How Not To Start A Business — Even If You Are A Woman
Here are the “tools” More magazine provided to help its readers get started as entrepreneurs: * Consult with an attorney to make sure you set up the right legal structure. * Check with your municipal authority to make sure “they permit a venture like yours to work out of the…
READ MOREAnother Way To Get Your Name In Print — And Get Paid For It Too
In a recent Saturday edition of ETR (12-28-02), we gave you guidelines to help increase your chances of having your letters to the editor of your local newspaper published. After reading that article, Glen Strathy, a freelance writer, wrote in to suggest that you might want to write Op-Ed pieces…
READ MOREThe Benefits of Being Global
The U.S. is, without a doubt, the easiest place in the world to live. You can buy a new, oversized hot-water heater on New Year’s Day from Sears (I did this for an apartment building I owned in Chicago years ago), you can have a pizza delivered to your house…
READ MOREIt Pays To Help Your Competitors
Most books on the subject treat business as war. Your competitors are your enemy. Beating them out of market share is your goal. If you can get them to go out of business completely, you’ve triumphed. I don’t share that view. And I’ll tell you why. War is a terrible,…
READ MOREHow To Handle Irate Customers
Only after an angry customer believes that you understand his problem and sympathize with his plight will he be willing to believe that you really mean to help him. This is especially true if he’s been run through a customer-service drill that resulted in nothing happening. One way I’ve found…
READ MOREPay Attention To Your No. 1 Job
According to most “serial business builders,” bad hiring and firing decisions are among the most important mistakes entrepreneurs make. These include: 1. not spending the time and energy to recruit the very best employees 2. not paying close enough attention to an executive’s performance 3. waiting too long to…
READ MORESomething To Ponder
Something to ponder: All your clients, customers, and employees have a hidden mission — and that is to reduce your profits to zero. It is a cynical thought, but it’s true. The moment you let up on the pressure to produce, sell, save, and improve, your bottom line will begin…
READ MOREWhat to Expect from Stocks and Bonds
My friend and colleague Steve Sjuggerud recently studied 100 years of investing returns for 16 countries and found that stocks yielded an annualized gain of 9.2% a year in U.S. dollars, including dividends. U.S. stocks did a little better, returning 10.1% a year. Bonds, Steve says, brought in 4.4% globally…
READ MOREWhen You Shouldn’t Fire Your Weakest Link
As an executive working for a business I didn’t own, I fired employees right and left. It was clear to me that my primary duty was to the business — and when someone working for me couldn’t cut the mustard and could be replaced rather quickly by someone better, I…
READ MOREPromise #9 for the New Year: To Become Wiser by Reading ETR Every Day
You are a very busy person. And so I appreciate the fact that you take the time each morning to make reading ETR a priority. The single most productive thing I do each day is the work I do writing ETR. It’s energizing because it gets me thinking positively first…
READ MOREBecome Wealthier by Developing a Second Income
Today, I would like you to resolve that — if you haven’t done so already — you’ll develop a second stream of income this year by getting yourself into a side business. The business can be home-based or housed in an office. It can be run by you or someone…
READ MOREBecome Wealthier by Investing in Real Estate
If you haven’t already begun investing in real estate, I’d like you to consider doing so today. If you are a budding real-estate tycoon, resolve to add to your empire this year. I love real estate. In the 10 or 12 years I’ve been actively investing in it, it has…
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