February 2, 2009

Generate Moneymaking Ideas While Working for Others... If
You Never Try, You'll Never Know... What $3 Million Gets
You on a Sunday... What to Do with Your Grant Payout... and More.

** Generate Moneymaking Ideas While Working for Others
By Adrian Newman, Founder of e-Wealth Daily

Coming up with a business idea that suits both your expertise and your interests can be difficult to do. Most of the time, people have to sacrifice one of the two in order to settle on a business that will work for them.

While you're thinking about the perfect business idea, you probably are still at a job within another company, right? Well, why not use that time to your advantage? You can generate great business opportunities while working for others at the same time by utilizing the information that you get every day.

Confused? Allow me to clarify what I mean by this. You're an expert at the job you do. It would be great if you could take that expertise and utilize it for your own business. However, starting a business that is identical to the company you currently work for is not the best idea, simply for competitive reasons.

To succeed with a business, your approach needs to be unique and innovative. You need to come up with a business idea that is different from all the other business ideas that are out there. You don't have to reinvent the wheel -- you just have to improve upon it.

In other words, determine what your company cannot or does not do, and then go out and do it yourself. You know what you can do, you know what they can do, and you know what they're not doing. Use this information to form the basis of a business opportunity.

You have to be able to spot opportunities around every corner and you have eight hours every day to brainstorm. Of course, don't forget to get your regular work completed. I wouldn't want you to get fired because you spent your work time daydreaming about starting your own business!

Think about it: you know the industry well, you have developed business relationships with people from other companies, such as suppliers and customers, and you know what it takes to make the place run successfully.

I'm not saying that you should take their ideas and create your own company, but rather take the ideas they're not using and create a business opportunity that will work for you. I am not suggesting that you take confidential information from your company, but rather that you simply use what you know for your own benefit.

If you know that there is a service that your company could be performing, but can't for one reason or another, consider how you could do it and how profitable it might be.

Ask yourself a number of questions. Is it something that is feasible for a small business to do? What are the reasons behind your current company not selling this product or performing this service? Do you have the expertise to do this on your own?

Maybe you have a ton of ideas that will help your current employer expand on his/her business, but you have trouble being heard or your ideas fall on deaf ears. Well, why not keep those ideas to yourself?

There's no reason why you can't use the expertise that you have gained working for others and put it into a business venture of your own. Remember that you need to keep your eyes and ears open in order to be able to spot good business opportunities. Don't count anything out until you've thought about all the possibilities.

** If You Never Try, You'll Never Know
By Doug D'Anna, the "Hundred-Million-Dollar Man"

There are people in this world who will inevitably set themselves up for failure because they're afraid to pick up the phone in their quest to get what they want. Wayne Gretzky once said that, "I miss all the shots I don't take." By failing to see the phone as the key tool to get what you want, you may never get the job, the raise, or the refund -- you name it -- that you desire.

My friend, Tony, who is one of the top realtors in San Carlos, California, has painted his phones green. Why? Because he knows that it is the shortest route to getting listings, clients, and sales.

In fact, every day from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., he calls 200 -- yes, that's 200 -- contacts, prospects and friends, looking for new business. Yet, those who are unemployed or dissatisfied with their work struggle to pick up the phone to make just one phone call.

For some people, it's the fear of rejection; for others it's the inability to know exactly what to say. For Tony, it's a breeze. You see, he has scientifically figured out how many calls it takes to get an appointment, how many appointments it takes to get a listing and, most importantly, how much each hang-up call is worth.

Tony sees the phone not as an obstacle, but rather as a stepping-stone to greater success and wealth. So while hundreds of thousands of unemployed people stare at the phone, not knowing what to do, Tony considers it his personal "money line."

A lot of people look upon their phone with fear, yet Tony sees it in a very different light. As he has told me, nothing gets in the way of his calling people. Nothing. Tragically, people who are dejected about not having work fear the phone. They get caught up in their negative emotions about their immediate circumstances and uncertainties about their future. It's a normal human reaction. Have you ever known someone who has been unemployed for months, even years, at a time? It's not that they are unskilled. It's not that nobody out there is hiring.

As a result, they use the same ineffectual approach repeatedly to no avail. They use the same prospecting methods as everybody else and they don't attempt to think outside of the box that they have lived in for so long. They become complacent about who they are and what's going on around them. They sabotage their own potential because they are afraid to use one valuable tool: the phone!

You may think this is a strong opinion, and I can appreciate that. But don't forget that I, too, have been among the ranks of the unemployed. And when you are unemployed, you share the same plateau with professionals and job candidates alike. Your circumstances are identical, no matter what your experience or education is. You feel helpless. You feel incapacitated. You feel uncertain. You feel vulnerable. But you can get over these feelings. Those who learn to use the phone will make more, too.

Call me old-fashioned, but the phone is one of the quickest, most effective means of both reaching and impacting your audience. Don't get me wrong; I love e-mail, too. But when it comes to securing a job, an account, or even a date with the love of your life, there is no better way to do so than by calling these people personally.

A lot of people can't do business over the phone, for some odd reason. They are inexperienced at how to handle conversations and don't feel as though they will have any luck in persuading the contact to call them back. For me, the phone has been the quickest way to get what I want -- and it can be for you, too.

In order for this to work, you need to have a good understanding of the listening, questioning, and basic communication skills that will ensure you receive a response. Your goal in any telephone conversation should be to reflect the customer or prospect's mood, and to ensure him/her that you can meet his/her needs, demands, or expectations at any time.

The final step is to get some type of commitment from them, even if it is to agree to a follow-up conversation. People will have higher expectations of you during a telephone call than they would in person, simply because you initiated the contact. They expect that you have an intimate purpose for communicating with them and for taking a moment of their time.

Everyone's expectations are unique, but every person wants the same thing from you: to get to the bottom of an effective spiel. They want to know what you want from them. So pick up the phone and fill them in -- you'll be glad you did!

** What $3 Million Gets You on a Sunday
By John Hurd, Chief Wealth Researcher

Did you catch the big game yesterday? Now, I'm not much of a sports buff, so I can't really give you my opinions on the game.

Rather, I want to talk about the advertising during and leading up to this game.

Each year, the Super Bowl represents the benchmark in television advertising. No other program brings in as much advertising dollars as the Super Bowl, and this is was no exception.

The average cost for a 30-second spot during this game is about $3 million. And that's just to run the ad; that doesn't include paying the film crews or the actors or the writers. All this adds up to one mind-boggling cost for all of 30 seconds.However, in 30 seconds, you may capture the attention of 90 million views. The math on this works out to paying 3 cents per person to show them a 30-second ad.

Now, of course, not all of these 90 million viewers will see all of these ads. But, if even a small percentage see these ads and are persuaded to purchase whatever product or service is on offer, these companies could make that $3 million back rapidly.

So then, what can a small business owner with a budget much, much smaller than $3 million learn from the Super Bowl ads?

Well, whether you're risking millions or just a fraction of that amount, when advertising, you want to maximize the impact of your ad. Many Super Bowl advertisers go the route of trying to shock you and make you laugh. And, in more recent years, ads have simply become weird. I'm not sure if companies are making a profitable impact with these ads, but since they keep coming back to advertise during the game, I have to assume they are.

For your own advertising, being weird for weird's sake may not be the best route to go. But, leaving an impact on a possible customer is certainly a goal of yours. That means finding out what keeps your customers up at night and appealing to the desire to solve that problem. Focus on one big benefit and make your product or service stand out above the rest.

You see; in the battle for attention, it is important to stand out above your competition. You may have the best price or fastest service, but, in the end, these are simply features of what you can do. You want to take those features and find the benefit behind these and use just one of them (preferably the strongest one) as your sales pitch.

Advertising is more than just trying to sell a product. It is about making a connection with someone who has a problem, a problem your product or service could fix. So, enjoy the humor and oddball antics of Super Bowl ads; but, remember, to truly attract attention, you want to reach potential customers on a personal level and make them believe you're the only person for the job of solving their problem.

** What to Do with Your Grant Payout
By Michael Newman, Self-made Millionaire

If you remember, about two weeks ago, I wrote a series of articles dealing with the different sources you can look to for securing a grant. I mentioned foundations, corporations and federal agencies, and went through what you can expect during the application process and what kind of funding you could likely expect from each. Hopefully, you were able to put some applications together that are currently on the desks of the right decision makers, with your grant money to be in your hands sooner rather than later.

What I may have failed to mention is that what you do with that money is of the utmost importance. You see, as may be expected, grant makers tend to have a fairly watchful eye when it comes to the use of their money. They like to be sure the money is going to support the initiative or cause they've given to and that it's not being used as a personal loan. After all, they are under the impression the money would be put toward reaching specific goals, so if they don't see results materializing, they may pull the plug.

Because of this, if you secure a grant, you need to make sure the funding is being used exactly how it was outlined in your application. It's likely the grant maker will ask you for progress reports, visit your site and even look for receipts to ensure their money is being used the way you had promised, and as the grant maker had intended.

You'll have to avoid the temptation to take some of that money for yourself. If some of the grant money has been officially designated to pay salaries, then you can take some. You must, however, be clear you stick to the allocated amounts and terms of your grant.

Be sure you don't lose the grant money you worked so hard to obtain. Follow the rules outlined in your agreement and build a solid relationship with the grant maker. If you build a solid relationship, the grant maker could become a great source of funding for you well into the future.