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August 7, 2007 STOP The Insanity!In This Issue:Feature Article: "STOP The Insanity!" Quick Tips: "Guess What? Customer Loyalty Just Got Harder" Food For Thought: "Property Never Goes Down... Right? Right?" * FEATURE ARTICLE * “STOP The Insanity!”You may have heard the saying - "doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result is INSANITY." (Or something like that.)Yet, how many of us participate in this insanity? Think about an area of your life you're not 100% happy with. Health... personal relationships... career... business... wealth... self-development... Now, ask yourself: "What am I doing to generate the result I want?" If your answer is... "Nothing." or "The same thing I've always done." or Something along these lines, then... Is it any wonder you haven't got the result you want yet? Okay, so maybe this sounds rather simplistic. There may be many reasons - apart from what you are or are not doing - that are preventing you from achieving you desired results. But at the end of the day, your actions DO impact on your results. Even in a small way. Even where it seems like something or someone ELSE is causing your current situation, your action - or failure to act - is ultimately influencing the overall outcome. So, sitting back while something or someone else makes your life miserable is still YOU doing the *same thing* and expecting a different result. Bottom line: if you want life to change, YOU have to change. But if that seems scary, here's some good news - actually GREAT news. You don't necessarily need to make a huge change. In fact, as I've argued before, little changes, one at a time, are often more effective. This is because they're more likely to be permanent. And then, once you've made one little change, you can make another... and then another... until one day your results are massively different FOR THE BETTER! For example, if you're planning to embark on an exercise program for the first time, I recommend you start slowly and easily - e.g. 10 minutes of easy walking five times per week - rather than launch into full-on program of 6 x 1 hour gym sessions per week! You're just more likely to stick to the 10 minutes of walking and then, once that's embedded into your weekly routine, to naturally increase the challenge. In any case, let's all stop the insanity! Want a different result? Do something different! * HIGHLY RECOMMENDED * “How an Ordinary Manager Transformed a Struggling Business On The Verge Of Collapse Into a $40 Million Company”Here's a shocking, yet true, story... At the start of last year, a good friend of mine took the job of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at a small technology company. The company was five years old, but hopelessly unprofitable. It's backers – a venture capital company – were growing impatient with the company's abysmal performance and ordered the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to appoint someone who could commercialize the company's technology – so they would finally have a product to sell. Otherwise, the venture capital company would no longer fund the business. My friend was excited about the job. He was a bit of a risk taker, and despite the pressure, looked forward to helping the company bring its product to market and build it into a profitable business. But there was one problem. A big problem. The staff, the CEO warned him, were "incompetent and lazy." In fact, one of the reasons the CTO was being hired was to get rid of the "dead wood." "Frankly," the CEO told my friend, "you'll probably have to fire the lot of them." ==> Read on... * QUICK TIPS * “Guess What? Customer Loyalty Just Got Harder”One of my consulting clients recently complained about a couple of long-standing customers who defected to another company.She felt betrayed by their disloyalty. After all, her company had always given them exceptional service and excellent value. While I was sympathetic, I tactfully suggested that, while she believed that her company had delivered great service and value... the world - or at least her industry - had changed: 1. The cost of customer loyalty had risen. Customers' expectations were now such that no business could simply expect loyalty. Companies had to work, on an ongoing basis, to attract and maintain customer loyalty; and 2. Customers needed to be continually educated and reminded about the value and service they were being given. In other words, my client couldn't simply rely on delivering great value and service to secure her customers' appreciation... she needed to constantly educate and remind them that her company's standards were a cut above the rest. Otherwise, many of her customers would end up taking her service and value for granted. The solution for my client... and perhaps for your company? Lose the idea that customer loyalty is a given. Accept that it is, in fact, an ongoing part of marketing, where you must constantly work to shore up existing customer support, and educate and remind them of the value you're delivering. * HIGHLY RECOMMENDED * “How To Determine Your Wealth and Investment Goals”Use the Investment Goal Calculator! The Investment Goal Calculator is FREE with the July issue of Investment Success Formula, which is available for you to download right now: ==> Investment Success Formula You'll also discover:
Click here to get your copy: ==> Investment Success Formula * FOOD FOR THOUGHT * “Property Never Goes Down... Right? Right?”Tell that to someone living in the United States!The United States is currently experiencing a general down-turn in property values. But if you ask many of my fellow Australians about the property market, you'll get responses like this: "Property all ways goes up." "Property never goes down." "That won't happen here." And so on. People obviously have short memories. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw a market slump here too. But in the last decade property values across Australia have soared. In many places housing prices have, on average, almost doubled over the last six years. Meanwhile housing affordability has dropped to a new low. Many blame the lack of supply of housing. There just isn't enough housing to go around, they say. But others - with whom I agree - spy another culprit: too much And guess what? This is the very same culprit that many experts Think about it. If banks and other lenders are willing to bend over backwards to lend people more money... then more people will bid on houses... thereby increasing demand... and causing prices to go up. But what happens when lenders lend too much money to too many people who don't really have the capacity to repay their loans? Late repayments. Defaults. Mortgage companies going bust. More houses on the market. Fewer people buying. Add a few interest rate rises... and, yep, property values start going south. It's happening in the States right now. And Australians take note: there are warning signs that it may happen here too. An article in Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper points to four indications that we may follow the United States example:
I'm not trying to be all "doom and gloom". There's a flip-side to all this: if property prices decrease significantly, housing affordability may actually rise. And of course, if you're an asute investor, you'll know how to profit from these, as well as any other, economic conditions. The point is this: markets - including the property market - move in cycles. While there may be a long-term upward trend, there are still lots of ups and downs in the short term. So how do you profit no matter what? The first step is to educate yourself about the implications of various economic conditions so you can identify opportunities to profit - or at least, protect yourself - from. How to educate yourself about economic conditions and investments? I suggest you subscribe to my Investment Success Formula newsletter, which aims to empower you with the knowledge, skills and tools you need to build wealth and achieve financial freedom: |
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