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Becoming a Business Owner

Where do I start … How do I know to build a business around my new million dollar idea?

Where do I start? I have a great idea for a new widget, how do I start? How do I sell my idea? I have never done anything like this before. I just don’t know what to do?

It’s late evening on New Years weekend and what followed next was a great 2 hour conversation with friends about business and marketing, online and off line. Our conversation just morphed into a mini-mastermind session. We talked a about how to find manufacturers for the new widget. Who will we sell the widget to and how many do you need to produce to have an inventory. How will we get the word out and what kind of budget do we need. We don’t even have a design for our widget yet. My friends have never owned a business or had brilliant idea for one. They only know about being an employee with the job mentality as Robert Kiyosaki describes in the “Cash Flow Quadrant”. They can easily jump quadrant boundaries.

We never discussed anything about a business plan, but just an encouraging conversation about the possibilities for the new gadget. The potential grew beyond the local market and the types stores that might sell our widget, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Home Depot department stores, DIY Network, online and off line and we discovered endless opportunities.

There are a few things you can do to just get yourself to the door where your opportunity is knocking. Start with your mini-mastermind group. Make sure everyone in the group is positive, encouraging and able to speak freely without judgment. These sessions are about ideas, not about criticism.

Five simple steps will get you on your way.

Step One: Describe in detail what you “think” your great idea is and what makes it so good. When you describe your idea or product in as much detail as you can, you will discover ways to improve or add on pieces to your widget that you have never thought of up to this point.

Step Two: Describe who you “think” your market is or who will buy and use your idea? Will your widget be sold locally? Can you sell your widget online? What type of retail outlets could possibly carry the widget. Can your product be sold digitally online, is this a DIY project?

Step Three: Do some research online. See if anyone else has produced anything like your new widget. Use the internet search engines, Google, yahoo, bing and so on. Get creative about your product and think of as many ways to describe it as you can. How is it used and so on. Write down what you find and book mark any closely relevant sites.

Step Four: Run some keyword searches to see if your widget is a solution to anyone’s problem. Again use Google and the keyword search tools to identify things within the scope of your new widget to understand what kinds of searches people are doing to solve the problems that your product will solve.

Step Five: Write down your findings, keep a journal. Remember, you are just in the research phase right now. You need to have a good understanding of your market, do other people share the same problems you do and how are they dealing with them. Keep notes, as the notes will shine light on even more opportunity than you think you have. These notes may help you create an even better product for a whole new market.

Using your mini-mastermind group to brainstorm with will be the most eye opening. You may have to remind your group that today we all must assume this product will be well received. You want ideas for success, you are not yet concerned about “how” you will get this product to market. The “how” will come in time, people will enter into your life to help develop your new widget. Don’t worry about the “how” YET, that is not as important as the research you do about your market and opportunities.

To take your million dollar idea and make a million you have to start somewhere. Starting a business is scary for some and easy for others break it down into simple steps. Take them one at a time and learn from the greatest masterminds of our time about business development, networking, personnel, taxes, becoming more than you are today so you can have more than you have today. Click here now to find the worlds best to help you create your dream.

Only you can make it better, but I would love to help if I can!

May you be Blessed with His massive abundance.
Gary

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Why Business Owners Should Close the Doors

by Gary · 0 comments

Why small business owners should close the doors, find a job let some one else screw with recession headaches.

What are we going to do now? We have owned our own businesses for years, done pretty well and this recession has really tightened things up. The feds are going to screw things up for us, increase our operating costs, taxes and may end up regulating our small businesses too. Now what?

As a small business owner for the last 25 years, I find myself asking myself these questions: Could I work for someone else … no not really, I am almost unemployable. Could I sell my business .. maybe, but not for the value it was worth 3 years ago. The economy has always come back before so can I hang on long enough to turn the corner? How deep in debt do I go? Who will extend more credit in times like this?

Personally, I have cut my overhead back by 20% by reducing personnel. The economy will come back and my business may be just small enough to slip under the radar of the feds massive mandates. Tax increases will be another story. So how do we play the next 12 – 20 months? I must tell you though, today I am doing better than ever before. I just changed my strategy.

You and I have many things in common. We are both looking for new or better ways to improve our revenues. Two years ago I had a feeling, some gnawing sense to start looking for additional revenue streams, multiple sources of income, something passive. I still have my business, but should the new income source, be tied to the day to day or should I create a new business?

I studied. I read. I searched the web. All looking for business owners like me. What, where, who and when? Come up with a plan. What I found to be the most common link between wealthy entrepreneurs was Real Estate. So I spent 16 months buying rental properties which will pay a modest passive income as long as you can keep paying tenants in the property. This goes for residential or commercial property. As we all know now, the residential market crashed and commercial properties are next. Businesses are closing, stores have little revenue, and the upcoming holiday sales are going to be extremely lean. That will put the commercial property owners in the same situation as homeowners.

My research also lead me to learn to market my product differently. At 52, I don’t really know how to use the internet yet! I told myself “I can learn” and so can you, so lets go. Don’t close your doors yet!

The biggest wealth generator is Info-Marketing. Information marketing on the web. Creating lists of buyers wanting to buy your product. Selling products electronically to buyers all over the country and around the world. We can focus on a smaller product line and deeper penetration into our niche market. The niche markets are so much easier to create when we now have online buyers wanting to buy our product. Our product can simply be an ebook on the “How To Run a Successful Small Business” or a monthly newsletter, business coaching or marketing someone else’s information. The subject doesn’t really matter because there is a market for just about anything.

What does matter is the system to deliver the information or product. There are many systems on the internet that will deliver your product to buyers with credit cards in hand. I have found several concepts that do just this.

1 – Blogging. Write about things that you are an expert on in a blog. Create a following (a list) of people that want to know more of what you know. Then monetizing that list with your “product”.

2 – Author. Write an ebook on any subject that you know something about and marketing that book on the web to your list that will buy the book online from you. The book could actually be just about any product you can imagine. An ebook just doesn’t have the over head expenses of manufacturing.

3 – Affiliate Marketing. Becoming an affiliate marketer of someone else’s products. You make a commission every time someone buys the product through your referral id for as long as your ad is on the internet.

4 – Article marketing. Write article and have them posted to many different article directories and e-zines and the like. This is one of my favorites and is easy to learn. Use links back to your blog or website.

5 – Network marketing. Creating a network of people selling or referring your products or a funded proposal while earning a commission. This gives an entrepreneur the greatest leverage of all as you build a network of people distributing product while all profit along the way. This is the biggest residual income producer of all.

All five of these opportunities are good, all by themselves, for creating a list of people to work with. Consider this, combine 2 or 3 or maybe 4 of these marketing ideas together. I have mentors and friends that are making 5 and 6 figure monthly incomes by combining these together. I had to open my mind to new techniques, to get my mind around ideas that will provide more income in a month than I ever made in a year. No it wasn’t the traditional brick and mortar businesses that I was used to with salesman on the street, but simply an idea on the internet turned into a profitable revenue source month after month. Growing month over month.

Don’t close your doors yet. Step out of your comfort zone, have faith in your God and know that you are not just reading these comments by accident. You clicked on this page by design. You can count on my resource links taking you to new heights and they will provide you with all that you can imagine. We will assist you, train you, and teach you the intricacies of info marketing. In just a few short weeks you can be on your way.

To your massive abundance,

Gary

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Mondays are best

by Gary · 0 comments

Mondays are the best! They are the best day of the week bar none. Mondays give us new energy. They give us another 6 days to complete / finish the projects that we need to finish this week. My Mondays are a positive day because I know that what ever I do … that I can get things done, on time and in profit. Fridays on the other hand is possibly the worst or maybe I should say the craziest day of the week.

Yes, I know everyone looks forward to Fridays, TGIF and all of that stuff, but Friday is the day that whatever you didn’t complete during the week you call me and now it’s my problem. I have to make something happen today or Monday and Tuesday are upside down.

In many ways I am thrilled, flattered and challenged all at the same time. It may be the end of the week and your customer is in a panic, they wont call your competition because they don’t get the job done or they are out playing golf on Fridays (or the day you need them most). You know as well as I do you only call the guy that you can count on to deliver your project on time. If you are like me be grateful. Yes, it is stressful but the client needs you today and again next Friday. We make our money by being in demand, finding a way to be the only one the client thinks of to resolve “their” challenge. You ARE the best! You CAN find the answer and DELIVER!

Tell Me … What do you do to solve the challenge of the day? Are your Mondays better than Friday’s? Leave me your thoughts, I’d love to hear about your best days. Am I odd? I know this is a random post but just my outlook for the coming week.

May you be blessed with massive abundance!

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