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When It’s Time To Dump Your Business Idea

future-technology

Continuation from yesterday…..(How Test Your Service Business)

The steps above will help you determine if people love your cooking and/or your food items. If they do, you are free to move to the next stage. If you are unable to get traction it might be time to adjust your recipe until you do or it might be time to shift to the next idea.

With your initial in-depth idea scan and minimal level idea implementation stages now complete, it is time to make a decision on what to do next.  In reality and based on the results above, you will have three alternative options.

  • Both of your test stages went incredibly well. People love your product or service and they can’t get enough. Orders are rolling in and you are getting repeat business. You can now see a clear picture of how you will go about growing your business.

If that is the case, it would be prudent to go ahead and to jump into your new business venture head first. Perhaps on a full-time basis if your immediate income from the business can support all of your needs.  What that future business development cycle means is different for everyone. The rule of thumb is as follows.  Attempt to grow your business as fast as possible, for as long as you maintain a fiscally responsible stance. Never forget, the primary cause of business failure is financial mismanagement or overextension/overexpansion during the growth cycle. In other words, grow only as fast as your finances allow. Everything else will take care of itself.

  • Your product or service did OK, but nothing to brag about.  This is where you might have gotten somewhat of a positive response, but not what you have expected.  Perhaps a few orders and a few positive reviews. Yet, the response was not nearly as good as what you have anticipated.  You have tried to twist your product offering and your marketing campaigns in a million different ways, but that didn’t improve the outcome.  Now, you are unsure of what to do next.

If that is the case, it is difficult to give advice without first knowing the details of the underlying experiment. With that said, ask yourself the following question.

Do you love this project? Are you ready to dedicate at least the next 10 years of your life to this project on a full time basis….all while going though failures, setbacks and disappointments?

If your answer is YES: Figure out a way to make it work. Keep adjusting your product or service offering until you hit the mother lode.  Keep changing your sales and marketing until you figure out what works and what doesn’t.  It is there, in one form or another; you just have to find it. Remember, it took James Dyson over 15 years to perfect his vacuum cleaner. It might take you just as long to find your final solution. Yet, if you love your project, that sort of a time investment shouldn’t be a problem.

If your answer is NO:  It is time to move on. It is as simple as that. If you do not have a clear solution to your problem and if you are not willing to make a sacrifice, shut the project down and concentrate on identifying the next BIG idea.

  • Your tests failed and you don’t know what to do next. This scenario represents a trap where a lot of Entrepreneurs get stuck. They try for years to make a success of a project that cannot possibly get any traction. Don’t be a fool. Cut your losses and move on. Whether you love this project or not is irrelevant at this stage. If you cannot get any traction at all, shut the project down immediately and concentrate on finding your next BIG idea. This step alone will save you a tremendous amount of time, money and frustration.  Keep repeating the process until you find the idea that works.

To Be Continued Tomorrow…...(Why Am I Seeing This On A Financial Website?)

z32

When It’s Time To Dump Your Business Idea  Google

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The Gospel Of Goldman Sachs

BUY LOW, SELL HIGH, GO SHORT & COVER 

Are You Sure?

Starting in the late 1960’s the mutual fund industry picked a simple truth to shove down investor throats. To buy stocks for the long term and to keep adding money to their coffers month after month and year after year.  And according to most people in the investment industry, this simple strategy should outperform the market over the long term, yielding you just enough moolah to fully enjoy that awesome retirement in Boca Raton.  And if you play your cards right you might even have enough investment gains to be able to afford early bird dinner specials until you are 100.  Today, so very few people question this investment approach that the “truth” above might as well be recorded in the New Testament as the Gospel of Goldman Sachs.

As accurate as this investment premise might be, it is a well known fact that most investors fail to beat the market on the consistent basis. Mutual fund or not. Plus, the stock market history does not support the premise above. Did you know that between 1899 and 1949, a 50 year period of time, the Dow went up just 185%. That would yield an annual compounded rate of return of just 2%. The same thing happened between 1790 and 1860. A 70 year period of time. Between 1966 and 1982 the market declined 25%. Hell, we don’t have to go further than today to see how inadequate the strategy above is.  With the market facing another bear leg (as of August 2014), the Dow is up just 45% since its secular bull market top in January of 2000. The Nasdaq is still in the negative territory.

Don’t get me wrong, for most passive investors; the strategy above is a fairly good one.  Yet, investors investing in such a fashion over the long-term shouldn’t expect to earn much more than a rate of inflation or the yield on a 10-Year Treasury.  In other words, the mutual fund industry will never make you any money. They will make a ton of money for themselves through various fees, but they will never make you rich.  If you want higher returns you have to take risks by dismissing the gospel above and by venturing outside.

And what will you find out there in the wilderness? Three primary investment dogmas and a million different offshoots of each one. They are….

  • Value Investing:  The idea of value investing is a fairly simple one. To find and purchase stocks that are selling well below their intrinsic value. Minimize the risk as the risk of the value stock going lower diminishes due to its general undervaluation. If you play your cards right and identify stocks that are not only undervalued, but those that are growing fast or turning around, the return on your investment should beat the market by a large margin. For most value investors long-term holding periods are a must.

To Be Continued Tomorrow……

Z30

The Gospel Of Goldman Sachs  Google

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The Shocking Truth Behind Forecasting

daily chart Sept 2 2014

9/2/2014 – A mixed day with the Dow Jones down 31 points (-0.18%) and the Nasdaq up 18 points (0.40%). 

While the S&P can barely hold on to its newly minted 2,000 level, it’s not good enough for Morgan Stanley. Here’s Why Morgan Stanley Says S&P 500 May Near 3,000  Their reasoning?

  • The U.S. economy, which began recovering in July 2009, may continue growing for five years or more, making it the longest period of expansion.
  • “Equities should benefit from a scenario where the probability of a cycle peak remains low for some time,” Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, and economist Ellen Zentner wrote in the note. “As the prolonged expansion becomes more visible, we’d expect a materially higher U.S. stock market.”
  • If earnings for S&P 500 companies increase about 6 percent every year from 2015 to 2020, profits will be close to $170 a share, Morgan Stanley said. Should the equity index trade at 17 times its companies’ reported earnings, its peak level could near 3,000, the bank said. The gauge currently trades at a multiple of 18 times, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Very well. At least it is not your typical bull chest bumpers who claim that the Dow is going to 40,000 by the of 2015….no matter what. There is only one problem with the thesis above. Why would the US Economy grow at 6%? It is already pumped up on so much credit that that any more growth “stimulus” will OD the poor thing.

Plus, I keep outlining the cycles that clearly show that we are NOT in a secular bull market. In fact, a secular bear market of 2000-2017 is not even over yet.  And 2009 was not the bottom. It was a mid-cycle bottom. Identical to those in 1908, 1937 and 1974. Finally, just because everything SEEMS alright, doesn’t mean that it will continue to be so.

I can give you a million examples, but I don’t have to go further than 2007 top. The US Economy was on fire on October 11th, 2007. And the bulls were hyping up the same nonsense you see above. Yet, the market simply topped out, turned around and headed lower. Erasing 50-60% of market’s value in 15 short months.  It will not be different this time around.

This conclusion is further supported by my mathematical and timing work. It clearly shows a severe bear market between 2014-2017. In fact, when it starts it will very quickly retrace most of the gains accrued over the last few years.  If you would be interested in learning when the bear market of 2014-2017 will start (to the day) and its internal composition, please CLICK HERE

(***Please Note: Due to my obligations to my Subscribers I am unable to provide you with more exact forecasts. In fact, I am being “Wishy Washy” at best with my FREE daily updates here. If you would be interested in exact forecasts, dates, times and precise daily coverage, please Click Here). Daily Stock Market Update. September 2nd, 2014 InvestWithAlex.com

Did you enjoy this article? If so, please share our blog with your friends as we try to get traction. Gratitude!!!

The Shocking Truth Behind Forecasting  Google

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Why You Should Fall In Love With Stress

business meditation

Continuation from yesterday…..(How Care Triggers Stress)

That’s how cunning the mind is. If left unchecked it will destroy you from the inside out. In this particular case, as we become aware of the mind’s inner workings we can begin to understand how desire and care work. How they bring STESS into our realm of consciousness.  Then, by turning them off we can eliminate STRESS from our daily lives.

Investment field presents us with another perfect example.  For instance, you might have done a tremendous amount of research on a company that manufactures guillotines, Guillotine Inc (HEAD) and you believe that their stock price is about to surge. You make an investment and in doing so you project a state of a successful outcome well into the future. You believe, care and desire for this stock to go much higher.  So much so that at least in your mind no other outcome is possible.  Simply put, a different outcome would challenge your intelligence and would turn you into a failure. That is why when the stock or your investment thesis begin to fail, STRESS is not that far behind. As our Jimmy J’s example above so clearly showed.

Again, simple awareness is the answer here.  By being aware of how desire and care bring STRESS into your life, you will be able to avoid them. There are a number of things to consider here.

  1. Be aware of how desire and care work. Watch your thoughts and desires very carefully. While it will take some time, fairly soon you will be able to catch most of them with ease.  What’s more, given enough time you will begin to understand how the mind works and how cunning it can be.
  2. Observe your thoughts, desires and cares. Do not fight them. Do not suppress them. That would actually be counterproductive. Simply observe them and try to understand where they are coming from.
  3. Dissociate yourself from your desires and cares. At the very least do not project them into the future. Shift into the state of NOW and understand that the desires and cares your mind is trying to generate are pointless. They are not real. They are imaginary outcomes.

As you do all of the above, most of your cares and desires will vanish. Taking STRESS associated energies along with them. More importantly, as you continue to carefully watch your thought patterns you will gain a deep understanding of how your mind really works and how it tries to undermine your overall being on the consistent basis.

FALL IN LOVE WITH STRESS

As crazy as it sound, this approach to STRESS elimination can work miracles. While only a general introduction to the subject matter will be provided, it is a truly powerful way to eliminate all STRESS from your life.

As was suggested earlier, everything in the Universe and its dimensional architecture is made out of energy. As above so is below. That includes your body, mind, thoughts, feelings, emotions and even your beliefs.  Further, different feelings and emotions within your body and mind architecture are represented by this same energy. Technically, there is no difference between fear, anger, stress, jealousy or a million other different emotions or thoughts. They are all represented by one energy field. The difference stems from their rate of vibration within the machines.

To Be Continued Tomorrow……(Why Am I Seeing This On A Financial Site?)

Z31

Why You Should Fall In Love With Stress Google

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How Test Your Service Business

Continuation from yesterday…..(How To Test Your New Product or Product Idea)

Once you have completed all of the steps above, you will have a fairly good idea if your product is ready for mass market. If it is, move into full scale business development model. If you are still not sure or if the product is not performing very well, don’t give up.  Keep playing around with your product and sales channels until all options are exhausted.

Service Business:

Service businesses are a little bit different. Depending on the kind of service business you are trying to offer, only a small investment might be necessary. That is unless you are trying to open up a physical location such as a hair salon or perhaps a spa.  Plus, they are much easier to setup.  And if you already have experience in the field, chances are, it is likely that you will already have everything needed to get it going.  Fast.  Just pick a business name, register your business with local authorities and get to work.

If that is the case, sales and marketing become your primary concerns. To get traction fast, follow these steps…

  1. Advertise your business in yellow pages. Plus, find what publications (newspapers and magazines) serve your target market audience in your area and advertise with them. Don’t be cheap. Put together a great introductory offer to attract new customers. Something that blows the competition out of the water. That should get the traffic in the door.
  2. Create a professional looking website as outlined in “Online Business” section.
  3. Tell everyone in your sphere of influence about what you are doing. Offer them and their referrals a once in a lifetime deal to get new business in the door.
  4. When not working or servicing clients, spend the rest of your time on generating new business.

Generally speaking and depending on what kind of a service business you have, it will take some time to build a clientele base. Yet, after completing the steps above you should have a fairly good understanding if your service business has a future. If you are getting traction, keep moving forward. If not, either adjust immediately by trying different approaches and marketing strategies or shut it down.

Food Business:

Another popular category is food related. Whether you would like to open your own restaurant, run a catering company or sell millions of peanut butter infused hot dogs, the idea is the same. Start small, test, adjust and figure out if you have a legitimate business on your hands. That means not trying to open up a restaurant or buying $500,000 worth of catering equipment or renting a large warehouse to set up your hot dog manufacturing facility. Remember, one step at a time.

  1. Find out if people actually like what you are trying to sell. Just because your mother thinks that your secret meat loaf is the best thing since the Regan administration, doesn’t mean that others will pay for it.  Start small and test. See if your friends and family will be willing to buy your “food products”. See if you are getting repeat orders.  See what kind of a feedback you are getting. Are you getting referrals, are people asking for your recipe, do people love your food, etc…?
  2. If you are getting great response in step #1, it is time to expand to local fairs, farmers markets and online. Plus, you can begin to approach local mom and pop restaurants to see if they would be interested in getting daily or weekly deliveries of the food items you are trying to sell.  Repeat business is a must.

The steps above will help you determine if people love your cooking or your food items. If they do, you are free to move to the next stage. If you are unable to get traction it might be time to adjust your recipe until you do or it might be time to shift to your next idea.

To Be Continued Tomorrow...(Why Am I Seeing This On  A Financial Website?)

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How Test Your Service Business Google

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How To Test Your New Product or Product Idea

business_ideas

Continuation from Friday…….(How To Build A Minimally Viable Product)

Once you campaign is up running you should track it very carefuly, adjusting it along the way. When optimized, it will give you an idea if your business can be successful and/or profitable. If it is, move on to full scale business development. If it is not, keep one important thing in mind. Oftentimes, it takes months of constantly adjusting your product offerings and marketing campaigns before you hit the pay dirt. A lot of people tend to give up right before that happens. DO NOT abandon your project at this state, until and unless, you are 100% sure that you have exhausted all possible options.

Product Centric Business:

If you have a prototype product you would like to sell, the time to develop it into a working concept is now.  Attempt to create a working version, no matter the cost. If nothing else, this process will give you a full understanding of what it takes and how much it will cost to put your product together. Once completed, attempt to test it in every possible way in order to determine what types of failure(s) your product is susceptible to.  If not much develops, try to understand if you product can be manufactured in large numbers and at a price that will be accepted by its eventual customer base. A price that will also yield a profit for you.

If you are lucky enough to successfully get to this point, it is time to roll up your sleeves and start the sales cycle. Yet, unless your product is absolutely amazing or unique, don’t try to hit the ball out of the park. That means you shouldn’t approach Walmart or Costco in an attempt to sell 10 Million units. It doesn’t work that way. Most large retailers and distributors won’t even bother talking to new merchants such as yourself.  In majority of the cases, they will require a multi-year track record and an income statement showing millions of revenue before they will even bother to let you into their parking lot.

In other words, start small. I would suggest the following multi-tier approach…..

  1. Develop your own product website and sell direct. You can follow the steps outlined in the “Online Business” section above or develop your own store in a matter of minutes. There many websites services out there that can help you do just that. To the point where you can have your own store, shopping cart and credit card processing service in a matter of minutes. Shopify.com is one of the most popular services in the space.
  2. Open your own storefronts on Amazon.com and Ebay.com. While it will take you a few hours to set them up, both platforms will bring hundreds of millions of potential buyers to your product. If nothing else, it will give you an idea if your product has mass appeal.
  3. Depending on what your product is, attempt to find physical retailers in your city that carry similar product lines. Mom and pop shops would be your best bets as large corporate chains are unlikely to place your products in their stores. Approach them and ask if they would be willing to attempt to sell your product. In order to see if there is a demand.  A major selling point for you might be leaving you merchandise behind on consignment basis as opposed to trying to sell it outright. It would be great way to develop initial relationships with local merchants as many more businesses will take a risk on such an offer.
  4. If your product permits, try selling it at local fairs, swap meets and flea markets. Again, it will help you determine if your product can be sold and/or if it has mass appeal.

Once you have completed all of the steps above, you will have a fairly good idea if your product is ready for mass market. If it is, move into full scale business development model. If you are still not sure or if the product is not performing very well, don’t give up. Keep playing around with your product and sales channels until all options are exhausted.

To Be Continued Tomorrow…...(Why Am I Seeing This On A Financial Website?)

Z31

How To Test Your New Product or Product Idea  Google

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How Care Triggers Stress

How To Avoid Stress

Continuation from last week…..(How Desires Trigger Stress)

What you don’t realize is that most of such desires trigger various STRESS energies within your being.  They do so through a hidden veil of failure. If you think about it, very few of your daily desires come to a fruition.  Perhaps less than 1%.  The rest are associated with failure.

Allow me to illustrate. If a beautiful woman or a handsome man walk by you an automatic desire to possess them will appear in your realm of consciousness. Yet, as it does, your mind will automatically (most of the time) shift into the state of failure by suggesting that you are not …….nice enough, rich enough, good looking enough, successful enough, etc….to be with such a person.  In other words, you own mind will throw your entire being under a bus. Into a bin of failure.

Guess what happens thereafter? That’s right, your mind will go into overdrive by thinking that you need to be MORE successful, make more money, work out more and so forth. All just to be on the “presumed” equal footing with the person you have just desired a few seconds ago. Yet, that desire to be something MORE will bring a tremendous amount of STRESS into your life. Why? Because to your mind, you own being is never good enough. You are always on that treadmill chasing this fad or that idea, without realizing a simple truth.

That your own mind or thought processes are destroying you from the inside out. That desires your mind generates bring a constant state of activity into your realm of consciousness.  And activity and STRESS go hand in hand.  On a flip side, if you are aware of how this entire process works, you would be able to prevent all desires from manifesting within your mind. Leading to a STRESS free existence.

Care: Care for things works in a very similar fashion. Yet, an important distinction should be made first. The care we are talking about has nothing to do with care for your loved ones.  This section concentrates on care for physical things, vested interests and preconceived outcome.

A strong desire for certain things or interests will lead you to care a little too much about certain outcomes.  What happens is, your mind takes most of your desires and project well into the future.  Suggesting that you will be able to achieve them all.  However, that rarely happens. Most desires remain desires as your mind continues to play cunning tricks on your being.  What’s worst, since you care way too much about certain outcomes, when they don’t develop, your mind automatically dumps your entire being into that same bin on failure. Bringing a substantial amount of STRESS along for the ride.

In other words, since you cared way too much about a certain outcomes, when such outcomes are not achieved, STRESS energies enter the picture.

For example, that is one of the primary reasons as to why so few people can lose weight and keep it off.  In essence, they care a little too much about the outcome.  Before they even begin the process, the mind projects the state of success well into the future. Instead of concentrating on the work that needs to be done, their mind concentrates on the final outcome.  An obese woman might begin thinking how she will lose 120 lbs over the next 6 months, buy a red bikini and automatically grab the attention of many good looking men.  She then begins to care a little too much about this particular outcome. With it, her life will be amazing, without it, it will be an absolute failure. A life not worth living.

The problem is, it is incredibly difficult to lose that much weight over such a short period of time. While the first 20 lbs might be easy, the rest of the weight will require an immense effort.  Yet, if she is like most people, her mind will not be ready for it. Remember, her mind had already shifted to the state where success is achieved. It is living in a fantasy world. Yet, when the reality hits and our subject begins to fail in her ambitious pursuit, the mind will immediately shift into the state of failure.  And that will bring massive amounts of STRESS into her life by confirming two things 1. That she is a failure and 2. That she will never be able to have the life that she wants.

That’s how cunning the mind is. If left unchecked it will destroy you from the inside out. In this particular case, as we become aware of the mind inner workings we can begin to understand how desire and care work. How they bring STESS into our realm of consciousness.  Then, by turning them off we can eliminate STRESS from our daily lives.

To Be Continued Tomorrow…..(Why Am I Seeing This On  A Financial Site?)

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How Care Triggers Stress Google

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The Hunt For Tenbaggers

Book Cover

Continuation from Friday...(A Few More Rules For Finding Tenbaggers)

RULE #10: Sit Out or Get Ready To Go Short When the Time Is Right

Finally, at certain times you will find yourself in extreme overvaluation bubbles. Similar to those at 2000 and 2007 tops. It highly probable that you will not be able to find any potential Tenbaggers at general undervaluation levels in such environments. When that happens, it would be an opportune time to get ready for a bear raid on individual stocks or the overall market. If nothing else, it would be prudent to stay out of the way.

Today’s market environment, in August of 2014, presents us with a perfect illustration of that. Due to its overall extreme valuation levels, I am unable to find a single stock issue that would satisfy all of the requirements above. That’s right, not a single stock that I would invest in as a potential Tenbagger as most stocks have been driven to unsustainable valuation levels. This tells me a few things. First, the market is overvalued and in a bubble. Second, if I have any remaining long positions I should consider liquidating them now or as soon as the market breaks down (technical bear confirmation).  Finally, I should consider going short if my investment strategy allows it.

Clue #10: If you are unable to find any potential Tenbaggers at undervalued levels, the overall stock market is likely to be in a bubble. Be prepared to exit your long positions and to go short at a moment’s notice.

Conclusion: If you are to follow the steps above it is highly probable that you will not be able to find more than 10 individual stock issues, at any one time, that satisfy all of your requirements. When you do find them, make it your business to learn everything you possibly can about the underlying business and its stock price. From the fundamental, technical and mathematical perspectives. It will make all the difference between investing in a stock that does well and a stock that goes up 10X or more within a relatively short period of time. When all of your requirements are satisfied and you are confident that the underlying stock will outperform the market by a large margin……..buy as much stock as your diversification strategy allows.

And that’s all there is to it.

This book will now be edited. It should be available over the next 30 days or so. 

Z30

The Hunt For Tenbaggers Google