback loop, local search is growing... fast.


That's great news for local Webmasters, IF they know how to
actually build local BUSINESSES, not just sites. A webmaster
business course is also available - at no charge.


Small businesses in your neighborhood, actually in every
neighborhood, NEED help.  Most of them have never owned a
Web site, or have failed at one or more.  They have no clue
how to make it generate leads and sales for their business.


These local business owners often view Web site building as
too complicated or not worth the time and effort.


Sharon also presents real-life case studies (with full
audio) on 5 budding entrepreneurs who are successfully using
the Net.


Download these free courses and read them.


Sharon's eight highly-effective strategies show Webmasters
how to connect with local biz owners, AND how to make this
market successful, AND how to make these owners rave and
build buzz about their Webmasters.



If you're a Webmaster and it's right for you,


what are you waiting for?

Just A Simple Pencil

2006-10-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

The beauty and power of capitalism can be found in this wonderful little story related by a pencil.

I Pencil carries a great message, and as one so closely associated with writing it is no surprise that Mr. Pencil spins a story so well.

My attention was recalled to this brief and exhilarating story by a student at Bastiat Free University. I seems the link to I Pencil in one of our courses was no longer connecting.

I mourn the passing of a link to valuable knowledge, and especially a fun read. I will therefor promote as a eulogy to the former link a new link to the I Pencil story as told to Leonard E Read.

Here is a way to access a sharpened learning tool capable of surgically removing ignorance without pain.

Another way to honor that dearly departed link is to ask you to click on a new link to the same interesting story, and ask you to read it.

The old I Pencil link is dead - Long live the new link!

Ladies and gentlemen - I now present for you edification and enjoyment:

I Pencil

Is There A Better Than e-Mail communicator?

2006-10-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

Read this short story on a different style of communication, one that might get read.

Yesterday I listened to a recorded conversation between two greats of direct marketing. They discussed old pre-Internet days, and how things had both changed and stayed the same. There was a lot of good material.

The direct mail guy mentioned how everything is always changing, and you have to be able to adapt, he said his new marketing campaign had streaming video.

Okay so far, nothing new.

The other guy, who started on the net and was starting to work his list with off line marketing dropped a one line bomb shell. He said with troubles communicating by e-mail, he was sending his messages directly to the desktop - and avoiding e-mail altogether. Then the conversation moved on.

What was that?

Direct to prospects or customers desktop and skipping the hassle of e-mail? I wanted to know more.

I've found out a bit more, or should i say it found me, and it starts this morning. This may not be the whole story, but you never know everything when a new technology hits. Those who used early TRS80 and Apple II personal computers had no idea of where it might lead - but they were well ahead of the pack when powerful change came.

Direct To Desktop communications, we may just be seeing a part of it, but the part we see may make a huge difference. This may keep growing, and you will be here on the first day. Take a look, and see what the future might hold.

A simple name - a simple concept, perhaps a powerful new, new, thing.

Desktop Lightning

enjoy,

Allan

.

Internet Niche Market Research And Development

2006-10-01T13:09:00.000-07:00

A couple of compelling reasons to use the Internet for niche market research and development are speed and cost.

There is a lot of information online about attacking niche markets. Most of the information however is directed at small local businesses, and follows standard niche market media methodologies. While there is a place for radio, newspaper, and magazine ads in building any business, they are comparatively slow and expensive for niche marketing plan development purposes.

The Internet is media, but a very responsive media. Not everything that works on one media is directly transferable to other marketing platforms - but usually there will be a strong relationship. You can create niche market adds today, with variations in headlines, copy, price points, style, and graphics and have them up and testing by tonight. You can even test them on several types of online media; blogs, ppc, forums, and other tightly focused Internet properties.

Due to heavy competition you can also save a great deal of cash by using tightly segmented ads within these same focused properties. Developing your own blog or website will allow further cost savings and more opportunities to market test your ideas.

The low regulation and low entry cost environment on the Internet allow you to discover your niche market and develop it quickly and inexpensively. You are also afforded the opportunity to flexibly adjust your strategies if you were wrong about your niche's composition, desires, and needs. Once again, the adjustments indicated by your niche market research can be fast and inexpensive.

Use all the media available to you that will show a positive return on investment (ROI). That investment in ROI is your money, the return in ROI will become your money.

Internet niche market research and development is your fast, low cost, first choice.

.

Allan Wallace's Entrepreneur Builder system.

2006-09-23T01:17:00.000-07:00

Allan Wallace's Entrepreneur Builder system.

That is the catch phrase for one of my projects. I've been doing small business consulting for decades, but it is those driven entrepreneurial types that are the most fun. The passion they have for their product and for their customers makes them exciting to be around.

I keep running into folks that seem to believe a special education is what creates an entrepreneur. They either explain they can't start a big business because they lack that peculiar education, or they want to know at which university to get an entrepreneur's education.

Bah - Humbug.

Here are the steps to becoming an entrepreneur.

Center on your passions - work at what you love and you will never work.

Research that passion - find out if and how there is money to be made pursuing it.

Find a mentor, someone already highly successful - and copy their style to get started.

Keep learning - formally, informally, constantly seeking out new information.

Notice college is an optional and small part of entrepreneurship. Passion is what's mandatory.

Go to college if you want to be part of a business bureaucracy. As an entrepreneur you will find the flaws of bureaucracies and exploit them. That niche bureaucrats are too complacent or blind to pursue can create wealth and freedom for you.

Get started now and work hard.

If you need a bit of an outline - check out the free Entrepreneur Builder 101 from Bastiat Free University.

There is good material in that BFU course - but success is up to you and your own persistence and passion.

.

If Not You, Who? -- If Not Now. When?

2006-09-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

Are you a visionary?

If you are a visionary, you have personal views of how the future may unfold - both positive and negative.

The negative is upon us. What will be birthed out of these coming panic times will depend on the actions from people of vision. If you are one of those creative people that looks beyond today - it is time to start acting in accord with your beliefs.

You have the vision - now you need to start on your personal mission, for the rest of your life.

You have at least a general knowledge of what needs to be done, and you know if you do not do it in all probability it won't get done.

You need to move your knowledge from the general to the specific - but you need to do something else first.

GET STARTED

Your vision and your mission are like longitude and latitude in a rockets guidance system. Together they can get you on target with that purpose that should by now be dominating your life. Proper co-ordinates will have no effect if the rocket remains on the pad.

Get off your pad and start moving.

Your purpose needs to be bigger than supporting a political party or throwing a few dollars at a committee. The world is full of needs - you are uniquely suited to meeting some of them.

Society is changing as we leave the industrial age - huge organizations will collapse as individuals gain power using technology. We can have a world where feudal states are in constant war - or a world where competitive small states reward producers and value exchange; it will probably be a mixture of both.

That is my vision - and the reasoning behind Bastiat Free University. The poor have an opportunity to become rewarded technology enabled producers - if we dismantle archaic educational systems and provide open learning enabling self-development. There is likely a window of decades or less to effect positive change.

What is your vision?

How can you influence the future?

You are the person.

Now is the time.

Get off your pad and get started.

.

Hamburger, Coke, & Fries

2006-09-21T02:24:00.000-07:00

Fast Food, or a chance to learn from one of the best.

This is not be a tough decision. In fact you can have the combo meal and learn how to develop the most important part of your Internet marketing business.

Don't ignore this.

I don't know how to tell you how important this might be to your future. At almost no cost.

I will tell you to look this over, once you see what is offered and at what price you will be amazed.

It costs nothing to look. It may cost a huge amount to ignore it.

Don't let your perceived lack of a fishing pole keep you from landing the big one. Click here now to check it out.

Allan

.

For Your Success - Get It Done

2006-09-18T05:53:00.000-07:00

A couple of the keys to your daily success - free of charge.

Clear out the emotional debris that clogs your effectiveness. First thing each day do two very important business actions.

Talk to the person you least want to talk to.

Do the task you least want to attack.

Get these out of your way early and you won't have to make excuses all day about why you can't get started. You got started - with important actions.

Now you can get on with that part of the job that you know is also important, without the strangling effect of negative tasks undone.

Do this daily - do it early - see how much more is accomplished in your whole day.

Each daily success leads toward a life time of successes.

Allan

Internet Marketing Ideas - A Start Up Guide

2006-09-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

How do you apply the internet marketing ideas you already have?

Where do you learn the knowledge to make internet marketing work for you?

Bastiat Free University has put together a pdf e-book with lots of resources for starting your own internet marketing business.

These are the same materials that are planned to be included in BFU's Internet Marketing 101 course. There are also some peeks into even deeper insights. Here there is no graded homework - just internet marketing materials that you can work with to start up your business.

If you are willing to do the work - here is an opportunity to explore the ideas used to create huge and very profitable internet marketing empires - all presented as basic internet marketing business ideas.

If you have been asking "Why doesn't someone make a free e-book with enough solid internet marketing information to get me started?" Bastiat Free University just has.

As a pdf you should be able to read these internet marketing ideas on any platform, even a PDA. Download the free Adobe Reader or the open source Foxit PDF Reader if you don't have one yet.

It has not been decided by BFU if they will continue to make this internet marketing e-book available after the classes start. Pick up and read your copy today:

Internet Marketing 101

presented by Bastiat Free University

Is Multiple Streams Of Income A Bad Concept?

2006-09-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

.

The concept is put forward as creating "multiple streams of income" to form one large income -- and it has merit.

The flaws I have seen are in execution, not in the streams of income concept itself.

There are potentially multiple streams of income in the program I recommend -- IncomeBoost.

IncomeBoost is powerful for one reason - all the businesses you will join, most for free, support your one business.

One Business is the key and anchor of this business model - all the other pieces support marketing that business and each other - or are logical extensions beyond the original business.

Any business you join needs to be your business - only use tools and strategies - and add other businesses you want to work with. The other side of the question is -- do those pieces work together. If they do not fit, you have headed into "diworseification" - and guaranteed yourself average results at best.

There are thousands of businesses that have attractive offers - only use those that will greatly benefit what you already have. Focus on improving your existing business.

The business you will eventually create should fit neatly together - conserving your energy and time.

If you have to try new schemes just to see how they will work out, try a different tack. Start developing your own product that will complement what you have and apply what you are already learning.

This should be your eventual goal anyway - to offer your own complementary products others will sell for you. If you sign up for the Seven Strategies e-book that is filled with business ideas - you will start the learning necessary to create your own products.

If you don't have time for that - you probably don't have time for new unrelated programs either.

Your choice - your business - your future.

If you want to pursue the multiple streams of income beast, I would suggest taking a high powered rifle rather than a shotgun.

focus on the essentials.

Make Money With Web Traffic

2006-09-13T00:19:00.000-07:00

You want targeted traffic.

The traffic you get from most internet schemes is a waste of time and/or money.

While I usually don't do this, I've got an article here that deserves your attention. I may not agree with everything - but this is not the advice you will get from your usual upline in a network marketing business. Consider this a challenge to learn techniques beyond what you have been shown.

You want to be in charge of your own business and investments - start today.

This week we continue our multi-part series on real
world ways to get traffic to your site.

There are basically two ways to get traffic.

1. Free methods that take a long time to work.
2. Paid methods that work fast.

In the last issue, we looked at ezine advertising and
pay per click.

This week we look at how to maximize your investment
with these powerful methods.

>>>> Email Marketing

Email marketing is without any doubt THE most powerful
form of paid advertising online.

What most people miss is that there are many ways to
accomplish email marketing for their site.

Just look at these ways in which email marketing can
help you sell more online.

* Ezine advertising - ads are sent via email
* Joint ventures - Basically an ad to a private list
* Rented lists - Again, and ad to a list you rent
* Autoresponders - all follow up systems use email
* Ezine publishing - ezines are delivered via email
* Blog post announcements - usually delivered via email

If you are not using email in your marketing now, let
me offer this tip on how you can start using it
today.

1. Create a follow up system for your site.

The BEST selling sites online convert about 10% of
visitors to buyers on the first visit. This leaves us
with one all-important question ...

What happens to the other 90%?

Basically, one of two things happens to visitors who
come to your site but don't buy the first time.

1. They forget about you, never to return.
2. They do return and buy what you sell.

How can you make sure that your site falls into the
second group, the group that makes sales?

You *remind* them to return via email.

In my years online I've found that there are about five
core principles that work every time. And I do mean
every time.

One of those truths is this ... if your site does not
follow up via email, you ARE losing sales and money.

No doubt about it.

Happily, you can fix that and fix it today. Use this
link to discover how easy it is to create a follow up
system today (not next week or month but today!)

http://www.realworldtactics.com/followup.html


>>>> Joint Ventures

Joint ventures used to mean an arrangement between two
people where they both did about half the work and
split the profits. Ideally, they had complimentary
skills such as one being a programmer and the other a
marketer.

Today, the term 'Joint Venture' has devolved into a
situation where one person has a mailing list and the
other wants to sell their product and will pay a very
high commission.

And that's okay.

So how do YOU profit from joint ventures? Here's my
short list of things to do - and things to avoid - when
it comes to joint ventures.

Remember, these are guidelines based on what I have
seen work, not hard and fast rules.

Use this list and, over time, it will help make you
more profits than you can imagine.

Do ...

* Create a list of joint venture partners you want.
* Send an email introducing yourself and asking if
 they are interested in a JV at some point.
* Tell them what's in it for them.
* Keep your emails to them short.
* Create a web page where they can learn more.
* Get interested JV partners to join a list of JV
 announcements.
* Make more than one offer. Not every offer is
 right for every partner, but time can become your
 ally if you are persistent.
* Post your JV offer to forums that allow such posts.
* Be creative. Not everyone is motivated by money only.
* Use the phone. Limit yourself to email and you
 won't get as many JVs as if you email *and* call.
* Give partners lots of lead time. Nothing is
 worse than getting a great JV offer that has to be
 done tomorrow.
* Provide partners with ready-made marketing tools
 like 'copy and paste' emails, banners, and more.

Do Not ...

* Approach people to joint venture with you on
 products that they can become an affiliate for
 themselves.
* Buy someone's product thinking that doing so
 will obligate them to JV with you.
* Send very long emails with a sales pitch.
* Send too many emails and waste their time.
* Offer anything less than 50% commission.
* Spam your JV offer ... ever.
* Quit - Never quit trying. JVs work and can work
 for you no matter what.
* Think that you can't get a JV because you don't
 have a big name. Everyone starts somewhere. You
 can do this.

The keys to success with Joint Ventures are to be
creative, generous, and persistent. Find the right
JV partners with the right offer at the right time
and watch as very good things happen, all without
you having to spend a dime!

In the next issue we'll cover the last two ways to
get paid traffic to your site, teleseminars (yes,
they can work for you!) and creating a powerful
affiliate program.

Until then, apply these words from Winston
Churchill to your marketing.

"The nose of the bulldog is slanted backwards so
he can breathe without letting go"

In other words, when it comes to YOUR success
online ... never give up - never surrender your
dream!

*******************************************************
Charlie Page helps people succeed online. How can he
help you? Find out now at his main site or call his
toll free number. http://www.RealWorldTactics.com

.

Internet Marketing For Online Business Ideas

2006-09-11T19:04:00.000-07:00

Internet marketing tips and online business ideas - who could ask for more.

If you already have a successful online business, this will be of some value. This is really for those that have an online business idea. If you want an internet marketing tip on how to proceed - there is one shortcut I can recommend.

Let's restate some speculation rules for marketing an online business:

you should always buy the book before marketing the online business

you should start small - make those early mistakes as cheaply as possible

learn one marketing concept well before developing others

early lessons are but stepping stones to greater truths

This just might speed up your trip to success. Here is your first internet marketing tip of the day.

The key is to fully understand the basics - and make a bit of money learning them. Once you have the basics down you can start on the really profitable business of creating and selling your own product.

To learn the basics of marketing for online business - get involved in someone else's business that already has an internet marketing plan.

It just so happens I have one of those.

So here is your next internet marketing tip: in three steps.

1) Get and read this e-book on starting your own internet business. It covers and provides basic marketing tools for your new online business.

2) These are the first tools you need to master, so please dedicate yourself to learning and applying them. Mastering these basics will establish your next steps.

3) Build your own product and market it using these tools. You will not be alone- there will be many that would like to market your product and learn from you.

The e-book comes with a two month follow-up of suggestions. These will help keep you on track.

Will it be easy - no.

Will it be instant - no.

Is it guaranteed - no.

But if you want to live an entrepreneur's adventurous business life - this is one way to do it within the next year or two.

Get the e-book on Internet Marketing For Online Business Ideas.

We will already violate one of those speculation rules - you can't buy this business idea book - it's free. Get it and read it today.

.

The Search For Integrity

2006-09-06T02:55:00.000-07:00

This is beyond Diogenes and his search for an honest man.

This is far beyond a college ethics class definition of honorable circumstantial interrelationships. This is beyond frequenting businesses based on good experiences.

This is personal.

Our society has been defined by size - big government, educational institutions, workers movements, corporate ethics. All of these are shredding their vestments, the vestiges of the industrial age, and none of them are to be trusted.

With the technological empowering of the individual now being experienced, relationships are moving from large scale efficiencies to trusting relationships. This will not be a fast or smooth move, but it is already in progress.

A protean team of netcohort entrepreneurs is self limiting. Reputation is the hallmark of the creative knowledge workers guild.

This is like Saturday morning at the school grounds. Fifty kids show up to play baseball - the best know best eighteen players are selected. the others go home. There is no appeal. There is no adult to insure "Fairness." The right number is selected - no others need apply. The goal is to win the game.

A serial entrepreneur decides to start a new business. If he is wise, he will call together the best people he can trust and get started. Others may be added to the team - by direct knowledge, or by referral from a trusted team member. When the project is done the group disperses to other projects - knowing more about each other and their capabilities.

Reputations grow with performance.

Relationships and reputations are the basis of team selection.

If you lack integrity you will not be invited, if invited you will not be asked back, you will not be referred to another group. You will go home.

When everything was big - everyone was assumed to lie. Herds of lawyers confirmed the deals with contracts - and herds of lawyers broke the contracts.

A hand shake, a "yes I will" over the phone, a nod of the head.

The netcohort society works on reputation - you said it - you will do it. If you fail for good reasons, everyone learns and we keep moving.

If someone fails and offers weak excuses, they will get cut from the team. They will not get a chance at the next juicy project.

Personal relationships.

Personal responsibility.

Personal integrity.

You either have it or you don't. Just like baseball - if you don't have it the first step is practice.

Practice integrity in your everyday walk - love it, live it.

When the opportunity comes, you will be what you have practiced.

Someone said "Practice does not make perfect - perfect practice makes perfect. Practice makes permanent whatever you practice." Your attitude and your integrity right now are the results of choices you made earlier.

If you wish to perform in the most exciting new ventures of this new age - practice integrity.

Your reputation is in your mouth, your thoughts, your actions - your reputation is now in your own hands.

Live integrity.

.

Such A Simple Concept

2006-09-03T02:02:00.000-07:00

A simple idea I have followed for years but have not written about.

I think it was Rothschild that said "compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world." No, this is not a finance entry that should be in Speculation Rules - it's about our businesses, and our lives.

Over at the Bastiat Free University site we try to improve the site a couple of percent a week. That doesn't sound like much - but BFU is a part time project, and 2% or more is achievable. Often it is hard to notice the changes from one week to the next.

Even without compounding, with 52 weeks in a year, that couple of percent means next years college students will be attending a school at least twice as good as this one. The year after that it will once again be twice as good.

Wait a minute.

If today it is a one, next year it will be a two. A double over the following year makes that two a four. In two years BFU will be four times better than it is today, by just improving it a couple of percent a week.

In three years it will be eight times better than today. In four years sixteen times better than today. In five years that small and steady improvement will make Bastiat Free University 32X the BFU of today.

You can apply this anywhere in your life.

Following the BFU example, consider learning 2% more per week than you know today about a particular subject - and then continuing to learn at that speed. At some point your knowledge base will be large enough that it might slow down. If your passion for the subject is what started your learning, your passion will have that much more to feed on.

Your business, your relationships, your attitude -- all of them can benefit from small but steady improvements.

Such a simple concept - and it is truly the eighth wonder of the world.

.

The Next Step In Money Making Internet Business Creation

2006-09-02T14:52:00.000-07:00

The last post was about auto-responders, I've gone the next step and built a splash page.

With the help of one of the posters at the earners forum I've crafted a first draft of a new splash page. "Whats that," you ask - it is a short and direct page crafted for traffic exchanges. Most folks don't take time to read involved pages when they are surfing.

To overcome the quick scan you need short and powerful ad copy.

A good splash page is short and sweet. It gets right to the point and drills it home.

The creator of the splash page I modeled mine after has a useful blog on a very useful topic -- making money. Visit his

Make Money Online Blog

to pick up some of his money making ideas.

You can also visit my Online Money Making Business Ideas page and see how a splash page looks.

I prefer regular money making pages - but in a traffic exchange like traffic swarm, a splash page should work much better.

The eventual goal is having learned how to use all these tools, I'll create my own product(s) and use these tools to market it. In the meantime I'm building a nice side income while I'm learning.

If you want to learn how to create an online income - how to make money, check out that splash page Click HERE.

If you can leave some comments about the experience it would help me to improve the next one.

enjoy

Small Business Internet Marketing Tools

2006-08-29T05:31:00.000-07:00

I wrote earlier about the usefulness of an auto-responder, it is a necessary e-marketing tool.

I have used an e-book, written by a successful e-marketer, in my online businesses. I have now put up some information on that free e-book at Speculation Rules - and used an auto responder to increase my effectiveness.

The basic premise is that most folks say no out of habit at least a few times before they buy. Think about it, we walk in a store looking for a particular product, a salesman walks up and asks if they can help us, and we say no.

That no was a reflex. We might even quickly correct ourself and say "uh, wait a minute - where can I find that new DVD movie Accepted."

We all say no quickly out of habit - even when we want to say yes.

As Clark Kent's editor Perry White might say "I've been in this business 50 years, man and boy, and I've never gotten yes as a first sales response."

Industry myth says it normally takes seven tries to get to yes - when somebody does want to buy. Perhaps there was a study on sales that created that number 7 - shrouded in the mists of the last century.

A surprising number of auto-responders are programed with seven follow ups; or perhaps not surprising considering the power of "old wives tales." Realistically if there was such a study it probably proclaimed an average of seven attempts were made before the sale. In that case some may have been on the second try, and some on the fifteenth.

Stopping at seven follow-ups may leave money on the table.

I've only written the first two responses for my auto-responder tool so far, I'll probably go out to ten or twelve when I finish it in the morning.

Feel free to prove me wrong, get and read your free marketing tools e-book on the first auto-response at:

Free Internet Marketing Tools

We Are All Actors On A Stage

2006-08-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

Whether you are currently a wage slave in a cubicle cell, an independent-contractor, or an entrepreneur -- we all get paid according to the performances we give.

I recently read a trainer associated with Success University stating a thought I have heard in several guises before.

" Money is nothing more than the applause you get for helping others." - Stone Evans

Stone is a helpful and optimistic guy, so he chooses to ignore the seamier performances in back alleys that are also done for that same applause.

The key though is that we all work for that same applause, and money is an applause that can linger long after our performance.

The workers in cubicles are part of a cast of thousands - and are paid accordingly. Their contribution as a crowd scene extra has individually added little value to the production. "Cut - see all of you next show."

Large solo acts generate great applause - but normally worked their way up from supporting roles in small town productions. Early small stage leading roles frequently provide the experience necessary to earn latter world wide accolades and awards.

Money won't make you happy, but it will make you more comfortable in whatever state you find yourself. Applause alone is not enough to satisfy long term - but rewards are better than rejection or being ignored.

Since you are already an actor on a stage - study your craft. Every performance is a chance to hone your skills.

Also consider attending a casting call for a different type of performance. A role much more likely to generate thunderous applause directed toward you --

one with you in the leading role.

.

Why And How To Blog?

2006-08-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

The following is a first draft of an introductory piece on why and how to blog for a class on blogging at Bastiat Free University.

Please feel free to contribute any information in the comments that may assist the students.

A blog is a multi-faceted Internet tool.

Many blog platforms are are available at no-cost. If you are just starting out Blogger or Blog Charm are easy ways to learn blogging basics. There will be some frustrations - but they will allow you to customize your presentation.

A few of our blogs; Speculation Rules, The Sovereign Speculator, An Online Prayer Chapel, and the BFU update blog can serve as examples.

Using the standard looking templates provided, the above show some of the different approaches available.

The power in a blog is first in its simplicity. It is easy to create a web presence with a blog - it is easy to add material. Using just a few no-charge Internet tools you can bring both search engines and visitors to your blog within a reasonable period of time.

Blogger is owned by Google - and is trying to improve. Your blog started on this platform begins with some visibility.

Your first step after creating your blog is to make a post - write a , usually short, entry. Normally a hundred words or a bit more are enough - but it is your blog, do as you wish. Now write more entries following the theme of the blog. One of the measures the search engines will use to evaluate your blog is the number of entries. For the first week or two write several a day, if you wish you can then tapper off to one a day, and once you have over fifty "posts" to your journal you can continue at whatever is a comfortable pace for you.

To get your blog noticed, syndicate your entries by "pinging" sites that list new blog postings. A good no-cost pinging services is Ping Goat, there are others. You only need to use one, and only when you have new content to distribute.

There are also several sites where folks share their favorite blogs, Delicious and Digg are two of them. Post a few key words of your choice to describe your favorite blogs. You blogs can be described by you also - adding a bit to your sites visibility.

You can submit your sites to Yahoo search and google for free, once found they will continue to return to your site looking for useful information. There are probably web directories in your blogs field that will also list your blog for free, and there are many free general directories.

As your blog grows it will likely attract links from other similar blogs, you can add links on your blog to sites you enjoy. Your incoming links, and to some extent your outgoing links, will effect your ranking in the search engines. Post a comment on the BFU blog (or here) about one of our posts - and use your blog's URL address where requested - you now have a link to your blog. If you post relevant content you can do this on many blogs - you will get to know them - they will get to know you. Avoid quick and general comments - those may be treated as spam.

You can also use the free tools of the Internet marketer to enhance your blog's impact, pick and choose from many useful sites.

Another tool is traffic exchanges - while they may have limited long term value - using them for a short while will help you discover blogs you like - and help others discover you.

Your blog does not have to be a stand alone site. The Speculation Rules blog above shares its readership with the main Speculation Rules site - enhancing both. A blog can be used to drive traffic to a more standard site, something I am sure you are already considering.

In short your new blog can do many things - you will keep discovering them as you learn.

.

You Can Do It

2006-08-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

Business is not for the gambler.

Business is for the persistent.

Do your planning. Study your markets, products, and competitors.

Do it better.

But what is even more important - keep doing it.

Keep studying your markets, products, and competitors. Learn new things to study and develop. Apply yourself to being better at satisfying the needs and desires of your customers.

and Keep Doing It.

In sports you need to keep repeating the basics to excel. Business is better than that. Yes the basics will keep you alive and help you grow.

But in business just one home run or goal may establish you for life.

Then keep up the basics to endure.

Keep swinging, keep kicking, continue running the plays.

The big one is in the percentages.

Do it.

Do it right.

Keep doing it.

.

How To Start Your Own Home Based Business

2006-08-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

Have you wondered if you can have a home based business?

The first question you probably asked yourself was -- is a home based business even a possibility?

The simple answer is - yes.

But before we explain let's throw a bit of reality in here.

You will not be able to toss someone a bunch of cash and make even more cash the next day. Life doesn't work that way - you will have to work at your home based business just as much, or more, than you worked for someone else.

Any real business will require time, effort, and money.

In some instances you can replace the need for large amounts of cash with larger amounts of time and effort. If you have no business experience - it will take even more time. Give yourself at least two to five years to create a growing home based business that will support you.

The easiest real home based businesses to start are on the Internet - which is one reason there are so many scams on the Internet promising to make you wealthy tomorrow with no effort. Another reason for the scams is sometimes they work - and someone hands over money to acquire the scammer's help and experience.

It kinda works - the scammer gets the money - the scammed gain some experience.

Enough Bad News!

Yes, you can have a real home based business.

There are several routes, some of which I will mention here.

You can create your own content rich website using powerful tools alongside your effort and creativity. If you try this on your own, and study everything you can find - expect it to take five to ten years.

For about the same costs you can find an integrated suite of tools and web hosting that will both train and direct your home based business success. SiteSell provides such a suite - there are others. Sitesell is real though - that may save you both time and money investigating.

If you want to sell your product, someone else's product, or promote your existing local business - SiteSell is a great tool to use.

Perhaps the easiest product to handle is a digital product. Without inventories costs are low - profit margins are high. If this will be your first venture into an Internet home based business - use someone else's product that already has marketing tools affiliated with it.

You can develop your own products latter when you understand the world of funnels, auto-responders, lists, and splash pages.

A low cost digital product that has many benefits, besides being real, is Global Domains International (GDI). There are no start up costs, and the fees are only US$10.00 a month, almost anyone that will read this journal will be able to afford to join and start earning and learning very quickly. Ignore the mentions of thousands of dollars a week - as a beginner expect to pay $10.00 a month as you learn. Two years from now - if you put in time and effort you will have two great benefits.

Your first benefit should be a growing income, getting larger each year. The second is you may have learned enough to launch your own digital products successfully. In years two to five that thousands of dollars a week may happen, and you can enjoy your profitable and successful home based business.

Whichever type of home based business you start - stay focused. There are many tools that will support your marketing efforts, but they are just tools. Spend the majority of your efforts and planning on your primary business.

With that warning let me provide you with a set of free tools to support GDI. These have the benefit of teaching you marketing strategies that will enhance your own future product sales. If you go the Sitesell route instead - bookmark this page and come back once you are done creating your site - many of these tools will profit you also.

The integrated marketing system for GDI is called IncomeBoost, and it is well worth the time of looking to any home based business marketer, use whatever pieces will help you.

Now:

Go out and start your own home based business.

Allan

.

A Distance Learning College Degree

2006-08-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

Are you comparing college degrees from self-directed distance learning schools with formal education brick and mortar schools?

There may be a third choice that you should consider before you make the decision. I've just updated a comparison between D/L and B&M that may interest you.

Of course if you have been reading this journal for a while you are aware of my opinions about the future of society. Your college education should probably balance the desire to survive through the declining industrial age with the need to prepare for the Netcohort Society.

As a business person your primary goal is most likely learning rather than the acquiring of a college degree. In that case evaluate your educational options with a view to growing both your business and yourself.

Compare all sorts of learning tools, not just formal education and distance learning. There may be free or inexpensive learning venues available to expand the scope and pleasures of your learning experience - use them.

In the end it is you that must decide what educational path to pursue as most relevant to your future.

Compare self-directed distance learning colleges with more formal college education - but evaluate non-standard third options too.

.

Deferred Gratification

2006-08-11T09:25:00.000-07:00

This is not what you want to hear - this is not exciting.

There are no legal and ethical ideas I've discovered that will consistently make you wealthy by next weekend.

I know of several ideas where you can apply work with creativity and you may be making good money in two years, and possibly have found wealth in five years, but even then there are no guarantees.

What I can offer is some sound advice.

Pick a business or an investment style and get to work. Study ways to expand your reach and to improve your results. If this is new to you - start small.

After 6 months of consistent application you will begin to discover if this is the route for you. After two years of effort you will be competent and have built the skills and knowledge for success. After five years you may well have discovered and created wealth.

This will not happen with you sitting on your backside.

There will be work and time involved.

Keep working, keep learning, discover how you work best and fit the business into your life - don't fit your life into a job. Adapt as you learn, and don't be afraid to apply your growing knowledge in new ways.

You have a choice.

You can watch a re-play of the last five years unfold over the next five years - and likely end up right where you are now or worse.

Or you can change.

If you want to do the work and reach for success - I would love to work with you. Click every link in this article and investigate the various offerings - pick one and follow through.

Or click the x at the top right corner and escape to keep your life as it is.

Enjoy your life,

Allan

.

We've Been Hacked

2006-08-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up and one of my sites was hacked.

We are trying to repair the site - so it may be up by the time you read this.

Life can be so centered in the now we forget all those future "nows" will be influenced by todays decisions.

If you have started an online business because of a "now" problem - your new business will probably just add to your woes.

Take another look at your business.

You can work most businesses with a two year lead time - and be reasonably confident that in two years your "now" problems will not be financial.

Discover - Learn - Act

Seek out methods that will enhance your business over the next two years and you will avoid the frustrations of the immediate.

Don't quit because you lack success this week or this month, if you do you will lack success next month and next year.

Discover tools that will build your business and grow with you, and use them.

What will you be doing in two years if you don't?

Allan

Tides And Waves In The Affairs Of Men

2006-07-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

- William Shakespeare

Bill was a pessimist.

If you listen to big ticket salesmen - the deal of the century is available right now - but will be gone if you wait until tomorrow. I have calculated closely, and I am certain that in reality a deal of the century arrives every three weeks.

There is always a deal of the decade available. The trick is we do not know which deal is going to be the big one in advance. The truth is that almost any of them could be.

The key is to be at the top - a deal you have salesmen offer others as a deal of the century is far more likely to insure your success than when you take the bait and buy someone else's deal and then sit and wait.

How do you learn the varied skills and knowledge necessary to create your own deal? How do you learn to get salesmen out there working for you?

You take the bait, dedicate yourself to someone else's deal - and keep your eyes open.

Putting in a year or two vigorously promoting a multi-faceted offering for someone else may not ensure your success at that venture, but that dedication does frequently pay off quickly.

If you do your homework and learn everything you can about making their project succeed through you - they will probably be there to help your first project succeed.

This is an entertaining education with a big payoff. Take any reasonable deal at the flood - and learn to ride the waves.

Here is one deal of the decade that will let you learn a full quiver of marketing tools - apply them and develop more yourself - you can be successful at this.

Then in a couple of years let me know of your own new and creative venture - I just might want to help you get it going.

Then we can be at the top of the next deal of the century - together.

.

Promote Your Business With A Mailing List

2006-07-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

As you cruise the net you see lots of requests for your e-mail address.

These will normally give you some information, and add you to a mailing list. Under current US law you can get off the list easily - but many either don't want off, or won't bother un-subscribing. If the offered information is seen as valuable - the list will continue to grow. (example)

The software that picks up your name in an autoresponder, it automatically sends the requested information, and probably has programmed a series of follow-up e-mails or newsletters at set intervals.

As a small businessman with a unique product - these lists can become invaluable to you.

The building of your first autoresponder takes a bit of effort - but the resulting list will bring you business for years - you will have the ear of the respondent until they quit or die.

A low effort alternative is the My Lucky List list generation site.

As soon as you are signed up with YLL send out an e-mail - even if you have no list yet, this seems to trigger their system. As a free user You will be allowed to mail to a redrawn random list once a week. You will also receive several e-mails from folks that are provided your e-mail. My list sizes have grown and shrunk, but it is worth getting that e-mail sent - I have received some nice business from it.

The e-mail subject line says YLL first - I'm sure many are deleted by reflex. I scan the e-mails I receive and open only those that interest me. A compelling and original subject line is therefore imperative.

Sending just one e-mail a week to a growing audience takes little time - but your YLL list may yield some fine results.

Building you own exclusive list that is targeted from your special business is far better. It is worth the effort to learn to use your own free autoresponder.

There is of course no reason not to do anything and everything that ethically helps your business.

Best,

Allan

P. S. One additional tool would be ad tracking. As you get clicks and sales it helps to know which ads and headlines worked. You can even change a small element and compare the results of two ads - that makes ad tracking a very powerful marketing research tool.

.

Affiliate Marketing

2006-07-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

Using your blog or website for affiliate marketing is like being a commission only receptionist.

Some might say doing affiliate marketing is like being a commissioned salesman - but the job isn't that tough. Your job is to pre-sell potential customers, helping them to understand that they may find something good if they click through from your site.

The site you are an affiliate for does all the selling.

At my finance sites I have a button to reach Elliott Wave International. For investors or speculators they offer many excellent "tried and true" services - many of them, including investment training, are available for free.

That prior paragraph was affiliate marketing. I have referred investors to two of my other sites where a referral button waits to Elliott Wave International. While I have done my readers a service - I know and trust the quality of EWI, I may earn a small commission if they find the advisory or educational services a good fit for themselves.

As in all business, integrity is rewarded by confidence.

With some affiliate marketing relationships you do not even need a blog or website - there are online sites you can refer others to and still have done your job.

Affiliate marketing is a great first step to start discovering about Internet businesses. You will get help with marketing, and you can learn various tools like blogs and how to use them best.

If you are interested, successful Internet Marketer David MacGregor has put several Internet tools together to support an affiliate marketing program. Spend half a day setting up the basic Internet business relationships - and spend some time each week adding to your marketing knowledge and effectiveness.

This can be a very profitable experience.

You can earn some online money - you will also learn a great deal about online affiliate marketing.

This will translate well when and if you decide to commit to a complete at home business lifestyle.

David MacGregor calls his integrated affiliate marketing system -

Income Boost.

Best,

Allan

The Price Of Success

2006-07-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

Actually the price of success is a bit of a misnomer.

Life will extract its price from you if you succeed - and if you fail.

You are the one that determines what your chances of success will be. The price will be paid regardless.

You have the choice of increasing your chance of success using one tool - your best.

You can diddle and piddle about through life - rightfully complaining about the price it is charging you to live.

Or

You can apply what you have in the best way you know, keep learning and enhancing your best, and probably enjoy the price more often than you will have cause for complaint.

With the first attitude you can win the lottery and still be a loser. With the second attitude you will have enabled a great potential for success.

The choice is yours.

You were created with the ability to accomplish great things. That success capability lies within each of us, if we are only willing to wake it up and sustain it.

Here then is your success question:

Why not your best?

DreamPower Is Staying Power

2006-07-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

When Martin Luther King intoned the words "I have a dream" he was stating that he had a goal that drove his life.

Whether you think Martin Luther King was a socialist rabble rouser or a saint, he was a man dedicated to a goal.

It was a goal that survived past the end of his life.

If you are floundering, flopping around like a fish on the shores of indecision, it is perhaps time to pick a stream and dive in.

In a recent article I inserted occasional thoughts about finding a sustaining goal for your life - one that would motivate you in good times and bad. I'll post three of those thoughts on dreams and goals here:

1)

If you have a need or goal, write it down right now. As you read through this article imagine how you can use these tools to realize your desires. What you write is your reason to continue - and succeed. You might need to refer to this often.

To succeed you will need to discover other's needs and goals - and help them understand that they too can also succeed by applying these same simple tools.

This is a good time to take another look at your written reason for pursuing your own success.

Is your written goal strong enough to get you to expand your comfort zone and try new things? If not - spend the time to add some notes toward your commitment to that dream, need fulfillment, or goal.

Regardless; that written statement of what you want to achieve is very important to your future. Write a desired date for fulfillment on it now.

Of course if you want to see these in context - go here.

The main idea is simple - take a driving need, dream, or goal and focus on it. Review that dream often - if it is big enough and powerful enough it may last longer than you.

That could be a very good thing.

.

Playing with business toys

2006-07-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

You will notice a little box to the left - for now.

It is another "tool" to try.

Instantbuzz has several such traffic devices - I show other's ads - they show mine. A bit like blogmad or blogexplosion - but mainly aimed at business sites - and pyramid schemes.

It is worth a try.

I'm experimenting with all sorts of interrelated systems, most of which will be marginal at best. I am still using traffic swarm, it has been effective at driving traffic to Bastiat Free University entrepreneurial college, and a bit less effective for my other sites. There are so many similar affiliate sites my real sites seem to stand out.

Just as trafficswarm has paid for itself - it looks like TopSurfer will work - and for many of the same reasons. I am even stretching out a bit and trying a paid solo ad on TopSurfer, if I see a positive return on the investment I will try it again.

If playing with all these different sites seems a challenge, go check out the free internet marketing e-book mentioned in the prior post. The e-book publisher and author has done the heavy lifting for us - at least as far as researching and testing the best web based business marketing systems.

I admit sometimes this is frustrating - but the long term payoff should be very good. For instance I no longer need to surf trafficswarm - I just change the adds occasionally. Even the marginal systems will be additive once they require no further effort - each contributing a small piece to the expanding whole.

These other tools should work the same way - you fight inertia until it starts rolling - then you can step back and play elsewhere.

Best,

Allan

A Little Help - Please

2006-07-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

Thomas Edison is supposed to have said something to the effect "I have not failed to find a proper filament for a light bulb - I have successfully eliminated 10,000 fibers that will not work.”

A single test that just succeeded in eliminating several options:

I could use your assistance if you have a minute.

I am trying a free ad tracking system track that ad to see if it really does help my Internet marketing research. I also want to find how difficult it is to use, both for me and also for you.

I have a free e-book at the end of the rainbow, and it is a doozy.

In marketing a well written e-book can be worth a thousand pictures.

A single picture may carry the emotions of a thousand words - but when you want to communicate a specific message a well organized written presentation carries more power.

I will use a special tracking link from track that ad to send you to a short review of the e-book. Back out there or download the pdf - it is after all an exceptionally useful read if you have or want a business.

If you encounter any problems or delays please let me know. It would be nice to know the source of my link responses - but it is even more important not to annoy the responders.

I have done some basic research, Track That Ad has gotten great reviews, I'd just like to do a bit of field work myself.

for the short review on the e-book:

Seven Super Strategies - by David Macgregor

Thanks in advance,

Allan

Blogger did not like a script command that somehow appeared in my post when I used the Blogger spell check. I then had a period of testing and succeed at eliminating unfruitful options. Lots of time playing around - but I don't think it was the tracking links fault.

I have used the spell checker from open office this time - no funny html code appearing yet.

Please try that link test. It did not work for me - but that may be a problem of it being my own link - or of firefox - or of my add blocker - or any one of 10,000 other issues.

Thanks again,

Allan

P.S. Here is a direct link to the e-book review if your test link failed - Seven Super Strategies

Best to you

Three reasons To Have Your Own Business

2006-07-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

You can find all sorts of specific reasons to have your own business.

These reasons for having your own business include perks such as cash flow, tax breaks, or pride of ownership.

The three basic reasons are actually quite general.

You may want a business so you do not have to work for someone else. Personal freedom and the ability to call all the shots yourself makes this an attractive option for many people.

Another reason is to create a valuable property and perhaps steady cash flow. This will normally require a set of entrepreneurial tools in your management and leadership tool boxes.

There is a third reason that appeals to many - myself included.

When you start a business you have to do many tasks you would prefer to avoid. As your business grows you can hire and train specialists for the tasks you like least. You can even hire outside companies to take over entire sections of business tasks.

I sum this up with a short couplet that reminds me how the future will unfold.

I'll do what I enjoy -- for the rest I'll just employ.

.

Two Quick Notes

2006-07-05T08:59:00.000-07:00

I may get a chance to write another post soon.

Take a look at my son's new site on job search and job recruiting.

Yes he is a head hunter, mostly in the mining and resource sector. If you know a mechanical engineer looking for a job send him over. If you are looking for an executive in the mining or engineering industry give him a call - or wait for him to call you.

In two weeks this site should be fully operational - and its usefulness should just keep growing.

If you are wondering what I'm doing - I'm kicking back.

My new business is going fine - and growth is above projection.

For a small Internet business that cost nothing to start - my total investment so far is about $12.00 - and I this month I should have break even cash flow. Within a year I anticipate several hundred dollars a month cash flow, within two years over a thousand. That may not seem like much - but it is better than not earning an extra thousand a month - for little effort - and almost no investment.

Also remember I am ahead of my anticipated plan, so these numbers might be low. I'll keep you posted as I find this interesting.

If you want to look at this business for yourself or a friend - I've put up an article Here -

A Small Business Consultant Recommends It.

How To Start Your Own Internet Business

2006-06-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

For people of my generation computers can be a scary thing.

The first encounters we had with computers were from afar, perhaps a bank telling us a small mistake caused the computer to misplace our account. Computers at that time filled rooms and were tended by large groups of arcane worshipers.

Now the world has changed.

Kids have their own computers with far greater power than the old building sized monsters - and they willingly put their banking information on them. Fourteen year old kids develop significant income with their own Internet business.

One advantage of an Internet business is we do not see our clients and they do not see us - it is our reputation and credibility that empowers our sales.

As a wise survivor you may understand the many conceptual benefits of a business on the Internet, some of which include:

low regulation
low entry cost
small risk
portable if you decide or need to move
automated systems
and a bit of techie status

Twenty plus years ago I was scared of computers. I took a job as a computer teacher to force myself past my fears - and latter became the director of a computer school. I know how intimidating all this computer stuff can be.

Perhaps it is time for you to force yourself past your own computer reticence - by starting your own Internet business. The knowledge you need to succeed has been displayed by getting this far - the final hurdle is to just start.

I will suggest a turn key internet business, it is one I am in.

There are a lot of other similar opportunities out there - but I do not know if they will work.

This will take a few hours or so to set up, and can then be left alone - or - developed as you develop greater skills and confidence. There is no cost to sign up, and after a free trial period there is at most a $10.00 per month fixed expense. There are no contracts - you can quit anytime.

The goal is to create significant cash flow - generating a regular income that will follow you wherever you go.

There will be two websites you will acquire for that $10.00 per month, one finished and ready to rumble, one blank to experiment with. A marketing plan will also be set in motion - you can augment it as you wish.

I'll provide some help as you learn.

If you want a first business - or want to diversify from your current brick and mortar business:

Check It Out Now

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Two Birds - One Stone

2006-06-18T18:04:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting challenge over at the Hello, Dollar blog.

(The stone just missed the first bird, I tried using the track back to Hello Dollar, looks like google's blogger still doesn't play that game - or I blew it. Guess I'll have to use a normal link.)

Anyway, what Frank proposes is creating something with ten dollars that will yield a capitalist's return. Quite a challenge - although he already has one inspiring successful comment.

The second bird was I would like to tell Frank about the new business I've started for my daughter - but that would sound like spam. The business can be started for free, and after the trial period it is only ten dollars a month. My reasoning is if before the end of the first paid period it starts to earn more than $10.00 income - I've created a business for ten dollars.

After three weeks I have a continuing income of $5.00 per month, at this rate it will take two and a half months to burn through that ten dollars. - that means I need to push it up five more dollars per month to qualify within the next 4 or 5 weeks.

I still won't be able to tell Frank at Hello, Dollar - it would still sound like spam. Part of the reason is that I hate to think small - when large rewards are available for thinking large.

I really don't care if I make ten more dollars a month, I started the business (see my personal business story) to create hundreds of dollars a month of income or more.

I will be sorely disappointed if I just break even or double up.

I understand the satisfaction that comes from getting a bargain, but my time and especially my thoughts, should be worth a great deal. When I see a site like this one that seeks out a fifty dollar reward - I know it feels cool to win. I just think my time, effort, and thought should be worth far more than that.

Perhaps it is time for all of us to consider where we are putting our efforts.

Could we get the same satisfaction, for the same effort -- with a far greater return -- somewhere else?

Upgrade your equipment and hunt lions instead of birds. Sometimes shooting for a more important target keeps you focused.

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The Money Is In The List

2006-06-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

That is an old saying "The money is in the list." At least as old as things can be in the internet.

The general gist is that mailings to those that have chosen your material represent the best prospects for your services.

How do you build a list?

You offer a regular newsletter and some report inducements - and your regular readers and customers become part of your list.

Is there a way to leverage your list, or to build one from scratch?

I have not done the leg work on my blogs to create a list, so I am trying an internet specific solution. The site I'm using to build a list is useful to all -- both those with a list and those without.

If you want to develop a list for marketing, join me in exploring the possibilities at the well regarded My Lucky List.

My Lucky List does not require that you have a list, or even a website, just a desire to market your product or service without spam.

And you can try it for free.

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Wall Street Journal Editorial On The Death Tax

2006-06-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

Back when I was selling real estate I ran into a small tragedy that is replayed often across America.

A widow had her house for sale to pay the IRS death tax.

It was a very nice house in a good area, but she and her kids would have to move. Her husband had been conscientious. Knowing she would not be able to run his business if he died they had saved and bought a small apartment complex to generate cash flow for her - it was for sale also.

The death taxes were large - and they were due now. The house and the apartments would have to be sold fast - at that time meaning under their true value, before large penalties were incurred with the IRS (the behemoth that assumes you are guilty until you prove your innocence.)

They thought they had enough life insurance - but it had been sold by an agent more familiar with his commission schedule than their needs - or the IRS rules.

Dad had died thinking his family had been taken care of - instead they were taken to the cleaners. Plans he may have made for college and careers for his kids were gone - and his widow was not prepared for all of the expenses.

If you wonder why small family farms and businesses get sold to conglomerates - the death tax helps rip them from their owners families.

You can be sure that congress and their wealthy supporters do not suffer such indignities - they write both the laws and the loopholes that allow them to hide their wealth from taxes.

Most Americans favor capitalism because it offers the opportunity to improve their lives. They may not be wealthy - but they want a level playing field where wealth is available to all.

The death tax is easy for a politician to sell as a Robin Hood gesture, having you join their band of merry thieves - "Rob the rich to feed the poor."

Bear in mind Robin Hood feed himself very well first, he was not robbed by himself - and he and his merry band were still crooks - so is congress and those that ask them to steal on their behalf.

To simplify, In California petty theft is usually a misdemeanor - while receiving stolen goods is a felony. If it is wrong for you to do something, say steal from your neighbor, it is an even greater wrong to delegate someone else to do it for you.

If it is wrong to steal from a widow, how does it become right to ask congress to do it for you?

Most new jobs in America are created by small business and entrepreneurs - and according to this Wall Street Journal piece they are the ones hurt by the death tax - not the rich. These are service jobs - like nurses, small business owners, accountants, doctors, programmers, creators - the kind of jobs folks want.

High paid manufacturing jobs are a thing of the fading industrial age - boring mindless jobs that are no better than being a wage slave. The death tax perpetuates wage slavery while punishing business creation.

The rich will create foundations and trusts and all sorts of fancy hedges from the tax man for themselves. Their supported friends in congress will make sure they are protected - or they will become congressmen themselves.

There is nothing wrong with wealth, it gets invested and spent, all benefit from its acquisition. And wouldn't you like to be wealthy one day too?

If we could get rid of the IRS and de-fang congress with term limits ---- but that is another bed time story fairy tale ---- like Robin Hood.

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." – P.J. O'Rourke

Put A Hundred To Work

2006-06-07T06:07:00.000-07:00

The power of small business is in multiplying the efforts of one committed person. You start your business, then you decide others can be trained to do what you do, so you train them. The following is a cut and paste from another of my small business sites.

Years ago I was driving to a seminar with another small business consultant. He said what he wanted to do was get dropped off at the side of the freeway and collect just one dollar from everyone that passed. He was making a point - that is the easy way to wealth - one dollar at a time.

With care for the customer and attention to detail you can oversee others and build a repeat clientele also. This is not compulsion like the governments do it, this is voluntary interaction by willing participants - each gaining from the transaction.

You can make a one million dollar sale - or a million one dollar sales - and still sell a million dollars worth of product.

It is often easier to find a million folks willing to part with one dollar each. The difficulty is in handling one million transactions.

That is why you train and employ others.

It is easier to put a hundred to work - than try to do the work of a hundred.

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Some Will - Some Won't

2006-06-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

As some of you know I started this blog last year to encourage my daughter.

If you want the story, you will find it in this article talking about the new business we found for her after months of research.

What I have been doing since we found her business is investigating how to make it work. This is a very special business, quite unlike the normal small business opportunities I consult with.

I recently discovered an excellent e-book or mp3 recording, at no cost, that is very much worth the read. This reminds me of the wonderful books by the late Og Mandino, but without the extra twist at the end. Just that association with Og may be one reason I both enjoyed and learned from it.

I don't get anything for recommending this to you - but you will gain a great deal by reading it. The book?

The Greatest Networker In The World - download it for free.

Even if you do not like business - and don't have dreams.

A dream is like a crow bar, some use it to open things - others drop it on their toes.

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High School student Internet Business

2006-06-02T11:55:00.000-07:00

This is not just for high school students that want your own Internet business - it is for anyone that wants any type of business.

Do the ground work first just like this high school student, then start your business. Eventually he will look back and realize he learned more starting a business than he did in business school.

A teenage Internet business works for several reasons, reasons that will benefit anyone that attempts an Internet business as a route to freedom.

low overhead
low regulation
short start up delays
no one sees you - it does not matter what you look like
quick payoff for creative ideas
fast learning curve
bad ideas discovered cheaper and sooner

And a heck of a lot more.

Do your own research for your high school or college Internet business. I'll give you a couple of places to start - but you may find better. These are just two that seem to have promise.

SiteSell website creation and hosting service. They have great tools for affiliate marketing sites to create your own Internet business.

Or a cheaper alternative with a simple built in business. These guys have an idea that can reduce your overhead while allowing you the freedom to start any type of Internet business. Use their simple software to create an original web site - then create a better site in a publisher and transfer it in - continuing at the same cost. No annual fees here - just a small monthly charge you can quickly overcome - and no contracts to tie you in.

What is most important is to find a high school student Internet business you can be passionate about - then you will never have to work at it, you will enjoy the price.

Your hobby can support you.

Or as in the case of this high school student - provide steady cash flow.

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Relaxed, Refreshed, Renewed

2006-05-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

And ready to leave for another couple of weeks.

Not yet.

The tough job of getting back into a rhythm of posting to my blogs, when I have other tasks to pursue, is not at the top of my list.

Top of Internet list.

Clean up Bastiat Free University internet higher education site to prepare for end of beta - June 29.

Set up more pages for Speculation Rules anti- investment advice main site.

Get a Spanish translation for several pages of different sites - Junior Partner - BFU (esl & efl) - and Silent Partner including meta tags; then submit to Spanish language search engines. Chinese simple and French to follow. This task is not at the top of the list for a reason.

Get a post on each of my blogs to re-start my engines.

This post is done now, onto the others.

Speculation Rules - anti investment blog

Prayer Chapel - twice a week - Wed & Sun

A Sovereign Speculator - Rants and political insights

BFU update journal - good things happening here

Entrepreneurial Business e-learning - rediscovery of the pleasures of a self directed life

And maybe a dozen other projects.

This is on top of my normal schedule.

If you want to get something done - give the job to a busy person - they know how to schedule.

Today - This one post and normal duties are enough.

Tomorrow the world

or maybe the day after.

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The journey of a thousand miles

2006-05-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

Starts with getting out of bed.

I'm off to see new things and consider some new Internet service business opportunities.

Perhaps I will have a new journal entry for you when I return.

Internet business opportunities - honest work from home

But I suspect I am more likely to return to giving small business advice than pushing internet business opportunities. Advice, stories, and experiences that may help you succeed - that is what I am best at - that is what I enjoy.

Read those favorite posts to the right for a taste.

We shall see in a week or three. Subscribe to our RSS feed (http://wishweb.blogspot.com/atom.xml) if you use a news aggregator like "My Yahoo." You will then be one of the first to see our next post. Click on the orange button to the far right of our URL if your aggregator is automatic.

Until then concentrate on what is most important.

Enjoying your life!

I'm out and about --

Allan

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Advertise Your Information Product With Clickbank

2006-05-07T14:02:00.000-07:00

Consider advertising your digital product online;

Or perhaps testing a new way for you as a vendor to augment your existing online advertising.

With Google and Overture ads you pay per click (ppc) to get exposure as an Internet business. If this generates a positive ROI there is no reason to discontinue it.

There is however another option that is less labor intensive than constructing, testing, and maintaining ppc ads. Use tens of thousands of Clickbank affiliates to sell your product - on a commission only basis.

I have recently signed up as a publisher with Clickbank, an Internet advertising company that does it the old fashioned way. Clickbank pays commissions on actual sales.

Clickbank is a reputable company - and with no incentive to control clicks. If your product doesn't sell, you don't pay. This is a low maintenance Internet business opportunity that has no costs, unless you are generating cash flow.

A click on one of the Clickbank advertisements on a publisher's website generates a visit to your site. If you convert the sale, you pay the commission that you have determined.

This week I will be replacing some of the ppc ads in my new personal finance and investment site with Clickbank vendor's advertisements and testing their effectiveness.

From what I have seen Clickbank vendor Ads should be good both for me as a publisher, and for you as an advertiser.

If you are selling a product consider testing Clickbank Internet advertising media.

Greater profits are a good thing.

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Business Opportunity In A Home Based Business

2006-05-06T02:08:00.000-07:00

A small business run as a home business, can it make money?

If you are looking for a work at home opportunity, Internet businesses are not the only choice.

As an independent salesman with a home based business - Ross Rayburn has done very well. Ross graciously shares his small business experience in this interview.

A business opportunity can be created that fits you - by you. Internet businesses can make money - and can provide income - but be careful.

There are a lot of scams out there, avoid promises of free, no work, tested systems. The only people these work for are the creators of the systems, and only sometimes for them.

After over a year on the net and playing with all sorts of programming, I realize that there were short cuts to Internet business opportunities - but there is still a price to be paid.

If you are willing to do the work, Internet businesses can be started in a reasonable period of time with a minimum of regulation. Just avoiding red tape makes your Internet business a better opportunity than many brick and mortar businesses.

There are opportunities to combine the internet with network marketing. Most take a large amount of time for little positive return. After eight months of research I have found one worth pursuing - it has a free trial period - and appears quite flexible.

You might want to check this online business opportunity that I have just started with my daughter.

there are also several reasonable approaches to profiting from an internet business opportunity that is fully web based. The best two seem to be contextual advertising and affiliate marketing. Long term success in either will be dependent on your constructing a useful site with reasonable content.

Rather than just starting a blog and learning through your mistakes - like I have done - research and perhaps purchase some useful software tools. There are a lot of free tools available on the Internet also, but they take lots of time to discover and master.

A group that sells top notch internet business tools, but offers a lot of free net marketing information is SiteSell. You could spend months learning from what they offer for free. If you then see value in their tools - pick them up.

This next link will take you to a page that lists some of their free information. Consider it an introduction to their Internet marketing tutorial resource pages.

SiteSell could save you a year or more of misdirected effort, at no or little cost.

It is about more than internet business opportunity success.

It is about Your future!

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It's Over

2006-05-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

Failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.

Zig Ziglar

Our lives can become far to complex.

We waste energy and time regretting the past and day dreaming about the future.

What we do right now is what will form our future.

If you have dreams, spend a bit of time making them into specific goals with a time line - write them down - do something now. After one task it will become a new now - do the task then that will move you toward your dreams.

It is easy to spend your life outside the present, and that almost guarantees the future will be an event to avoid also.

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do a simple task toward your goal right now.

It is a new now once that is done - do another task.

You will probably eat tons of food in your remaining life - one bite at a time. Live your life the same way. Live life one task at a time.

If what you eat helps determine what you will be physically - the tasks you do now help determine what you can successfully become as a person.

The Start Of SpeculationRules.com

2006-04-28T23:39:00.000-07:00

This time the Speculation Rules web site is for real.

I'm sure many of you have noticed the Speculation Rules blog.

There has also been a neglected web site at SpeculationRules.com

Well the neglect is now over, at least to a reasonable extent.

I've established a new set up and frame work that should make it much easier to navigate.

I'll be adding lots of information and tools to the site, and a bit of magic too.

If you fall somewhere between enthralled and deathly afraid of investing - there should be something for you at Speculation Rules.

Visit us frequently, there should be lots of change over the next few months.

This is a great chance for you to tell me what you want or need in terms of investment knowledge. It is to our benefit if we please you.

Drop on in, work is still in progress, but the concept now makes some sense.

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If You Are A Leader - Display Leadership

2006-04-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

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I heard a director of a company talking with authority about something I'm sure he didn't believe - if he thought about it.

There had been complaints about poor communications between management and workers in his division. His response was "I'll spend more time in meeting so my managers will have more time to spend with their people."

He had to know better than that.

His managers will do what they see him doing.

Now they are justified in avoiding their "people" to attend meetings - so their direct reports can spend more time with the people. Their "people" of course will follow suit.

I think what the director was really saying is that his job security comes from hanging out with other executives - to heck with his people.

If he really wanted to improve communication he could take his managers on walks to talk with the workers - and even try to catch the workers doing something right so they could congratulate them.

Most of his meetings are probably a waste of time anyway - in terms of business effectiveness. He has at least one worthless manager that talks intelligently and plays politics well - he could assign them to attend the meetings.

Meeting and inspiring his division would require leadership - that director is obviously satisfied being a bureaucratic manager himself.

Wasting your life in meetings sounds like a dead end way to spend 70 hours a week. The only upside is his ego knows he is an executive cog in a huge organization, even if he is not quite high enough to use the corporate jet.

His own frequent comments about it being "lonely at the top," and his hair turning gray and falling out show that he feels stress - not pleasure - from his chosen route.

Ya gotta feel sorry for the guy - he could have had his own business instead - and enjoyed his life. He could have sought, developed, and shared his passions with people that would appreciate his contributions.

That would require thought and leadership.

Instead he has a business card featuring the business founder's name - and in much smaller print his own name and title - and no life of his own.

Allan

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As We Enter The Greater Depression ---

2006-04-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

It is good to realize that it has been government intervention in the economies of the world that will cause it - not business.

The 1930s depression was likewise caused by a few overzealous egotists using central monetary planning for their own ends.

"The elementary truth is that the Great Depression was produced by government mismanagement [of money]. It was not produced by the failure of private enterprise." – Milton Friedman

The statistics provided by government are not dependable, but you would be safe to guess that both real unemployment and real inflation are now over 10%. As George Orwell said "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

As to the exact timing of the next step down into depression - I don't know - no one does.

That the collapse is inevitable is easy to recognize if you make a dispassionate study of the world, but when is at best a guess.

Inevitable is not the same as immediate. (Speculation Rule)

The cause though is apparent - government intervention in supposedly free markets.

The blame of course will be affixed by government and taught in government schools as "someone else."

Blame all of government - it is too big to control or dissect.

One good hope.

The Federal Reserve that was created in 1913 and helped ensure the depths of the first depression - may be disbanded after their assistance in creating the greater depression we are now entering.

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Leadership Or Management

2006-04-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

I put this as a comment on a blog that asked if commanding was a management function or a quality of leadership.

I realize I rewrote their question in a way the discloses my opinion. Here then was my comment:

I would put commands as an administrative function - management.

A real leader seldom commands, except at highly charged moments where concise direction is immediately needed.

One reason is a real leader has developed his team to make them leaders also.

To me a manager is focused on performance and controls, a leader is focused on people and goals.

If you are more concerned with the efficiency of the operation than the direction of your team - you are a manager.

If you are primarily concerned with the direction the team is moving - you may be a leader.

A manager is more likely to exist in a bureaucratic organizational structure, a leader in an entrepreneurial one.

Allan

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Blog Explosion - Blog Mad - Traffic Swarm

2006-04-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

I did a review on these three traffic exchanges about a month ago and wanted to do an update.

Traffic Swarm - this is the review that needs some refinement. Trafficswarm's attributes remain the same - you can list any site - it is very easy to build a significant number of credits. The detractor is the same - way too many get rich quick sites.

What is different is that I have discovered that it uses a queue similar to Blog Explosion. If you decide to try Traffic Swarm - separate your similar pages or headlines in the queue.

To separate your pages put in your first page, then wait a few days to add the second - this will allow other pages to be added in between. frequently you see several similar sites next to each other, diminishing their value.

Blogmad - Still new, but it seems to be getting more visitors and more blogs. I'm slowly releasing my saved bank of credits. Everything seems to work most of the time - and they are very responsive to suggestions.

Paul from Blogmad even left a comment on my review - mentioning the listing on Blogmad as a page rank bonus for users - see his comment for further information. This bonus would also apply to the next traffic exchange.

Blog Explosion - The grand daddy traffic exchange, it is full of features. The surfing ratio is not as bad as it seems, they are very generous with bonuses. I have received many 25 to 100 credit bonuses.

I have almost stopped with Blog Explosion though, for now. I still go back and earn a few credits once in a while, but that is just a short surf to see what is new. I do find their blog rocket feature quite efficient - I usually get 3 to 6 hits for the one credit it costs.

In short these traffic exchanges have value - but the value diminishes over time as you keep playing to the same audience.

In a year or so I may re-crank up Blog Explosion for a while, there will probably be a lot of new characters.

If you have not used these three - Traffic Swarm - BlogMad - Blog Explosion - they are worth investigating.

Try them for a month or so - then follow your own opinion. You will gain a couple of high PR directory links from Blogmad and Blog Explosion - so your time registering will have results regardless.

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Jet Charter, Private Jet or a Corporate Business Jet?

2006-04-15T18:03:00.000-07:00

Tough question - do you charter a jet or do you purchase your own private jet?

A private jet or a chartered corporate jet is a bit of a stretch for most small businessmen.

The concept is is a valid one for comparing purchase versus rent decisions - even if most of us won't have to apply the concept to business jets.

In speculation there is often a timing issue where components of a purchase decision are subject to market volatility. In business there is (sometimes) only the bottom line of profitability.

If you are in a position to charter a jet or purchase a jet just for your ego's sake - it is again divorced from a business decision - get the best you can afford without compromising your wealth.

For a business jet however there are some considerations beyond monthly payments that may enter into the decision.

Michael Eisner may have overstayed his welcome- and his contribution - with Disney. Disney however had floundered and almost been split up after Walt Disney died as no one seemed willing to make hard decisions. Michael was brought in to save the company and drive up the share price - he did.

One of the parts of the Disney offer that attracted Eisner for those first successful years was the benefits package - which included a couple of company jets.

Eisner made a lot of money for the shareholders, and for himself. At the level he was being paid - a corporate jet saved money by cutting delays and allowing him to work while in transit.

Eisner might not have turned down the job if he would have had to fly commercial -- but his ego and decision making capacity was probably enhanced by status symbols, including the jets, that came with the position.

Chartering a jet occasionally versus purchasing a private jet or corporate jet can be reduced to numbers - but so can renting or buying your house.

Often the decision will come down to benefits that are hard to put on paper, but are impossible to ignore. Is it going to be a Lear jet, Gulfstream, Aztec jet, or perhaps an airbus or other commercial use jet? Each type of personal jet says several things about the owner, although even the man in the street knows Learjet.

You can charter a jet to investigate the idea, or just contact a seller - although you probably won't get the benefits of a long distance test from a seller.

For a weeks vacation - charter a jet. A private jet or a corporate jet is far more difficult to justify - or deny.

Now - do you really need that much truck for your small business?

Discover Personal Freedom Today

2006-04-14T12:57:00.000-07:00

Start your own business.

You can start your journey to freedom now.

Roots are dangerous things, they trap even majestic oak trees. Almost everything you have learned is directed at making you a target for the bulldozers.

"Don't let schooling interfere with your education." - Mark Twain

The world is changing in a dramatic fashion, and you need to be ready to move.

The only thing God is taking off this world is people. If you root, root in relationships, not into things.

The risks and the rewards from creative entrepreneurship are greater, and of far more value to society, than illusions of security enslaving human cogs in the social machine. - Allan Wallace

Be very careful of who or what or where you give your loyalty. Do not be more dedicated others, a job, a party, than they are dedicated to you.

Escape the slavery others would have you serve - dedicate yourself to relationships between you and yours.

Move toward freedom.

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Attitude And Habits - More Important Than Knowledge

2006-04-12T08:58:00.000-07:00

Practice what you want to make permanent.

Make a good attitude part of your daily life.

I subscribe to a free daily motivational quote service.

Every couple of weeks they offer a Big Deal as part of the package. I usually read the bi-weekly offer as well as the daily quotes. There is usually good motivational material in the offer -- and the offers are good value also.

here is an example from this weeks Bid Deals opening paragraphs:

Super Success Coach David Herdlinger has made an interesting observation about attitude. When most people are trying to get a raise or get started in a business, they spend their time and money developing their knowledge and skills. But most job terminations and business failures occur because of a person's attitude and habits.

Understanding that concept makes these words by Jeff Keller even more powerful: "Once you start building a more positive attitude, life will throw some incredible opportunities your way! Your attitude is a choice you make - and there's a lot riding on that choice."

Most folks I know with a bad attitude are proud of it saying "I am just honest." What they are is irritating and annoying - out loud. Honesty is important - but we need to be honest with ourselves also.

A solid work ethic accompanied by a can-do attitude is of value to any business -- especially our own business.

A good attitude and can be very honest too.

A person with a good attitude is fun to be with - life takes on a special zest.

Which attitude would you rather work with?

With which attitude would you rather do business?

If your attitude is a choice -- who do you want to be?

Check here for more on those free inspirational quotes.

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No-Cost Information For Prospective Work At Home Moms

2006-04-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

Work At Home Mom

Can you put family first and still create a successful home business?

Four moms that work from home have written a quick book for moms that want to work at home.

They describe how they found success - and were still able to put their family first.

This is not a get rich quick scheme - it will require work, time, and thought - the rewards however can be great.

Read this quick book and you may find you can work at home -- mom.

If you are interested in becoming a work at home mom - click the button below for more free information.

It will cost you nothing to look.

You will learn a great deal about developing an at home income from these successful business women and happy moms.

This is not some kind of scheme with silly promises - this plan of action will become your real, enduring, profitable, business.

(If you do want a "scheme" with lots of interesting promises - one that you can try for free - click here.)

The knowledge you gain for free from this quick e-book will be yours to keep and use.

Read the information about the moms and their real businesses - then decide:

Calvin Coolidge On Being Persistent

2006-04-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

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I think most of us see ourselves in something other than the persistent category.

A review of this is sometimes all it takes to remind us of what creates success.

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

President Coolidge was looking at a bigger picture than most of us.

Before we can solve the problems of the human race - we need to solve our own problems.

The solution is the same.

Press On!

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A Bit Of My Philosophy - At No Charge

2006-04-07T04:08:00.000-07:00

I have had the following statement at the bottom of the old Bastiat Free University start page for quite some time.

Many folks now miss this little statement as they encounter one of the other BFU distance e-learning start pages instead.

It is not particularly clever, but it does state how I feel.

It is also not particularly necessary, except perhaps for a sensitive educationist or two.

Unless stated otherwise we will avoid the modern confusion with pronouns by using whatever sounds or feels right at the moment.

There is no intention to relegate anyone to a secondary role. Any use of (wo)man, he, him, her, person, or she can be read however you wish.

One of the nice things about the Internet is that we do not see each other. You may be a one eyed, one horned, flying purple Umpa Lumpa; as long as you assist us in achieving our goals - we don't care.

We hope to assist the family of man; it does not matter which gender, or with which tribe our ancestors traveled. Our goal is for each student to become sovereign in, of, and for themselves.

If this offends you; leave.

I now have it here, where it will be easy to reference if I need it.

We will get back to business as unusual with the next post.

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Start Your Business Today - Right Now

2006-04-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

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"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

You know what you love, you probably know how to make a profit pursuing your passion.

So start your business today.

The easy way to start a business is on the Internet - there is low overhead and little regulation.

You know what to do to start - figure out the rest as you go.

Learn as you go, you will encounter problems, seeking solutions is a great and rewarding learning experience.

Avoid that future statement what if?

Do it.

Start your business now!

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True Apple Macintosh Poker - iMac Poker - Full Tilt Poker Does Mac Right

2006-04-03T00:43:00.000-07:00

After you are a success - maybe it is time to please most people - even Macintosh owners.

Play Online Poker

In the previous post I talked about how if you try to please everyone - your project will never get done -or your vision will never get started.

I made a point that Apple Macintosh may have to wait - it usually is worth finding out if the idea works before you port to everyone.

Here is an example of a poker site - Full Tilt Poker - that developed user friendly software first. They then satisfied their audience, and now they are moving toward that goal of universal access. If Full Tilt Poker's goal is to be the best online casino or online gambling site a quality incremental approach makes sense.

A big step is they are the first poker site with a fully functional and compatible Mac interface.

I like poker - although I haven't played in a long time. What works in poker works in speculation.

keep your bets small

cut your losses quickly

if you are right - maximize your profits

protect your chips

you can't win if you don't play

you can't play if you go broke

And much more - but enough about poker.

If you have an Apple Macintosh, an iMac, Mac Mini, or any Mac - click that button - let me know if it works on an Apple Lisa or an Apple IIe.

There is a lot of free Mac compatible stuff at Full Tilt Poker, games, forums, information, and lots of cool offers to get you involved.

If you wintel types are feeling left out click here.

Play Online Poker

More importantly for you Macintosh users - the wintel group sees everything - including the flops (pun kinda intended).

Once the bugs are out and it works right - you get to play with it on your fast and pretty Mac.

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You Can't Please Everyone

2006-04-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

I was consulting with a start up Internet venture, and there were complaints that both the Opera browser and Mac users were having some glitches.

As a very small outfit, they had to make some choices.

Their inclination was to make sure everyone could access the software before they proceeded.

I asked what would we do if we were contacted by a frustrated user. If that user was having problems with a commodore 64 hooked up to his television set, should they stop everything and re-write for him? (we did cure the opera faults - we put the Mac on the back burner)

My point was - let's get it running and see if people like it first. If we only reach 60% of our eventual audience to start we will soon discover if it is worth expanding our reach. We may also discover that we missed the market - and universal access was a moot point.

Another side to the same issue.

I read some blogger advice that suggested using the Arial font might cut out as much as 4% of the online population. The suggestion was to catch every potential reader you need to use the default font.

Lets focus on the 96% instead. The default font looks like every other site. If you keep readers around longer and happier due to a better experience with your content - it may be worth losing 4% of total readers.

I'm bald - and have been for quite some time - it's me. If only 10% of women prefer bald guys, and for 10% it doesn't matter - I've limited my choices. If however almost all bald guys buy rugs and get farm hair, true bald guys may only be 2% of the population. That's ten gals for each of us - my odds now look pretty good.

Even if I'm not pretty it's good looking odd.

This blog is not pretty, but if the content draws some readers - I can put some lipstick on the pig next year. Think of all the folks that invest time and money in super skins, and then stop blogging after a few months.

That's called putting the question on its head.

Back to your business.

In Internet parlance - a long tail of demand indicates that specialization in huge markets has great potential.

I saw a poster that sums up the you can't please everybody strategy rather nicely.

In the life span of every project - there comes a time to shoot the engineers - and continue with the project.

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Sometimes It Is Not Fun

2006-03-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

A better life - or a few more hours sleep?

You must decide for yourself.

The Immediate - is a deceptive taskmaster.

The Immediate - frequently offers one time distractions that feel much better than long term goals.

If you give in to all distractions you will not succeed.

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,

Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?

Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:

So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.

Proverbs 6: 6-11

Yet we also want a life - must we plan our life as carefully as our business so as to avoid distraction?

"Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain." - Mark Twain

Mark Twain just gave us directions, let's make it a rule set:

wake up earlier
talk to the person you want to avoid
do the task you least want to do

This simple task set will help remove some self created obstacles.

Sometimes it is this simple.

Successful people consistently do those things that failures avoid.

Why should we spend our days subconsciously inventing ways to avoid that task set - and end up avoiding our success instead.

Now we can get down to business.

Now we can get down to life.

Allan R. Wallace

A murder Of Crows - And Other Delights

2006-03-22T21:52:00.000-08:00

Have you noticed when a group of any type of animal gets together they seem to acquire a descriptive group name?

A float of crocodiles, a skulk of foxes, a shrewdness of apes, a murder of crows, all set the tone for the group they are describing.

I've had the flu for way too long - I'll drop some business gems latter - let's have some fun now.

In keeping our group names in theme with this page's normal content you could also have a profit of small businessmen, a learning of mentors, or perhaps a potential of customers.

Add what you wish to the comments, try to include it in a sentence, keep it clean and fun spirited.

As examples:

I was walking down the beach today to check out the action, the waves were already crowded with a dude of surfers.

I went to the annual stockholders meeting and at the front of the room was a clueless of senior management.

I watched a political conference and scheduled to speak first was a corruption of senators to be followed by an arrogance of presidential hopefuls. There was even a shrewdness of ex-presidents attending.

With the small blather of bloggers that read this blog, we ought to come up with some doozies.

Avoid joining a naught of lurkers. (ok, I also appreciate the quiet of lurkers that read my sites.)

Add your descriptive to the contentiousness of commenters.

Allan

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Luring Traffic To Your Web Site - By Surfing

2006-03-15T12:54:00.000-08:00

I have used a few traffic exchanges.

I) The best in the past was , a full featured site with lots of extras. The biggest draw back to blog explosion is speed, the load time for new screens frequently takes as long as the viewing time. The viewing time is often short as complex banners load first - delaying your seeing the object page. The big benefit to Blog Explosion is the number of members - you can surf a long time before you get a repeat.

2) The new kid on the block is BlogMad, a site still in Beta testing. Follow the Blog Mad link to get a beta invite, if you have any trouble send me a note - I'll get you an invite. Blog mad is fast, but has limited users so far, you will see a lot of the same blogs. I am using this beta time to bank some surfing credits - after a period of surfing I raise my minimum reserve. Once Blog Mad goes full public I expect to use these credits when there are more surfers - of course that may never happen. It does look good so far. Also folks are sneaking in some adult content even if you choose to have none - this may not be a work or family safe site yet.

3) A site that allows all pages - not just blogs - is:

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That all types of sites advantage and the ease of building a large bank of credits are its main attributes. Traffic Swarm is clunky, and populated with way too many Ponzi schemes and get rich quick sites. You can choose what to look at - and there are some interesting sites there - such as mine - but they are not frequent choices. I have built up a store of credits and will probably replenish it when it declines. Just the fact you have a real site will make your links stand out and may make Traffic Swarm a good fit for you.

Overall these traffic exchange sites - Blog Explosion - Blog Mad - Traffic Swarm - are all free except for your time spent. Most of the traffic benefits may come in your first membership month as there is a core of users that you will reach during that time.

I have tried other traffic swap sites and they did not make the cut.

Of course in a short time you will have your own opinion of these traffic exchange tools.

You can then decide if you want to continue to surf for free traffic.

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Modern Motivation And Inspiration

2006-03-09T10:02:00.000-08:00

Mankind always seems to have recognized the powers of motivation and inspiration in achieving goals.

Today we have CDs to play in the car and MP3s to carry on walks.

Sometimes rather than listening to a motivational and inspirational talk - we can benefit from thinking about a quote.

I got this quote from my free daily quote service, it came with my morning emails. The author I am sure would be amazed at our technology - but would recognize our very human condition.

The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day.

The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. -

Heraclitus 535-475 BC (approximately), Philosopher and Author

That is as fresh and as accurate as anything said within the last twenty years.

Allan

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Good Steel Does Not Fear the Furnace

2006-03-07T12:27:00.000-08:00

In fact good steel seeks the furnace, anvil, and hammer.

I saw a sign while driving the freeway "a good anvil does not fear the hammer." It seemed to me that those are two tools used to form metal - they work together. Perhaps the analogy could apply to an educator and their education system, but it ignores their primary purpose.

The furnace, anvil, and hammer are all tools used to create a specific function from a promising lump of steel.

Once the steel is formed there are still choices to be made, of plowshare into swords or swords back into plowshares comes to mind.

extreme heat removes impurities and enhances ductility and malleability of the subject steel, repeated bending, pressing, pounding and re-heating shapes a tool to a specific purpose. A final baptismal quench serves to set the tools structure and hardness for the specific task.

Like most analogies this one will break down if pushed too far, and my knowledge of metal working is rudimentary at best. But I will make a pass at creating a useful guideline based on the old saw "when the student is ready - the teacher will appear."

When the steel is glowing red - the hammer and anvil will appear.

Good steel looks past the process to its final form. In the hands of a fine artist or an excellent smith a wonderful result is assured.

Select your smith well, rediscover the pleasures of self-directed learning.

Submission to well selected education will yield results - we have nothing to fear from the furnace.

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Start Your Own Business Today

2006-03-04T02:28:00.000-08:00

You know what you love to do. You have an idea of how to make money doing it.

Start your own business today.

You will never have all the information necessary to eliminate all risk. If it is to be done, you may as well start now.

You do not have enough knowledge to handle everything that will come your way - but then you do not know everything that will come your way.

It is a lot like worrying, most of what you worry about will never happen. A surprise that you never even considered is waiting until you reach it.

So get started.

We all learn best when we have a need to learn. Necessity is not just the mother of invention - necessity is the required attractive force of education.

You know enough to start - but not enough to finish. Of course you will never know enough to finish unless you start.

Start your own business today.

Then learn how to make your business grow and prosper.

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Investment Information

2006-03-03T19:18:00.000-08:00

Why have investment advice in a small business management journal?

I am sure many of you that read this journal do so for small business or start up business information.

For those of you that do invest in the stock market I would like to introduce you to Speculation Rules!

This site has good depth in investment information.

Always do your research - and buy the books - before you make the investment. It is amazing how many folks will risk very large sums of money but are too cheap to pay twenty dollars for a book.

Looking at Speculation Rules! may save you a bunch - and it costs you nothing.

What you might want to do is read one post, How Wall Street Works, and see if that short post inspires you to read more.

If you do invest I will provide the primary rule of speculation:

No one cares more about your money than you do - unless they plan on stealing your money.

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To Succeed -- Study Successful People

2006-03-02T09:27:00.000-08:00

I have never really listened to Anthony Robbins.

The few times I have heard him in passing it was as if he was talking to someone else. I remember him saying something like "it is the things you do consistently that will determine your success."

I have never done anything consistently - the advice didn't fit me.

At Bastiat Free University we have a master's program aimed at studying what formed successful people. These courses are created by successful doers themselves.

I have a quote from Anthony Robbins that can give you some insight into his formation as a success. After reading this quote I may contact him about creating his own BFU master's course

Determination - particularly combined with personal goals - is part of almost every continually successful winner.

I subscribe to a free daily inspirational quote service and they provided the following Anthony Robbins quote:

"Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards.

When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself.

I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming." - Anthony Robbins

Now that is worth thinking about.

Allan

Closing the sale

2006-02-28T16:20:00.000-08:00

As a small business person your future may depend on closing the sale.

If your reason for starting a business was love of your product, you may assume everyone is as eager to possess it as you were. Most of them probably aren't.

A first step to sales is to ask questions, listen to the answers, and then ask more questions. This will save everyone time and help you help any future customers identify their need.

There are many intermediate steps to a sale - but don't get stuck with having to follow a list of steps. When the customer is ready to buy - sign them up. You will know when they are ready to buy if you are asking questions.

Often someone is ready to buy, they know they want the product, but they are avoiding the decision. If you let them walk away they probably won't be back, they will avoid the pressure of the situation.

The buying decision is the pressure - not your pitch - once the purchase is made the pressure is gone. When the deal is on the table, you need to close.

A sales close is just a tool to help your client make a decision in their best interests.

A simple two choice sales close is an easy way to start. Offer a complex solution or a simple one - either choice will be a sale.

Do you want to pick out motherboard, processor, software, hard drive, graphics card and the other pieces or would you rather have the ARW 2000 model that seems to meet your needs?

there are a lot of sales closes, maybe we will do more in a future post.

Allan R. Wallace

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Sounding Profound while Being Confusing

2006-02-21T12:36:00.000-08:00

Inventing the meaningless profoundity.

I practice retirement by working as a security guard at a theme park - great fun - usually.

I had perhaps twenty people come up to where I was standing - enjoying watching people and talking with them. All wanted to know where the bathrooms were, I avoided pointing at the sign and said just the other side of the merry-go- round.

The twenty first surprised me. I offered the standard "The restroom are the other side of the merry-go-round" before she asked. She said "Nope, she wanted the entrance to the roller coaster."

"The other side of the merry-go-round" I replied accurately.

There is our profound thought of the day:

Anything worth having is always on the other side of the merry-go-round.

Of course we could dress up the confusion and give it conceptual meaning - but it is still blather.

"The worthwhile things are always found by avoiding the noise and motion - going around the attractive nuisances - and discovering what was hidden.

Of course it also pays to read signs or ask questions and listen to the answers.

Now that we have a really silly quote, we can use it in speeches, seminars, and write it up in our columns.

Or not.

Enjoy adding depth to the interpretation in the comments if you wish - or invent and use a confusing profundity in your writing - please let me know about it.

Of course the point of your speech might be to make things clear and not make them confusing.

This story of course was clear as mud - but it covered the ground.

Remember Allan is spelled with two "l"s.

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On Vacation

2006-02-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

I should be back about February 20.

In the meantime you may want to check out the entrepreneurial college at Bastiat Free University.

The BFU College Of Human Interaction may also appeal to you - take a look.

We also have a new journal -- Entrepreneurial Business E-Learning -- that is worth reading. Just skip down past the "on vacation " post.

Best to you,

Allan

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Business Is Better Than Sports

2006-02-07T11:39:00.000-08:00

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Maybe business is not better to watch, but it can be better to play.

I enjoy following business cycles and action - that is not what I'm talking about.

Sports is all about statistics - your batting average, your percentage on free throws, third down conversions.

Then you dust yourself off and do it again.

Business starts like that. You try - you fail. You try again - you do ok. You try again - you fail. You keep trying to learn and improve your statistics.

The real difference between business and sports is when you hit the home run or score the goal.

In business - if you try and then score big - practice is over.

A single business idea, well executed, and you win.

Yeppers, you may have to maintain your position. Then again you may sell out and do something new. You can move from college ball to retired superstar in one move.

In business you sometimes only need to do it once.

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Advise From The Very Original Ray Bradbury

2006-02-06T18:40:00.000-08:00

Ray Bradbury is not just a very readable author - he is a great mind.

Many thanks to zicree for bringing us this insight into Bradbury.

I've heard Ray Bradbury speak several times. I've taken my boys to hear him speak. They were young enough they didn't know his books yet, but they knew his show.

A couple of the Ray Bradbury quotes provided by zicree:

"Laugh at what limits you. It pits your life force against the darkness. (This doesn't mean you can't be pissed off at it, too.)"

"Live from love, work from love, and do everything else from love."

Take a look at the whole Ray Bradbury "secrets of life" post, you will be glad you did.

(as an aside - zicree's pics look photoshopped to me - whats your opinion? My son says I spend too much time on the net and that has made me a cynic.)

Allan.

Sitesell - Site Build It - build a web site that works!

2006-02-05T12:47:00.000-08:00

There is lots of good free information for you here - and maybe a valentine deal.

All of the following can be accessed and mined for Internet business information.

If you already have a Sitesell Internet site, it looks like you can take advantage of this Valentine special.

If you are thinking of starting a web site that has success potential built in this offer may well appeal to you also.

Work at home Moms may find this valentine gift useful.

If you are a webmaster, there is even an opportunity here for you.

Take a look, Sitesell makes some very successful and easy to use web products - some of which may be just what you were looking for. If you don't know what you want, Sitesell has some free e-books that will help you learn about web site development or affiliate marketing.

These e-books may give you the information you need to start your own business.

There is a lot of valuable free information here, if nothing else look at these pages as an Internet business resource.

Look at that Valentine special also.

Allan

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Business Ethics And The Small Business

2006-02-04T16:37:00.000-08:00

We have many time stated the future belongs to the Netcohort, and listed integrity as one of the required attributes.

Without reflecting our values, for once, we will relate an idea mentioned at the Uncommon Sense blog in a post labeled "Capitalism In One Lesson."

A large financial institution has defined the stakeholder issue as one of balance. Liberals look at business as a cow to milk for various stakeholders. Anarcho-Capitalists view an unfettered business as a great social good - liberty to gain profit as a motivator that improves everyone's life.

A large part of the argument resides in a look at short term, feel good fixes that actually hurt in the long term.

Uncommon Sense highlights the value statement of the BB&T banking group. Recognizing that their existence is due to shareholders, and their growth dependent on returns of shareholder investments, they also recognize that their relationships in their communities also reflect returns.

As a small business we tend know our clients and our employees quite well. If we decide to grow we may want to emulate BB&T and have a written statement of value.

It is important that all members of our team know our insistence on integrity, and all our other values, are available for inspection. Compliance may not be assured, but knowledge does reinforce good intentions.

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Shoot High

2006-02-02T22:44:00.000-08:00

You can always come down, it is tough to raise up prices.

This was a bit of advice from an old friend, Ross Rayburn.

Ross has always been a salesman - and is proud of it.

Experience has taught him that there are buyers at higher prices, but they expect integrity and service.

If you do not find a market at a high price, it is easy to lower prices, and that may very well entice some buyers.

If it is your own business, you probably have price discretion. Start high and compete on battle grounds other than price.

Ross has worked with others, but he discovered he would rather work for himself. Working for others meant pleasing a boss - having others work for him diluted his effectiveness for his clients.

If you are considering starting your own business you will want to read this interview with Ross Rayburn, a very successful small businessman.

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2006-01-31T00:02:00.000-08:00

The industrial age is over.

Bloated organizations created by industrial economies of scale will implode, deflate, or evaporate.

The place to be today is where you are - owning your own business.

Technology empowers individuals.

If individuals have a choice between you and a depressed worker at a bloated bureaucracy, you will win.

Do not expect to survive however based on your history if you are an inefficient old line business.

Discover new ways of using technology to satisfy individuals rather than crowds.

This future may not happen tomorrow -- inevitable is not the same as immediate.

Today is the day to start thinking about your future.

Plan for success in the information age.

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A New Companion In Small Business

2006-01-28T07:07:00.000-08:00

Small business or large, Entrepreneurial Business E-Learning is ready to answer questions from business owners.

This new site will be an Internet business journal, or "blog," aimed at assisting business owners find the self-directed education they want and need.

One of the best business educations is found in starting your own business - and then learning how to run it better.

Entrepreneurial Business E-Learning is dedicated to those that want to direct their educational experience for themselves. Self-directed distance e-learning -- needed knowledge that fits a crowded schedule.

The new site is a bit of a mess now, what with construction and all. Please drop by and leave a comment or a question.

Entrepreneurial Business E-Learning - go back to school - do it for yourself this time.

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