Rising Municipal Deficits and Global Inflation

Even though I love the stock market and I am always spotting investing opportunities in the financial arena, the primarily focus of this blog is venture creation, but since I see many of you interested in the subject and are actively investing I have decided to make an exception and give you my opinion on the current financial situation.

We don’t talk much about the condition of state and local governments because our money is made by companies that have sales and cash flows bigger than most states. But the continuation of the economic recovery in the U.S. does depend on what happens to municipal government in the year ahead. Just as with the U.S. government as a whole, states are in a precarious debt/cash balance. Fiscally challenged states, like Illinois, have had to raise state income taxes to try to close the gap in overwhelming budget deficits.  As we learned from the federal tax debates that were going on at the end of 2010, higher taxes are a burden to the middle class and cause businesses to put off hiring or even lay off workers to cut costs. This slows down the local economy, creates fewer workers that can pay taxes and puts the state back in the position to cut more costs and raise taxes. This is a tough cycle that flows into the municipal bond market.

If states are in trouble, buyers aren’t going to touch the bond market and thus the states get even more choked up. This will be a drag on economic growth in 2011, but ironically the turmoil will ultimately right itself. If investors can’t get the returns they are looking for, they will turn to the stock market. Cash inflows help stocks and corporations who then hire more workers and create more tax revenues for state and federal government. This threat to the economic recovery is manageable, but the headlines will cause some fear in the market and will create great buying opportunities for smart investors.

The other critical trend that I want you to be prepared for is the notable rise in global inflation, especially in food and energy. If this inflation persists, it has the potential to disrupt the global economic recovery and, in my opinion, is the biggest storm cloud on the horizon. Inflation impacts developed and emerging markets differently.

Every country has an inflation index. Inflation indexes in the developed world are mostly made up of services and real estate related components. Obviously our inflation index here in the U.S. can’t rise too much with one of our largest components, real estate, weighing down the average. However, countries that are less developed and whose inflation indexes are more dependent on natural resources are feeling the pinch.

In summary, these two storms will be excellent for buyers ready to take advantage of the market when the time is right. Be patient and act with conviction when the opportunity presents it self.

“If you give man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for life.”

Arturo E. Bermudez

LauchPad, LLC

I have been getting a lot of emails and inquiries about posting a sample business plan for new or existing young online entrepreneurs to stay organized and shoot for better quaterly and yearly results, so here you go guys:

Phase I: Insight

- Clearly define in 2-3 sentences why you are in bz, why you chose your particular arena instead of others available and most importantly…sell me your idea/concept/product/service in no more than a couple sentences

- What you intend to sell. Be as precise as you would like

- Who you intend to sell it to. It is crucial to define, find and even make sure that your market exists before looking for a product to sell.

- Set average sales price, production cost and product sourcing

- Estimate quantity sold in time (weekly/monthly, etc)

- Have a clear understanding of your sales strategy

Phase II: Practice

- Track actual sales vs bz plan projections quarterly

- Adjust bz plan accordingly

- Implement appropriate sales management tools

Plain and simple. Remember, this should take you 2-3 pages and you must use a friendly approach when developing it, it could either be short paragraphs or bullets or even both if you feel more comfortable that way. Creativity is the combination of two or more existing elements that result in a new concept. When in trouble, let your intelligence have fun, so creativity will come out and set you back on track.

“Some men see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ I dream of things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’ “

Arturo Bermudez

Expert Review of “Tribes by Seth Godin” Part 4

The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest thing is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate. Reacting is what your body does when you take the wrong kind of medicine. Reacting is what politicians do all the time. Reacting is intuitive and instinctive. Managers react. Responding is a much better alternative. You respond to external stimuli with thoughtful action. Organizations respond to competitive threats. Individuals respond to colleagues or to opportunities. Response is always better than reaction. Initiating is really and truly difficult, and that’s what leaders do. They see something others are ignoring and they jump on it. They cause the events that others have to react to. They make change.

How to be wrong. Isaac Newton was totally wrong about alchemy, the branch of science he spent most of his career on.  And yet, he’s widely regarded as the most successful scientist ever. Steve Jobs was wrong about the Apple III, wrong about Mac FX, wrong about NeXT computer. Insanely wrong. You know the rest. The secret of being wrong isn’t to avoid being wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn’t fatal. The secret of leadership is simple: do what you believe in, paint a picture of the future and GO there…people will follow you.

Things that happen are rarely good, because they disturb the status quo. That’s why initiative  is such an astonishingly  successful tool: because it’s rare. Even a little bit of action, a few new ideas or a tiny bit of initiative can fill the vacuum. It’s a big deal to spill just a few drops of hawaiian punch on a spotless white tablecloth. People notice.

The organizations who need innovation the most are the ones that do most to stop it from happening. It’s a bit of a paradox, but once you see it, it’s a tremendous opportunity.

When the world changes, the rules change. And if you insist on playing today’s games by yesterday’s  rules, you’re stuck. Being charismatics doesn’t make you a leader. Being a leader makes you charismatic. Being charismatic is a choice not a gift.

Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. The yin and yang are clear: without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it’s unlikely to be worth the journey. Persist. Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work. If you idea doesn’t spread you need a better platform or better idea.

What’s hard is finding the faith to become heretic, to seek out an innovation and then, in the face of huge amounts of resistance, to lead a team and to push the innovation out the door into the world. Successful people are the ones who are good at this. A big part of leadership is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time. Leaders also understand that change is not only omnipresent, but the key to success. That’s why you need people committed to change and engaged in making things happen. You desperately need more leaders, more deviants, more agents of change, not fewer.

Great leaders embrace deviants by searching for them and catching them doing something right.

Arturo E. Bermudez
Entrepreneur

Expert Review of “Tribes by Seth Godin” Part 3

Groups create vacuums (small pockets where stasis sets in, where nothing is happening). Imagine a cocktail party in its early stages, where everyone is standing around, waiting for something to happen. Or a marketplace before it opens, filled with shoppers but with all the stores boarded up, with nothing to create energy or excitement. There are no tribes here, only isolated individuals in groups with no motion. Leaders figure out how to step into those vacuums and create motions. They work hard to generate movement (the sort of movement that can transform a group into a tribe).  A student can sit in a classroom and accept what the teacher is sending out, then do the work and get by. Or she can take initiative and lead. She can provoke and question and ask for more.

A marketer can offer a product, take orders and move on. Or he can use interactions with prospects to create something more, to surprise and delight and generate far more than just a customer who got her money’s worth. This posture of leaning in is rare and valuable.

Not all leadership involves getting in the face of the tribe. It just takes as much effort to successfully get out of the way. Jimmy Wales leads Wikipedia not by inciting, but by enabling others to fill the vacuum. It involves setting up the stage and stepping back, not pushing at every step of the way. A leader who backs off is making a commitment to the power of the tribe and is alert to the right moment to step back in.

Participating isn’t leading. Sending in your resume, showing up at the networking reception, hanging out at the singles bar (these are dumb ways to lead the tribe) are not even useful ways  to be seen as a valued member.

A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it.  As opposed to a curious person who explores first and then considers whether or not he wants to accept the ramifications. Curious is the key word. It has nothing to do with income, education or religion. It has to do with a desire to understand, a desire to try, a desire to push whatever envelope is interesting. Leaders are curious because they can’t wait to find out what the group is going to do next. The changes in the tribe are what are interesting and curiosity drives them.

Most people don’t matter so much. Most people work hard to fit in, so others don’t notice them. Most people would like the world the stay the way it is, but calmer. Most people are afraid. Most people aren’t curious. You are not most people. You are not the target for most marketers and you are certainly not a manager.

Change isn’t made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later. Leaders who set out to give are more productive than leaders who seek to get

Arturo E. Bermudez
Entrepreneur

Expert Review of “Tribes by Seth Godin” Part 2

Organizations that destroy the status quo win. Individuals who push their organizations, who inspire other individuals to change the rules, thrive. Again, we’re back to leadership, which can come from anyone, anywhere in the organization. The status quo could be the time that “everyone knows” it takes you to ship an order or the commission rate that “ everyone knows” an agent ought to be paid. The status quo might be the way everyone expects a product to be packaged or the pricing model that everyone accepts because it’s been around for so long. Whatever the status quo is, changing it gives you the opportunity to be remarkable. A remarkable product or service is like a purple cow. Brown cows are boring; purple ones are worth mentioning. Those ideas spread and those organizations grow. The essence of what’s happening in the market today revolves around creating purple cows.

Challenging the status quo requires a  commitment, both private and public. It involves reaching out to others and putting your ideas on the line. Leaders are heretics. Heretics are engaged, passionate, more powerful and happy than everyone else and they have a tribe to support. Heretics must believe. More than anyone else in the organization, it’s the person challenging the status quo, the one who is daring to be great, who is truly present and not just punching a clock.

It’s easy to hesitate when confronted with the feeling that maybe you are getting too much attention. Great leaders don’t want the attention, but they use it. They use it to unite the tribe and to reinforce its sense of purpose. Deciding to lead, not manage, is the critical choice.

The first thing a leader have to focus on is the act of tightening the tribe. A tighter tribe is one that is more likely to hear its leader and more likely still to coordinate action and ideas across the members of the tribe. Steve Jobs at Apple has tightened the tribe of Apple fanatics in a variety of ways. By creating substantial new products and announcing them online, he’s made a ritual for Apple fanatics to tune in to hear what;s new. Within hours of a new product announcement, the word has spread to millions or even tens of millions of users.

Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead: standing up in front of strangers, proposing an idea that might fail, challenging the status quo and resisting the urge to settle, etc. This scarcity makes leadership valuable. I f everyone tries to lead all the time, not much happens. It’s discomfort that creates leverage that makes leadership worthwhile. When you identify the discomfort, you’ve found a place where a leader is needed. If you’ re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you are not reaching your true potential as a leader.

Of course, a tribe needs followers. Any organization needs people who aren’t just willing to follow, but are eager to follow. It’s a mistake to believe that your best tribe recruits are blind sheep though. Folks who do nothing but mindlessly follow instructions let you down because they are not going to do the local leadership required when tribe members interact and they are not going to do a very good job of recruiting new members to your tribe. This micro leadership is essential to the health of your organization.

Arturo E. Bermudez
Entrepreneur

Expert Review of “Tribes by Seth Godin” Part 1

The market requires change and that requires leadership. The marketplace is rewarding organizations and individuals who change things and create remarkable products and services. It’s engaging, profitable and fun. Leadership isn’t difficult, but you have been trained for years to avoid it. I want to help you realize that you already have all the skills you need to make a difference and I want to sell you on doing it. The best thing is that you don’t need to wait until you’ve got exactly the right job or built the right organization… you can start NOW.

Management used to be the perfect synonym for leadership, but today that’s no longer the case. Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done. Burger King franchises hire managers. They know exactly what they need to deliver and they are given resources to do it at low cost. Managers manage a process they’ve seen before and they react to the outside world, striving to make that process as fast and as cheap as possible. Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in. Movements have leaders and movements make things happen. Leaders have followers. Managers have employees. Managers make widgets. Leaders make change.

Today, marketing is about engaging with the tribe and delivering products and services with stories that spread. Marketing changed the idea of stability and made it an illusion. The market doesn’t want the same thing it wanted yesterday. If leadership is the ability to create change your tribe believes in and the market demands change, then the market demands leaders. Now, to lead you need to assemble a tribe, a group of people who believe what you believe, and transform that belief or shared interest into a passionate goal and desire to change. Provide tools to allow members to tighten their communications and leverage the tribe to allow it to grow. Most organizations spend their time marketing to the crowd, but smart ones assemble tribes. A crowd is a tribe missing a leader. A crowd is a tribe without communication.

The most stable thing to do is push a standard product to a standard audience and succeed with discounts and distribution, but for tribes average can mean mediocre (not worth seeking out… boring). Focus your energy on having a “1,000 true fans”. A true fan is a member of the tribe who cares deeply about you and your work. That person will cross the street to buy from you or bring a friend to hear you or invest a little extra to support you. A thousand followers will bring you enough attention and support to make a great living, to reach more people, to do great work. A true fan brings three friends with him to a John Mayer concert. A true fan pays extra to own the first edition or buys the hardcover, instead of just browsing around on the website. Most important, a true fan connects with other true fans and amplifies the noise the artist makes. Obviously, a corporation will need more than that, perhaps a million fans if you are Starbucks or fifteen million if you are running for president.

Arturo E. Bermudez
Entrepreneur

Embrace Leadership!

People are starved for leadership and they’ll want someone to follow. The only way that you can clearly communicate that is if you open up your mouth and speak it.  But don’t forget to listen as well, at the same time. Then, all of a sudden, the whole process of prospecting and generating new business becomes quite effortless, because as a human one of the things we have the natural ability to do is to develop and cultivate relationships. It’s just a conversation you’re having. It’s a conversation with a bigger context that you’re here to empower them and that you’re going to take a stand for what you know and believe. That’s it.  They’ll either resonate with that or they won’t. Nothing that you can say as a sales pitch of features and benefits, will convince them of something they don’t already feel.

Use the bullet list, the bullet points. Some people have cheat sheets – I mean, come on. People want to feel a connection with you, and the way you can establish that connection and get their trust and earn their respect at the same time is to take a stand to be the leader, to tell them what you’re looking for, and then give them a chance to respond.  And always, always, always give them that last few seconds – I mean, people a lot of times just want to be heard.  Stop talking.  Zip it. Once you stop talking and start listening you can be that mirror for people.

People buy from people! There has to be some sort of a connection. I’m not saying you have to be friends with people.  But as soon as somebody understands that you care about their why – you don’t have to sell anything. People don’t buy what you do.  People buy why you do what you do.  Get out there, listen to people, draw people out and learn from them. As a leader you’ve also got to be extremely good at praising people. Never openly criticize people; never lose your temper, and always lavish praise on your colleagues for a job well done.

People flourish if they’re praised. Usually they don’t need to be told when they’ve done wrong because most of the time they know it. If somebody is not working out, don’t automatically throw him or her out of the company. A company should genuinely be a family. So see if there’s another job within the company that suits them better. On most occasions you’ll find something for every single kind of personality.

P.S. “True success isn’t measured in your bank account, investment portfolios, real estate holdings, the number of acres you live on, by what car you drive, or anything like that. True success is measured by how many people are better off because you lived.”

Arturo E. Bermudez
Entrepreneur

An Expert Review of Simon Sinek, “Start With Why”!

What do Forbes Magazine, American Express, PSFK (a leading trending spotting organization), The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, FastCompany, CMO Magazine, NPR and BusinessWeek  have in common?…They all lead with their WHY!

There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or influence. Those who lead inspire us. Whether individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead not for them, but for ourselves. The Golden Circle (GC) is  a model created by Sinek based on human decision-making that guides organizations on how to inspire people to buy or support any product, company or idea. I strongly recommend you to read this article, listen to his 20 minute presentation on his website www.startwithwhy.com and  finally read his book “Start With Why”.

Simon Sinek is an entrepreneur and marketing consultant (Microsoft and Dell among others) who turned his fascination for leadership and advertising into a career of convincing people to do what inspire them. His earliest work was in advertising, moving on to start Sinek Partners in 2002. Sinek found the world of entrepreneurship after suddenly losing his passion despite doing very well financially. After a good few months of struggle he finally re-found  his excitement about life and work. Sinek discovered what he was missing and started sharing his message with friends and their friends to find their “why”. Finally, he decided to write a book to help him spread his message to the business world.

By Studying the leaders and companies that make the greatest impact in the world and achieve a more lasting success than others, he discovered the formula that explains how they do it. The amazingly simple idea, The Golden Circle, is grounded in the biology of human decision-making and is changing how leaders and companies think and act. Simon’s unconventional and innovative views on business and leadership have attracted international attention and have earned him invitations to meet with an astounding array leaders and organizations, including: Microsoft, Members of Congress, GE Silicones, AOL, New York City Ballet, the Director of HIV/AIDS Policy for the US Department of Health and Human Services, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? (one of America’s fastest growing franchises) among others.

Quite simple Simon Sinek teaches leaders and companies how to inspire people. Simon is leading a movement to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. For every business to succeed they must know their purpose since that is the cause or belief that drives every one of us to make a purchase decision at the end of the day. I strongly believe that if everyone knew why they do what they do and if everyone only did the things that inspired them entrepreneurship would be a much easier concept to master.

If you are a committed entrepreneur and want to learn more, please feel free to visit my site www.thinknetworth.com to find more about me, what I do and WHY I am so interested in you becoming successful in your network marketing business.

P.S. ‎”Great leaders don’t try to be perfect, they try to be themselves. And that’s what makes them great.” Simon Sinek

“There is very little more powerful than an individual’s imagination. Imagination is often associated with fanciful daydreaming, the best friend of childhood. But imagination is the emotional capital of the true entrepreneur.” Jay Kubassek

Arturo E. Bermudez
Entrepreneur- Developer of Think Networth

An Expert Review of Magnetic Sponsoring: Mike Dillard

I just went through the 7 video course of Mike Dillard’s Magnetic Sponsoring and here are some of my thoughts:

+Don’t advertise your product directly, market or advertise useful information first. You don’t market your product (this is what a salesman does), you market useful information to help people… position yourself as an expert who want to help!

+Only sell to people who want what you are selling, your target market!

+The best way to allow someone to sell themselves is to continually market to them over a certain period of time. Every single action and decision is based on “the desire to avoid pain or acquire pleasure”- Based on emotion!

+Once you have communicated the benefits that can come from your business, you need to help them justify their decision with logic. Getting started has to be their idea, not yours.

+Market a low cost product on the front end (Magnetic Sponsoring does that) and you can re-invest your advertising budget into your sales funnel to get more leads and more cash for your business. When you have all the cash and leads you need, you have virtually a ZERO advertising budget and you will in turn, generate more and more leads to run your network marketing business on autopilot.

+Get rid off pressure tacticts and you’ll start sponsoring higher quality people into your primary business

+By human nature, people are genuinely lazy and inefficient…they  would rather learn how to do something than actually just doing it- Fear of Failure

+You need to be willing to give without want before you can have!

+The goal of the course is to teach you how to stop cold calling dead beat leads, pestering your friends and relatives to support your dream, dragging people to hotel opportunity meetings,Wearing buttons, printing flyers and placing cards on car windscreens

+Brand yourself as a real expert in the network marketing industry, so your prospects will respect you and sign up as your downline with credit card in hand!

+The objective is to teach  how to generate leads and prospects, how to use the internet to market more effectively, how to create cash flow to fund your MLM business (funded proposal system).

In general I think Magnetic Sponsoring goes well along with network marketing if you understand the concept and put in the hard work consistently.  I also believe you have to understand that Magnetic Sponsoring is a technique and not a cash machine. Sitting around doing nothing after studying the video tutorials will definitely only result in failure.

P.S. ‎”So, let the old forms die. Let what no longer works fall away. Then, usher in the birth of WHAT’S NEXT”

Arturo E. Bermudez
Entrepreneur

Traffic Generation…Originality + Link Popularity + Relevant Content + Consistency!

I like to keep things simple and sweet, so I am going to give it to you straight here. When I talk about traffic generation 4 things come to my mind and 4 things only: Originality + Link Popularity + Relevant Content + Consistency. What I mean by this is… if you are new to network marketing, set up a 100 day challenge. Create an original, relevant piece of content for the next 3 months non-stop.

Do some keyword research and find out what people are looking for online about entrepreneurship and the network marketing industry in general, but make sure there is enough people looking for information on what you plan on sharing to make it worth your time and effort. After you have chosen a topic that is relevant and have created a valuable/unique piece of content, market it heavily online through your blog, article marketing directories, video marketing (create a quick video telling people to check out what you just did), Google Pay Per Click (if you have a budget), social media, etc. Popularity (most sites linked in to your site) and relevancy (most on topic…be specific) are the two components you need to drive a ton of traffic to your site, so make sure you are specific and have many links going back to your blog or wherever it is you want to send your traffic to. The objective of this post is not to let you guys wondering what to do next or to make you think for 3 hours straight till you get crazy.

The whole point is for you to take the insight of this article and go out there and start doing it. You are not going to see results in probably 1-3 months, but if you never start trying it, people will never know who you are and how you can help them. Always keep in mid that you are marketing the right way by practicing attraction marketing: you attract prospects you by providing them with what they want/need instead of you chasing them. Remember, the only 3 reasons people buy from you is because they like you…they know you and…trust you.

By applying attraction marketing, you are well on your way to start mastering customer acquisition (the hardest thing to do in the business world…hands down!). Don’t think, act! or a Walt Disney defines it… “good marketing is doing what you do so well and so uniquely that people can’t resist telling others.”

P.S. ‎”I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.” Thomas A. Edison

Arturo E. Bermudez
Entrepreneur