When do you call it quits?

During motivational speaker seminars, football game locker rooms, and in a bunch of motivational books, there is a lot of cheerleadering and saying "Never give up!". Well the reality is in business, there are times you have to abandon things, and quit.

In my case, I pulled the plug on Better Life Technologies Friday and I am out of business. After seeing my costs go through the roof, and not having sufficient income, I pulled the plug. My DBA had the same name as another company here around 10 years before I registered it. The prospects I got to make sales were spotty. And, all and all, I just didn't get into the money. So, I pulled the plug. Sad to see things end this way, but now I go back into the job market and see if I can work, and collect unemployment.

Anyhow, due to my total wipeout, I am going to stop doing entries here until I can manage to demonstrate a track record worth speaking on. To occupy my time, I am going to design some board games.

Well, there ARE times to say enough and end something. Don't let anyone else tell you. Ideally you should end failures early and let good things ride, but knowing which is an art.

So, signing off until whenever... Good luck everyone.

I am going to be taking at least a week off from here.

I need to refocus on things and rework some material I have. I will be looking to take a least a week off. It could run longer. To be notified when I will be back, please sign up on the left for subscription, so you will know when I am active again.

Thanks...

There are three kinds of stupid (Global Online goes belly up)

Welcome to the world of "passive income" and get rich quick. I had made mention of this importer I had invested in. I also managed to get others to put money into it. Well, the end result of Global is here: http://www.grassmueckgroup.com/global_online.php

Yep, thing went belly up. It was bad that I was out $600, but worse that I promoted it, costing people more money. I do have shame over it.

Anyhow, I might as well bring up a topic I had in mind in relation to this. This was stupid on my part. The area I played in here was one of high risk, because made you violate a basic principle of investing, that being to do your due dilligence and get the financials for any investment you do. You need to seriously crunch the numbers before you do anything. Unfortunately, when you play in the area of HYIPs and grey area investments, you have no chance of seeing the books. So, you are doing a crapshoot. In most cases, you will end up losing.

Ok, now back to three kinds of stupid. These kinds of stupid are see in the cartoon, Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They have three main characters in it. One character is child-like in nature, and ignorant of the world, and easily duped. Another one has major character flaws, a lack of integrity, and outright greed. The third is intellectually smart, but fails in the area of practical intelligence and understanding the world. All three of these are types of stupid that if someone displays any, they are likely to run into serious problems in making bad decisions.

Unfortunately, my involvement with Global likely involved all three, and blind trust in places I shouldn't have.

Next Sucker Syndrome

Whenever you don't provide any value in what you sell, except the promise of making a lot of money, you fall into the "Next Sucker Syndrome" (aka, the "Last Guy in Gets Screwed"). In other words, you sign up for a network marketing opportunity where you hope to recruit the "next sucker" so that he can then recruit the next and so on. This mentality drives speculators in bubble markets and people who engage in gifting programs. Often time, program jumpers are people who fall prey to "The Next Sucker Syndrome" but suck at lining up the next sucker.

All and all, if you get into this, I just hope you aren't the last sucker in.

Greasing the slide, weeding the garden.

Greasing the slide is a term that refers to making your sales pitch so appealing that your prospect can only say yes. To make this work, you have to do what I call "weeding the garden". This involves addressing issues that your prospect may have problems with, to allow their desire to buy to come through. In other words, get rid of the objectionable weeds (pun intended), so that they will then act on what they really want.

In other words, get out of your way by getting their reasons to hesitate out of the way. By the way, this involves a LOT of listening.

U.S. Mortgage Foreclosure Filings Rise 90% in May

This is for those who happen to believe that they are safe looking for work in the job market and working a job. Most people reading this blog likely are aware of it. Anyhow, here is the link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=av3bqU7edFDs&refer=home

June 12 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. foreclosure filings surged 90 percent in May from a year earlier as more homeowners fell behind on their monthly mortgage payments, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

There were 176,137 notices of default, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions last month, led by California, Florida and Ohio, the Irvine, California-based seller of foreclosure data said in a report today. The median price for a U.S. home slid 1.8 percent the first three months of 2007 as the housing slump entered its second year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The filings rose 19 percent from April.

Turn your weaknesses into a strength.

I think of Scatman John, the musical legend when I write this. Scatman had really bad stuttering during his real life. He decided to do something about it and took up the musical form scat, using his stuttering as the basis of his music.

A key in business to turn any weakness into a strength is to see how that weakness can generate into a solution for other people's needs, and thus be able to sell it.

An example would be a bad habit you are able to succeed inspite of. If you are lazy, and make money, you show people you are lazy but still make money.

Go here to learn more about Scatman John:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scatman_john