The 7 Secret Qualities of Successful Information Products
“The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good.” – Dwight David Eisenhower Expenditures on information and information products account for over half of this country’s economy. That’s roughly $5 trillion! Why so much? Americans have an unquenchable thirst for information. We crave information to make…
READ MOREA Vinter’s Secret Weapon
“Bring me a beaker of wine, so I may wet my mind and say something clever” – Aristophanes I’ve got wine on my mind. Not literally, mind you. As I write this, it’s not even 10:00 a.m., for God’s sake. No. I’m thinking about wine thanks to two articles I’ve…
READ MOREGrow Your Business Like China, Part 3
“Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.” – Julia Cameron Last week – on Tuesday and Friday – I talked about how a Confucian saying got me to look at business-building in a new way. On Friday,…
READ MOREGrow Your Business Like China, Part 2
“Life leaps like a geyser for those who drill through the rock of inertia.” – Alexis Carrel Since our job at ETR is to find little secrets in our quotidian world that illuminate wealth and power and personal success, I’ve been dutifully mulling over that saying by Confucius since I…
READ MOREAre You the World’s Worst Salesman?
“The best of merchandise will go back to the shelf unless handled by a conscientious, tactful salesman.” – James Cash Penney Many years ago, Steve Martin made a short little film – a film clip, really – called “The World’s Worst Waiter.” One sight gag I remember was Martin as…
READ MOREGrow Your Business Like China, Part 1
“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.” – Calvin Coolidge On the flight to Beijing, I read a book K had bought for me, Iron & Silk by Mark Salzman. It is an account of the author’s time as…
READ MOREErfahrung for Real Estate Investors, Part 2
“Fear is a real killer. I try to trudge through the jungle with as little fear as possible.” – William Shockley Last Thursday, I discussed the recent media frenzy about real estate market corrections – the bubble-and-bust phenomenon. I showed examples of headlines claiming that any correction would be mild…
READ MOREErfahrung for Real Estate Investors, Part 1
“Be fearful when others are greedy … and greedy when others are fearful.” – Warren Buffett In the last few years, you’d come across dozens of articles about the real estate boom. Today, they’re about bubble and bust. Here’s a smattering from the last week: “The Boom Is Over, but…
READ MOREKeeping the U in USP
In marketing, we call the unique aspect of a product’s (or service’s) personality its Unique Selling Proposition or USP. It’s what makes it stand out from the competition and give consumers a reason to buy it. And the more unique (better differentiated) it is, the more others may want to emulate it.
READ MOREGot Demographics?
“I figure lots of predictions is best. People will forget the ones I get wrong and marvel over the rest.”– Alan Cox Since the year 2000, Americans have suffered through one of the worst bear markets in history … a disputed presidential election … the worst terrorist attack in the…
READ MOREThe Problem With Great Expectations
“There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started out with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet which fails so regularly, as love.” – Erich Fromm I once pitched a real estate deal to a small group of affluent investors. I was (very loosely) projecting annual profits in…
READ MOREHow Small Issues Can Turn Into Huge Losses
“The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.”. – Dale Carnegie Have you ever let a small remark really get to you? Don T. learned how big a mistake that can be … the hard way. A successful sales manager, Don was proud of…
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