Listen to this post.

“The goal is not to do business with everyone that needs what you have. The goal is to do business with those that believe what you believe.” – Simon Sinek

It’s no secret. If you don’t have customers, in any business, you won’t be in business for very long.

If customers are the livelihood of businesses why then would any entrepreneur not want to transact with just anyone who is willing to give them their money for their product or their service? After all, aren’t profits the best market indicator that we are producing something that customers want?

What if I was to tell you that your goal as an entrepreneur should not be to do business with everyone that is willing to give you money? What if I was to tell you that there is such a thing as doing business with the wrong customer?

What if I was to tell you that to attract the right customers and to have your product enter mass-market, you should only focus on just 13.5% of the market?

Would you think I am crazy?

How to Target the Wrong Customers

There are plenty of ways to get willing customers in through your door or into your online store. One of those ways is through manipulations.

In reality, most stores today use this tactic to get people to shop and buy their products. In fact, I am willing to bet that you’ve given in to a manipulation at some point within the last couple of days.

Manipulations in sales, aren’t necessarily a bad thing (although they sound bad) and work extremely well, for all intent and

purposes. But as we’ll soon see manipulations have one significant flaw rendering them useless for entrepreneurs who seek longevity in the market and who are not looking for short-term success.

Let me ask you a question.

Have you ever purposely walked into a store because the retailer was running a special offer that weekend? Almost everyone has!

Maybe you walked into a Best Buy to make a LCD TV purchase but noticed that if you instead made the LED TV purchase, same size and configuration, you would get a $250 rebate, so you opted for the LED TV.

Or, perhaps you walked into your favorite clothing store to buy a new shirt, but noticed that if you bought 2 shirts at regular price you would get a 3^rd shirt for free and opted to buy 2 shirts, instead.

Both scenarios I just described demonstrate a form of buyer manipulation which, like I mentioned earlier, totally works and gets customers to buy!

But let me ask you another question.

Have those stores earned your loyalty as a customer or will you flock to another store that has even better deals if the opportunity arises?

I think the answer to that question is obvious and that is the major flaw in attracting the right customers, which also deters any opportunity that you may have to build a loyal customer base.

The Law of Diffusion of Innovations

The Law Of Diffusion of Innovation, introduced by Everett M. Rogers, explains how innovations spread through society and states that our population is broken into five segments that fall along a bell curve.

1. Innovators (2.5%) – This group pursues new products or ideas aggressively and are intrigued by any fundamental advance. They are a very small percentage of the population that challenge the rest of us to think and see the world a little differently.

2. Early Adopters (13.5%) – This group appreciates and recognize the value brought on by new ideas and technologies and are willing to suffer an inconvenience or espouse an idea that feels right. They are not idea generators but rely on intuition to make decisions. They trust their gut. Early adopters are also willing to spread new ideas and give referrals of products they really like, without incentives.
3. Early Majority (34%) – This group is more practically minded although slightly comfortable with new ideas and technologies. However, they will not try a new product until someone has tried it first.
4. Late Majority (34%) – This group is also practically minded. Practical factors matter more and will not try something until someone else has tried it first.
5. Laggards (16%) – This group usually only accepts new technologies or ideas because they have no other options. These are the people who are using touch-phones because rotary phones are no longer available.

The farther you move to the right of the bell-curve, the less your customers actually believe in your product or your service and the more they just need it. If your goal is to attract the right customers and have much better chances of having your product enter the mass-market, where then do you focus all of your efforts?

13.5% That Believe in Your Cause

As Entrepreneurs, we shouldn’t look at what we do as selling a product or a service. We should sell a cause, a belief, a purpose.

Given what we know about the Law of Diffusion of Innovations, which group does this methodology align with the most? The Early Adopters.

This group not only believes what you believe, they also believe in your product or your service, they are usually willing to experience some sort of inconvenience to be first to have your product, they are willing to spread the word and tell others how great your product is without incentives and they are loyal to the cause.

These are the people who line up and wait for days and even weeks to get the new iPhone or the new iPad before launch.

Why do they do this when they can simply walk in to an Apple store a few weeks later and buy a fresh one off the shelves?

They do it because they believe in Apple cause which is to challenge the status quo in everything they do, to think differently, and to make beautifully designed products are a user-friendly and they want to show the world that they were the first to have them!

You see, Apple’s goal is not to attract all customers by selling their products. They attract the ‘right’ customers that believe what they believe.  Those customers then spread the word about how great their product are to the Early Majority sector of the Market but remember, the Early Majority will not try your products until someone else has verified its value, which is why Early Adopters are so important.

Laws, Why’s and Marketing

The Law of Diffusion of Innovation clearly helps you identify which sector of the market you should target to attract the right customers to your business. What is doesn’t do is help you identify who those customers are or help you in identifying your WHY – your cause, your belief, your purpose.

Your primary goal should be to identify what your WHY is and to take massive action in marketing your WHY so that you can naturally attract 13.5% of all the customers in market that will anxiously await to enjoy what you have to offer, every time!

If you are an entrepreneur or planning to start your business, your personal credit score plays a critical role in getting you finances. Obtaining financial support is still very difficult especially for small business owners, particularly those who have bad credit history. Most lenders check your credit scores to judge the business owners’ credibility and many individuals have compromised scores because of severe illness, divorce, or even a careless attitude towards managing a good credit score.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of a lot of things on how you can improve your credit. But what you don’t know may hurt your score. It’s best to learn more about the truth. Here are some surprising tips for you to improve your credit score and establish your business.

Check credit report regularly

Every individual is allowed to get a free credit report annually, but it is always recommended to check it more often so that you can be alerted of any bad credit, identity theft, errors or any other discrepancies. Your credit score depends on your credit report and represents your financial credibility. Monitor your credit score regularly and take measures to improve it if it is low by corrective the reasons for which it is low.

Use your credit card

Yes! That’s right, use your card. Paying in cash may be something you want to do all the time. Maybe you have in your mind that it’ll be a good idea for your credit card too. Not using your credit card will get you nowhere. You won’t be able to boost it without using it. The key to this is that you should use your card wisely. You have to check your credit report regularly as well.  It’s best to use your card and not exceed the limit, and try to stay 25% below it. If your account is cancelled for non-use, it will be hard for you to get another reopened.

Finish off smaller balances first

You may feel the need to pay off the steepest debt you have on your record, but finishing small balances will boost your score faster and will keep you within the good credit range. This may be an unusual technique, but what you do is you pay the lowest balance on your card first, and then you pay minimum balances on the others, and so on.

Keep small balances on multiple cards

Credit card companies don’t like seeing people with one or two cards with maxed out limits. They would think that you are living off your credit if your balances are very high. It’s tempting to charge everything in a single card to get freebies or reward points but it’s better to distribute it on other cards and to stay within the limit.

Don’t apply for multiply cards at one time

When you apply for a lot of credit lines all at once, it makes credit bureaus suspicious. It is better to obtain just one and build up your credit history. That way, lenders will see as trustworthy and you’ll make them feel more comfortable with you as a borrower.

Always remember that when you are trying to improve your credit, you have to be patient. Boosting or repairing your credit really takes some time. There are more ways for you to improve your credit. Just be careful about scams and follow these tips. You’ll have a better credit score in no time.

Guest Post By:

Joy Mali is an active blogger and shares extremely interesting financial management tips over the web that encourages people to check credit their score regularly & build a working credit report to lead a happy financial life.

There is no single method for running a successful online business. Sure, there are plenty of things you can get wrong. But there are enough successful internet entrepreneurs around to inspire others to try to get things right just as they have.

If you happen to be one of them, ready to embark on this exciting yet nerve-wracking journey to more freedom and a bigger income, you’d better be prepared. As you’ll soon discover, success as an Internet entrepreneur is far from easy to attain. It entails a steep learning curve, and you’d better be ready to climb it – even when it feels too steep to handle without oxygen!

With that in mind, here are some tips I’ve found useful in making my own journey up that learning curve towards entrepreneurial success.

If you fail to expect hiccups, you can expect to fail

No entrepreneur gets to where they are today without tripping and stumbling along the way. Be aware that you will fail occasionally – maybe quite a bit to begin with – and you will make mistakes. But that’s no reason to get off the learning curve before you’ve even properly begun.

The funny thing is any mistake you make will seem a lot worse if you hadn’t expected it in advance. I’m not saying you should convince yourself you’ll fail at something. But I am saying you’ll fare better when you do make a mistake if you have already accepted that some things are going to go wrong. Entrepreneurs can’t be perfectionists, plain and simple. If you think about it for a moment you’ll see it’s true. Entrepreneurs forge ahead and try new things, knowing not all of them will succeed. But the ones who do more than make up for the failures. Does that sound like a perfectionist to you? I thought not.

Accept that there is a LOT you don’t yet know

You can read. You can study the life stories of all the entrepreneurs you can think of. You can put a coherent business plan together and work out your finances to ensure you are ready to get started as an internet entrepreneur. But you still have to set foot on that learning curve and it is only then that you will find out everything you don’t know.

The trick is to face every challenge and know that once you gain that next piece of knowledge you need, you’ll progress further on that learning curve. The higher you go, the more you can achieve.

Be prepared to educate yourself along the way

There are lots of ways to get educated as an internet entrepreneur. Similarly there are plenty of things you might need to learn more about. You may not be able to afford to pay someone else to set up a website for you to begin with for example, so you’d need to figure out how to do it on your own.

Don’t dismiss the idea of getting some further education by way of tutoring, home study courses or anything similar if you find you need to build your knowledge in a particular area. It will pay huge dividends later on, especially if you can put your new skills to good use in several areas of your business.

Don’t be fooled by the appearance of the learning curve

A learning curve is often shown as a line that starts off low and gradually curves upwards, getting steeper as it goes. But as you’re probably starting to realize, it actually has a far less uniform appearance. Everyone’s learning curve will be entirely different too, so make sure you bear this in mind when starting your own journey as an Internet entrepreneur.

This is guest post written by Allison from UKTutors.com, providing tutors for a wide range of students.

Education is the portal to progression. Whether it’s through the name of the institution alone, or the skills you acquire through your time at college; it’s much easier to make it in life if you have an education than if you battle through without one.

With the pros are also cons: debt. Unless you come from an affluent background, you’re going to be borrowing money. This scares some people in to a mindset that limits them from taking risk, or thinking themselves free to pursue something that might pay off.

Going to college isn’t only about the education you get in class, but also the education you can get in life.

Become an Internet Entrepreneur

The basics of making money online are only a Google search away. Creating opportunities for passive income can see you earn while you sleep; a position some of the most successful businessmen and women in the world want to be. This is great way for you to make the best of your course and pay down your debts at the same time.

Choosing a niche that makes the best of your knowledge and passion is the key. Choose something you care deeply about; something you don’t mind working on almost every day. You might choose to link this to your degree. For example, if your course is in computer science, you might choose to blog on particular Internet trends. Equally, you could choose to blog on Football, if the passion is there. Whatever you love, a subject you follow to the point of obsession is a great subject for a blog.

Financial Intelligence

The way you treat money is important. When I was at college, most of my friends got in to severe debt because they lived in a “spend, spend, spend” mentality. It was the most expensive sneakers, the high-end branded jeans, the latest (and sometimes unnecessary), tech gadgets. Some could do that because their parents were funding their education, while others had to live with a heavy financial hangover afterwards because they chose to keep up with the ones who were already affluent. Don’t be one of those people. Buy what you need, as opposed to needing what you buy.

I’m not saying don’t enjoy yourself. I’m saying be aware of what you are spending while you enjoy yourself. Set yourself a budget for your nights out, your clothing, food and your holidays. Live within your means. Keep a pocket book listing purchases and remain financially sober. Better still, use a smart-phone app.

Earn as much as you can and look for interesting opportunities where you can earn a good lump sum in a short space of time. Medical testing for money is a great example of this. Give up two weeks of you time and be paid up to $2500, or £2000. With the opportunity of up to four paid medical trials a year, you could earn $10,000, or £8,000. Consider how much of a dent that could make in your student debt, or how much debt it stops you taking on.

Wealth Building

The fundamental key to wealth building is multiple income streams. The most successful Entrepreneurs in the world have one thing in common: their business portfolios are made up of several businesses, which is why they can stay afloat when times are tough. There’s no reason why a student couldn’t replicate the same strategy on a smaller scale if part of their strategy involves a passive income – you are at college to study, after all.

Research those you admire and see how they did it. What lessons do they offer that could improve your financial situation.

Choice

It’s entirely up to you how you choose to spend your student years. Learning how to create wealth for yourself will put you in a great position when you graduate. Learn how to make money for yourself and you’ll never have to rely on making it for someone else.

Guest post contributed by Sally Shaws, a freelance writer who regularly blogs about ways to boost your finances and paying off debt. She is also currently writing about the process of volunteering for GSK paid medical trials and joining a volunteer panel as a means to raise your income.

As an Internet entrepreneur, you’re all about online innovation. You’re already making money off your website through advertisements, so why not taking it a step further and become and e-commerce entrepreneur? If you’re worried about charging your website visitors when they’re used to everything on your site being free, think again.

Facebook used to be completely free, and, although it’s still free to use, some games require players to pay for extras. While the money still goes to the game developer, Facebook still sees a cut of the profits. Google started out as a search engine and the company now provides additional services, such as Google AdWords. PlentyofFish offers a paid subscription to the gold membership accounts, but basic dating profiles are free of charge.

All of these things cost money, but there’s no physical store where customers can go to pay—so they have to pay over the Internet. I’ve spoken with several entrepreneurs who have never accepted credit cards online. While they didn’t fully understand how it worked, they still imagined the process as being pretty easy. There’s a lot more to accepting online payments than including a form on your site for customers to type in their name and credit card number—but it’s still pretty simple. In fact, it’s so simple that I’ve narrowed it down to these five basic steps.

Step 1: Figure out what you’re going to sell.

You’ve always provided free services to your website visitors. Now it’s time to join the world of e-commerce and make a profit off of them. Maybe you’re a book author and you want to start selling your books on your website. Maybe you run an online news site and you want to limit how many articles your visitors can view for free (paying writers isn’t cheap, you know!). Or maybe you have a financial advising site and want to offer one-on-one counseling for a small fee.

Step 2: Apply for a merchant account.

Simply put, a merchant account is a special type of bank account that allows businesses to accept credit cards. However, there are different types of merchant accounts. There are e-commerce merchant accounts for online businesses, MOTO merchant accounts for businesses that accept credit cards through mail orders and telephone orders, and there are point-of-sale merchant accounts for businesses with stores where customers can physically swipe their cards.

Being an e-commerce entrepreneur, you’re going to want an e-commerce merchant account. When you apply for a merchant account, your merchant account provider will require you to submit certain documents in order to complete the underwriting process. These underwriting documents typically include:

• - Business and marketing plan
• - Photo ID, including a drivers license or passport
• - Résumé or CV
• - Personal bank reference letter
• - Utility bill

Step 3: Set up your payment gateway.

Once your merchant account provider approves you for a merchant account, you’ll need to integrate a payment gateway to your website. A payment gateway is an online application that connects your website’s server and your merchant account provider’s server. It also sends your customers’ credit card information to the issuing bank in a secure, encrypted message to approve or deny the transaction. Once you set up your payment gateway, you’ll be able to log into your account and manage your transactions—approve orders, cancel orders, view transaction history, and more.

Step 4: Set up your shopping cart.

Now that you’re website is equipped with a merchant account and payment gateway, you’ll need to find a suitable shopping cart to integrate with your website. Not all shopping carts are compatible with all payment gateways, so it’s really important you get a merchant account and payment gateway before you set up your shopping cart. When looking for a shopping cart, look for features that you know you’ll need, including:

• - PCI-compliant
• - Payment type options (credit card, e-check, gift card, coupons, etc)
• - Multi-currency support
• - Shipping options (UPS, FedEx, USPS, etc)
• - Customizable layout designs

Also keep in mind that there are hundreds of free and open source shopping carts—meaning they won’t cost you a even a penny.

Step 5: Optimize your site to protect customer payment information.

Now that you’re accepting credit cards online as an e-commerce entrepreneur, you’re also accepting the fact that you now have an additional responsibility. You also have to protect your customers’ credit card information. While your payment gateway secures the data in an encrypted message, getting an SSL (secure socket layer) certificate is a standard rule of thumb for e-commerce websites. An SSL certificate provides extra encryption while letting your customers know your website is hard at work protecting their personal credit card information from identity theft and fraud.

You also need to make sure you are protecting your website’s servers with up-to-date anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spyware, and anti everything else that could potentially put your network and your customers’ information at risk.

As Easy As 1, 2, 3 (4, 5)

Once you’ve finished all of the above five steps, you’ll be ready to take the plunge from Internet entrepreneur to e-commerce entrepreneur. When the money starts rolling in, you’ll see that the time you spent toward accepting credit cards through your website was well worth it.

Guest Author:

Meghan Faye Wolff is the senior copywriter and marketing specialist for Instabill Corporation. Instabill provides domestic, international, and offshore credit card processing solutions to e-commerce and MOTO merchants worldwide. Meghan writes about social media marketing, tips for start-up businesses, and e-commerce and payments industry news on the Instabill blog

Breaking away from away from the herd mindset of ‘being a corporate employee’ and into the world of entrepreneurship is the first step to a more financially prosperous life and a more financially secure future, if you succeed as an entrepreneur.

In fact, that may be the reason why you decided to become an entrepreneur. You realize that working a 9-5 job for the rest of your life is just not going to cut it for the standard of living you want to achieve.

As someone who values leisure, I want to be able to make more money today, and for the rest of my life, to be able to maintain and even increase my standard of living. I want to travel more, consume more, experience more and devote more time to my wife and myself.

To do that, it means I need to make more sales and earn more money from my client/customers.

Nothing to it! Pretty simple, right?

But, what happens when making money as an Internet Entrepreneur and as a free-markets capitalist feels like a bad thing?

My First $356 Earned

When I first started my journey as an Internet Entrepreneur I was so ready to leave my job, quit building someone else’s dream and start building my own – that I jumped right into it.

At the time, I had just learned an Internet Marketing strategy known as a funded proposal and was starting to heavily engage myself in top-tier direct selling.

I started my blog as a way to connect with other like-minded people, share my knowledge and bring awareness to different Internet businesses and ways of making money as an Internet Entrepreneur.

After about 8 months of hard work building my blog and traffic generation I made my first sale which generated me a $175 commission.

I remember getting a text message from my automated system telling me I had made a sale. I quickly got on the phone and gave my client a call. After about a 15-minute conversation with this client, he then proceeded to purchase a couple of domains through one of my affiliate links. This generated me another $81 dollars. My client was new to Internet business and I offered my ad-campaign marketing services on my blog to drive traffic to his website. We negotiated a 2-month contract for $100 and I was thrilled!

I had finally discovered how to make money as an Internet Entrepreneur!

Everything was great for a day or so but then I started feeling a little guilty for having actually made some  money.

I mean – would my client ever really know how to become profitable himself? Had I really sold him anything of value? Had I really earned my first $356?

It Was Guilt!

I was so ready to change the quality of my life that I had no time to think about how I would feel after I had started making money as an Internet Entrepreneur.

I’ve come across so many people who have had this same problem before and after making money that I’ve literally coined Profitability Guilt.

Interestingly enough, every single person that I’ve known that has had this problem is a former full-time employee or someone who is working on becoming a full-time entrepreneur.

I believe profitability guilt arises from the years of conditioning we receives as employees.  For years, we’re conditioned to believe that if we’re not trading 8-hours a day for 2-weeks, then we should not receive a paycheck or get paid.

That mindset and that conditioning is completely contradictory to making $356 in less than one-hour. Psychologists call this Cognitive Dissonance.

In other words, you and I know that making $356 in less than an hour is a great thing that could definitely change our standard of living for the better if we could consistently do that throughout the span of a ‘work-day’, right?

I mean, $356 an hour translates to $2,848 a day or $14,240 a week. Talk about life changing income!

But wait a minute – making that much money and not having to do to do so much work for it is wrong! That’s not how we’re supposed to get paid! Not sitting in a cubicle for 8 hours a day isn’t right. You see, we are conditioned to believe that if we are not at work and slaving away in a cubicle then we should not be making money.

Nothing Funny About The Money

As an Internet Entrepreneur this mindset is critical to overcome because it can completely stop you in your tracks and you can literally fail in business because of it.

What I realized after much reflection is that profits in business are nothing more than a reward to you by your customers.

A Reward? You ask. Of course!

In other words, just because you decide to go into business for yourself it does not mean you’re guaranteed to succeed. In fact, failures rate are very high!

So what better indicator do you have by the free-markets that you are producing something people actually want, if not profits!

Profits in business tell you that you are providing something people want and they:

1. Cannot gather the resources to produce themselves or;
2. Do not want to have to produce themselves

The fist sale I made which generated my $175 commission was Internet Marketing education. Was that valuable information to have for someone who wanted to start an Internet Business? Of course it was.

Did my domain host receive value from the $81 commission they pad me? Of course they did. I brought them a new customer whom will likely remain a customer as long as he is in business and who will refer other people himself.

Did I provide value by selling ad-space on my blog for $100 to my client? Of course I did. I had spent 8-months prior to that building a great blog, generating quality content and learning how to drive traffic that he would benefit from.

In other words, there was nothing funny about the money I earned. My profits were a reward by the free-market for proving quality products and services that my customers benefited from.

Overcome The Guilt

Do you feel guilty at the end of the work-period for collecting a paycheck? No, right? You traded your time and your special skill set for your employers money.

So why then would you feel guilty for taking money from people who are basically telling you “I want to give you my money because I believe I am going to receive something of value from what you have to offer”?

It seems like a simple concept to overcome, and it is! But this is a mindset conditioning that stops so many people in their entrepreneurial tracks.

Don’t fall into the guilt trap. Learn to recondition your mindset  and adopt the free-market perspective that Profits and making money in business is nothing more than a direct reflection of the value that you have produced for others.

Mastermind:

Is Profitability Guilt something that you experienced? If so, when did you experience it – before or after making your first sale? Have you overcome it? How did you over come it?

Listen to this post.

Part of being an Internet Entrepreneur is, knowing how economic forces may or may not affect your business strategy.  If prices of certain material or production labor increase you will certainly look for more competitive pricing to remain profitable in your market.

As business owners or as consumers, we always look for the best pricing so that we can more ‘bang for our buck’ so to speak. If you spend any time looking for the best deals in town when making purchases why then wouldn’t you spend the same amount of time (or more) learning how to preserve your purchasing power?

It’s a question that is not often asked because not too many people think from that perspective. It requires a little more exposure to economics and financial literacy but if you like getting more stuff for your money, it makes total sense to ask it.

Fiat Currencies

Now that I’ve sparked intrigue within you on how to preserve your purchasing power, let’s first talk about what your purchasing power is.

According to Wikipedia, Purchasing Power is nothing more than the amount of good and services you can exchange (buy) for a unit of currency.

In other words, taking our example from the article I wrote a few weeks back discussing why gas prices are rising, if you could fill up your gas tank with $50 in 2008 but are now spending $75 to fill up that same gas tank, you’re purchasing power was greater in 2008 because you could buy more gas then at a cheaper price.

Rising gas prices, in this case, are a result of inflation otherwise known as monetary expansion (regardless of what the media may tell you). In simple terms, Inflation is money printing.

At this moment in time, there is no currency in the world that is backed by a physical asset (this includes the U.S dollar), which makes it easy for the government to print money at will in hopes of ‘stimulating the economy’.

Through out history, going as far back as ancient Greece, Gold and Silver have always been regarded as real money. In fact, prior to 1971 the U.S dollar still had some ties to gold. However, today the dollar is backed by nothing more than the confidence of governmental power around the world – it’s a fiat currency.

Wait. Wait. Did you catch that?

The dollar you work so hard to earn maintains the value that governments around the world think it has, the keyword being ‘think’. I say this because although our government can tell us that a dollar is worth what they say it is, markets around the world still have to believe what they say. In other words, the markets (those who have a demand for dollars) set dollar values relative to other currencies.

In real terms however, dollars are as valuable as the heat that can be generated from setting them a blaze because no physical assets back them.

The Big Question You Want Answered

So now you know that inflation destroys your dollars and that in real terms they are basically just pieces of paper that, god forbid, if tomorrow all confidence was lost would be as good as toilet paper, you still have the main question unanswered.

The Stash I Keep At Home

You want to know how to preserve your purchasing power!

I’m going to give you the answer but before I do you have to understand one thing. And that is that in today’s economic theory, when economic problems arise our government response by throwing more money at the problems in hopes that they get better.

We saw this in 2008 when money was given to the big banks, in the form of Bailouts, which had made incredibly risky bets to prevent them from going bankrupt.

In some instance this helps in the short-term and economic conditions may get better. But this is just short-lived prosperity, which ultimately diminishes, and the effects return with a vengeance because the root problems are never addressed.

Since the creation of the Federal Reserve back in 1913, the bank responsible for U.S monetary policy, the dollar has lost an average value of 98% of its purchasing power. This means that if this trend continues, which is likely it will, the dollar will soon have no value at all.

In fact, according to Mike Maloney who is a very well-respected Financial Intelligence coach and Investment advisor to Robert Kiyosaki, all fiat currencies throughout history have failed and eventually return to their intrinsic value, which is zero.

So, how do you preserve your wealth? The answer is very simple – you buy precious metals.

In other words, you buy gold and you buy silver. Again, these metals have throughout history haven been regarded as the only ‘real’ money that is universal money through out all cultures and all countries.

Since 2008 alone, Gold has appreciated 88% and Silver has appreciated 106% and many money experts say they will go much higher in this decade.

So there you have it. Buy gold and silver today while it is still relatively cheap and preserve your purchasing power for a financially secure future.

Mastermind:

How much experience do you have purchasing Gold and Silver? If you are hoarding dollars, what are you doing currently to make them grow in the coming years?

Listen to this post.

In an economy where more spending by consumers is considered to be evidence of a live and thriving economy, yesterday’s news could not have been better for economists who subscribe to that school of thought.

Yesterday the Commerce Department reported that retail sales were higher than expected and increased in March by .8%.

With that said, let me point out that the figures reported above are not adjusted for inflation. In other words, the increase in retails 

sales could very well represent an increase in prices due to inflation.

It’s ridiculous to me how many economists believe that just because Americans are spending more money this automatically suggests we have a rebounding economy.

Obviously, I don’t subscribe to their school of thought.

Telling me that the economy is doing much better simply because I now spending more money to buy the same products that I bought the month before doesn’t mean that I am buying more with my money.

All that means is that I now have to spend more to buy the same products, which in turn means that I have to work harder to be able to afford those products.

It’s Nothing More Than Inflation

Of course, gasoline prices are not considered in the figures reported by the Commerce Department above but we all know that gas prices are considerably higher today than they were at this time, last year.

I recently wrote an article explaining why gas prices are rising and I attribute this to the same factor, which is inflation.

So let me ask you a question.

If you’re income stream is constant and you spend $75 to fill up your gas tank in comparison to last year when you only had to spend $60 to fill up that same gas tank, are you any better off financially because you spend more money today for the same product or do you now have to work more to fill up?

I’m not trying to insult your intelligence. It’s a rhetorical question. But the government is!

They want you to believe that we have a healthy economy and that you are more financially prosperous today because you are now spending more money!

Does that make sense to you, because it doesn’t to me!

Here’s another interesting fact. The largest increase in retail sales reported was 3% in building and garden supply retailers.

Did people all over the country all of sudden decide that amidst all this economic prosperity they were going to invest in their gardens? No!

Listen, I am pretty health conscious person, and of course I don’t do it always, but I try not to eat as much junk food. So recently I decided to start juicing. If you’re familiar with what Juicing is, I essentially juice vegetables and replace 1 or 2 meals a day with juice.

Well last week I spent about $75 in organic vegetables to produce 10 service worth of Juice. It’s expensive to be healthy and eat right these days!

I think, and this is just pure speculation at this point, that people are starting to feel the pain of buying everyday vegetables at super market and are willing to make the investment to day to grow their own vegetables because they know it will pay off in the long run.

I mean, it’s no joke! I’ve considered doing that myself.

When You Lose It

When you lose it, you’ll put it somewhere else. I am not talking about your mind. I am talking about your money. At least I hope you put it somewhere else.

When financially intelligent people and those concerned with their wealth lose confidence in their purchasing power they will put their money where they believe that purchasing power will be preserved. In this case, they will buy gold and silver.

This is precisely what we saw in March.

Gold prices rose an average of 1.78%, from $1742.62 in February to $1773.77 in March, during the same time period where were I believer saw higher inflation.

So again, don’t be fooled by government reports. Our economy is not getting better and I don’t say this to bring gloom and doom.

I would love just as any other person to see my country be a prosperous one. I tell you this so that you can be more conscious about how you spend your hard earned money and so that you make a conscious decision today, towards preservation of wealth for your future.

Mastermind:

Did you shop more in March? Did you notice or feel price increases in your bank account? If prices continue to increase, how will your spending  habits be effected?

Please leave a comment below and share this post. I am always interested in your thoughts and they add to my research.

Listen to this post.

In most studies, when asked people said that their No.1 fear is Public Speaking. Death came in second.

This means that most people would prefer to die than to get up in front of a crowd and deliver the most electrifying speech of their life.

Now, as someone who has studied this concept I can tell you that for most people, the fear of public speaking originates from the programs our subconscious mind has built and carried from the time we were kids.

Without getting to deep into the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind, I’ll give a perfect example of a program that could very well be the reason why you fear public speaking.

Do you remember when you were a kid in elementary school and you went up in front of class during ‘show-and-tell’ to tell the class why your toy Dinosaur was so special? But as soon as you went up in front of the class, the other kids started pointing at you and laughing.  You panicked, had no clue why you were being laughed at, your teacher interfered and you started crying. It turns out you zipper was down.

From there on out, your subconscious mind built the program that you should not get up and speak in front of people or you would be laughed at.

Biological Issue

Believe it or not, the fear of Public Speaking is a biological issue, not psychological one. It arises from that fact that we, as humans, are no different than most other animals and have a biological need to be ‘liked’ and to ‘belong’.

In other words, if you were to do anything that would cause others to think badly of you, such as giving a speech and making a fool out yourself, other would not like you and therefore you would be alienated and separated from the group.

Public Speaking can be so traumatic to some people that they would simply prefer to not try at all. Yet, the very act of being able to deliver an electrifying speech, move an audience and inspire through the spoken word is one of the most important characteristics of successful leaders and entrepreneurs, and very well the reason why you should re-program your subconscious mind.

My Speaking Engagement in April

I could have taken a very different path in life. So different that I am positive if that were to have been the case, I would not have written this article and you would not be reading this post, right now. In fact, given my background I am considered to be a success story, that rose from poverty to obtain an education, obtain a corporate profession and inspire many others to better themselves as well, just as I did.

Although I often talk about the realities of being a corporate employee and the absurd cost of an education these days, I am proud to be that inspiration others can look to when deciding to educate themselves.

My mentor came to me in early February and asked if I would give the best speech of my life.

The speech would be for a 10-year anniversary Gala and the audience would consist of 400 of the most respected corporate executives in the City of Houston.

Although I normally don’t have a problem with speaking in front of crowds, immediately a part of me had some hesitation.  I have never given a speech in front of a crowd like this and I was definitely going to be out of my comfort zone.

But as soon as I felt that hesitation, I knew that by doing the speech I would not only get out of my comfort zone, I would work towards reprogramming any subconscious speaking limitations and that I would grow as a person, as a leader and as an entrepreneur.

When the CEO of large company offers to personally coach you to become an excellent public speaker and deliver the best speech of you life, you better say ‘Yes!’

Public Speaking as an Entrepreneur

I’ve learned that you don’t have to be very smart to be successful in life. Conversely, if you are smart that doesn’t guarantee success – of course, the factor being having the ability to public speak.

As an entrepreneur, it’s inevitable!

If you want to succeed as an Entrepreneur or even as an Internet Entrepreneur you will, unequivocally, have to speak to people.

Selling, forming contracts, developing products, leading others all require the ability to public speak, inspire and communicate a message so well that you allow others to see your vision. That is what makes great leaders and successful entrepreneurs.

One of my current favorite speakers is Jeffrey Combs. He is a leader and an entrepreneur who failed in business time and time again. In fact, he spent over 12 years a drug addict and an alcoholic.

But his ability to learn how to public speak has made him into one of the most sought after personal development and success coaches in business. Today, having the ability to move an audience, effectively deliver a message and inspire has made him a multi-millionaire.

Become a Public Speaker

Effective Public Speaking is one of the most important characteristics to succeed as an Entrepreneur and yet so many people in this category, largely over look it. In fact, my mentor jokingly told me that ‘Becoming an excellent public speaker is so easy because not many people want to do it and those who do, most aren’t good at it”.

The key takeaway here is to understand that no one is born a great public speaker. Even those who you believe are great today, surely encountered their share of challenges on the way there.

It’s something that has to be learned.

So with that said, if you want to become a successful entrepreneur or leader, here are my top 5 tips to become an excellent Public Speaker.

1. Get a Mentor – This seems very obvious but most people shy away from getting a mentor because asking for help is perceived as having a position of weakness. My mentor has given many speeches in his life and have been invited to speak and lecture at venues which include Harvard Business School and  in an event with the Prime Minister of Ireland. Pick someone you want to be like, and ask them to mentor you. You’ll be surprised how responsive they may be.
2. Join a Public Speaking Club – Although I did join a Toast Masters Club for some time, I didn’t stick with it because the group was unorganized. However, if you are breaking into the public speaking scene these clubs are excellent because they will force you to break out of your shell and get used to getting in front of people.
3. Know Your Audience – Becoming a great speaker is also about delivery. You have to know who your audience is and what kind of speech is appropriate. You would not give a very eloquent, professional speech if you were at a Gala where the vibe may be up beat. You would bore everyone to death. Public Speaking Clubs are also very good at analyzing this topic.
4. Know You’re Subject – Early on I learned that some of the fear I had as public was speaker originated from the fact that I lacked confidence in the topics I was discussing. In fact, I would venture to say that a lot people who share in this fear do so for the same reason.  If you know your topic, you don’t have to memorize what you are going to say, verbatim, and this is a huge confidence booster in my opinion.
5. Get Out There And Do It – Finally, just get out there and do it!  There is no better way to become an excellent public speaker than by practicing and you cannot practice if you don’t public speak. Personally, I’ve given talks to schools in the beginning and was even invited to give a commencement speech at a High School in 2010.  I’ve had small speaking engagements since then and on April 18^th 2012 I will give the most important speech of my life. It will be recorded and I will share on the blog.

Now it’s time for you to become an amazing Public Speaker. Reprogram your subconscious mind and get out there!

Mastermind:

Is becoming a great Public Speaker something you see as an important part of becoming an successful Entrepreneur or Leader?

As bloggers and as ‘leaders of the charge’ we work tirelessly to build our blogs, to form our communities, to educate and to bring about our vision and share our message.

It’s been almost a full month since I have written anything here on Internet Entrepreneur Connection and to be honest, it feels great.

Now, I don’t want you to believe for a second that I don’t value my community or all the hard work that I have put into this blog – because I strongly do.

There have definitely been sleepless nights and of not only article writing but of study and research to enhance my own personal knowledge but to also bring that knowledge to you.

It’s been 2 years since that faithful day when I decided to start this blog in effort to share my story and spread my philosophy of entrepreneurship and financial intelligence.

Since then, I’ve really worked non-stop to build this blog to what it is today and I’ve put in countless hours bring all 142 pots currently published.

I’m proud of what I’ve built here.

After the Peak

For the last couple of months I’ve felt extremely pressured to generate great content and found it challenging to do so. Additionally, researching for and writing my book along with a very important request to speak publicly had unable to concentrate and I felt I was losing focus in my overall mission with Internet Entrepreneur Connection.

They say that after you peak the only way to go is down. Unannounced, I decided to take a month off.

During that time a lot of things happened. I became pretty ill and was hospitalized (I am all better now), I began speech training with a coach (my speech will be on April 18^th) and I took a 7-day Cruise to the Bahamas, which was by far the most relaxing thing I have ever done.

Taking this time off was the best thing I could have done not just for me as a person but for the blog as well. It let me recharge my batteries and it’s something that I was in desperate need of.

Moving Forward

Whether it was a good idea to drop out unannounced for a month, or not, I don’t know but I will tell you going on a ‘vacation’ and coming back was like a breath of fresh air – and if you haven’t taken a vacation in sometime, I encourage you to do the same.

Before my time of, I noticed that I progressively started writing less often and I eve started losing touch with some of the bloggers I had already built great online friendships with.

I’ve committed to work on rebuilding those relationships, being more active in the blogosphere and writing much more often on this blog about the topics related to Internet Entrepreneurship, Financial Intelligence and the Economy.

Final Words

If you are familiar with my posts here on Internet Entrepreneurship then you know that I am not a scattered brain of thoughts and that I post very high quality and informative content regarding business and finance, among other topics.

I want to apologize for not having any real content in this post but I wanted to write this as be as fluid as possible. I literally wrote as the words came to me and rarely went back to delete or edit.

However, I wanted to address my absence for the last month and I wanted you to know that I am back and I am as ready as ever to discuss many great topics in business and finance that are critical for our economic times.

I am still working on my book and and I plan to make some more announcements about its future release, soon.