Educate Yourself into Riches
by Robert Kiyosaki

This article was originally published on Yahoo! Finance on Tuesday December 27, 2005. It reiterates the need for education when handling your money in any way. Whether it be investing or starting a home based business - education, training and support is the key.

Many of Wall Street's elite firms were being required to pay tens of millions of dollars in fines to investors, according to media reports. The penalties are for alleged bad investment advice, courtesy of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

This brings me to one of my favorite quotes from famed investor Warren Buffett goes: "Wall Street is the only place that people ride to work in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."

I have been highly critical of the standard financial planning advice -- "work hard, save money, get out of debt, invest for the long term, and diversify" -- for a long time. Such guidance is often more a financial advisor's (subway rider's) sales pitch than a solid investment guide.

But while I think it's courageous that Spitzer slaps millions in fines on a few Wall Street firms for their bad investment guidance, I believe the investors who accepted that unsound advice have some responsibility, too. Isn't knowing the difference between good and bad advice part of knowing what you're doing?

The Difference Between Investing and Shopping

The problem is, most investors don't know how bad the standard investment advice is. This mantra of "work hard, save money, get out of debt, invest for the long term, and diversify" is followed by millions of investors -- who lost $7 trillion to $9 trillion between 2000 and 2004. Many are still following this bad advice today.

Not only did millions of investors lose trillions of dollars, many also missed the boom in real estate, oil, gas, and previous metals. Furthermore, despite investors' huge losses, Wall Street paid out some of its biggest bonuses in history.

However, investors should realize it's "buyer beware." Investing is different from shopping. If I go to Sears and don't like the tool or shirt I purchased, I can generally get my money back. When we go shopping, we expect value for our money. But when we invest, we do so in the hopes of making more money -- and knowing that we risk making losses. What would happen to the financial industry if brokers were sued every time a client lost money? The wheels of world commerce would grind to a halt.

My point is: The world is filled with honest people handing out bad advice. An example of honest bad investment advice is the standard one of "work hard, save money, get out of debt, invest for the long term, and diversify".

The world is also filled with biased advice, which is why people say, "Never ask an insurance broker if you need insurance, or a mutual-fund sales person if they recommend mutual funds." Furthermore, there are many crooks and con artists as well, who intentionally promote dishonest ventures.

Spotting the Difference

So while it's imperative that we have the Securities and Exchange Commission and a brave Attorney General such as Spitzer to enforce the rules, we, as individual investors, still need to be vigilant and personally responsible for the advice we receive and what we do with our money.
In my opinion, that means each of us needs to be responsible for our own financial education so we can tell the difference between good advice, biased advice, and crooked advice. If you can educate yourself to know the differences between those three types of advice, getting rich is easy.

Or, if you take investing advice from a subway rider, don't be surprised if you wind up on the subway.

The columns, articles, message board posts and any other features provided on Yahoo! Finance are provided for personal finance and investment information and are not to be construed as investment advice. Under no circumstances does the information in this content represent a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. The views and opinions expressed in an article or column are the author's own and not necessarily those of Yahoo! and there is no implied endorsement by Yahoo! of any advice or trading strategy.

It is esential, as Robert says, that you be educated when dealing with finances. Afetr all it is your money and your business. Why do you think that McDonalds has all of its franchisees attend McDonald's University before they take control of the restuarant. Failure is not an option!

For a step by step guide to succeeding online GO HERE

To Great Success,

Joseph Demasi

Oh No! My Prospect Called My Opportunity A SCAM!!!

by Joseph Demasi

So you finally settled in on your opportunity. You checked it out, you spoke to the President of the company. You flew to the corporate office and met with the 3 top earners, each making over $1 mil. per year. You left the meeting with dreams of boats, planes and a tropic hideaway in Fiji. You were set. Those guys haven'e seen anything yet. $ 1 mil a year- that's chickenfeed!

You were on your way- UNTIL!, You were talking to your friends- (BIG MISTAKE!), they were shocked that someone as smart as you would be taken in by that SCAM!!! How do you feel? Getting second thoughts? Are you sure you looked everything over? Maybe you missed something.

They tell you that they heard all about this on Jerry Springer and you should not get involved in that at all. Keep your job at the meat plant and forget about your dreams, because this is the best there is. You suddenly sink into a deep depression. You have just made the first major mistake - talking to people 'close' to you. They are in just as bad shape as you are - maybe worse- and they do not feel comfortable enough to get out of the rut and they sure as heck don't want you to climb out and leave them there.

This is the biggest challenge a new person will face. As a matter of note I tell every body that starts in my business NOT to tell their family and friends. Do not make a list, just follow my simple guide and you will succeed - guaranteed! Do they listen? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. The good thing is I prepare them for the avalanche of negativity and they are more prepared to live through the assault.

Trust yourself! Know that you have looked at this - it is an established company with great products and they are poised for future growth. unless your friend is a multi millionaire and is familiar with this industry - their opinion is not a valid one. You need to get around like minded people, that want the same things you want and are willing to help you get there - not discourage you. Positive support is esential to your sucess. you will not survive without it.

When someone calls your opportunity a SCAM!, after you have looked it over, unless they have copies of court documents and written opinions by the experts in the industry, You need to get mad. You need to defend you dreams. You want something and they are trying to take it away, how does that make you feel.

Don't so anything rash! But feel that and make that work for you. Get with your sponsor and come up with action items of what you will be doing to get to your goal. make a decision to get through it and make it happen no matter what. For info regarding what to look for in a primary business visit:

http://jdemasi.masteringyourprimary.com

To Great Success,
Joseph Demasi

For a step by step guide to making money online visit:

http://jdemasi.3stepsecret.com

Make Money Online For Free?

by Joseph Demasi


At first look it sounds terrific. All those Guru's online touting starting your own internet home based business for free. No money out of pocket. Great News. Right? Well, it depends on how you look at it. If you have ever taken someone up on that offer, you soon found out that there is no quick and easy free way to riches on the net. In fact, there is no quick and easy way period!

This may burst your bubble and dash your hopes of making a fortune by the end of the month, but reality is sometimes a sobering thing. You have to ask yourself a question when faced with one of these offers: if it is free and as easy as they claim, how come everyone is not doing it?

Good question. The fact is that any home based business, online business opportunity, network marketing program is going to take work and time and money to run if you want to be successful. There is no free ride in the world and the internet is no different.

Things you can do to give you the best opportunity for success:

1. Do your research. Many times the programs that people are offering are just new versions of the old stuff that has been rehashed over and over again.

2. As with anything, expect that you will be asked to put up some money to join affiliate programs. After all, if all the programs are free- how will anyone make any money.

3. Make sure that there is free lifetime training and support. You don't want to get into a situation where they are willing to work with you but only if you sign up for a training package that could cost you up to $100 a month.

4. Make sure your sponsor is responsive, are they available for your questions by email? You may not be able to reach them by phone - after all they are busy building their business as well.

5. Beware of so called FREE programs that ask you to purchase e-books and training material right off the bat with the offer of reselling it and making commissions.

6. Realize that you will have to make a decision and take the first step and start. It does you no good to continue to research for years at a time withut doing anything. If you do that you will be branded a tire kicker and will never do anything. You are a victim of analysis paralysis.

I realize that it is difficult to know if you are in the best opportunity. realize that there is no best opportunity, for the most part they are all good and you can make money with them. You must put in the effort to see the results. If you are looking for that one program that will give you instant riches without work - keep playing the lottery and get off the web!

If you are serious about your financial future and willing to put that into action and real effort, then you can succeed.

A good program to check out if you want to make money online, but don't know where to start:
3 Steps To Success

They give a great overview and take you through the steps to make money online and all the training and support is free.

To Great Success,
Joseph Demasi

Great Opportunity in Disguise! Can You Recognize It?

Imagine this. Your boss comes to you one day and tells you that they are going to be laying you off. They need to cut expenses and just cannot afford to keep you on. What are you feeling at that moment? I know, I have been there. You feel as though you have had the wind knocked out of you. You can't believe it. You have given this company over 10 years of your life. How can they do this?Just then your boss comes back and tells you that if you are willing to work 1 hour a day of overtime without pay, you will be able to keep you job. What would you do? Say yes, of course, you have saved your job and all you have to do is work 1 extra hour a day.

Then he tells you that this would be temporary and that if they saw you working really hard for that extra hour, they would reward you the following month with a small bonus, around $100.

You just went from sad to yipee! There is more: he now tells you that if you would be willing to do this for 18 months and continue to work hard then you would be able to retire with a full salary at the end of that 18 months. Would you turn him down? Of course not.

Fast forward to 3 months later. Your close friend is over for dinner and tells you that you are crazy to put in that extra time for no pay and maybe a measley $100 bonus at the end of the month. You should quit and find something else - they say. You are just a sucker. You try to explain that you are going to retire with full pay at the end of 18 months. They just don't get it.

6 months down and you are not spending enough time with your spouse and they are not happy. Why are you working so much? You need to be here more often. I don't know why you are wasting time at work. You feel like screaming: I AM GOING TO RETIRE IN 12 MORE MONTHS!!!

This may seem farfetched, but if you are trying to build any kind of home based business you have been in the same situation many times. People just don't understand. The time and effort you put in now will pay big dividends down the line. You are willing to sacrifice now to live the life you want later. this is far from the exchanging time for money mentality that most people have.

You must know that there is no legitimate way to fast and easy online riches. No one is going to send you money for doing nothing. It will take work and time and you realize that. in the end though, it is well worth the time and hard work when you are going on vacations 3 - 4 times a year, not punching a clock or minding the store.

What we are talking about is true financial freedom. The ability to build a business one time and reap the benefits for years to come and have your income always increasing.

What would you do with your time if money was no problem? What would a constant stream of income do for you, for your family? Think about it, because it is possible. For all the information you need to build an income online with free lifetime training and support go here:

http://www.josephdemasi.com/recommends/3steps

Build an online business with 3 simple steps.

To Great Success,
Joseph Demasi

I found this Article in one of the eziines I subscribe to and it is a good one so I thought I would pass it on. In this Business it is all about the traffic. To find out about promoting your business and marketing on the net go here for great marketing info:
http://GreatMarketingSystem.com


Traffic Building: Top 10 Myths About Traffic Building
By Sean Mize

Traffic building is an area that even the masters don’t always understand. They are constantly trying to come up with a new ‘angle’ to use to get traffic, or so they can sell their new ‘method’ to someone else—particularly the ‘newbies’ online.
So what are the top 10 myths about traffic building?

10) Guaranteed traffic works. The only thing that guaranteed traffic is guaranteed to do is make the person selling it money.

9) The more traffic you get, the more money you make. The truth is, only buyers make you money, raw visitors do not make you money. If you cannot make money with 100 visitors a day, it is unlikely that you will make money with 1,000 or 10,000 a day – you will just have to pay for more bandwidth from your web host.

8) PPC traffic is good traffic. It depends on what you think of as good traffic. If you need traffic to test with, great, use PPC. But if you really want to make money off the clicks, you will have to do a lot of testing to make it profitable. If you have been online for less than one year and are unwilling to spend more than $500 per month on PPC, PPC is probably not for you. PPC costs money to test and if you are just getting started, that is the wrong place to put your money.

7) It is worth your time to use tricks to monetize traffic exchange or safelist traffic. Sure, you can monetize it, but why? All the time spent would be better spent writing articles or cruising online forums.

6) The more article directories you submit to, the more traffic you will get. That may be true in the long run, but before you do it, research it good – don’t just take some gurus’ word for it. Do what works in the short term and build on that. If you cannot see measurable results today, it is unlikely you will see measurable results in 3 months. There are some exceptions – so don’t take this as concrete – but be sure and think about it before you spend a lot of time on it.

5) Get to number one in the search engines and you will get tons of traffic. I have several web pages that made it to number one and I got some traffic. I get far more article marketing. The problem with search engine optimization is that I can easily teach you to get to number one in a long-tailed niche market that has very little traffic, but getting to number one in a short tailed market with lots of traffic is much harder. Sure, you can do it, but when the PPC monsters change your ranking from #1 to #3000 overnight with one small scripting change, you are starting over. I do not believe you should chase the mythical natural search engine market. Do things right, and if you get close, push to get to the front page – but other than that, I think your time is a waste.

4) JV giveaways are good for you. Hmmm – I fell for that one. Sent a lot of traffic (good quality traffic, I might add) to some JV giveaways. Then they stopped spending as much with me, or at least that’s how I saw it. Think about this – if you are one of 5 people emailing your list daily, you have a chance of getting some sales, right? But if you send your subscribers to a giveaway that captures your subscribers’ email every time they download a free gift, and they download 30, for example, now they are on 30 lists instead of 5. What is that going to do to your response rate?

3) Ezine advertising is the best. Hmmm – this one is hit or miss. You must be willing to test, and test a lot. If you cannot afford to buy at least 10 different sources or ezine advertising so you can compare (some ezines might not even mail your offer at all), you might as well not do it. Better to do emailing swaps with list builders on your list.

2) You should buy lists – someone else has already done the work. This is one of the greatest lies – the important thing about a list is the relationship with you. If you buy a list, is there any relationship? No, or course not.

And for #1, the number one myth:1) Article marketing is only good for backlinks. That is crazy. I get as many as 30-40 new subscribers per day when I am actively writing and submitting articles like this one. That translates to around 100 very high quality visitors from writing articles just like this one. Article marketing is probably the highest form of traffic you can generate on the web.

Do you want to learn more about how I use articles to generate huge traffic in my own business? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘Download it free here: Secrets of Article PromotionDo you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building
Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has created over 350 articles in print and 8 published ebooks.Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sean_Mize

To Great success,

Joseph Demasi
www.GreatMarketingSystem.com