Leverage

So what's leverage? A simple example of leverage is a crowbar or lever you or a thief might use to pry something open or move a tree stump. It's a simple device that gives you far more power than you would have without it.

Leverage at a Job (you have none)

When you have a job, you are there by yourself. You have no power other than you being physically present for x amount of time. You earn money in a linear fashion. That is 8 hours x 5 days = 40 hours. You get paid x$ for every hour you work. If you don't work, you don't get paid unless you have sick time but even that runs out. This lack of leverage often applies to self employed people as well as employees. The only real difference is that the self employed person has difficulty complaining to "the boss" about his lousy job. In addition, a 40 hour week can look like a vacation compared to the 60-70 hours a week his "new boss" lets him or her work.

Investors Leverage Money

Money managers, financial people and professional investors leverage their own or other peoples' money to earn more money. They earn money on the spread, between different rates of return, between interest rates, on stocks, bonds and other paper money. Often they invest in growth companies after they have done intensive research into the company and the market and sometimes receive excellent rates of return for their efforts. Sometimes its high risk and they get paid accordingly. It takes a lot of time, effort and know how to be good at this form of money making. It's not for the newbie and it does require money. Lots of it. It's not gambling on penny stocks or buying the latest glamorous stock. The golden rule is only invest with money you won't miss or can afford to lose. In other words, don't bet the house.
Real estate investors will often buy commercial properties or apartment buildings with rents offsetting the mortgage , taxes and repairs. As the debt is retired, more of the income becomes part of the asset column providing a good source of residual or passive income otherwise known as beach money.
Rock stars, movie stars and authors leverage their art. If rock starts, movie stars aand writers could not record their work, they'd be just working stiffs like the rest of us. It's the fact that their product can be copied and sold a zillion times over that makes them the big money. So they benefit big time because of technology. It also doesn't hurt that a huge industry has grown on these technologies which will, no doubt, perpetuate the income streams.

Traditional Business Owners Leverage People
A business owner often hires people for certain jobs that need to be done to generate the work or sales it takes to make the gross income for the company. Usually the more employees a company has the greater the gross sales and the greater the net profit. This net profit is generated by the work of all the employees but it flows into only one pocket and that belongs to the owner. As long as the employees keep the work up and as long as the boss is making sure the company is profitable, the money keeps flowing in. If a businessman is smart, he will organize the company in a systemized fashion where he is not really needed every single day. This means he can play golf and go to these far off so called business meetings to have fun. Of course, this all depends on finding and keeping good employees. That can take a while and good employees can be very difficult to replace. There is a huge upside. For every employee a business owner hires he receives 40 hours work. If he has 25 employees, this works out to 1000 hours per week or 50,000 hours per year . That's 25 years of work for one person: that's leverage.This is why John Paul Getty, one of the richest men in America at one time, is often quoted as saying, he ..."would rather have !% of the efforts of a hundred people rather than 100% of his own efforts". This multiplier effect can result in huge profits for shareholders and huge incomes for business owners.

Network Marketing Business Owners
This is a subset of the business owners section but there are significant differences. Some of the key differences are that you can become a business owner for next to nothing-- often less than $500, you can start part time and your income potential is beyond multiplication----it's in the biological growth arena. Everybody in the organization has as much potential to gain as the traditional boss in the conventional business except he doesn't have the employees or anywhere near the overhead a traditional business has. This why the pursuit of "beach money" is such a wise investment of your time and resources. You end up with "uncommon freedom": time and money. Where's the beach?

Business Tools Part 3

The internet is here to stay and anybody who thinks it can be avoided in building any kind of business is missing the boat. Where does anybody with an internet connection go to when they want to find out something new, find a new product or do some business or product research? Most likely, they google it. If you're not online, you are just out of this loop. If you are not on the internet with your very own website, you simply don't exist. If people find out you don't have a website, they are going to think you are too small or technically illiterate.

In Part 1, I wrote about getting your own website. Assuming you have one, you have the next problem. How are you going to let everyone, besides your mother, know that you have one? You could run around and tell everyone you meet or, you guessed it, you could use the internet. Now if you have great content and popular keywords, you might get your website ranked in the top 100. This is not great but's better than 426 th. How can you improve on this?

I discovered Veretekk when buying leads on line. It was a slow process of understanding what Veretekk was all about because I was not and am still not totally internet savvy. But Veretekk is. If you'r e willing to learn there's lots of free training both live and in print. There's lots of free stuff you can take advantage of immediately like free web pages so you can build back links to your main site, free web advertising to classified ad sites and websites. In addition, Veretekk has an internet home business presentation called "Money Machine" and a website that focuses on job losses and other economic issues called Sohomatic.

I view Veretekk as the marketing arm of my home business. It's working night and day even when I'm not. It uses website traffic portals to attract leads for my business. Every day, at least one person signs up and I've basically just got started. This blog was created on advice from Veretekk. It's a great business tool but like most tools, you will need time to master them. It's like learning to drive or sail. Once you know, how it's easy. I am here to help.

Business Tools Part 2

Client Retention

A major part of any business is attracting interested people who hopefully will eventually become customers. Customers that become repeat buyers are a very important asset to any type of business. It is also an area where most businesses just don't do a very good job. Client creation tools are given high priority but client retention tools are often overlooked. This is particularly important where there is a high degree of personal interaction between the business owner/salesperson and the customer i.e. real estate, investment advisors, network marketers, dentists, chiroprators, vetinarians, naturopaths, medical doctors, insurance agents etc. If business owners viewed client retention as "follow up" then perhaps it would be given more power.

We are all very busy and very focused on the next sale. Once a customer has purchased and gone home, they are often forgotten. Too bad. It is much easier to sell to an existing customer than to create a new customer. In some businesses, like real estate, the sell or buy cycle can be two, five or ten years. That's a long time when you need to make money in the present. That's where long term thinking comes in. The key here is that happy customers can talk. Existing happy customers are your best source of personal referrals. This is "your acre of diamonds".

How do you mine this "acre of diamonds". Occasional personal phone calls are good, occasional e mails are good, and snail mail works well too. These only work if you remember to do them. This is where a good contact management system can pay big dividends. The system I like is tied directly to a greeting card system. Once the customer relationship is established I enter his or her name, and basic information like date of purchase, birthdays, anniversaries, and whatever other days are relevant to them. I can then pick a card, write a personal message, sign it, and press send. By the way, this part is all done on my computer. Once I press send, the Send Out Cards in Utah prints the card, puts it in an envelope, addresses it, stamps it and mails it. All in a couple of days. It's like having a peronal secretary. SOC also reminds you of all the important dates to send cards via your contact management system. Cards can be totally customized with full color pictures on front or inside to make them totally personal.

It's a great client retention tool that will keep your name in front of your clients. It's a great way for some professionals to do their "reminder" mailings. Try it out. Send a card on me. You can send a card to yourself to see how well it works. If you are looking for a home based business, there is a business opportunity attached. Details on website.

Business Tools Part 1

Every business needs certain specific tools to do the job or there wouldn't be much point in showing up for work. Picture the carpenter, plumber or electrician or worse your dentist without the right tools. If you have a home based office and business you need some tools in oder to get the job done. Besides the basics of a computer, internet connection, printer, fax machine and telephone, you need a method to advertise and promote your product or service to existing customers and develop a way of finding new customers. In order to do this effectively, you need the right tools to be able to initiate and sustain business relationships.



The first tool is a website. There are literally thousands of places on the internet where you can find website hosting, domain registration and web design. Most are designed for more than the home business model and can be quite intimidating to the new person who wants to promote a flegling home business. If you have a home based business associated with a network marketing company, then you are already familar with the concept, so why not take this one step further with Global Domains International. For $10 per month you can not only register your own domain name using any of the available domains i.e .com, .net, .org or .ws . This price also includes a web page design program which is fairly simple to use and you get 10 e mail addresses. (if you already have a website design program, you can upload this your site to GDI)Having your own website and email makes you look a lot more professional on the internet than just using your network marketing companies replicated website and hotmail, yahoo or google e mail.



There is another key benefit as well: GDI is a network marketing company so it pays you to assist other people get started with their own business. One thing I really like about GDI is that it is a global business that just about anyone can afford. One of the introductory websites is in 8 languages which should appeal to those whose primary business is already world wide. For those whose business is confined to North America, this gives you an opportunity to have a global presence.