Black Swan Management, LLC

Investments and Strategies for the Future of Business

Posts Tagged marketing

5 Powerful Strategies For Depressed Entrepreneurs

Feb 27

Posted by admin in strategies | No Comments

Ok, so you have not made your first million within
90 days as you thought. Your idea crashed and you
feel gutted. Worst, your partner says I told you so. You
and your get rich ideas. Well, I salute you because
you tried and failed. Guess what? The more you fail, the
faster you will succeed. So keep falling forward. Get up and keep moving. The distant dream is getting closer with each step.

Now some of you depressed entrepreneurs want to stay
down. You crawl into a depression. You want to hide from
the cruel, unforgiving world. Rest if you must but die you
will not. So dust yourself off and read the following
strategies to get you fired up. Here goes..

1) Go Out Into The Light and Sunshine.

Lack of exposure to sunlight is responsible for the
secretion of the hormone melatonin, which could trigger
a dispirited mood and a lethargic condition.

Melatonin is only produced in the dark. It lowers the
body temperature and makes you feel sluggish. If you
are always cooped up in your room (with the curtains
closed), it would be difficult to restrain yourself
from staying in bed.

This is the reason why many people are suffering from
depression much more often in winter than in the other
seasons. It’s because the nights are longer.

If you can’t afford to get some sunshine, you can
always lighten up your room with brighter lights.
Have lunch outside the office. Take frequent walks
instead of driving your car over short distances.

2) Get Busy. Get Inspired.

You’ll be more likely to overcome any feeling of
depression if you are too busy to notice it. Live
a life full of inspired activities.

Do the things you love. If you’re a little short
on cash, you could engage in simple stuffs like
taking a leisurely stroll in the park, playing
sports, reading books, or engaging in any activity
that you have passion for and would love to pursue.

Set a goal – a meaningful purpose in life. No
matter how difficult or discouraging life can be,
remain firm and have an unshakable belief that you
are capable of doing anything you desire. With
this kind of positive attitude, you will attain
a cheerful disposition to beat the blues.

3) Take a Break.

I mean it.

Listen to soothing music. Soak in a nice warm
bath. Ask one of your close friends to massage
you. Take a break from your stressful workload
and spend the day just goofing around. In other
words, have fun.

4) Eat Right and Stay Fit.

Avoid foods with lots of sugar, caffeine, or
alcohol. Sugar and caffeine may give you a
brief moment of energy; but they would later
bring about anxiety , tension, and internal
problems. Alcohol is a depressant. Many people
would drink alcohol to “forget their problems.”
They’re just aggravating their conditions in the
process.

Exercising regularly is a vital depression buster
because it allows your body to produce more
endorphins than usual. Endorphins are sometimes
called “the happy chemicals” because of their
stress-reducing and happiness-inducing properties.

5) Get a Social Life.

No person is an island. Your circle of friends are
there to give you moral support. Spending time
and engaging in worthwhile activities with them
could give you a very satisfying feeling. Nothing
feels better than having group support.

Never underestimate the power of touch. Doesn’t
it feel so good when someone pats you on the back
and gives you words of encouragement during your
most challenging times? Hug or embrace someone
today. You’ll never know when you have saved
another life.

Get intimate. Establish close ties with your
family and friends. The love and care expressed
by others could tremendously boost your immune
system and fend off illnesses. Best of all, you’ll
live a more secured and happy life.

Now, that feels better.

About the Author
Hirini Reedy is a mental toughness expert who helps people find inner strength. A former military officer, martial arts founder and NLP mind coach, he has designed short sharp mind-body fitness workouts to toughen you up. Check one-minute focus principle at www.instantfitnessplans.com

Article source:
5 Powerful Strategies For Depressed Entrepreneurs

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Proven Affiliate Marketing Strategies – 5 Marketing Ideas to Drive Quality Traffic & Boost Profits

Jan 16

Posted by Siripong Roongruangsuwan in business | No Comments

To boost skyrocket your traffic and maximize your affiliate commission, you have to learn how to drive laser-targeted traffic to your affiliate website properly. With the proven affiliate marketing traffic strategies in this article, I am sure that your home based affiliate business is growing and you are maximizing profits online.

Now, I am going to give you powerful and proven affiliate marketing strategies to drive laser-targeted and high quality traffic to your affiliate website. With those affiliate marketing strategies, you will see great results of driving more traffic to your website and affiliate commission. You will learn exactly how to maximize your affiliate earnings through your traffic step-by-step below.

1. Pay Per Click Search Engine. The pay-per-click search engine has been proven that it is the first powerful affiliate marketing strategies, which all affiliate entrepreneurs must take into their action seriously. My experiences show that if you run multiple pay-per-click advertising campaigns along with the multiple search engines (i.e. Google Adwords, Overture Yahoo! Search Marketing, and MSNAdCenter), your opportunities to drive laser-targeted traffic and to maximize your profits are increased. All you have to be aware, when you run pay-per-click advertising, are: to manage, monitor and track your pay-per-click campaign carefully.

2. Article & Press Release Marketing. Obviously, there is no doubt that the article and press release marketing are required for all affiliate marketing entrepreneurs to take into their affiliate marketing plan. With these affiliate marketing strategies, you are exploding your home based affiliate business to the global markets. Also, it appears that your reputation and creditability are established in your area. However, my highest recommendation is to write professionally your high quality articles and press releases along with the writer mindset. There are different points between writers and marketers. All you have to do when you write your own articles is to write with the technician or writer mindset. Importantly, those technicians or writers will pay attention on how to deliver great articles to the reader rather than pitch sales.

3. Online Classified Ads. The third affiliate marketing strategy for you to drive traffic to your affiliate website is to place online classified ads to ensure that your affiliate products are visibility to the world. My researches show that the online classified ads strategy is one of the most popular and effective approaches to market your affiliate products and boost your affiliate commission. The real key to your success in the online classified ads is all about how to format your classified ads to grab the reader’s attention. With the most attractive of your online classified ads, the opportunities to earn more affiliate commission will be definitely grown. My highest recommendation is to start placing your online classified ads at Craigslist.org website. This online classified ads site is very popular on the internet for a long time.

4. Product Recommendation. The home based affiliate business is 99% content-driven online business. I strongly encourage all affiliate entrepreneurs to focus on their content to market their affiliate products or services. One of the most effective affiliate marketing strategies to grab the customers’ attention is to give them unbiased review information or product recommendation. This approach has been proven that it will help your affiliate earning grown and establish yourself as the expert in the niche market. My highest recommendation for all affiliate entrepreneurs is to take this affiliate marketing strategy into your plan immediately if you are looking for success in this industry.

5. Viral Report. The last affiliate marketing strategy in this article is to spread the world through your free reports. This is one of the most significant affiliate marketing strategies to boost skyrocket your affiliate commission. Also, your reputation will be increased through those free reports in your markets. All you have to do for your success are: to conduct your special report with several pages and submit to your markets and directories as much as possible.

Final thoughts, to success in affiliate marketing business, you have to build your home based affiliate business consistency with the above proven affiliate marketing strategies. With a sequence of those affiliate marketing strategies, I am sure that your home based affiliate business and affiliate commission will be increased continuously.

About The Author

Siripong R. or zMillionDollars is a recognized authority on the subject of making money online from home through highly profitable & successful home based business. His websites, www.zMakeMoney.com [http://www.zMakeMoney.com] and www.iPayByClick.com, provide a wealth of informative articles and resources on everything you’ll ever need to know about earning money online.

Author: Siripong Roongruangsuwan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Canada duty

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What is Network Marketing?

Jan 13

Posted by Phillip Dawson in marketing | No Comments

Network Marketing is another form of direct marketing. It is primarily more concerned with the organization of a sales network than with the sale itself.

The networker mostly starts to build up its own business before helping then other business partners to build their own, similar to a franchisor.

In difference to franchising where only one company opens new branches, in Network Marketing each independent business owner can open new network businesses, but with low financial investigations and without risk.

A networker undertakes the task to organize the network, to get paid for the sales qualified for bonus within that branch network.

Another feature of Network Marketing is to build up an transnational business by sponsoring international partners. Especially in Europe, Network Marketing represents one of the best examples how to make use of a single European market place.

A report from Prof. Dr. Michael Zacharias, University Worms, in 1996 has shown, that the total revenue in Germany made in Network Marketing is still very low (approx. 300 million p.a.), but it will be fast-paced.

In the Ukraine the market has just started (Nov. 2003), and the market in Russia will start 2004 too. So in these countries we will see incredible and surpassing business growth in the next years. If you are from the Ukraine or Russia, or you know people from there, then you can directly benefit from it. You can offer them an opportunity to build their own business.

This was just an example, there are more exciting success stories from other countries as well, e.g. Sweden, Korea etc., and the opportunity is identical in all supported countries.

In Europe the Network Marketing business is still in its infancy. Only 0.7% of trading are currently made with Network Marketing.

So this distribution channel has a huge potential for growth in future all over the world.

The Three Pillars of Success in Network Marketing are:

1) Residual Income

2) Leverage (of Time and Money)

3) Duplication

Network Marketing, ‘MLM’, and Multi Level Marketing are all terms that refer to the same type of business model. While many close-minded people outside the industry (and others who’ve tried it and failed), have biased or negative wrong impressions, and despite the fact that it is used and abused by many crooks and con-artists, this business model has exceptional performance potential.

There are bad apples in every bunch, and this industry has more than it’s share. But it can produce outstanding results if you know how to find the right company. And to maximize your potential, there are a few simple concepts whose understanding is critical to your success.

Unlike franchises or conventional businesses, Network Marketing, MLM, and Multilevel Marketing are the only business models that take advantage of all three of the important, yet misunderstood principles of:

Passive Residual Income – Leverage – and Geometric Growth.

And the combination of all three of these elements is what gives the Network Marketing business model it’s synergy and exceptional performance potential. In fact one outstanding company I’m aware of has actually built designed synergy into their business model.

Whether it’s a franchise or conventional business, both require major investments of time and money, and special skills if you hope to be really successful. Even the relatively small percentage who achieve true success usually take years just to break even.

On the other hand, with the advent and popularity of the Internet and the rampant quest to “Get Rich Quick for Doing Nothing”, many people have gotten all excited about affiliate, associate, referral, or co-op programs as they are sometimes called. But very few of the thousands of these being promoted have any real chance of making any significant money for the vast majority of people who get involved.

A perfect example is an email that was recently received from one of these programs who claim to be ‘the best’. They bragged that they were paying “over $400,000 in commissions each month!” and have “now grown to over 650,000 affiliates!”

Those are interesting statistics some might get excited about. Let’s see… if they’re true… They’re paying an ‘average’ of $.61 per affiliate… That’s sixty one cents ! Wow! How would you like to retire on that?!

They claim later in their letter that some are making $10,000 a month. If that’s true, then to come up with an ‘average’ of sixty one cents each, the vast majority have to be making absolutely nothing.

There is a much better way to achieve your dreams!

But you have to:

1) Take the time to understand these three critical principles -

PASSIVE RESIDUAL INCOME – LEVERAGE – GEOMETRIC GROWTH

Then…

2) LEARN TO ASK THREE SIMPLE QUESTIONS! – so you can teach what you know to others.

If you’re even moderately successful in networking, you undoubtedly understand and believe in the three principles above. If you haven’t yet had the success you desire, you may not completely understand these principles, or how to get them across to others. Highly successful networkers have learned how to ask the right questions, then help others understand and take advantage of these important and powerful concepts.

Unfortunately these principles are not well understood by the majority of the population. And that’s just one reason why so many fail at network marketing. There are lots of other reasons, and it would take a book to cover them all. But this is one of the more common ones. Because if you don’t understand or believe in these principles, it’s impossible to help others fully comprehend and appreciate them.

Let’s face it, our educational system trains (or brainwashes) us to be conformists, to do what others tell us to do, and to prepare for a JOB, not an entrepreneurial business opportunity. So those of us who crave our independence and freedom, head in that direction in spite of our education, rarely because of it.

And even though many people claim they’d like to be their own boss or own their own business, only a small percentage of the population possess the necessary desire for success to risk stepping out of their ‘comfort zones’ to pursue their dreams.

Most people are afraid of failure, and for them it may be better and easier to live life in a rut. Others are satisfied or even happy with their jobs, incomes, or lifestyles, and that’s great for them. But if you’re one of millions who yearn for more freedom and control in your life, you must understand the following three principles to achieve True Success in Network Marketing.

1) RESIDUAL INCOME:

Residual income is recurring income that continues to come to you long after the work you’ve done to produce it has ended. There are lots of ways to produce residual income. But many people don’t understand it. Others have never thought about or been exposed to it. And unfortunately, many ways of producing it are out of reach for ‘average’ people.

Successful authors, actors, musicians, and insurance agents are some of the more familiar avocations that produce residual income. Probably the simplest and best example of passive residual income is interest earned on money in the bank or other investments. It gets paid or credited to you without you having to invest any more time to produce it.

Using the “virtual millionaire” concept I will explain below, if you had a million dollars in the bank earning 6% interest, that would produce about $60,000 of annual income (before taxes). So if you have any source of passive residual income producing $60,000 or more a year, you are a “virtual millionaire”.

And with the right business, that can be much easier to accomplish than trying to overcome all the roadblocks to accumulating a million dollars in the bank. Instead of Uncle Sam fighting you all the way (taxing all your income), he actually becomes an active partner by giving you all kinds of tax breaks and incentives to succeed.

There are only two sources of money:

1) PEOPLE AT WORK, and 2) MONEY AT WORK…

THAT’S IT!

The simple goal of Retirement & Financial Planning is to make sure you accumulate enough money (or income producing assets), so that when you decide or are forced to retire, it will produce enough PASSIVE RESIDUAL INCOME for you to enjoy the lifestyle you choose for as long as you live.

The same concept holds true in Network Marketing. But Leverage, and Duplication or Geometric Progression, can help you build it much faster in the RIGHT Network Marketing program.

One of the first questions I often asks prospects is:

“If you had the choice of doing a job and earning $500 once, or getting paid $100/mo for the rest of your life, which would you choose?”

You’d be surprised at how many answer $500! These people either, 1) are not good prospects or, 2) need some education. That question is one quick and simple way to pre-qualify people. Those who don’t understand that principle may never achieve their true potential.

Obviously $100/mo. will surpass a ‘one time’ $500 relatively quickly. And if it lasts for a few years, or better yet – the rest of your life – it will really be a blessing. Producing enough passive residual income can make you a VIRTUAL MILLIONAIRE in a relatively short time, compared to working for someone else and scrimping and saving for 30 – 40 years.

A VIRTUAL MILLIONAIRE is someone who has enough money coming in every month, WHETHER THEY WORK OR NOT, to support the lifestyle THEY CHOOSE, for as long as they live. It’s also nice to have something SIGNIFICANT to pass on to your heirs or favorite charity.

But like everything else in life, even residual income has a downside. The biggest one is, just like compound interest or geometric progression, it normally takes a little time for the magic to start working. The POWER and BEAUTY of residual income is on the back-end, not the front!

Many people have a hard time understanding this FACT and mistakenly chase false promises of quick or easy money. That’s why there will always be crooks and con artists in the world pitching “get rich quick and easy”. Successful people ignore them. Naive or greedy people usually get burned.

Residual income is NOT about “get rich quick”, even though with the right opportunity it’s possible to produce a small fortune in a relatively short time.

If you’re especially talented or have the time and money to invest, you may have some success in less than a year. And many people do. But without a major investment of time or money it takes most ‘typical’ people a year or two of part time work to generate a decent income, and another year or two to really hit the big time. But achieving success with 2 – 4 years of part-time effort beats the widely accepted ‘standard’ plan of slaving 20 – 40 years working for someone else to make them wealthy!

Most people who fail at network marketing either choose the wrong company or just give up too soon and quit because they expect INSTANT results. But because the real beauty of residual income is on the back end, not the front, once you build it you have the financial security and time freedom to do anything you want the rest of your life!

The RIGHT network marketing opportunity allows anyone, with no prior experience, special skills, or large capital outlay, to build long term, passive residual income. If you don’t know how to choose the right opportunity, I can help.

A critical component to building long term residual income is offering high quality, high demand, value-priced, ‘consumable’ products or services that people use and re-order month after month.

Because of this simple fact, the top industry in Network Marketing by any measurable standard is Nutritional Supplements and Personal Care products. Some people refuse to consider this industry because they don’t take supplements themselves or don’t understand the ‘Big Picture’ and successful business model of this industry.

Do you think Burger King and McDonald franchise owners invest hundreds of thousands of dollars because they like to eat fast food burgers? Not hardly! They understand human nature and trends in society. We’re a convenience oriented society, and a large part of the population would rather eat low cost convenience food, even if we know it’s not good for us.

But there’s also a booming trend toward improving your health, improving your life, and developing personal and time freedom. Many ‘opportunity seekers’ completely miss or ignore these trends in society. If your business is in front of multiple long term trends, you dramatically increase your chances for success.

I’m not saying it’s not important to believe in and use your own products, because it is! But for true success you have to recognize major trends in society, and your products or opportunity must meet ALL the highlighted criteria above – high quality, high demand, value-priced, and ‘consumable’. (And in this case, ‘consumable’ does not necessarily mean just ‘edible’. It means used and/or re-ordered on a regular basis.)

And with the right business the rewards can be much more than just financial. It’s hard to put a price tag on the goose bumps you feel or tears that come to your eyes sometimes when someone thanks you profusely for introducing them to a product that has had a major impact on their health, their life, or their financial situation.

Unfortunately some people never grasp the importance of this additional benefit. Most good people want to feel they are doing something worthwhile with their life. And it’s not just about making money, even though many narrow-minded or greedy people will try to convince you it is. It’s also about helping others. And doing both, can make the right business doubly rewarding.

But your business also has to have profit potential. Some ‘price-based’ products or services have lots of competition and limited profit potential. If you choose a business like that you have to do a lot more volume and it’s hard to build loyalty, which is an important element in producing long term passive residual income.

2) LEVERAGE:

Every successful person or business (in or out of Network Marketing) takes advantage of leverage. There’s only 24 hours in a day! And no matter how talented you are or how much you get paid per hour, if you don’t take advantage of leverage you’re limited by the number of hours in a day. By learning to leverage your time, you can also benefit from a percentage of other people’s efforts, and dramatically increase your income and freedom.

If you’re reading this article on the Internet (on my website or someone else’s), or in a magazine, that’s one simple example of leverage. I don’t have to be physically present to teach you something. I may be sleeping, or vacationing on the other side of the world while you are learning or sharing this information.

Unfortunately in most traditional businesses, the only ones who benefit from leverage are the owners or stockholders. The loyal, hard-working employees do most of the work. The unique and wonderful thing about the Network Marketing business model, is that everyone has the same opportunity to become the ‘owner’ of their own business – with a fraction of the investment of time and money of a traditional business or franchise.

And instead of worrying about training people to become your competitors, in network marketing the people at the top have a vested interest in helping others on their team succeed.

Again, the question I ask prospects here is:

“If you had the choice to receive 100% of one person’s efforts, or 5% of 100 peoples’, which would you choose?”

And again, if they answer 100%, either: 1) they’re not a good prospect or, 2) they need a remedial math class or additional education.

Many talented people would rather just depend on themselves, and have difficulty grasping the importance of this concept.

Obviously 100% of one is always only one. But 5% of 100 is five. That’s a 500% increase and is significant! And with synergy, sometimes it can be even more!

Not only will the total result with leverage almost always be a lot more, but your income is not dependent on only one person. If it is, and that person gets sick or injured, disabled, dies, quits working, or decides to go on a long vacation, your income could stop!

But if your income is produced by the activities of many, it is much more dependable. Even if something unexpected or negative happens to one or more of those people, it only has a minor effect on the total production. That’s what allows people who understand and take advantage of this to live the lifestyle they choose or get paid while on extended vacations.

It’s great to get paid while you’re on vacation or doing other things you love! That’s one of the many advantages of leveraging your time, and is just one of many reasons so many high income professionals from all walks of life are flocking to get involved in Network Marketing.

Many professionals who make great incomes, get frustrated at the ‘bottom line’ after putting in long hours just to cover overhead and miscellaneous expenses. No matter how much you earn per hour, if you don’t learn to leverage your time, your earnings will always be limited by the number of hours you can work in a day. And nobody wants to work 24 hours! But even with a small network marketing organization, you can produce equivalent results to working 24 hours a day, with a fraction of the individual effort.

Learning to leverage your time (and money) is an important step toward gaining Financial Independence and Time freedom.

3) DUPLICATION:

The best illustration I’ve seen of duplication is the penny-a-day example. It’s also frequently used to illustrate the benefits of tax free compound interest.

If you start with one penny, and double it every day 30 days, how much will you have at the end of 30 days?

If you haven’t heard this before or don’t remember, go ahead and take a guess. Day two you’d have 2 cents; day three you’d have 4 cents, then 8, 16, and so on. How much at the end of 30 days?

I’ve never had anyone who hadn’t heard this before come close. So don’t feel bad if you don’t, and I promise not to laugh. Ready? Did you pick a number?

Would you believe over FIVE MILLION DOLLARS?! ($5,368,708 to be exact!) That’s right! Most people don’t believe it until they punch it out on a calculator. And even then it’s sometimes hard to fathom. But it’s true. Isn’t that amazing?

That’s a simple illustration of how networking can work. If I can teach you, I’ve doubled myself. If we each teach someone else, we’ve doubled again. And as this goes on and on it can produce amazing results in a relatively short period of time, just like the penny example.

The easier your program is to do and the lower the cost to get involved, the more people you can appeal to and the more potential for geometric progression to work. Programs that are too complicated or expensive for ‘average’ people to do will always hinder your growth.

Great salespeople can succeed at almost anything they apply themselves to. But not many people have the talents, skills, or desire to be great salespeople. IT’S NOT DUPLICATABLE!

The Network Marking business model is about a lot of average people doing a little, not a few talented people doing a lot.

While lower cost of entry can be an advantage, many programs that are ‘free’, don’t offer any real potential for significant income, and often attract people who aren’t willing to work to build their business. So REALISTIC INCOME PRODUCING POWER is an important area to consider.

Joining a ‘downline club’ or any other program that promises any variation of – “we’ll do everything for you” – will never produce significant LONG TERM passive residual income, because the majority of people who join are looking for a free ride or are too lazy to build anything significant. None of these programs have ever worked long term and none ever will. It’s a simple fact of life successful networkers accept early on.

The penny a day example is a great model for illustration, but in ‘real life’ it never works exactly like that. Some people never recruit anyone, and others find 10 – 20 – 30 or more. It helps to understand human nature, and an IMPORTANT, but little known reality called REVERSE GEOMETRIC GROWTH.

Despite the fact it rarely works in reality like it’s illustrated on paper, the principle of duplication is still one of the THREE PILLARS TO SUCCESS with the RIGHT Network Marketing Business Opportunity. With the RIGHT business and these POWERFUL PRINCIPLES, even average people who are willing to work and to learn can achieve their dreams. And above average people may exceed their greatest expectations.

If you can UNDERSTAND and BELIEVE IN those three principles, and find the RIGHT company, you will succeed in Network Marketing. If you’re willing to TEACH these THREE principles to a few others, the results might just amaze you!

The beauty of Network Marketing is that you can get started with very little investment of time or money, and no major changes in your present lifestyle. Eventually, passive residual income can give you the FREEDOM to live the lifestyle YOU CHOOSE, and pursue and enjoy your dreams – whatever they are!

I read somewhere that, “according to IRS statistics, in 1984 20% of NEW millionaires came from Network Marketing. By 1994 it was 50%. It’s predicted that by 2004, 70 – 80% of NEW millionaires will come from the booming Network Marketing industry.” I don’t really believe those statistics. But no matter what the percentages are, certainly many new millionaires are created every year in the Network Marketing industry.

Many positive CHANGES have been made in the industry, and several simultaneous MEGA-TRENDS help make this the best time ever to get involved! The time to start is NOW! But it’s important to pick the RIGHT company and industry!

IF YOU UNDERSTAND:

1) The IMPORTANCE of ‘CONSUMABLE PRODUCTS’ … 2) The REASONS for the popularity of the Nutritional Supplement Industry… 3) The importance of high quality, high demand, value-priced, products…

YOU’RE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO HAVE ABOVE AVERAGE SUCCESS!

Successful Network Marketing offers many benefits: Passive Residual Income – No Boss – No Commute – No Dress Code – Income Tax Reduction – More TIME for kids, family, hobbies, or whatever is important to you – Above Average Income – and much more.

If I had to sum it up in one word it would be FREEDOM! – Freedom to work as much or as little as you want, to come and go as you please, and to spend more time doing whatever is important to you. Once you experience this FREEDOM, you’ll wonder how you ever lived any other way!

There’s no free lunch though. It’s like riding a bike. If I asked, “Would you rather ride a bike uphill or downhill?” most normal people would say, “down.” But in order to coast down the hill, you first have to ride your bike up. Once you start, you may find yourself enjoying the exercise and additional benefits of improving your strength, endurance, and health. The same is true in this business. You have to ‘climb the hill’ (learn the business) before you can ‘coast’. Many people learn to enjoy the process of becoming better people, helping others, and improving much more than just the financial part of their lives.

There are many routes to the top of the hill. Some people choose to take a gradual incline and may take a little longer to get there. Others prefer the direct route, and choose to pedal directly up the steepest side. The beauty is, the choice is yours. We can show you the routes, and you decide what’s best for you. We’ll be there to encourage and guide you every inch of the way.

Best wishes for True Success and a HAPPY, HEALTHY, PRODUCTIVE LIFE!

Author: Phillip Dawson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Electric Pressure Cooker

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Finding Network Marketing Leads

Jun 15

Posted by Rolf Rasmusson in business, marketing | No Comments

Getting a network marketing lead.

Getting a network marketing lead is not an easy process and involves a lot of work. However you can achieve network marketing success by following a few simple but detailed instructions and using network marketing tools. Network marketing success involves not only getting a lead but also keeping the lead and developing a good business relationship thats the key to network marketing success.

Network marketing success: what steps to take

If you want to achieve the network marketing success, especially while doing your network marketing online, you will need to use various network marketing tools. One of the network marketing tools that are available to you is the network marketing prospecting website. The network marketing prospecting website will allow you to find leads and clients and build your marketing campaign.A Network marketing prospecting website can also post the valuable information to your prospective clients. As you can see, the network marketing prospecting website is one of the key network marketing tools that will bring you network marketing success.

You should also study the network marketing tools that are being used by other networkers. This can also contribute to your network marketing success since you will be able to find valuable information. Go through the network marketing prospecting website of your competitor(s),research various network marketing tools that are available online, hold on to this valuable information and you are on your way to network marketing success.

There are things besides network marketing prospecting website and network marketing tools that can contribute you your network marketing success, but you should start with the network marketing prospecting website and network marketing tools and then move on to other marketing ideas.

Author: Rolf Rasmusson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Import duty tariff

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The Real Estate Sector

Jun 5

Posted by Manish Marwah in real estate, strategies | No Comments

Boom & Bust of Indian Real Estate Sector

Engulfing the period of stagnation, the evolution of Indian real estate sector has been phenomenal, impelled by, growing economy, conducive demographics and liberalized foreign direct investment regime. However, now this unceasing phenomenon of real estate sector has started to exhibit the signs of contraction.

What can be the reasons of such a trend in this sector and what future course it will take? This article tries to find answers to these questions…

Overview of Indian real estate sector

Since 2004-05 Indian reality sector has tremendous growth. Registering a growth rate of, 35 per cent the realty sector is estimated to be worth US$ 15 billion and anticipated to grow at the rate of 30 per cent annually over the next decade, attracting foreign investments worth US$ 30 billion, with a number of IT parks and residential townships being constructed across-India.

The term real estate covers residential housing, commercial offices and trading spaces such as theaters, hotels and restaurants, retail outlets, industrial buildings such as factories and government buildings. Real estate involves purchase sale and development of land, residential and non-residential buildings. The activities of real estate sector embrace the hosing and construction sector also.

The sector accounts for major source of employment generation in the country, being the second largest employer, next to agriculture. The sector has backward and forward linkages with about 250 ancilary industries such as cement, brick,steel, building material etc.

Therefore a unit increase in expenditure of this sector have multiplier effect and capacity to generate income as high as five times.

All-round emergence

In real estate sector major component comprises of housing which accounts for 80% and is growing at the rate of 35%. Remainder consist of commercial segments office, shopping malls, hotels and hospitals.

Housing units: With the Indian economy surging at the rate of 9 % accompanied by rising incomes levels of middle class, growing nuclear families, low interest rates, modern approach towards homeownership and change in the attitude of young working class in terms of from save and buy to buy and repay having contributed towards soaring housing demand.

Earlier cost of houses used to be in multiple of nearly 20 times the annual income of the buyers, whereas today multiple is less than 4.5 times.

According to 11th five year plan, the housing shortage on 2007 was 24.71 million and total requirement of housing during (2007-2012) will be 26.53 million. The total fund requirement in the urban housing sector for 11th five year plan is estimated to be Rs 361318 crores.
The summary of investment requirements for XI plan is indicated in following table

SCENARIO Investment requirement
Housing shortage at the beginning of the XI plan period 147195.0
New additions to the housing stock during the XI plan period including the additional housing shortage during the plan period 214123.1
Total housing requirement for the plan period 361318.1

Office premises: rapid growth of Indian economy, simultaneously also have deluging effect on the demand of commercial property to help to meet the needs of business. Growth in commercial office space requirement is led by the burgeoning outsourcing and information technology (IT) industry and organised retail. For example, IT and ITES alone is estimated to require 150 million sqft across urban India by 2010. Similarly, the organised retail industry is likely to require an additional 220 million sqft by 2010.

Shopping malls: over the past ten years urbanization has upsurge at the CAGR of 2%. With the growth of service sector which has not only pushed up the disposable incomes of urban population but has also become more brand conscious. If we go by numbers Indian retail industry is estimated to be about US $ 350 bn and forecast to be double by 2015.

Thus rosining income levels and changing perception towards branded goods will lead to higher demand for shopping mall space, encompassing strong growth prospects in mall development activities.

Multiplexes: another growth driver for real-estate sector is growing demand for multiplexes. The higher growth can be witnessed due to following factors:

1. Multiplexes comprises of 250-400 seats per screen as against 800-1000 seats in a single screen theater, which give multiplex owners additional advantage, enabling them to optimize capacity utilization.

2. Apart from these non-ticket revenues like food and beverages and the leasing of excess space to retailer provides excess revenues to theatre developers.

Hotels/Resorts: as already mentioned above that rising major boom in real estate sector is due to rising incomes of middle class. Therefore with increase in income propensity to spend part of their income on tours and travels is also going up, which in turn leads to higher demand for hotels and resorts across the country. Apart from this India is also emerging as major destination for global tourism in India which is pushing up the demand hotels/resorts.
Path set by the government

The sector gained momentum after going through a decade of stagnation due to initiatives taken by Indian government. The government has introduced many progressive reform measures to unveil the potential of the sector and also to meet increasing demand levels.

100% FDI permitted in all reality projects through automatic route.
In case of integrated townships, the minimum area to be developed has been brought down to 25 acres from 100 acres.
Urban land ceiling and regulation act has been abolished by large number of states.
Legislation of special economic zones act.
Full repatriation of original investment after 3 years.
51% FDI allowed in single brand retail outlets and 100 % in cash and carry through the automatic route.

There fore all the above factors can be attributed towards such a phenomenal growth of this sector. With significant growing and investment opportunities emerging in this industry, Indian reality sector turned out to be a potential goldmine for many international investors. Currently, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into the sector are estimated to be between US$ 5 billion and US$ 5.50 billion.

Top most real estate investors in the foray

Investors profile

The two most active segments are high networth individuals and financial institutions. Both these segments are particularly active in commercial real estate. While financial institutions like HDFC and ICICI show high preference for commercial investment,the high net worth individuals show interest in investing in residential as well as commercial properties.

Apart from these, the third most important category is NRI ( non-resident Indians). They mostly invest in residential properties than commercial properties. Emotional attachment to native land could be reasons for their investment. And moreover the necessary documentation and formalities for purchasing immovable properties except agricultural and plantation properties are quite simple. Therefore NRI’s are showing greater interest for investing in Indian reality sector.

MAJOR INVESTORS

Emmar properties, of Dubai one of the largest listed real estate developer in the world has tied up with Delhi based MGF developments to for largest FDI investment in Indian reality sector for mall and other facilities in Gurgaon.

Dlf India’s leading real estate developer and UK ‘s famous Laing O Rourke (LOR) has joined hands for participation in airport modernization and infrastructure projects.

A huge investment was made by Vancouver based Royal Indian raj international cooperation in a single real estate project named royal garden city in Bangalore over period of 10 years. The retail value of project was estimated to be around $ 8.9 billion.

Indiabulls real estate development has entered into agreement with dev property development, a company incorporated in Isle of Man, whereby dev got subscription to new shares and also minority shareholding the company. But in recent developments indiabulls have acquired entire stake in dev property development in a 138 million-pound sterling (10.9 billion ruppees) share-swap deal.

Apart from this real estate developments opens up opportunity for associated fields like home loans and insurance. A number of global have shown interest in this sector. This include companies like Cesma International from Singapore, American International Group Inc (AIG), High Point Rendel of the UK, Colony Capital and Brack Capital of the US, and Lee Kim Tah Holdings to name a few.
Following are names of some of the companies who have invested in India

International developer Country Investment
(US $ million)
Emmar properties Dubai 500
Ascendas Singapore 350
Salem & ciputra group Indonesia 350
GE commercial finance U.S 63
Tishman Speyer Properties U.S 300

Simultaneously many Indian retailers are entering into international markets through significant investments in foreign markets.

Embassy group has signed a deal with Serbian government to construct US $ 600 million IT park in Serbia.
Parsvanath developers is doing a project in Al – Hasan group in Oman
Puravankara developers are associated with project in Srilanka- a high end residential complex, comprising 100 villas.
Ansals API tied up with Malaysia’s UEM group to form a joint venture company, Ansal-API UEM contracts pvt ltd, which plans to bid for government contracts in Malaysia.
Kolkata’s south city project is working on two projects in Dubai.
On the eve of liberalization as India opens up market to foreign players there is tend to be competitive edge to give quality based performance for costumer satisfaction which will consequently bring in quality technology and transparency in the sector and ultimate winners are buyers of this situation.

However this never ending growth phase of reality sector has been hard hit by the global scenario from the beginning of 2008. Analyst say situation will prevail in near future, and latest buzz for the sector comes as a “slowdown”.

Sliding phase of the reality sector

In this present scenario of global slowdown, where stock markets are plunging, interest rates and prices are mounting, the aftermath of this can now also be felt on Indian real estate sector. Overall slowdown in demand can be witnessed all across India which is causing trouble for the major industry players. Correcting property prices and rentals are eroding away the market capitalization of many listed companies like dlf and unitech.

Fundaments behind slowdown…

Propetry prices move because of the basic principle of demand and supply
when demand is high and supply low prices will go up
When demand is low and supply high prices will go down.

For example let’s assume that somebody has bought a property for Rs X and he is trying to sell the property (say after a year), there can be three options, assumption being that the owner is in need of money and cannot wait for more than 3 months to sell the property.

1. When the property prices are gliding everywhere : now owner will try to add as much premium to the property as possible, in order to book profits, therefore he will wait for 3 months and sell off in last month at the highest bid. Where he ill get total of Rs X + Rs Y.
2. When property prices have stabilized: here owner will not be able to sell at premium and book profits due to market stabilization & since he don’t want to sell at a loss, he will try to get same amount he brought the property for. Where he’ll get total of Rs X = Rs Y
3. when property prices are going down : owner will try to sell the property at least profit or least cost. Therefore he ill get Rs X-RsY.

Reality deals in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad have shown enormous downfall from October 2007 – March 2008. The downfall had been cushioned by fall in stock markets as it put a stop for wealth creation, which leads to shortage of capital among investors to invest in real estate activities. Apart from this in order to offset their share losses many investors have no choice, but sell their real estate properties.

Other factors which have contributed to this slowdown are raising interest rates leading to higher costs. Due to this almost all the developers are facing serious liquidity crunch and facing difficulties in completing their ongoing projects. Situation seems to be so disastrous that most of the companies have reported 50-70% cash shortfall. The grade A developers which are facing cash crunch include DLF,MGF, Emmar, Shobha developers, Unitech, Omaxe, Parsvnath Developers, Hiranandani Group, Ansal API, BPTP Developers and TDI Group. As a outcome of this liquidity crunch many developers have started slowing down or even stopped construction of projects which are either in their initial stages of development or which would not effect their bottom line in near future.

Also with increasing input costs of steel iron and building material it has become it has become inviable for builders to construct properties at agreed prices. As a result there may be delays in completion of the project leading finical constraints.

At the same time IT industry which accounts for 70% of the total commercial is facing a slowdown. Many residential buyers are waiting for price correction before buying any property, which can effect development plans of the builder.

Aftermath of reality shock to other sectors

Cement industry hit by reality slowdown

The turbulence in the real estate sectors is passing on pains in cement industry also. It is being projected that growth rate of cement industry will drop down to 10% in current fiscal. The reasons behind such a contingency are higher input costs, low market valuations and scaled up capacity which are in turn leading to reduced demand in the industry. High inflation and mounting home loan rates have slowed down the growth flight of real estate sector which accounts for 60% of the total cement demand. The major expansion plans announced by major industries will further add to their misery as low market demand will significantly reduced their capacity utilization.
Setting up new facilities will impart additional capacities of 34 million tone and 45 million tone respectively in 2008-09 & 2009-10. This is likely to bring down capacity utilization in the industry down from current 101% to 82%. Even as it loses power to dictate prices, increased cost of power, fuel and freight will add pressure on input costs.

Ambuja Cements too is trading at a higher discount than previous down cycle, suggesting bottom valuations. However, replacement valuations for Madras Cements and India Cements indicate scope for further downslide when compared to their previous down cycle valuations.
All this has added to stagnation of the cement industry.

Dying reality advertising

The heat of reality ebb is also being felt by the advertising industry. It is being estimated that all major developers such as DLF, omaxe, ansals & parsvnath have decided to cut down on their advertising budget by around 5%. The advertising industry in India is estimated to be around 10,000 crore. This trend can be witnessed due to weakening spirits of potential buyers and real estate companies call it a reality check on their advertising budgets. A report from Adex India, a division of TAM Media Research, shows that the share of real estate advertisements in print media saw a drop of 2 percent during 2007 compared to 2006. According to Adex, the share of real estate advertisement in overall print and TV advertising last year was 4 percent and 1 percent, respectively. It’s a known fact that infrastructure and real estate companies are responsible for advertising industry maintaing double didgit growth rate. Therefore its understood that a recent slowdown in iindian reality sector has made things worse for advertising industry. The Adex report indicates that the top 10 advertisers shared an aggregate of 16 percent of overall ad volumes of real estate advertising in print during 2007. The list include names such as DLF Group, Parsvnath, Sahara, HDIL and Omaxe group. However, the real estate had maximum share in South India publications followed by North and West publications with 32% and 26% share, respectively, during 2007.

According to many advertising agencies consultants, this phenomenon is taking a toll as all real estate companies want a national foot print and also these companies are turning into professionals. Therefore they are setting standards when it comes to advertising to sales ratio.

Falling stock markets knock down reality stocks

Reality stocks have been hard hit by uncertainties prevailing in the stock market. The BSE reality index is the worst performer having shed 51% of its 52-week peak reached in reality. The BSE benchmark index has shed 24% since January. The country’s largest real estate firm DLF scrip lost 54% while unitech lost 64% from its peak. The scrips of Delhi bases parsvnath and omaxe have lost 68% each since January.

The sector is facing a major downfall in sales volume in most markets of the country. The speculators have exit the market and Mumbai and NCR, the biggest real estate markets in markets are cladding subdued sales. In Gurgaon and Noida, which had seen prices almost treble in four years, sales are down 70%, leading to a price correction of 10-20%.
Lets us have a look how major cities are affected by reality downfall.

Top 4 metros taking the lead – in slowdown

Delhi &NCR

While bears are ruling the stock market, the real estate sector in Delhi & NCR region has started facing departure of speculative investors from the market. According to these developers based in region the selling of flats has become very complicated at the launch stage due to lack of interest from the speculators. Developers attribute this to stability in prices against the past where prices were up surging on monthly basis. The scenario has changed so much in the present year that developers are now facing difficulty in booking flats which may delay their projects and reduce their pricing power for instance a year ago, if 100 flats were being sold in month at launch stage now it has come down 30-40 per month. Till mid 2007 speculators made quick money by booking multiple flats at launch of the project and exiting within few weeks or months. But now due to the stabilization of the property prices little scope is left for speculators to make money in short term. Therefore outcome is their retreat from the sector.

Mumbai

Mumbai real estate market, which witnessed huge increase in prices in recent years, which made the city to enter in the league of world’s most expensive cities, is now feeling the heat of slowdown. Property sales that have been growing at a clank of around 20% every year have been plumped by 17% in 2007-08.

Though slowdown news of property market in country’s financial capital has been much talked about, but it was first time that figures proved the extent of slowdown. Information about residential and commercial property sales from the stamp duty registration office show almost 12,000 fewer transactions during the last financial year compared to the year before. From April 2007 to March 2008, 62,595 flats were purchased in Mumbai as against 74,555 in 2006-07.
According to reality analyst sales volume can die out further in south as developers persist on holding to their steep prices and buyers anticipate a further fall with current rates beyond reach. They further add that market is on a corrective mode and downward trend is anticipated for another 12 months.

Between 1992-96, the market ran up the same way it did during 2003-07. Post-’96, the volumes dropped by 50%. This time again it is expected to drop substantially though not so steeply. The demand is now extremely sluggish and customers do not want to stick out their necks and transact at prevailing rates.Chennai in past few years we witnessed reality index gaining huge heights on BSE and it also impact could be felt allover India. Amongst them Chennai was no exception. With IT boom in past few years and pumping of money by NRI’s have led to prices touching skies. Chennai also witnessed a huge boom property prices over the last few years. However in past few months it has been facing slowdown in growth rate.

Following factors can be attributed to this:
This is one of the common factor prevailing all over India- rise in home loan interest rates, which has made it extremely difficult for a normal salaried person to be able to afford a house.
Depreciation of US dollar, which means NRI’s who were earlier pumping money into the real estate are now able to get less number of rupees per dollar they earn in US. Therefore many of them have altered their plans for buying house in India.
The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) has imposed stricter norms for apartment construction and penalties for violations are more severe than before.
Failure of the legal system of chennai to prevent intrusion, forged documents and illegal construction has added to the problem as many NRI’S are hesitating to buy plots in chennai.
Apart from this tsunami of 2004 has shaken the confidence of many investors to invest in real estate.

However many analyst are quite bullish about this region. Especially in areas like old mahabalipuram, south Chennai etc because of numerous IT/ITES/ electronics/automobile companies are expected to set up their centers in these areas. Once these projects are complete and companies begin operations their, many people would like to live near to such areas and outcome will be boom in residential sector.

Bangalore

As discussed for above cities Bangalore is also dwindling between the similar scenarios. Bangalore seems to be in midst of low demand and supply. This trend is due to myopic developers, due to sudden growth in Bangalore in last few years, lot of builders have caught the opportunity of building residential houses thinking their will be lot of employment, increase in salaries and hence demand for housing. Past few years have been jovial for Bangalore as IT industry was doing well and banking and retail sectors were expanding.

However with this sudden economic slowdown, due to which Indian stocks markets are trembling, interest rates are high, jobs and recruitment put on freeze have led to cessation of investment in local property markets.

According to the developers real-estate industry of Bangalore has experienced a drop of about 15- 20% in transaction volumes. Adding to it grade A developers have faced a dropdown of 50% on monthly levels of booking compared to what they enjoyed in December 2007.

Future outlook

The real estate explosion in Indian real estate is due to by the burgeoning IT and BPO industries. The underlying reason for all these moves is that the Indian real estate is tremendously attractive, because of basic demographics and a supply shortage. Truly Indian real estate is having a dream run for last five years.

However in the current scenario Indian real estate market is going through a phase of correction in prices and there are exaggerated possibilities that these increased prices are likely to come down.
In this scenario hat will be the future course of this sector?

Many analyst are of view that tightening of India’s monetary policy, falling demand and growing liquidity concerns could have negative impact on profiles of real estate companies. Slowing down would also aid in the process of exit of some of the weaker entities from the market and increasing the strength of some of the established developers. A prolonged slowdown could also reduce the appetite of private equity.

Its also been projected that large development plans and aggressive land purchases have led to a considerable increase in the financial leverage (debt/EBITDA) of most developers, with the smaller players now being exposed to liquidity pressures for project execution as well as a general slowdown in property sales. Property developers hit by falling sales and liquidity issues would need to reduce list prices to enhance demand, but many still seem to be holding on to the asking price – which, would delay the process of recovering demand and increase the risk of liquidity pressures.
It was being witnessed that before the slowdown phase the projects were being sold without any hook at an extravagant rate. But at present negative impact is highly visible as lot of high end projects are still lying unsold. In such a scenario, there may be blessing in disguise as high profile speculators will be out making way for the actual users.

But here also sector faces trouble as correction in prices has been accompanied by increase in home loan rates by the banks which have led to erosion of purchasing power of middle and upper middle class majority of whom are covered in the category of end users or actual users.
Therefore for future of real estate sector analyst call for a wait and watch method to grab the best opportunity with the hope of reduction in loan rates.

Author: Manish Marwah
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Guest blogger

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Have An Idea? Starting A Business? STOP! Read This Article

May 22

Posted by Jim Hart in business, business startup, strategies | No Comments

As a business consultant I am asked a lot of questions about success, especially from younger clients from age 25 35 who are loaded with ideas and the youthful enthusiasm but lack experience. My answers are usually the same each timeyou have to have a good idea, a written plan backing that idea and enough business knowledge to deal with the issues surrounding start-up launch and rollout. And thats where things get a little shaky for most people. They have the ideas. They have the enthusiasm. But they dont have a realistic written plan (if they even have a plan) and they lack true knowledge and experience.

Most people starting in business have never written a business plan and/or dont have enough business acumen to write one correctly. Specifically, they lack real world business education and experience. These same entrepreneurial-types virtually always over estimate sales and under estimate costs. They dont have a firm grip on management, marketing, advertising, human resources and accounting, law or finance. They have a lot to learn and will waste time and money on costly mistakes to gain hard learned and expensive lessons.

And the complexity of an idea kills many projects before they get off the ground. I have heard every business opportunity under the sun for manufacturing, distribution, retail sales, borderline scams and on and on and on and my conclusion is this:

KISSkeep it simple stupid. Keep you start up costs low and human resource requirements at a minimum. The more intellectual your product or service, the more involved you will be in the day to day grind of work product output. You want to be able to clone yourself. You want your business to be so simple a monkey could do it. Let me give a quick example: Lets say you want to set up a mortgage company. In this case, you have to know a lot about a lot and your staff will have to know a lot about a lot and these educated people are going to want a nice big fat juicy payroll. Whereas, a business like an oil change company hires people with little or no education to simply drain car oila monkey could do it! The result is a number of successful business franchises. Simple process, low paid employees.

Then I tell people, before you run off and look for your big success with a new idea stop and think about how you can make money doing something simple, something you can clone, something with low start up costs, something you can test quickly and easily. Something like; washing residential and commercial windows. Why window washing? Whats your up front start up costs? All you need to get started is a bucket, a squeegee and some cleaning fluid! Then, go sell. If you were the company washing all the commercial windows between Chicago and Detroit you would be a millionaire. And a monkey can do it.

The problem here is, like every business, making the sale. But remember something; if you create a new product or service, you will have to spend time educating people about your offer before you can sell it. Thats twice the work. Do something they are already familiar with–that way you can spend your time selling rather then educating and selling. Something like washing windows. I dont care what your business or idea may be; if you cant sell it, the project will fail.

This is why you need a plan. Do you want some free business coaching? Here it is, and it wont cost you a dime. Click the link belowget the Business Planning Ebook, its the best planning tool you will EVER find. I use it all the time. Thanks for reading and good luck!

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Copyright 2006
James W. Hart, IV
All Rights reserved

Author: Jim Hart
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty

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