Writing a Business Plan

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Are you getting ready to start developing your business plan? If so, have you thought about how you are going to go about developing that business plan or what you should include in it? If you are unfamiliar with business plans, particularly what they include, you may want to the take the time to familiarize yourself with items commonly found on a business plan. Doing so may make it easier for you to develop a business plan that will fit your needs.

One of the most important things that you should include on a business plan is the type of business that you are interested in starting. For example, are you interested in starting a retail store, an online store, or a cleaning service? Regardless of which type of business you plan on starting, you need to outline that business, preferably in great detail. It is also important to mention the products or services that you plan on selling, also in great detail.

It is also important to mention where your business will be located or, at least, where you want your business to be located at. If you are planning on starting an internet business, this process will be a little bit easier to explain. If you are starting an internet business, it may be a good idea to mention the domain name that you would like to choose for your online website. If you are planning on running a storefront business, you will want to focus on properties that are available for sale or for rent. If you do not want to do this, you will, at least, want to focus on the type of building that you would like to rent or buy and your preferred business location.

Another point that you should mentioned in your business plan is how your business will be run. For example, will you be running your own business or will you hire someone else to run it for you? It is also important to mention whether or not you plan on hiring outside assistance. The amount of staff that you would like to hire is important when examining the potential success of your business, as well as the costs associated with running it.

In addition to your business expenses, it is also important to focus on how you plan on generating income for your business. That is why your business plan should include advertising or marketing strategies. These strategies should be used to reach your target audience. Your target audience is who you think is most likely to become a client or a customer of yours. In fact, your target audience should also be outlined in your business plan.

It is also advised that your business plan focus on your competition. This is extremely important, especially if you are planning on using your business plan to obtain financing for your up and coming business venture. Financial lenders and investors will want to make sure that your business will be a success. In most cases, you will find that the success of your business relies on the competition. That is why it is advised that you obtain an accurate count of businesses in your area that are offering the same products or services as you are, as well as the prices that those products and services are being offered at.
The above mentioned points are just a few of the many that you will want to cover, when making your business plan. Some of the other points that are worth mentioning include your financial needs, security plans, and business insurance.

To Your Success
Cody Moya

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    Is Outsourcing the Answer to Your Software Problems?

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    Determining whether or not outsourcing is the answer to your software problems is not necessarily a difficult question but it is a question which involves careful consideration. There are a series of questions which should be asked to help determine whether or not outsourcing is a wise decision in a particular case. Examples of some of the questions which should be asked are:

    * Are there in-house employees capable or resolving the software problem?
    * Do current workloads allow in-house employees to work on this problem?
    * How expensive will it be to outsource the task?
    * What are the benefits of outsourcing the problem?

    This article will take a look at each of these questions and provide insight into how these questions can be used to help make this important decision.

    The Capabilities of In-house Employees

    Some software problems require highly specialized training to resolve the issues. It is often the case that a company’s in-house employees do not have the capabilities of resolving these software issues. When this occurs outsourcing the problem to a specialist is the obvious choice. However, in situations where the in-house employees are qualified to resolve the problem, the issue of whether or not to outsource becomes more complicated.

    Those tasked with making the decision often weight the options by considering the cost of outsourcing versus the speed at which the problem would be resolved in both cases. If there is an expert readily available to tackle the problem it will likely be resolved relatively quickly. However, if in-house employees are currently overburdened, they may not be able to make this problem a priority.

    The Workload of In-house Employees

    The workload of in-house employees often comes into question when considering whether or not to outsource a specific software related task or tasks. In the previous section we discussed the importance of outsourcing when the in-house employees are not qualified for certain tasks. However, this is not always the case. Often in-house employees are fully capable of completing a task but they are unable to do so because of their current workload. In a situation when all of the in-house employees are unavailable to take on additional tasks, outsourcing again becomes a viable option.

    Will Outsourcing Save Money

    One of the main factors company’s consider when they contemplate outsourcing is whether or not they will save money by outsourcing. Hiring an expert on a contract basis can certainly be expensive but it is often a worthwhile investment especially for highly specialized work. The cost of outsourcing is usually higher in terms of the hourly rate of the employee but overall the costs may be reduced. When considering work performed by in-house employees it is important to realize the cost of the work includes the employee’s hourly rate, the cost of benefits such as social security, Medicare and workers’ compensation and resources such as office space, hardware, office supplies and other incidentals. After factoring in all of these costs it becomes clear that outsourcing isn’t always the more expensive option.

    Another factor to consider when calculating the costs of outsourcing a software problem is how quickly the problem can be resolved by outsourcing as opposed to handling the problem in-house. This will depend on the capabilities and availability of the in-house staff. If there is not a capable staff member available it may take significantly longer to handle the problem in-house.

    The Benefits of Outsourcing

    Finally, the benefits of outsourcing should be considered in deciding whether or not to outsource particular tasks. We have already touched upon some of the benefits of outsourcing but for the sake of completeness we will include a list of some of the most significant benefits below:

    * Decreased labor costs
    * Access to industry experts
    * Flexibility in scheduling
    * Increased manpower

    With so many benefits it is clear that outsourcing can be a viable solution to many software problems. The bottom line in determining whether or not to outsource a particular software problem often involves comparing the benefits of outsourcing to the costs of outsourcing.

    To Your Success
    Cody Moya

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    How Outsourcing Software Jobs Can Save You Money

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    Pay an individual outside of your company to complete a software project for you and you could find yourself saving money in the process. This is a concept which may seem counterintuitive to some but those who have embraced the idea of outsourcing realize the cost savings associated with the process is one of the benefits. Outsourcing results in an overall cost savings for a number of reasons. Outsourcing contributes to reduced labor costs and greater productivity. Additionally, outsourcing virtually increases manpower giving companies greater capabilities.

    Reduced Labor Costs

    For many the most important reason for outsourcing is to reduce labor costs. Employers may not be obligated to offer benefits such as social security, Medicare and workers’ compensation to the workers who are completing the outsourced work. Additionally, these individuals often have their own offices and computer equipment and are capable of completing their work offsite.

    Labor costs can be a significant part of a company’s budget for the year. A company that is able to reduce their labor costs will be able to enjoy a greater profit margin without making any other changes to their business operations. There are certainly other changes which can be made to increase profitability but reducing labor costs is a guaranteed method of increasing profitability while other methods of increasing profitability such as marketing different niches will not guarantee success.

    Greater Productivity

    Another benefit of outsourcing is increased productivity. Greater productivity can be another cost savings benefit for companies. When work is outsourced there are a number of factors which contribute to increased productivity. Productivity may increase due to workers being assigned appropriate projects, workers being more efficient and less cases of underutilization.

    Assigning workers to tasks that are beyond their capabilities is one way to cause a decline in productivity. While challenging employees to think for themselves and take on increasing responsibility is worthwhile, giving an employee and assignment he is not qualified to complete can be damaging to productivity because of the learning curve involved. This is why it is so important to outsource complicated software tasks to experts in the industry. They are often able to complete complex tasks quickly and efficiently.

    Outsourcing also makes employees more efficient because by allowing individuals to focus on only one task at a time there is less time spent transitioning from one task to another. Many employees and employers think multi-tasking is a way to increase productivity but it can actually have the reverse effect. Employees with too many responsibilities may feel pressured to work on each task each day. This can be detrimental because each time the employee switches from one task to the next it is necessary to get back up to speed with the new task and remind himself where he left off when he stopped working on the project.

    Finally, outsourcing can lead to greater productivity by reducing underutilization. For example outsourcing very specialized projects requiring expert analysis is preferable to maintaining this expert on staff when their services are only needed occasionally. If this were a salaried employee he would be greatly underutilized. However, outsourcing these occasional projects to an expert prevents the underutilization phenomenon.

    Increased Manpower

    Another way outsourcing can save you money is through providing your company with increased manpower. This is especially important for smaller companies who would normally be precluded from attempting to secure larger government projects. This is because there are typically requirements regarding the number of employees a company must have available to work on the project. Maintaining a network of qualified individuals gives a company more bargaining power when negotiating larger contracts.

    Outsourcing is really ideal in this situation because it enables the company to work with highly qualified individuals when necessary without having to retain these individuals as salaried staff members. This is significant because niche experts often become so specialized that working as an independent contractor is really their only option because as a salaried employee they are more of a liability to companies than they are an asset. This is because many companies do not want to bear the burden of keeping these individuals on staff when they can outsource the work to them on a per contract basis.

    To Your Success
    Cody Moya

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    Action Tip - Step by step, one at a time

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    Action tip today is something close to my heart, because it’s a mistake I made literally from day one, and even after my business began to be successful, I didn’t realize what I was doing until late 2004 when I was profitable, but also burned out, tired and trying to do a million things at once.

    My first site that you’ll probably hear about a lot throughout this, as that’s where I learned the majority of my lessons over the years, was an all singing all dancing site that serviced customers like no other. It was packed with tools, packed with scripts, live customer support, guides, tutorials, reviews and more. And you know what? That very site never brought in more than $5000 per month in profit for me at it’s peak. I could have hired someone to go ahead and manage it for me, but instead, I went and closed it down.

    Why the hell did you do that? Everyone started screaming at me (especially my long term contacts that had been with me from the start) My response was I’ve learned a lot, and I now know I can still offer that kind of quality, do half the work, enjoy life a lot more and make a whole lot more money in the process.

    Of course they had a good laugh, I got the normal reactions about how stupid I was to be doing what I was doing, but you know, here I am in 2006 earning twenty times that amount after just two weeks of a product launch and a month of previous work.

    So here’s my advice to you directly from what I learned. Aside from you shouldn’t listen to people who have no clue about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it (even your loved ones may unintentionally hold you back, you go for it!), my number one point here is this: Don’t take on more than you can handle. If you find yourself working all hours of the morning, find yourself looking at the clock at 2am when everyone else is asleep or out having fun, or relaxing, you’re working too long. Look at what you’re doing and ask yourself, is it worth it? Not from your customers point of view, or your families point of view, but yours. After all, you’re not putting all this work into your business so someone else can take advantage of the rewards you’re working hard to get right? If they want it, they got to go through it all and get it. If they don’t, they don’t want it enough. This is all about you now.

    Are you working too hard for too little in return? I know that feeling well.

    If the answer is yes, you have two choices. Choice one, is quit. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the fire. Of course that means giving up your hopes and dreams for the future and working a job until you’re 60 (Unless you’re in the UK like me, then it’s about 106 now, I lost count). But you don’t want to do that right? Glad to hear it. You have another choice.

    Change what you’re doing. If it means some as small as taking longer breaks, or something as big as restructuring your whole business simply so it’s less work for you, so be it. You can’t be successful unless you’re in it 100% all of the time. That takes a lot out of anyone. If you’re wondering why everyone else is such a hard worker and so successful, let me let you in on a little secret here.

    The successful people work hard to learn about how to be successful. Once they learn, they work smart and begin to work less hard and be more successful.

    That’s how you can always tell you’re rising up the ladder: When the work- load eases off, but you find yourself being more successful. Then you have space to learn something new, take things to the next step, work hard, learn, refine, and again you have space to learn something else and so on.

    See what I’m getting at? It’s like a circle and development, of progress and if you’re constantly working your hardest and have no space to move, then you’re doing something wrong, because you have no space to move forward. Make space today. It’s either that, or stay as you are now forever.

    Take it slow, one step at a time, and you’ll progress much faster than if you try to climb the ladder in two big steps, not to mention you’ll be a heck of a lot less tired while doing it. I’ve seen this at every stage of the development of my business, and you know what? This is big.

    Every single successful person I know has taken this into account, put it into action, understands it, uses it, and would give this as their success making piece of advice if someone were to ask. I have never met a successful person that hasn’t mastered this. That’s how big this is.

    To Your Success
    Cody Moya

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    Working on Your ‘Why’

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    In today’s society we often put a lot of emphasis on how things are done. Present a plan with lofty goals to the board of directors of any company and surely they will ask you how you suppose those goals will be met. Apply for a mortgage and you will be asked to demonstrate how you plan to pay it off. Give a professor the correct answer to a complex question and you might be asked how you arrived at your conclusion. The How is often so predominant that the Why is sometimes completely forgotten as if the Why is of less importance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Why you want something is infinitely more important than how you think you’re going to achieve it.

    To find out what your Why is start with identifying what it is that you want. After all, if you can’t visualize what you want how could you ever hope to realize it? This seems easy enough but apparently it’s a bit more challenging than one would think. Ask an adult to write down everything they want on a list with a minimum of 50 items and you will find that for most it turns out to be quite difficult. Stating that you want a certain amount of money, want to quit working or just want a bigger car than your neighbor can cause people to experience discomfort. After all it may make them appear greedy or lazy and that’s not generally considered positive. So they try to come up with something that’s socially acceptable and in doing so make what they want subject to the opinions of others. Kids on the other hand have no problem here. They’ll come up with 50 items and more in no time, listing things you didn’t even know exist. They don’t worry about what others may think of it, whether it makes them look greedy, lazy or whatever. All they know is that they want it.

    After you have identified what it is you want, then you get to the Why. Why would you want all those things? Again, kids have the upper hand here. They’ll be quick to point out why they want it all: mostly the fun they will have and the popularity it will give them. Ask an adult why they want something and you’ll enjoy watching the expression on their face. You’ll see them searching for an answer. Why would you want to be rich? Why would you want to quit working? What would you do if you no longer had to go to a job every day? You may decide you want a bigger house than anyone in your family before you ever had. But what does that do for you? Would you sleep better? Would it make your life better? Or is it because you just love cleaning house all day? Whatever it is, it’s important that you know.

    Exactly how you plan to achieve your goal is far less important, especially in such an early stage. Too much focus on the How early in the process can have a devastating effect. It could paralyze you. If your financial situation is so bad that you are actually below broke, achieving financial independence can seem so far fetched that reaching it appears impossible. You might sell yourself on the idea that it’s so far out of reach that you couldn’t possibly make it happen in this lifetime. As much as that may seem true at the time, it doesn’t have to become your reality. However in order to get there you will probably have to overcome some serious hurdles. And for that to happen you need a reason to get up and take the necessary action. That reason needs to be strong enough to pull you through the tough times that inevitably will come. That reason is your Why.

    History is packed with unbelievable stories of accomplishment. People facing seemingly insurmountable odds who overcame obstacles you wouldn’t believe. Individuals with relentless determination who decided to push on in situations where most people would give up. Why is that so many people throw in the towel when things don’t go their way and only a small number of people seem to persevere? It’s not because they’re genetically stronger and it’s not because they’ve been dealt a better hand in life. What sets them apart is their Why. That’s what keeps them in the game. Their Why is so strong that whatever gets in their way they will find a way to deal with it. They don’t have all the answers, but what they do have is an inner conviction that they can and will find them.

    Working on your Why is one of the best ways to improve the chance of reaching your goals. So make sure that you know what your Why is. Find it and refine it over and over again. Make it so strong that achieving it becomes an absolute must for you and the How will magically reveal itself to you over time.

    To Your Success
    Cody Moya

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    The Master Skills

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    The ability to set written goals and to create action plans are the ‘Master Skills.’

    These are far more important than technical skills, selling skills or speaking skills, because they bring into effect the “cybernetic goal seeking mechanism” of the brain. This mechanism means that once you impress on your mind the goal, then your mind moves unerringly towards making your goal into a reality in every situation.

    The oil millionaire E.L.Hunt, when asked what the secret of success was, said there are only two things you need to know:

    1) What it is that you want…

    2) Determine what price you have to pay for it, and then resolve how to pay that price.

    We all have a built in failure mechanism, which for want of a better description we call ‘the comfort zone’. We tend to stay within our comfort zone in order to avoid the risk of failure. We tend to move towards things that give us pleasure and away from things that cause us pain or which are threatening. This is the ‘Pain or Pleasure Principle’ that we read about in psychology textbooks.

    The only way to override this failure mechanism is to activate your success mechanism, through a goal. When you focus your mind on a goal you activate the success mechanism, which then releases a lot of positive energy. This builds up your Desire and Drive. It gives you persistence, clarity of thought and intensity of purpose. You must move out of your comfort zone in order to improve any aspect of your life. One of the best ways to do this is to write down progressively higher goals and keep working towards them. This is how every successful person works. This keeps them alive, motivated and successful.

    And remember that successful people are not people without problems. Successful people set their goals to solve their problems. The problem is not in achieving goals but in the setting of them in the first place, because once you have set your goals your mind automatically keeps working towards them.

    Once you learn this secret, happiness and a sense of fulfillment usually follows.

    Write the goals down!! If your goals remain unwritten they are borderline on being wishful thinking and can soon be lost from view. If you are not sure of what your major life goals should be, here is another secret…use ‘creative visualization’.

    To do this find a quiet place where you can sit undisturbed, close your eyes and relax. Once your mind is at rest focus your thoughts on the kind of person you would like to be. Visualize everything you can about that person, how you would speak, how you would dress, how you would act in all kinds of situations.

    As you are watching this ‘minds eye’ video of yourself, intensify you feelings towards this person. See and feel the changes becoming real and how much better your life will be when that person ‘The Ideal You’ becomes a reality.

    If you do this every day for twenty days (the time it takes to establish a new habit) by the end of that time you will have changed so much you will never want to go back to the old you.

    You have used the Master Skills.

    To Your Success
    Cody Moya

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    Two Words that Separate the Online Winners from the Quitters

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    Ask five people what to do to be successful when starting a business and you will probably get five different answers. Everything from, “you absolutely have to have a business plan” to “failure is eminent without my new software.” Although a business plan is very important and there are some very valuable software applications to grow a business, there is one aspect of success that seems to be very hard for many people to overcome.

    Here’s a story to illustrate the point. A friend, named Joe wanted to start an internet marketing business. Before he began selling anything he hired someone to coach him. The coach did not have any really revolutionary ideas, pretty much the same as the other guru’s but he was honest with Joe when he needed to hear the truth. Joe followed his instructions on researching profitable niches. Once Joe’s coach emailed him with a suggestion that he thought would make it easier for Joe, but Joe responded saying that he thought the suggestion made by his coach was nearly impossible. Joe told him, “I cannot do that, it’s too hard.” The response from the coach was paramount to Joe’s success. It changed everything for Joe. He replied saying, “Joe, if you think you can’t then you’re probably right.”

    Joe understood what his coach was getting at. Joe’s own thoughts about what he thought he could and could not do were holding him back. Joe decided that very day that he could in fact do what his coach suggested to find a profitable niche. That’s right, he made a decision that he could do it and that he would not give up. Not only did Joe find a very profitable niche, he found ten profitable niches. Joe quickly started his first internet business selling a hard good product and it turned out to be a total success. This rest as they say is history.

    Ask yourself, what could you do if you removed “I can’t” from your vocabulary and weren’t hindered by what you think are your abilities. Joe knew nothing about the niche he started in and even so his business took off like gangbusters. He learned about his product as he went along. He didn’t know how to build a website but he learned. Joe’s success had nothing to do with a large starting capital because he started with less than $300.

    Your success at any business venture has very little to do with talent, money you have to invest, knowledge about the product and a whole host of other excuses that people come up with about why they can’t start an internet business. Your success does have everything to do with your determination to succeed and perseverance when challenges come your way. Now don’t go and throw money down the toilet because you don’t want to give up, please use common sense. If you haven’t made any money after a couple months don’t decide that online marketing isn’t for you. Consider moving on to find another niche. There are millions of hungry buyers in thousands of niches waiting to buy. Keep plugging away until you find a need to meet in a specific niche and fill that need. It will only take a few months to get to know your market.

    Every single month, there are millions of people searching for information on how to make money on the internet, yet less than 3% of those people ever actually make any money. The difference among those that succeed and those that do not is that the ones who make money don’t back down when faced with the same challenges that all online marketers face. It comes down to this, you have to delete the phrase, “I can’t” from your vocabulary. Don’t be one of the 97% that give up right before you strike gold.

    To Your Success
    Cody Moya

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    Getting Started With Real Estate Investing

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    One of the best ways to get started with building your own personal wealth-building system is by investing in real estate. Becoming a real estate investor is a daunting task, but one that will, if operated efficiently, pay dividends forever.

    How does one start with the business of real estate investing? Let’s look at plans to get started buying and selling real estate property:

    Plug into your local real estate investors association. Most medium to large communities have a real estate club where other real estate investors attend regular meetings. These are other investors with the same goals and dreams as you.

    People gathered together with the like minds creates a social atmosphere that motivates new investors to take action. Club members share ideas with other members, discussing what works and what does not work in real estate investing.

    Before actually buying any investment properties, beginning real estate investors should begin to put their organizations together by outlining a specific business plan. The plan should go over every step in the purchase of a property, from the marketing strategies on through the sale or leasing of a property.

    In the beginning it is important to decide what types of properties to focus on. If you wish to buy rental properties, then focus on those. If flipping houses is in your plans, then concentrate on those types of properties. This is important because it allows the new investor to become a specialist within that area. Becoming a specialist leads to fewer costly mistakes.

    Begin to get together a group of contractors and sub-contractors who you can trust to work within your new system and according to your business plans and your budget.

    If you will be working with “fixer-upper” houses, line up a plumber and an a electrician, as well as heating and air-conditioning experts. Better yet, find a reliable “handyman” who is capable of doing many of the jobs needed in fixing up houses.

    Find a real estate agent that understands property investors and their needs and is willing to work with you on a continuing basis. An agent gives you access to property information, including the Multiple Listing Service. An agent who understands real estate investing can also find you good deals within your specific market.

    Time is always a key factor in real estate investing, so always look to ways “turn” a property in the least amount of time. A property that remains unsold or not rented is eating up profits every day it in your possession. Learn to cut the losses on properties that fail to meet their profit potential.

    Every beginning real estate investor will make mistakes that cut into potential profits. It is imperative to recognize these mistakes and correct them before they can cripple the business.

    In the end, the investor who runs their business in the most efficient ways will profit, succeed, and grow in real estate investing.

    To Your Success
    Cody Moya

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    The Power of Sharing

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    It has been said, “If you give, you shall receive”. This saying is often used to refer to giving of your time, your effort, your money or other material things before you can reasonably expect to receive any of these things from others. All of these things can be very valuable, but one of the most powerful things to share, and also one of the easiest, is thoughts and ideas.

    When we consider sharing something, we often think of this as parting with something. Share some of your money and you will no longer be able to spend it yourself. Share some chocolate and whomever you share it with gets to taste this delicious substance, not you. At least you won’t taste all of it. Sharing, in these cases, means parting with. It means you give something away that you will no longer benefit from directly. This is not the case with thoughts and ideas. When you share a thought or a good idea that doesn’t mean you lose it. It doesn’t even mean there is any less left for you. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite is true. You can truly be enriched by the thoughts and ideas you share with other people. Share some wisdom with someone else and now two can benefit from it. Even though there was no cost involved for you in sharing it, to the person on the receiving end it could represent a huge value.

    Unfortunately we often try to keep things for ourselves in order to keep a competitive advantage. To ‘keep the edge’ so to speak. This is understandable and can sometimes be a good strategy. Certain information can be extremely valuable and if it really gives you this ‘edge’ then keeping it to yourself may be the smart thing to do. In reality however most of us don’t possess any information that really offers sustainable advantage over others. The truth is that the real advantage in this day and age, with the Internet at everybody’s fingertips, is no longer in any single piece of information. The people that have been most successful have done so by combining ideas and concepts into combinations that others haven’t thought of. From this perspective not sharing your ideas may actually rob you of many opportunities and as such cost you a great deal.

    In business, as well as in personal life, breakthroughs often come from a combination of ideas. Rarely is one man’s creative idea completely fabricated by his own mind. The tossing back and forth of ideas and concepts usually plays a critical role in the development of new ideas. In discussing the potential application of a certain technology with a customer, this customer can come up with ideas that you would have never thought of. After all it’s the customer’s business and he probably knows more about it than you do. Especially when you’re talking to an entrepreneurial type of individual. Most entrepreneurs are always looking for new opportunities to improve their bottom line and expand their business. Now why would he share his ideas with you if you haven’t shared anything with him? Good question. You could of course turn the situation around; why share anything with him if he hasn’t shared anything with you? Although this may be a fair question, it isn’t really relevant. After all this is exactly the deadlock situation that hampers so much creativity. Of course there is always a risk of someone running off with one of your ideas. So it wouldn’t be a bad idea to protect your idea or at least a part of it. You could for instance leave out some details that aren’t necessary to paint the big picture but would surely be critical in bringing the idea to fruition.

    The human brain makes connections based on our frame of reference. Since every person’s frame of reference is unique it’s possible for a group of 1000 individuals to listen to one and the same speech, talk or idea and yet, have all of him or her interpret it differently. As a matter of fact, this is not just possible; it will inevitably be the case. Since no two persons share the exact same background, body of knowledge and life experiences. These differences in interpretations could therefore lead to very different concepts and ideas a person could come up with. That is where one of the most powerful aspects of sharing comes into play. Your ideas may spark a new idea in someone else that you would never have thought of by yourself, which in turn sparks another idea in you that they would never have thought of by themselves. Of course this doesn’t have to be a conscious sharing of ideas. Most of the time it will happen without you actually being aware of it. A thought will come up that you think is your own when in fact it was initially put there by someone else. In your quest for ideas your mind dug up this idea and perhaps linked it to some other fragments in your memory banks that, put together, formed a new breakthrough idea.

    Even though this is mostly unconscious, it’s still a good strategy to share more ideas on a consistent basis. Think of it like this; every time you share something a number of things happen. For starters, you deposit something into someone else’s memory bank. You never know what this little piece of information is; or what this concept will do for the person you share it with. Perhaps it does nothing for them but it eventually does for someone else they share it with. This person may or may not share something with you in return. But there is a universal law that states that: “If you give out, something is coming back”. The law doesn’t say that it’s coming back on Thursday morning at 10:00 AM, when you might need it the most. It just says “It’s coming back”. In many cases when you share something, that person will feel obligated to share something with you. Perhaps right away, perhaps a month from now. Not necessarily out of obligation, but out of human nature. This is the law of reciprocity at work. Whenever they share something with you, that concept will be stored inside your head. Perhaps you may not see an immediate use for it. In many cases you probably never will. However you never know when and in what situation their idea may turn out to be useful. Perhaps in combination with some other ideas that have yet to be shared with you by other people.

    But guess what? If you don’t share your thoughts with them, they may not share theirs with you. And because you didn’t share you missed out on that one little idea that you needed to put everything in its place. Who knows how much you will miss out on because of that? It’s safe to say that not sharing could cost you infinitely more than keeping it all to yourself would ever earn you. And that is just too much of a price to pay. So whenever you have the opportunity to share some worthwhile thoughts with another person, do so. It may work wonders, for you and them, and it won’t cost a thing.

    To Your Success
    Cody Moya

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    Keep Rolling

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    The use of metaphors is widespread in business. Especially in network marketing, where personal development is a key factor, one-liners and metaphors are often used to get important points across. Network marketing is often described as a vehicle that can get you to a desired destination. So if you could pick a vehicle, what kind of vehicle would you choose?

    You could go for the sports car. It’s fast and it’s beautiful. It shines in the sunlight and its engine’s roar is impressive. It exemplifies the lifestyle that many people strive for when they get involved in the industry. Some start off this way by adopting a “fake it till you make it approach”. Of course you should adopt a certain posture when starting out in network marketing. It’s a business where, in the beginning, your attitude largely determines your altitude. However you can only fake it for so long. Unfortunately some people have hit success temporarily and immediately started living the millionaire lifestyle. Only to find out that their success was short lived. Their sports car turned a corner with some gravel and oil and it skid off the road. Sports cars are great vehicles but they often lack the staying power to achieve lasting success.

    In order to create the kind of organization that produces success in the long run we need another vehicle as a metaphor. That vehicle is a Sherman tank. Now that Sherman tank is not as fast as the sports car. It is not as beautiful as the sports car. It may not have all the luxury features of a sports car. But that Sherman tank was built for a reason. And that Sherman starts to go down the road. It has its eye on a target in the distance. It must vanquish and conquer that thing down there. It’s rolling slowly but steadily in the direction of that target. Now imagine that you are in that Sherman tank and that the target in the distance is what’s keeping you and your family from the life that you so richly deserve; a life of abundance, a life of freedom and happiness.

    And when friends say: “What do you think you’re doing? Do you think you can make this thing work?”

    The Sherman tank keeps rolling…

    And when people say “I’m going to stop you! Who do you think you are? Where do you come from?”

    The Sherman tank keeps rolling…

    And when stones and buildings stand in the way?

    The Sherman tank keeps rolling…

    And people look at you and say: “What are you doing in this network marketing business? Didn’t you get an education? Go out and get yourself a decent job!”

    You keep rolling…
    and you keep rolling…
    and you keep rolling…

    Because you know, deep in your heart, that if you don’t do it this generation, it may take hundreds of years for someone in your family tree to stand up and go and destroy that thing. It is up to you to break the chain of mediocrity. Just look at all the people that have made it before you. They had to keep rolling when things got difficult in their life. The real question is: “Are you willing to do that?”

    You see, you don’t have to be beautiful. You don’t have to be fast. You don’t have to be the one with the most talent. What do you have to do?

    When someone tells you to give it up and stop this foolish business of yours… What will you do?

    Will you let your head hang down in defeat and retreat back into a life of quiet desperation? Or will you aim your cannon dead at them and let go a charge shouting “You can’t stop me!” Because as long as you won’t let anything or anyone knock you out of the business, you’re still in the game and you’ve got a great chance to win!

    So when the difficulties arise in your life…
    when people around you are negative…
    when your initial results don’t meet your expectations…
    when people laugh at you and what you’re doing…
    when you feel discouraged and are tempted to quit…

    You put your hands together and you keep rolling…
    and you keep rolling…
    and you keep rolling…
    Until you get there!

    To Your Success
    Cody Moya

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