» Wealth Building

Warren Buffet’s Rules YOU Can Use

Dr. Dennis Clark — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:15:44 +0000

While I am still putting together my plan for this blog, I thought I’d put out this little ditty about being financially successful. You can get a deeper perspective about rich people by reading “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. The main concepts apply to Warren Buffet, although he has taken his money level 1000-fold (i.e., a thousand million equals a billion) to billionaire status. I really got a kick out of the advice that I am about to convey from Mr. Buffet. It hits home at SO MANY levels, and it has done so every tiime I’ve heard it.

These are the rules that Warren Buffet gives to the CEOs of his companies:

Rule No. 1: Do not lose any of your shareholder’s money.
Rule No. 2: Do not forget rule number 1.

Okay…so the message is, do not lose money. Wouldn’t our economic lives, personally, nationally and globally, be a lot different if we and all the folks in charge had followed these rules?

If this advice seems simple-minded, then at least consider its source. Warren Buffet has done pretty well with it. You can, too.

All the best,

Dr. D

How and Why to Network

Dr. Dennis Clark — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:20:58 +0000

This subject is so profitable and so much fun that entire companies (e.g., BNI – Business Networkers International) focus on it. The ‘how’ of networking is the subject of a few good books, such as Ivan Misner’s, “The 29% Solution: 52 Weekly Networking Success Strategies.” This kind of knowledge is important for making networking events productive. Too many events are like the typical chamber of commerce meeting, where people exchange business cards and call that ‘networking’. According to good networking advice, the best thing you can do is collect business cards from a few key people whom you have spoken with. And the conversation is best when it centers around questions that you ask of another person, and the answers that you can use in later follow up as a reminder of your encounter. Indeed, it seems to be a law of the universe that you will come across as a great conversationalist by saying almost nothing!

Typical Network Marketing Is Ineffective

How does this compare with a typical ‘network marketing’ meeting? No wonder those things are such a glorious waste of time. One or two people do all the talking for the presentation, then you get to spend your time afterwards in selling, convincing, and pitching to your guest(s) about whatever the products and opportunity might be. I don’t know about you, I just think this is one of the least effective ways to build your MLM business.

By the way, the reason for the typical meeting structure has little to do with your success and a lot to do with the company’s success. I’ll have much more to say about this in one of my upcoming newsletters, so be sure to subscribe to it. I will also have a lot to say about what you can do that is much more effective than bringing guests to a company presentation. MUCH more effective.

Why to Network

Networking is the activity that builds better relationships with others. If you can get to know others and get to be known by them, you form a basis for trust. A good relationship is the key for any kind of success in network marketing. After all, just in case someone takes you up on your opportunity, you will have to have a level of trust that translates into your leadership of that new person. And any new person has to see how you do that so he or she can do the same.

Some of this perspective seems like a no-brainer. Nevertheless, your company and any other company that you join will most likely ‘teach’ you MLM building the old fashioned way: making gazillions of calls, using the 3-foot rule, browbeating your warm market, attending meetings and conferences, listening to teleconference calls or their insidious tech version, the webinar, etc., etc. Just think, if you actually have just 10 hours per week to build your business, all of it can get chewed up in being ‘woo-busy’ with all this stuff, and you will never have time to actually sponsor and develop a leader into your organization.

Ah, this is fun, isn’t it? It is easy to take potshots at these kinds of things. It is harder to find good advice that works by doing something else. However, there is plenty of other stuff that you can do with your 10 hours per week that will actually lead to income. I’ve put together a little lead-in on this topic on my page, “Can MLM Work for You?” This is a start, so take a look at it and let me know what you think.

Dr. D

Know Your Ideal Customer

Dr. Dennis Clark — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:17:07 +0000

Attracting the right client, one who comes through your door or to your website and buys your product or service, seems to be the first step in growing any business. However, who is your ideal customer? This concept came across my desk in the new book by John Assaraf and Murray Smith, “The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life,” recently. The is the best book of the year for business development.

Who Is Your Ideal Customer?

The standard view of defining an ideal customer entails demographic information: gender, age group, income level, marital status, geographic location, etc. Although the value of this kind of information may seem obvious, most businesses put no effort into defining these categories. This means that finding and marketing to the ideal customer just won’t happen.

What Does Your Ideal Customer Want?

A second and equally valuable definition, as described in the book, is psychgraphic information. In other words, why does someone buy from you? This is not so easy to know unless you ask your current customers. You can buy plenty of “who” lists of customers from list brokers, although your “why” list is best when you build it yourself via questionnaires, interviews or surveys that you conduct yourself. This may seem like a lot of work. However, Assaraf and Murray offer a little number-crunching to explain how valuable this effort can be, as outlined here:

How to Multiply Revenue by Sixteen-Fold

Consider the concept that 20 percent of your customers generate 80 percent of your revenue. Now the math gets to be really fun: the 20-percenters generate four times as much revenue as the rest of your customer base, and there are four times fewer of them. The value of each of the 20-percenters is therefore sixteen-fold higher than the non-20-percenters. Your most effective strategy to increase business is obvious: Get more 20-percenter type customers. When you know who your ideal customer is and why they buy from you, you can put more effective effort into getting more of them. When ALL of your customers are of the original 20-percenter type, then you will have increased your revenue by sixteen-fold. Now doesn’t that seem like fun?

This little overview us just a glimpse of how the combined use of demographics and psychographics can boost your business. I don’t pretend to do justice to this strategy here, so I simply encourage you to get the book and dig into it for yourself. Oh, and this book offers a lot more than this topic, so I will mention more of it later.

Dr. D

What Must You Do to Make Added Cash in the Next 24 Hours?

Dr. Dennis Clark — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:36:30 +0000

Just sit quietly for a moment and think about how you can answer that question. It asks how you can make added cash, meaning more than you are otherwise making right now. Can you come up with one way to make more money, or ten ways, or fifty ways? Can you make one dollar, a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, or even more – in the next 24 hours? Robert Allen, the “No Money Down” real estate guru, once bragged that he made more than $90,000 in a 24-hour period. And it had nothing to do with real estate. Of course, he is one of the many “gurus” who make their success sound as though you, too, can make a gazillion dollars in the next microsecond, if you just buy whatever they are selling so you can be like them.

Ask me sometime how Mr. Allen actually did what said he did, which I believe to be true, and why it is highly unlikely that you can make any money at all by buying anything from him whatsoever. This goes for all of the other “fast-cash” gurus, too.

Here is a fact to take to heart:

Some people are making lots and lots of money, and most people are not. And it doesn’t matter one bit whether the economy is booming or heading into recession, whatever that is. A small proportion of people are rich and most people are not. This is the case regardless of whether the economy is booming or heading into a recession, whatever that is. Money does not leave the planet. It just moves!

The key to getting all the money you want is simple:

You must get it from wherever it is now. That’s what rich people do, and they are not any different from you. It is not hard finding money, and it is not hard getting it for yourself. In fact, all you really have to do is get the right directions from someone who has already done so. I am putting together a starter kit on how to begin, pieces of which I will begin to post soon.

Dr. D

My Week With Marketing Geniuses

Dr. Dennis Clark — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:05:51 +0000

Just a quick note while I come to the end of a fabulous week at High Valley Ranch, California, with some of the smartest marketing geniuses of our time: John Assaraf, Bob Proctor, Mark Victor Hansen, Berny Dohrmann, and a cast of movers and shakers in one place, not seen anywhere else on the planet. I can tell you this with certainty: if you are taking advantage of what you already know how to do, you will be a millionaire in a heartbeat. Sales and marketing is only one part of the game. Coaxing what you can do out of your own brain is the key. Here is the MAIN thing you can do: get a mentor, or even more than one. Don’t reinvent the wheel when so many people are already out there who have done what you want to do. The trick is to find them and benefit from their experience. Stay tuned here to find out how to analyze, condense, and accelerate this process.

Dr. D

What to Sell? … Oh, Dear, What to Sell?

Dr. Dennis Clark — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 02:01:23 +0000

Here is the bottom line:

You must start out (and maybe continue for a LONG time) selling other people’s stuff. I have more than 2500 products in my nutrition store, Doctors Nutrition Center, and only four (4) of them are my own formulas. They were not, of course, in my store when I bought it. The key to my success is that the products that I offer in my store are high quality and in demand. Read that again: high quality and in demand.

The internet is bogged down with “information products” that you can sell, most of which are of poor quality. You absolutely must work only with the ones that are of high quality and in demand! I’ll be giving you some strategies, pointers, advice, etc., on what you can do to enhance your odds in finding the right products for your own business, whether it be ebooks, CDs, coaching, internet marketing programs … the whole ball of wax.

Dr. D

The Land of the Never-Ending Upsell

Dr. Dennis Clark — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:54:40 +0000

Internet marketing is a shark-filled ocean, full to the brim with “viral marketing” – aka, the Never-Ending Upsell – where YOU are the fodder for eternally hungry predators. Finding the right information for growing your income, without being swamped by more links to buy more marketing stuff to sell, with still more links to buy even more marketing stuff, ad nauseum, sometimes seems impossible. Ebooks are generally no better than overblown pamphlets full of hype, offering almost nothing useful. Audios and videos are worse. How do you find out what works and what doesn’t work? If you don’t know how to do the research, then just ask around until you find someone who does. Good mentors are worth their weight in gold.

Dr. D