thinkBIG Le a d e r s B u s i n ess Mindset Wea l t h
$7.95 inc GST Volume 2.1
STEVEN COVEY 7 success habits from best selling educator
MARCIA GRIFFIN From cosmetics queen to business mentor
ANDREW SIMMONS Life changing health insights
SPECIAL FEATURE Professional development to secure your future
PLUS HOW TO...
• Sell your own home • Rent your shares • Brand yourself • Take advantage of the GFC
ARNIE!
How his mindset, not his muscle, built his success
Free education, seminars, products and offers in this issue!
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CONTENTS REGULARS 6 Editor’s letter 8 Notes to self 14 As You Think 66 Your Story: Health problems and illness hasn’t stopped Derek
Ambrose from pursuing an impressive education.
72 Thought Leadership: Books to make you thinkBIG.
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24 Marty Wilson: Get that new feeling now 26 Joe Vitale: The number one thing people do wrong 23 Chris Howard: Making money by making change 28 Jon-Michail: Brand YOU! Now it’s personal
Cover Story: Arnold Schwarzenegger: Beyond the Muscle
section2:business
In spite of his tough upbringing, Arnold Schwarzenegger was never going to let background get in the way of forging forward.
34 Feature: Do the right thing by you in Global Financial Crisis 36 Reuben Buchanan: Investors’ mindset is optimistic 38 Dr Kim Fenton and Penny Ombler: Methods of
section3:wealth
40 Michelle Murchison: Changing times provide
56 Peter Wink: 5 powers of successful dealmakers! 58 Aussie Rob: How to rent your shares for a regular
memory magic great opportunity
42 Brian Tracy: Strategic thinking in tough times 43 Brenton Tong: Nurture your way to money making genes 44 Carly Crutchfield: Property and finance Q&A 46 Daniel Kovacs: Copyright – 10 common myths,
60 Jamie McIntyre: Recession proofing the GFC 62 Naomi Simson: Engaging groups towards an overall goal 64 Mark Rolton: Property options – the new rich
SPECIAL feature
misconceptions and mistakes
48 Todd Hutchison: Becoming a director on a board
64
monthly income… Part 1
50 Professional development meets the needs of individuals and
employers and is vital for the survival – in future – of all businesses,
entrepreneurs and employees.
features 31 Marcia Griffin: The Griffin express
Marcia Griffin, the Pola Cosmetics queen, is widely regarded as
one of the most successful female entrepreneurs of her generation.
52 Steven Covey: Live life in a crescendo
Steven Covey lives life by the motto that his best work is before him.
Find out the keys to success of one of the most famous motivators
in history.
68 Andrew Simmons: Sharing the vision
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Health is an emotional pursuit as much as a physical one requiring
dedication, willpower and a few life-changing insights.
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our team
EDITORIAL
Publisher Graham Maughan graham.maughan@thinkbigmagazine.com Ph: (02) 9925 8016 Managing Editor Jonathan Jackson jonathan.jackson@thinkbigmagazine.com Subscriptions Manager Amanda Peros amanda.peros@thinkbigmagazine.com Ph: (02) 9925 8015 Advertising Ph: (02) 9925 8016 Advertising Agent McLaren Media Grant McNicol Director Sales & Marketing Ph: 02 9231 5320 grant.mcnicol@mclarenint.com Directors Ken Wood Reuben Buchanan Contributing Editor Chris Howard Contributors Aussie Rob, Reuben Buchanan, Dr John Demartini, Kim Fenton, Roger la Salle, Michelle Murchison, Naomi Simson, Terrianne Palmer, Carly Crutchfield, Terri Mitchell, Penny Ombler, Daniel G Taylor, Brian Tracy, Joe Vitale, Peter Wink, Marty Wilson Creative Design Maria Conti – Graphic Designer Website/subscriptions www.thinkbigmagazine.com Enquires info@thinkbigmagazine.com Mindset Media Pty Ltd ACN 129 256 300 ABN 94 129 256 300 GPO Box 519 Sydney Australia 2001 Phone: 61 2 9925 8016 Fax: 61 2 9925 8099 thinkbig Magazine ISSN: 1835 7733
Important Message – Copyright and Disclaimer thinkbig magazine is owned and published by Mindset Media Pty Ltd (ACN129 256 300). The publisher, authors and contributors reserve their rights in regards to copyright of their work. No part of this work covered by the copyright may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means without the written consent of the publisher. No person, organization or party should rely or on any way act upon any part of the contents of this publication whether that information is sourced from a website, magazine or related product without first obtaining the advice of a fully qualified person. This magazine and its related website and products are sold and distributed on the terms and condition that: •The publisher, contributors, editors and related parties are not responsible in any way for the actions or results taken any person, organization or any party on basis of reading information, stories or contributions in this publication, website or related product. •The publisher, contributors and related parties are not engaged in providing legal, financial or professional advice or services. The publisher, contributors, editors and consultants disclaim any and all liability and responsibility to any person or party, be they a purchaser, reader, advertiser or consumer of this publication in regards to the consequences and outcomes of anything done or omitted being in reliance whether partly or solely on the contents of this publication and related website and products. •The publisher, editors, contributors and related parties shall have no responsibility for any action or omission by any other contributor, consultant, editor or related party.
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Self help means letting people help you
’ve been very fortunate in my life to have succeeded in many of the tasks I have undertaken; from junior sports, to eventually settling into a career and pastime – writing – that I enjoy. No matter what happened to me over time, somewhere deep down I always knew I would land on my feet. In part, this fuelled an arrogant assumption that no matter what I did, I would always come out okay and problems would be resolved. This arrogance led to my inability to understand why people who were facing trouble and hardship – or were wrestling with some form of inner demon – needed help. My belief was that people should help themselves. I know now that sometimes treading a lone path to self-help is just not possible. In the 13 years I have practiced as an editor, the majority of people I have spoken to have praised the mentors and support networks that have helped them achieve the incredible successes they now enjoy. They have paid tribute to the authors who set them straight and thanked family and friends for just being there when they were needed. I came to realise that any type of self-development takes courage and determination; first to recognise that help is critical and second to embrace the support you may previously have been blind to. I also came to realise that there are a lot of good people in the personal development industry (I was once a sceptic), whose goals in life are to encourage their clientele to reach beyond what they believe are their limitations and push through the barriers to success. Many of those people are excellent writers whose works are published in this magazine and in bookshops around the globe. My scepticism has since subsided; I believe I lost it somewhere during the three years it took me to leave footwear retail for the one thing I always wanted to do and continue to do now. I lost it after seeing friends and family lose loved ones. I lost it after I saw businesses fold. I lost it in the wilderness between youth and maturity. I lost it because the people I have been privileged to interview have changed my perceptions. And that in itself is a form of personal development. Personal development is everywhere. It’s in the books we read (fact and fiction). It’s with the people we talk to – our business colleagues, family, friends and strangers we meet. I still believe that every problem I encounter will work itself out. I know that should I have a mishap, I will claw my way back even if it means starting again and doing something different. The difference now, however, is that I know if I need help, I will ask. That’s what I hope you can take from this magazine. Although a stigma still exists, the personal development and self help industries are full of good people doing great things. So why not turn to them, as well as your friends, family and loved ones for help when you need it. TB
Jonathan
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Notes to self National Newfeeling Day
Sure, bad news sells papers but is the dreaded GFC all we have to talk about? Can’t we all agree to take just one day out and do something inspirational, life changing and, dare I say it, a little fun? Wouldn’t it be great to remember 2009 not as ‘That rotten year we had the Global Financial Crisis’ but as ‘That was the year I finally faced my fears’? Author, stand up comic and speaker, Marty Wilson, is thrilled to announce the most exciting and inspirational way for individuals and corporate organisations to support a worthwhile cause in years – the inaugural National Newfeeling Day: Face your Fears on the First of September. It’s an initiative to encourage change, promote adventure, and give all Aussies the perfect excuse to spring clean our lives, break out of our comfort zones and do that thing we’ve been scared of for years. With all profits going to the Dymocks Literacy Foundation, National Newfeeling Day will let us contribute to a wonderful charity while we enjoy the incredible satisfaction of untying some of those knots in our stomachs. It is a day that reminds us all that the only real risk in life is to always play it safe. For more info go to newfeeling.org
The fight against cancer
Three out of every 10 Australians will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. For a Cure Foundation was established in September 2008 by Angie Cleone, a cancer survivor (2006) who also lost her mother in 1983 to Breast Cancer. Angie understands first-hand the effects of this disease which will kill approximately 42,000 people this year in Australia. Angie is a strong believer that to find a cure we need targeted therapies that are designed to attack only cancer stem cells. Angie Cleone, Founder of ‘For a Cure Foundation’ and Director of Event Buddies Australia when asked said, “We are all aware of the statistics and the severity of how cancer affects us. Stem Cell Research is the most promising avenue to finding the cure for cancer. The ‘For a Cure Foundation’ represents the only philanthropic organisation whose sole purpose is to raise funds for stem cell research in Australia.” Since the recently lifted-ban by USA President Barack Obama on human embryo stem cell research (9 March 2009), a growing interest for stem cell research with respect to finding a cure for cancer is evident world-wide.
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Part time experience wanted Women are no financial dummies
Women are moving to disprove the age-old insult that they have no idea when it comes money. The latest Citi Fin-Q study into Australian women and financial behaviours shows females are taking control of their money matters and becoming more financially responsible. The annual study looks at more than 200 women across different age groups and tracks their changes in financial actions and attitudes. According to the latest Citi Fin-Q for Women survey, • women are saving more in preparation for job losses (2007: savings lasted 6.6 weeks; 2008; savings last 8.0 weeks) • more women (16% are paying off their full outstanding credit card balance each month (2007: 34% paid in full and 2008: 50% paid in full) Other results of interest include • 74% of women agree that women in Australia still earn less than men for equivalent work • ‘having a happy family life’ (44%)is the thing most significantly more important to women than money, closely followed by ‘having good health’ (42%) • a majority of women across all age groups agree that ‘money can’t buy happiness’ influencing factors among men.
The global economic crisis has unearthed a groundswell of experienced top senior executives who were considering part-time or project consulting work as well as being more flexible on their fees, according to a new Executive Survey by business executive and search consultancy, Hattonneale. The extensive survey of 54 senior executives (including CEOs, chairmen and senior executives) overwhelmingly found that due to economic conditions small to medium businesses could tap into senior level expertise on a more flexible basis. A total of 72% of respondents said they were more likely to consider part-time or project consulting work, making senior executive talent more accessible to SMEs. 74% of respondents said that they were more likely to negotiate their daily rate in the current economic conditions. “There is now a real opportunity for business to tap into senior level talent at a fraction of what it may have cost 12 months ago. This represents real value for money when you consider the skills and experience that these executives can bring to a consulting or project role,” Hattonneale Director Anne Hatton said. The wide-ranging survey also asked executives to nominate their motivation drivers to work: • 26% said for intellectual challenge/stimulation • 24% said making a contribution to business/making a difference/ transforming business/sense of achievement • Only 19% said for financial gain. The survey also asked executives to nominate the best and worst business practices during the global financial crisis relating to management of staff. Businesses who had handled the economic crisis well so far had three practices in common including: • They are longer term thinkers who were less likely to make knee- jerk decisions or to overreact to situations • They communicate well with their staff – there was an overwhelming belief that those businesses who were more transparent and communicated well with staff have managed the crisis better (even those businesses that have had
to make tough staffing decisions were seen in as much better light if they got the communication right) • They genuinely tried to find win/win solutions for both the business and employees, such as flexible work options and salary reductions versus redundancies. Conversely, the senior executives nominated four areas of poor business practice including: • Using the global financial crisis as a ‘smoke screen’ for changes that should have been made previously • Overreacting to the economic conditions – by cutting costs too quickly • Mixing messages to staff, shareholders and the public – such as paying large bonuses to executives and laying off staff • Neglecting the human side of their decision making with no regard for the long-term implications on their corporate reputation and brands.
What are you thinking?
ThinkBig understands that without our readers there is no magazine. That’s why we want to hear from you and give you a say in what content you would like to see, who you would like to read about, what you would like to read more about and any general comments with regard to personal development, finance, health or wealth you might have. For next issue (2.2), we will integrate a ‘Your Thoughts’ section and would like you to write in with any comments you feel are appropriate to thinking big and living a fulfilling life. We also want to know what you think about our magazine. So if you have anything you would like to put forward or get off your chest, pick up your pens or sit at the screen and send us your thoughts. You can contact ThinkBig at: jonathan. jackson@thinkbigmagazine.com.au.
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Notes to self Treating childhood disorders
There is great debate at the moment about the causes of childhood diseases such as ADHD and even bigger debate about the cures. While there is no doubt that behavioural problems do exist, should they be countered with drugs or can proper nutrition and exercise save the day? Some doctors are already replacing prescriptions with nutrition to treat an epidemic of childhood illness including ADHD, Autism, Allergies and infections. In Australia, where 1 in 6 children have a learning, behavioural or immune disorder*, parents are discovering that food can be more effective than medication and they are asking their General Practitioners to train up on nutrition. Dr Antony Underwood, an Australian Paediatrician based in Gordon, says “We see children diagnosed with ADHD who improve without medication simply by removing offending allergens that impact on concentration, behaviour and even speech”. Julie Matthews, a San Francisco-based Nutrition Consultant trains Medical Doctors in nutrition, an area not given much attention at Medical School. “This current generation of children is presenting with metabolic and digestive disorders that make them hyper sensitive to proteins found in wheat, dairy, soy, corn as well as refined carbohydrates in sugar and flour. Adopting a traditional ‘evolutionary’ diet of fresh, unrefined, nutrient-dense, fermented, cultured and low GI foods is an essential part of treatment because it aids in digestion and metabolism” For more information visit www.mindd.org *AABASD Report - http://autismaus.com.au/uploads/pdfs/ PrevalenceReport.pdf
Yahoo trumped by young Aussie entrepreneur
23 year-old Brisbane-based entrepreneur Leon Hill embarked on a journey to create an online business that would be fighting against multi-million-dollar social bookmarking giant Digg.com, as well as the multi-billion-dollar juggernaut that is Yahoo! Inc. And although he was flying solo with no outside help, he fought them both — and won. uSocial.net (http://usocial.net/) is the brainchild of Hill and is an online traffic generation business that takes advantage of flaws in the systems of social bookmarking sites like Digg, Yahoo! Buzz, StumbleUpon and AOL’s Propeller. “The best way to get a huge amount of traffic to your site is to have it listed on the coveted front page of one of the large social bookmarking sites,” says Leon. “The thing is, it can take hundreds of votes in a short period of time to get there which is extremely difficult to attain. But if it does happen, you can expect sometimes hundreds of thousands of people to your site in as little as one day. And for that to happen to a small-business owner, can mean serious cash.” After some trial-and-error, Hill figured out a way to increase the amount of votes a page would receive -- up to 1,000 in as little as 24 hours -- which meant that a website would sometimes be placed in front of millions of online web-surfer’s eyes in a day or less. This meant immense traffic and for any business owner with a website, immense interest in their product or service. Digg has always claimed the systems they had in place were unbeatable, but now Hill has proved them wrong. “What uSocial is doing is not illegal, it’s just that the social bookmarking sites don’t like it. I’ve even tried to contact [Digg CEO] Jay Adelson for his thoughts, but I never got a reply,” says Hill. “These online giants said their systems couldn’t be beat, but I proved them wrong.” So even in this crazy modern world, David really can beat Goliath.
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Notes to self Take
aware of the individual change required to improve health over 10,000 steps per the long term, work demands and daily life tended to make this day and stay healthy very difficult. By creating a work environment -- which is where
Australian researchers have found that walking 10,000 steps per day delivers significant improvements in key health indicators linked with long term chronic conditions such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and kidney disease. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests 10,000 steps per day as an appropriate activity target for healthy adults, until now there has been no definitive research proving the link between aiming for this target and improvements in long term health indicators. Dr Anna Peeters, Research Fellow, Monash University Department of Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine, said the results of this study, conducted on Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) participants, showed that by combating sedentary work behaviour at its source and increasing incidental exercise significant long term health benefits could be gained. The GCC is the world’s largest health and fitness initiative for businesses, with 50,000 participants forming teams of seven and wearing step counting pedometers to record their daily walking activities in 2008. “The study also shows that important and positive changes in health markers can result from workplace interventions. This is a key finding, particularly given the fact that we are all spending longer hours at work and that our workplaces are becoming more sedentary,” says Anna Leading Australian nutritionist and GCC director, Shane Bilsborough, said that the study showed not only the dramatic difference that individuals can make to long term health prospects with comparatively little effort, but that the workplace is now one of the most important areas of focus for improving the health of the nation. “We were astounded by these medical results. Feedback from those taking part in the study also highlighted that while well
we spend most of our lives -- that supports employee health and wellbeing and encourages exercises, individuals felt empowered to make a commitment to a healthier lifestyle, while employers benefited from a happier more motivated workforce and less absenteeism.” Go to www.gettheworldmoving.com for more inspiration
A delicious way to give
One of my favourite actors, and one of the greats of all time is Paul Newman, whose legacy extends far beyond his movie credits. Newman’s Own Foundation is continuing the legacy left by Paul Newman by donating $1 million to Australian charities, making individual charitable grants of up to A$75,000. The actor, who died at the end of last year, had said he never had a problem with using his celebrity status to promote the brand, best summed up in his tongue-in-cheek tagline - “Shameless Exploitation in the Pursuit of the Common Good”. The Foundation, dedicated to honouring Paul’s vision and his legacy of generosity will see all the profits* from his salad dressings, pasta sauces and mayonnaises continue to go to worthy causes. Last year 26 charities from around Australia received donations of up to $50,000 for nominated special projects. Newman’s Own Foundation spokesperson Sue Home said, “Newman’s Own Foundation is keen to reinforce that although Mr. Newman is no longer with us, the giving will continue. We are inviting applications from any charity, even those who may have applied in the past.” Last year grants were used to fund projects included the purchase of a car to help those suffering with cystic fibrosis, organising holiday camps for disabled children, the training of assistance dogs for children with autism, and setting up a self-help group for people with multiple sclerosis. Visit www.paulnewmansown.com.au for further details.
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As you think “People and practices come and go, but principles of effective leadership will always remain the same – everywhere.”– Stephen R. Covey
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thinkBIG cover story
Beyond Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Muscle
Arnold Schwarzenegger holds two Guinness
Book of World Records
entries: the first for the most perfectly developed physique, the second for the worst American accent. Strangely, although both acknowledgements are poles apart, they reflect the nature of his incredible success writes Jonathan Jackson.
the
A
rnold Schwarzenegger’s perfect physique came as the consequence of his desire to break free of the shackles of working class Austrian life; accepting the award for worst American accent meant he had fulfilled his dream of being an American. In a speech Arnold gave in 2001 entitled: The Education of an American, he outlined his life, career and most importantly the hit and miss elements of his goals, dreams and attitude that took him from a small farm community in Graz, to being known as the Austrian Oak, to becoming Hollywood’s most bankable action to star to today being the Governor of California known for his shrewd economic management and humanitarianism. Arnold likes to point out that post war Graz where he grew up was not all sunny hillsides and strudel. “Strudel was a luxury. It was right after World War 2, and the country was absolutely devastated and destroyed. We had no flushing toilet in the house. No refrigerator. No television. What we did have was food rations – and we did have British tanks around to give us kids an occasional lift to the elementary school.” In spite of his tough upbringing, Arnold was never going to let background get in the way of forging forward. “I used it to my advantage – to fuel the intense desire to get the hell out of there!” he says in his Education of an American speech. It’s that desire that powered a very strong will in me.” The will to do something special was evident early on, as Arnold searched for a mentor who could lead him out of mediocrity and into the limelight. He set goals and mapped out a plan to achieve them; not wanting to follow in his policeman father’s footsteps his goals were his own, befitting a man who sought to excel in his own passions. Reg Park was Arnold’s first mentor. The big Austrian didn’t know the American from his own set of barbells, what he did know however, after scraping together a few pfennigs, was that Reg was a man who had graced the covers of international bodybuilding magazines as Mr Universe and was now starring as Hercules. To fulfil his dream of becoming famous, the logical step for Arnold was to follow a similar path to Reg: bodybuilding would no doubt lead to movie stardom. So he sought Reg out. “Reg was a dear friend, an extraordinary mentor and a personal hero. Other than my parents, there may be no single person who had more to do
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Vital Stats Name: Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger Date of Birth: July 30, 1947 Birth Location: Graz, Austria Height: 6’ 2” (1.88 m) Nicknames: Arnie, Austrian Oak, Conan, the Republican, The Governator, The Running Man Married to: Maria Shriver Degrees: 2002 Chapman University: Honorary Degree; 1996 University of Wisconsin: Honorary Degree
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cover story thinkBIG feature
Aussie Rob A WORLD LEADER IN TRADING SOFTWARE & TRAINING
with me becoming the person I am today than Reg. He was like a second father to me. It was Reg who impressed upon me how hard I would have to work if I wanted to achieve my dreams. I’ll always remember him making me do calf-raises with 1,000 pounds at 5 o’clock in the morning.” Each workout was one step closer to America. Doubts of failure lingered, but all through his career Arnold has stuck by the mantra that to succeed you must overcome your fears or spend your life frustrated and angry that you never took your shot. Strength of character and confidence comes with tackling the hurdles head on. “The bottom line is: if you feel passionate about your goal – and it’s what you really want – then you’ll do whatever it takes to achieve it. No matter how much sweat, pain and sacrifice – no matter how many obstacles you have to break through – just don’t ever say no.” Arnold also advocates surrounding yourself with people who believe in you and bring out the best in your abilities. He has had many doubters, including at times his own family, critics who told him he would never make it in Hollywood, politicians who laughed when he made his political intentions clear. Yet for all his doubters, there have been supporters: director James Cameron who first cast Arnold as the Terminator and stood by him as his career blossomed. Then there’s the republican party of 1999 who urged Arnold to move into politics earlier than he had even considered himself. More about that later. Arnold’s success is based on the principles of goal setting, never wavering from his plan of action, surrounding himself with people who believe in him and listening to his intuition. When he arrived in America in 1968 with $20 to his name, could he ever have imagined that his box office takings would top over US$2 billion? Probably, he claims to have had a near furnished apartment within a week of landing, garnered by the generosity of the people he’d met in the gym.
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The meaning of success No matter what you think of his films, or his current policies, there is no doubt Arnold has an infectious charm and has used it to his advantage. He has held court with religious and political leaders, educators and community leaders; if his success was based purely on his standing in the community, he could retire a content man. Over the years, however, Arnold has come to realise that success is not what you know, or even who you know, but the ability to continue to learn beyond the belief that you might think you know everything. “I didn’t think about money. I thought about the fame, about just being the greatest. I was dreaming about being some dictator of a country or some saviour like Jesus.” He received a valuable lesson from his father in-law. When the sergeant said: “Break that mirror in front of you – that mirror that only let’s you look at yourself. Break it, so you can look beyond! You’ll see the rest of the world. You’ll see people who need your help,” Arnold knew that fame and success meant nothing if it was purely for personal gain. From that day, Arnold has spent much of his time giving. He has set up community programs for kids, he sat on the President’s Council for Physical Fitness, elected by President George Bush Snr in 1989 to travel the 50 States of America promoting fitness and sports programs in schools. He has, for a long time now, trumpeted the inspiration that comes from the Special Olympics. And he has seen the heartache of shattered American dreams for the millions of kids who can’t break free of the shackles of family destitution. For Arnold, it is these people who need the most help and it is their plight
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cover story thinkBIG feature that sparked his trail toward governance. “I used to think it was shameful or silly to need help. I was wrong about that. Now, I know it’s stupid not to ask for it when you need it – and ridiculous not to appreciate it when you get it.”
The politics of Arnold Schwarzenegger You might say Arnold is a Republican politician, with reformist values. Though he describes his childhood as financially lean he makes the point that he never went without parental support, an education or even a safe place to play. “All this gave me a strong foundation, which gave me the confidence, which gave me the inner strength to believe in myself and know I could make it. And it worked,” he says. However, in his role as founder of the Inner City Games Foundation he has come to understand that not every child has the same significant level of support that he enjoyed. There is a great deal of work that goes into running the foundation, including maintaining the support of local political and community leaders. It takes more effort than his other big personal project, The Arnold Classic, the biggest bodybuilding show in the world. And there is more meaning to this project. “While they have fun, the kids are learning discipline and diligence. In other words, they are learning how to succeed in life.” Co-operation and collaboration are major points in Arnold’s political platform and in the way he has gone about his personal and professional business.
“I used to think it was shameful or silly to need help. I was wrong about that. Now, I know it’s stupid not to ask for it when you need it – and ridiculous not to appreciate it when you get it.” Not only has he had the Kennedy clan to draw political ideas from, but he lists Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Milton Friedman and Les Wexner as his business mentors. With these powerbrokers behind him, the logical step for Arnold was as a full fledged businessman or politician. He’s been successful in business and property. He says the lesson he learnt from being a part owner in Planet Hollywood was when to get out of a business. His charm, charisma, his ability and willingness to learn, his star power and his political leanings attracted the Republican party as early as 1990, when President Bush turned him into an ambassador, but it wasn’t until 2002 that he suggested there was some consideration. In an interview with Talk Magazine, Arnold speculated when asked the political question, “I think about it many times. The possibility is there because I feel it inside. Could be.” At the time, ‘Arnie’ was still ensconced in his movie career with three films in the works including blockbusters, Sixth Day and Terminator 3. Yet the Republican party was far from finished with him. Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge said at the time: “I encouraged him to keep the possibility of public office open.” Five governors lobbied the action star to keep an open mind. Two years later, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger took office of California. And much like with his movie career, his businesses and real estate
empire he has proved a deft hand. His handling of the California’s bushfire crisis was widely praised. He has launched several initiatives to protect the Californian environment, including a low carbon fuel standard, renewable energy standard and Ocean Action Plan. “California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming. We won’t wait for the federal government. We will move forward because we know it’s the right thing to do. We will lead on this issue and we will get other western states involved. I think there’s not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment.” He continues to run office the same way he lives his life, which is no mean feat in political circles: ‘Don’t listen to people who don’t want you to succeed’. He has worked to reform California’s fiscal policies, create a better business environment and stimulate job growth. Between 2003 and 2007 California’s Gross State Product had grown by 29%. However, as the economic crisis now bites, Arnold finds himself in the economically familiar political position of waning popularity and is unlikely to be re-elected. It is the fate of any politician in power when economic times are dour. If he does find himself out of office, we may see him back on set, or he may even decide on a fourth career to exert his will and determination upon. What we do know is that he will leave several legacies behind when he eventually retires, but what Arnold will most want to be remembered for is his humanity. Though he will always be the Terminator, movie success is what enabled him to give back. He has proved himself a generous philanthropist. In 2002, his support for proposition 49, the After-School Education & Safety Act garnered overwhelming support and as Governor he aggressively lobbied to increase school funding. The icing on the cake for Arnold is being recognised as a humanitarian by the Simon Weisenthal Foundation for his support of the organisation’s Holocaust studies. Arnold was also praised for returning three paintings confiscated by the Nazi regime to their rightful owners. In 2002 he was given the esteemed honour of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award, presented by his friend, Ali for his ongoing dedication to the Inner-City Games Foundation and Special Olympics. He could have been the untouchable mega-star, but to fulfil the American dream, Arnold has come to understand that humanity and generosity is what success really means. TB
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change Making money by making change By Chris Howard
When I was teaching our Breakthrough to Success at CIDA University in Johannesburg, South Africa, where underprivileged youth get a free education, several students shared stories of incredible hardship and poverty.
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recall one young woman describing what she had to endure to support her whole family at the age of 13 in the remote village where she grew up. Instead of feeling sorry for herself though, she said, “I realised that if I wanted my future to be different, I had to come with the change.” I thought, this girl could be the next entrepreneurial success because she gets it. She understood that—if you don’t make changes within yourself and your thinking first, then nothing can change on the outside. When someone went to her village and told her about CIDA University, she immediately acted on the opportunity. All success begins with the commitment to change. She’s now a graduate of the Branson Business School and is working in the financial sector. She also brings her new entrepreneurial skills back to her community so the cycle of wealth continues to expand. Your mind is always your strongest asset in any economy. Instead of waiting around for the market to improve, commit right now to being the sort of person who chooses fearless pursuit of their dreams. The word decision means to ‘cut off from any other possibility’. You may not know how you’re going to accomplish what you set out to do yet. Start by choosing a path, then hunt down the information and people you need to ensure your success. When Warren Buffett decided he was going to make his millions investing, he said he was ‘committed to getting the information direct from the source’. So he sought out his mentor, investor Benjamin Graham, and worked for him until he could start his own investment firm. Leaders are decisive. They have the ability to commit to an end result and follow through on it with singularity of purpose. Meanwhile, the person with a ‘we’ll see’ attitude goes around saying, maybe this business idea will work out, but we’ll see what happens; or, I hope things will change but…we’ll see. As an entrepreneur, a lack of decisiveness can keep you trapped in mediocrity, not taking action on your goals. Within your 22 thinkBIG
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company, a lack of certainty and conviction can badly affect your team’s drive and focus. Until you are 100% on board with your own intentions and goals, you may be unconvincing in sales or have difficulty developing the type of team you need to grow. What reasons or excuses have you made in the past that hold you back? And what new decisions do you have to make now to attain the level of success you desire? If you’ve made a reason or excuse like, you don’t have the education or resources to be successful, maybe you can make a decision instead to embrace the new mindset and choose to believe you have access to everything you need to run a profitable company. Maybe make that your new mantra: “I have access to everything I need to run a profitable company.” Whatever it is, decide and commit. All your actions will be more effective as a result. I was deep in debt, feeling stuck and directionless the day I made the commitment to develop and teach these tools for transformation all over the world. That was the same day my financial situation started to turn around. Seven years later, I was standing on stage in Johannesburg before hundreds of students being honoured with a song. They were thanking my crew and me for sharing the knowledge they needed to shape their own futures. The sense of fulfillment I felt was almost overwhelming. In that moment, I knew what it meant to be truly rich. It was the changes I had made within myself first that made it possible. We are all faced with daunting challenges at some point that can appear impossible to overcome. Whether you want to change the world, or you just want to change your financial situation, you’ve got to ‘come with the change’. The power to determine your destiny arrives the instant you commit to yourself and your dreams. TB
International speaker and coach, Chris Howard, is a best-selling author, prominent speaker and the owner of Christopher Howard Training. www.chrishoward.com
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Get that
new
How to make change work for you The first thing we have to do is reframe this surge of adrenaline we all get from being out of our comfort zone. Many years ago, an advertising mate, John O’Connor and I started calling this sensation ‘Newfeeling’. In the same way that you feel hot when you walk into a hot room, when you walk outside your comfort zone you get newfeeling. It’s not good or bad, just different. I know it seems like a small thing to do. Sometimes when I say it out loud it even seems like an incredibly … thing to do. But the Philosopher Wittgenstein said: “The limits of one’s language are the limits of one’s world.” The number of ways you can talk about something determines the number of ways you can think about something. So change the word, change the meaning and change the feeling, And I can picture some of the furrowed brows reading this magazine, thinking “Cute word. But what good is it?” When you allow yourself to feel the adrenaline without attaching words like fear or scared or nerves to it, you don’t beat yourself up so much. You even start to welcome it as a sign you’re stretching yourself and growing your business. Before your first day at a new job, you don’t have knots on your stomach -- you have newfeeling. Of course you do, it’s a new job. Before a sales call, you’re not scared or nervous, you’ve got newfeeling. Walking into the big new business pitch you can say to your team “I think my undies are full of newfeeling.”
feeling now By Marty Wilson
Charles Darwin, the father of evolution theory, born 200 years ago this year, said: It’s not the strongest of the species who survive, not the most intelligent, but those who are the most adaptive to change. (I can hear the readers now: “Change! Um-aaaah! He said the C-Word.”)
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hange is hard on all of us. I’m a pharmacist turned copywriter, turned stand up comic, turned wine writer, turned Author and Speaker and I still find change incredibly challenging. If you ever see anyone stand up and brag: “I love change. Change scares me not! I am The Change Master.” Point at them, giggle and say “Liar liar, you’re nervous, skidmarked- pants are on fire.“ This is because we human beings have evolved to love certainty. When something is familiar we feel relaxed and confident. When we’re trying something different this Neanderthal part of our brain, called the amygdale, releases a surge of adrenaline that gives us sweaty palms and a tight feeling deep in our gut. Some people call this sensation fear or butterflies or knots in the stomach, sadly others call it “that thing that stops me learning a language/starting a business/phoning that girl. To help you through, here are my three rock solid, cast iron, facts about change that, if should you wrap your head around them, will take you halfway to thinking about how the current period of economic instability is a launching pad instead of a crash site…
1. Life is change Please understand I’m not saying. ‘Life is full of change’ or ‘Change is such a big part of life’. No. Life is change. Change is the true nature of existence. So sure, read all those books that say: “Change Your Life Today”. As long as you know that it’ll change again tomorrow, and the next
day, and the day after… Life is change. Change is life. Your cheese is always being moved. Your iceberg is always melting. And the times they’re always a’changing.
2. When you refuse to change you don’t hold onto your past, you lose the future Bill Murray started out doing movies like Caddyshack, he took some risks and Lost in Translation won him an Oscar nomination. Chevy Chase started out doing movies like Caddyshack and is still doing movies like Caddyshack. For a business case study, let’s compare Radio network Triple M with Apple Computers. Both launched in the ’80s as great challenger brands flipping the bird to the big boys, shaking up their industry. 25 years later? Apwple is still innovating and leading and Triple M is still playing a ‘Non-stop block of Classic Rock’. Triple M keeps waiting for a convenient time to evolve. But…
3. There is never a convenient time to change There is never a time when things are just hunky dory, all your ducks are in a row – in every sphere of your life – and you can sit down, have a big deep breath then say: “Right. What’s next?” You will always have problems. The trick in life is to make sure your problems are worth having. Life throws all sorts of things at us that give us great big doses of adrenaline whether you seek it or not. So we may as well choose some evolution that pushes us towards our goals.
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Follow your butterflies The best thing about this sensation in our gut is that it unerringly points to things we could be doing to more fully express who we are. Each of us has a totally different combination of gifts and skills that makes our unique destiny possible. And the best way to find it is look around, consider your options, then do the thing that gives you the biggest knots in your stomach. Grab life with both sweaty palms. It seems un-Australian to talk about your fear at all, let alone reframing your fear and calling it newfeeling. But it works. It’s worked for me for 10 years. It worked so well for my son on his first day of school, he could explain it to his friends and it worked for them. Don’t ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’, get the newfeeling and do it gladly. Life is a short, precious gift. Don’t let that underdeveloped Neanderthal part of your brain convince you to spend life inside your cave. If life has a flavour it is not Ham & Pineapple. If life has a motto it is not ‘Same again thanks’. If life has a soundtrack it is not a ‘Non-stop block of ’80s Rock’. Let’s do Darwin proud and chase down some evolution. TB
Marty Wilson is an Author & Speaker. marty@martywilson.com.au; newfeeling.org
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no excuse What’s the #1 thing people do wrong? By Joe Vitale
I admit it. I’m frustrated. I’m tired of getting emails from people who write, “I can’t do what you did because __________________.” Just fill in the blank with whatever excuse you can think of.
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eople say they can’t write as many books as I have because they don’t have the time, or they’re too old, too young, too married, or too single. People say they can’t make their book a bestseller like I did because their book is different, or they’re different, or the timing is different. People say they can’t ask celebrities for endorsements because they feel insignificant, or insulting, or imposing. The list of excuses is endless. Here are some actual ones I’ve received… “You’re more famous than me. I could never write people and ask for their help, as they wouldn’t give me the time of day.” I started asking people for help, advice, input, suggestions and direction when I was a teenager. I have letters from FBI king J. Edgar Hoover, boxing legend Jack Dempsey and master magician John Mulholland. I was certainly unknown then. Yet people always helped me. I’ve managed to connect with Evel Kneivel, Donald Trump, Jimmy Carter, bestselling authors and more – and I did it before anyone knew my name. I simply asked for their help. They were kind and replied. Today I’m doing the same for anyone who writes to me who sounds sincere and respectful. “You have a large network of people to ask for things.” Yes…I do now. But I didn’t when I first started. I developed my network by building relationships. I reached out to people, helped them, they helped me, and trust was formed. Because I’ve nurtured my relationships online for almost 10 years now, a bond is set. When I announce that I want contributions for a new book, my network responds. When they want something, I respond. I was able to compile all the information for my most recent book, The Attractor Factor (Second Edition) all because I asked my network for help. “You have a big mailing list so you can sell things faster.” I went online with no mailing list. None. I didn’t even recognise the importance of having my own list until one day I
offered my first e-class to my then tiny list and made $22,500 in one week. Then I woke up. I’ve been working on building my email list ever since. Anyone can do it. And while you’re waiting to do it, you can always joint venture with people who already have mailing lists. How? Just ask. One day some person in Norway wrote to me. He wanted to know if I would help him sell his new software. I liked his program and agreed. He didn’t have a list. I did. He had software. I liked it. I did a mailing and split the profits with him. It was a win-win situation. “You are more talented as a copywriter so you can sell better than me.” I learned to be a copywriter by investing time, money and effort into studying the greats and getting out there and doing it. My first sales letters were garbage. I still write and rewrite to make my letters as hypnotic as I can. I wasn’t born writing, reading, or even walking. I learned it all. Can’t you? “I don’t have anything to offer free to get people to buy what I am selling.” There are a million things for free online. You can find thousands of free e-books online. Just grab a few and offer them as your incentives to get people to buy your product or service. Anyone can do this. Just look around online. The fruit is there for the picking. I’ve seen people take classic literature – now in the public domain and available as e-books – and offer them as incentives for prospects to buy their product. It works. How do you find them? Search. “I can’t teach an e-class like you because I have no credentials.” Your credentials are you. They are your life experiences more than anything else. Few today care about whether you have a degree or any other credential. They care if you can deliver on whatever you promise. My lifemate, Nerissa, is about to teach an online video editing class. Anything you can teach offline can be taught online. With video, audio, graphics, text and chat rooms,
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you can have a virtual classroom on anything you can imagine. “I can’t make money selling my stuff on the Internet.” Look around. The internet is so big and vast and even incomprehensible that truly anything can be sold online. I’ve seen people sell tumbleweeds and buggy whips, greeting cards and computer generated art. Anything sold offline can be sold online. Look at Ebay. People sell cars, used clothes, dirt and even snow there. I once sold an Elvis Mermaid through Ebay. (You can see a picture of it at www.mrfire.com.) Are there really any limits to what can be sold online? “I missed the right time to sell my idea.” Really? Just look at the title of one of my books: There’s A Customer Born Every Minute. A new crowd of prospects appears every single day. You can sell virtually anything at virtually any time if you think of what people want and cater to them. Sometimes you have to think of other uses for the same product, or other audiences than what you originally had in mind. But the best time to sell what you have is now. What are you waiting for? “You live in America and I live in Mexico and selling doesn’t work here.” Give me a break. Friends of mine always go to Mexico (and other countries said to be behind us) and they come home with truckloads of things they bought. Besides, the internet makes your location meaningless. Take your product and go online. Then you’re not selling to your poor neighbours, but to the entire planet. Think big. The list goes on and on. To me, making excuses is the number one thing people do wrong -- online and off. While all of these excuses seem legitimate to the person saying them, they are virtually all hogwash. Excuses are beliefs. If you buy into them, you’re stuck. If you believe instead that there’s always a way around whatever the excuse is, then you’ll move forward. My philosophy is: there’s always a way. So let me try to help you here. First, what are your excuses? When I began this article by asking the question, “I can’t do what you did because ________________________,” what did you say? How did you complete the sentence? Those are some of your excuses. Second, ask yourself if there’s any way on earth to get around your excuses. In other words, are the excuses you stated real or imagined? Have you tried to get past any of them? Has anyone else, ever gotten past the same excuses? Finally, what would you do if you had no excuses? Whatever your answer, get out there and just do it. Leave your excuses behind and your prosperity will begin to come to you. Leave your excuses behind and you can achieve
success, too. Leave your excuses behind and your life will begin to soar. If you don’t act now, why not? Whatever your answer, that’s an excuse. Are you going to let it stop you? TB
Dr. Joe Vitale is the author of The Attractor Factor, Hypnotic Writing, Buying Trances, The Power of Outrageous Marketing, and star of The Secret. His website is www.mrfire.com
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Brand
YOU! - Now it’s personal Right now the world needs a hero…proactive personal branding will set you apart as a recognisable winner in a pool of sinking fear mongers.
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verywhere you look there’s a new reason to be terrified into inertia. Every news day brings more horror, fear, uncertainty, panic and more warnings to hang on to your job, business and hard earned dollars. Thousands of ordinary Australians have lost their livelihoods; hundreds are declaring bankruptcy and thousands more have been forced to sell their homes. And it seems that where there was once trust and ease of business, there is now suspicion and delay.
Branding expert Jon-Michail says every communication has to mean something.
Consumers/clients/customers aren’t as ready to part with the readies now. And it’s not over yet. According to presidential candidate and #1 New York Times best selling author, Ron Paul, “You can’t stop the problem of too much spending and too much deficit and too much monetary inflation with more of it.”
‘Create & Innovate’ – the new game in town. Now more than ever, people are being forced to choose where they stand. Thousands are terrified into enacting and enabling debilitating scenarios that will be more detrimental to their circumstances than when they started. Others, however will be inspired to greater things. Oprah Winfrey, US President Obama, Tiger Woods, Anthony Robbins, Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Australia’s own AFL legend, Kevin Sheedy and hundreds of other leaders in their field apply personal branding techniques to achieve consistent, amazing results that few of us would ever hope to realise. These exceptional leaders have said goodbye to money worries forever. But, the secret to their survival and continued success is available to all of us. Personal branding for extraordinary success is available to everyone – from the love lost to the financially destitute, it’s all about ‘stacking the odds in your favour’. Leading edge business entrepreneur and Personal Brand Image guru, Jon-Michail of Image Group International, warned of the current downturn many, many months ago, telling clients to beware complacency and the false security that comes with prosperous good times. “Now, it is more imperative than ever to have a personal brand that means something – that is genuine and moral and trustworthy. It’s no longer good enough to get by in the same ways we used to. Every communication has to mean something. Every transaction has to be exceptional and everyone your customers deal with has to be a person of worth,” says JonMichail of current sceptical attitudes to business. “There have been so many so-called pillars of our society that have crashed and burned, that people are finding it difficult to
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trust anyone. The company name can no longer protect you. It is down to you and you alone. Trust yourself, personal branding is the most effective way out of a sea of uncertainty. Now is the time to step forward and present yourself as a ‘brand’ that people can trust.”
What is personal branding Personal branding is a thorough makeover from the inside out. It’s about personal pride, dignity, honesty, integrity and a passion to achieve the best there is in any chosen field. It’s about enmeshing the physical with the emotional, spiritual and intellectual aspects of our selves. It’s about putting together a package that is strong, secure, forward thinking and dynamic. It’s about answering questions such as: What do I really want? What am I about? What do I love to do? What do I want to improve? What is the best and most authentic way to present myself to the world?
Benefits Senior executives from some of the country’s leading companies, including Fortune 500 companies, entertainers and elite sports stars from over 18 countries have long known the need for personal branding, and many have acted upon their instincts to improve their personal branding, and undertaken the reforms and advice given by Jon-Michail and his team at Image Group International. According to Jon-Michail, this has simply underscored the benefits of personal branding. “It’s a well documented fact that customers will stay with a name or person that they trust – through the bad times as well as the good. So once you’ve undertaken personal branding, your customers will naturally create an emotional attachment to your product, business and you. You will be set apart from other businesses as trustworthy and strong. You will naturally communicate leadership qualities. You will grow more solid business relationships and project credibility in the market place. Purchasing decisions will be easier for your customers and you will be able to deliver above market financial returns, despite the economic environment. It is the single most powerful thing you can do to succeed where others are failing.”
Who can benefit? You the parent, can benefit by enabling and informing your children with insights and skills that will help them through any financial/social climate. You can show them how to live in the real world – give them the solution to life problems – solutions they will never find at school. You the love partner, can benefit by strengthening the connection between you and your lover, between you and the others in your life who are most beloved by you. You the income earner, can benefit by earning hundreds of dollars in just one hour, by helping others achieve their dreams. You the communicator, can benefit by mastering communication secrets that will allow you to boost your income by working less. Alice (not her real name) age 41 went to IGI recently. A bank executive who was soon to become redundant, she did not want to lose her esteem or hard earned inroads into the market place. She wanted some serious personal branding to make her a recognisable asset. Once she had undertaken the Diagnostic Risk Management Audit™, she was able to not only raise her profile and personal brand, but was offered a promotion rather than a redundancy. There are many more similar stories, and as the downturn fuels more fear, the greater the number of individuwals who refuse to succumb and the greater the number of clients seeking out professional expertise. TB
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thinkBIG feature When Marcia Griffin resigned from Pola Cosmetics in 1997, she was widely regarded as one of the most successful female CEOs and entrepreneurs in the world. Today she heads up her own skincare range called Griffin and Row, which, as Dominique Bambino writes, is already having a huge impact in the beauty products market.
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t took Marcia Griffin 12 long years at university and several degrees before she realised that great sales people don’t necessarily need academic degrees. However, to achieve what Marcia has achieved in her career requires a great deal of smarts: book smarts, street smarts and general intelligence. Academia, according to Marcia, is not the be all and end all of a successful career. In fact she sees the time she spent within the confines of the learning institutions as a distorted life view, particularly when she counts the number of successful businesspeople she has met who have no formal degree or education beyond high school. Marcia took a job as a corporate economist straight out of university, yet the bureaucracy and the lack of possibility was uninspiring. The good thing to come out of this position was the people she met. “After 12 years of studying I realised none of my studies had anything to do with entrepreneurship,” Marcia says. “So, it was like a bolt of lightning trying to understand why these people were all so successful when they didn’t even have an MBA.” Mixing and meeting with entrepreneurs started to change her mindset. It was at this point she realised she needed to move into the world of ‘real business’. Working for a corporation where the outcome of a task was the end game and not integral to the future vision was frustrating. She wished to work for a company that was entrepreneurial. So she tried her luck with an import
The
global
Griffin
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thinkBIG feature retail business. Her mother had instilled in Marcia an attitude that she had great capability to conquer all things. Marcia knew that if she was serious about doing something she would do it well. The first business Marcia ran (almost 30 years ago) was a retail store in Armadale, Victoria. She imported clothing and homeware such as lampshades, ashtrays and soft furnishings. It was the first store of its kind. While remaining an active operator within the store, Marcia was also completing an MBA in the evenings at Melbourne University. She hadn’t quite given up the idea that education at its highest level was a necessary good. However, one night when closing the store to rush to her evening studies, she realised she didn’t need an MBA to be able to sell well. “I was closing the store rushing to Melbourne University and I had an epiphany that I didn’t need the MBA. It was a frontline experience.” In 1982, Marcia sold the business to her business partner and also found her mentor; an extraordinary entrepreneur named John Taylor who was a director of the Direct Selling Association. John happened to be the point of contact for a position with Japanese cosmetic company, Pola Cosmetics. John put Marcia on retainer with commission and appointed her to the position of national sales manager. “Here I was, I had been to a private school and boarding school and completed 12 years of University and I was sitting across a desk from a guy that left school at 14 talking about a job within his company,” says Marcia. John taught Marcia about attitude. Through 12 years of university, nobody had ever mentioned the correlation between attitude and success. Now she was attending attitude seminars led by Anthony Robbins and Tom Hopkins. “I was absolutely astounded because what I started hearing was that attitude was the most important thing,” Marcia says. Within six months at Pola Cosmetics, Marcia had recruited 30 people to sell the product. Within a year she had 200 people selling the product. The word had spread around the Japanese head office and she was asked to take over Pola’s Australia and New Zealand operation. After 16 years Marcia had over 5,000 women selling throughout Australasia and became one of the only Caucasian women in the world to head up a Japanese operation. Pola Cosmetics enjoyed over 10 million sales in the 16 years she was with them. In 1995 Marcia became the Telstra Business Women of The Year and even though she was passionate about her successful 24/7 business she was tired and exhausted. She felt like she had taken Pola Cosmetics as far as she could and was in need of a new challenge. In 1998 she sold her share of Pola Cosmetics back to the Japanese and published her book High Heeled Success, which
-- on the back of winning the Telstra award – gave her an enormous amount of exposure. “In so many ways I think life is such a learning curve. I still didn’t realise the power of what I’d achieved. What I did with a direct selling business was difficult because nobody had done it before,” Marcia says. For a change she started consulting and mentoring, a business she still successfully maintains, however soon enough the skincare industry beckoned again. About three years ago Marcia approached Yvonne Row with a potential product idea her friend could place in her ‘Passion Fruit’ store in South Melbourne. Yvonne was not too keen on the product but saw a business opportunity where the two could develop a product together. The pair teamed up to develop a new skin care range called Griffin + Row. Marcia’s many industry connections got the ball rolling and the pair’s combined experience was invaluable. “We had the right ingredients for an anti ageing product. I started to see the way this product works. It was powerful. The whole thing started coming together,” Marcia says. They got the formula, story and branding right. And after talking to many distributors, the product was made available. Fortunately they were given the opportunity to meet with Target, a successful retail chain throughout Australia. In September 2008, Target placed an order and by October Griffin + Row skincare range was on shelves through 150 Target stores. As with most businesses, Marcia would say it’s all about having the right attitude. Attitude gave her the confidence to move into several arenas in which she had no prior experience. It is a trait that enabled her success within these arenas and brought organisations to her door seeking her expertise at board level. She has sat on many boards such as Melbourne Storm and PMP Printing. Not to mention being on the Telstra judging panel for the last four years. It goes to show that having multiple degrees is not the key to moving ahead in life. It’s about having the right attitude. “Never give up, keep going and keep doing fabulous things.” TB
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Do the
By Carly Crutchfield
right thing
by you In all my property deals, finance was the essential component that made the deals possible, it’s not always easy to get the right finance structure, but with the right guidance it can be very easy and it could be the difference between saving hundreds of dollars and making hundreds of thousands.
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f you are purchasing property or looking to refinance your existing loans, you may have experienced difficulty or delays with obtaining finance, or you may have found it hard to get the right advice or knowledge from your financier on what are the best products, rates or finance structures to suit your purposes.
With the drop in property prices, coupled with the drop in interest rates and the new increased First Home Owners Grant, so many people are flocking to the market to either snap up a property bargain or refinance their existing loans to a better rate or loan product. This means the banking and finance sector is over saturated with new finance applications, which has resulted in many people waiting for weeks and even months to receive finance approval. They may also have lost the properties they were supposed to purchase because their finance was not ready in time. Getting finance is the key to building your asset base in property. You need to have the money, or know how to get the money to be able to do any sort of investing; preferably it’s about using as little of your own funds as possible and using the bank’s or other people’s money as much as possible. But how do we know which is the best deal for our specific situations? What if we don’t have the time to do all the legwork and research ourselves? The solution is easy and pretty straightforward: hire someone to do all the research for you. It’s cheaper than you think and the bank pays the brokers. Some people think that if you go direct to the bank you will get a better deal than going through a broker. However, you may end up with a loan that really isn’t the best for you. If you go direct to a bank they will only be able to show you the products they have. There are literally dozens of lenders in Australia with hundreds of different mortgage and loan products. By the time you learn all about them, new ones have been brought out and interest rates, bonuses, penalties etc., have changed. Unless you work in the industry day in and day out, you just can’t keep up with the best available products for each scenario, and even then only the good mortgage brokers keep up. In all my property deals, getting finance was the lynchpin that
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would make or break the deal. I learnt early on in the piece that I wasn’t going to be able to handle this process on my own. I started using brokers many years ago to help me do my deals. So I thought that getting a few tips on how to get your finance applications approved would be extremely valuable, so I cornered Yza (pronounced Eeeza) Canja, a young, dynamic, investor to ask a few questions for you. Yza started at the age of 22 as a data entry clerk at Aussie Home Loans on a wage of $27K. She has no savings, and was actually in debt. She was so determined to become a property investor that she immersed herself in study, self-development courses, analysing the finance systems and how loans are approved within the finance institutions. Within six months of intense study and analysis, Yza purchased her first five properties with none of her own money, all while she still had no savings and an income of $27K.
Carly Crutchfield (CC): Is it dangerous to borrow money for property purchases during this credit crisis? Yza Canja: Absolutely, but only for those that don’t have the right advice. You need to be more meticulous and careful about how and where you are going to get your borrowed funds from. The banks are being careful about who they lend to, but I think that you should also be careful about who you borrow from. No one has a crystal ball, but with a bit of knowledge you could make some calculated decisions. In the last 18 months we have seen several lenders drop out of the mortgage market... and people who have loans with those particular lenders have found it difficult to either refinance or get new finance for other purchases due to the much higher rates or restrictive loan structures their existing loans have. With the right advice you will learn how to extend your borrowing capacities in a market that is contracting, you will learn how to mitigate your risks; a strategy will be formed to give you flexibility. I find that one of the things most people lack when they start getting finance for property, is their exit strategy; getting in is easy, but without the right strategy getting out could cost you tens of thousands of dollars.
CC: Do you have any advice on how to get finance in this market? YC: Speak to an expert who will work with you in assessing your overall finance situation before you start applying for any loan. These experts can make suggestions to improve your current situation straight away that will in turn influence your borrowing capacity. Sometimes, by making small changes to your existing circumstances, i.e. reducing a credit card limit, changing the structure of any existing loans, can add tens of thousands of dollars to your borrowing capacity. If you are aware of your financial strengths and weaknesses first, then you will be able to present a hole-proof application to the lenders. When possible explore using non-bank lenders or smaller banks. Most banks are swamped with loan applications at the moment and because they have so much business they are able to pick and choose from the stronger applications rather than first come first serve. Non-bank lenders are not as busy and are more flexible with
their credit policies. In many cases their rates are slightly higher than the major banks, however it’s well worth it if it enables you to get the right deal.
CC: How do we get the lowest interest rate? YC: Shopping for the lowest interest rate should not be the most important criteria when shopping for a loan. Most of the time getting you the best loan structure and strategy can earn you more wealth and save you more on fees. Reasonable low rates are definitely important but they do not always result in more wealth. If you need to pay a slightly higher rate that will enable you to get a good property purchase, it can work out better for you than having to pay more fees, with high exit costs on a low rate loan.
CC: When should we fix our interest rates? YC: Fixing rates should not necessarily occur when the fixed rates are low, fix when the cash flow works. If you are a home owner, you should only fix your rates at a point when your current repayments are comfortable enough for you to maintain the repayments and continue to make regular savings of at least 10% of your income at the same time. If you are a property investor, you should consider fixing the rates when the rental income covers the mortgage repayments. Don’t hang out waiting for fixed interest rates to keep dropping. Do fix at a point when, even if your rental income does not cover your whole mortgage repayments, you are still able to comfortably afford the monthly shortfall and continue saving at least 10% of your income. TB
Yza Canja now heads up CMONEY, a finance solutions and mortgage broking firm which is a subsidiary of Carly Crutchfield’s CCORP. To find out more about Yza and CMoney go to www.cmoney.com.au
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capital
View on investing in the current environment
Investors’ mindset is optimistic
By Reuben Buchanan
The National Australia Bank (NAB) recently released their quarterly survey of business expectations for the next 12 months. It showed that confidence was reading below levels recorded during the 1990s recession and the lowest result since the start of the quarterly survey in 1988. • The biggest challenge for 55% of investors is finding suitable opportunities. • 32% of investors surveyed report that their biggest challenge to making investment decisions is that most companies are not investor ready.
Top three sectors sought for investment – from highest to lowest - Industrial/Engineering - Education - Green Tech / Clean Tech
19% 17% 17%
Types of investments sought:
H
owever a recent survey by Wholesale Investor of their 4,000 + investor database revealed quite the opposite. This presents an opportunity for entrepreneurs who may be seeking capital in 2009. Here are some of the key points revealed in the survey: • 96% of investors are optimistic about the current investment environment • 80% of investors have 50% of more of their funds in cash • 71% are interested in private opportunities • Private companies are heavily favoured over public companies, by more than two times (76% private compared to 29% private) • A further 24% say that now is the best investment environment they have ever seen in their careers • 33% have $1m or more to invest. Based on the survey database of approximately 4,200, this equates to 1,386 investors, or minimum $1.36 billion in investable funds • 91% of investors would back an early-stage/start-up business if it was within their preferred sector and had a strong board and management
- Direct equity - Strategic investment through the issue of fresh capital - Distressed assets - Opportunistic deals that are significantly undervalued - Asset purchase - Acquiring some or all of assets of a business
So what does this mean for anyone seeking capital? Firstly, if business confidence is down and investor confidence is up, that means now is the right time to be seeking an investor for your opportunity. Most other business owners would not know that the current economic conditions create optimism among the investment community because of the lowering of business valuations. Sure you might have to give away a bit more equity to get that capital, but there is no time like the present to build your business. Smart companies are recognising that now is the time to build market share and an injection of capital is one of the best ways to do this. So think big, get out there and meet some investors. Show them your business opportunity and you just might meet the right capital partner. Also, if you would like to obtain a full copy of the survey results, please contact Steve Torso of Wholesale Investor at s.torso@wholesaleinvestor.com.au TB
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Response
%
Not a good time to invest
4%
OK time to invest
24%
Very good time to invest
48%
Best time ever seen to invest
24%
48% 24%
24% 4% Not a good time
OK time
Very good time
Best time ever
Funds under management / Capital available Response
%
Up to $500k
47%
Up to $500k
$500k - $1m
20%
$500 - 1 m
$1m - $5m
15%
$1m - $5 m
$5m - $10m
9%
$10m - $50m
7%
$50m - $100m
2%
47% 20% 15%
$5m - $10 m $10m - $50 m $50m - $100 m
9% 7% 2%
Economic outlook - SHORT TERM VIEW: View on Australian economy and its potential over the next two years
Response
%
Optimistic
50%
Concerned but optimistic
46%
Pessimistic
4%
Reuben Buchanan, Director - Wholesale Investor & Teldar Media founded Wealth Creator magazine in 2001. Today he assists and educates companies on capital raising and exit strategies. www.teldar.com.au
Pessimistic
Concerned but optimistic
Optimistic
Source: Wholesale Investor www.wholesaleinvestor.com.au
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memory
“So, Brent, which company do you work for?” Or “Brent, can I get you a drink?” Or “Are you here with a group Brent?” Finally, always say your name when someone gives you his or hers. “Hi, I’m Laura Evans” should be met with “Hi Laura, I’m Brent Michaels”. It should never be met with “Hi”.
Methods of memory magic By Dr Kim Fenton and Penny Ombler
The importance of a good memory cannot be underplayed. Yet, most of us could do with some improvement in the memory department. You don’t have to accept your level of ability. It is within your control to develop exceptional memory skills.
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esearch has shown that in order to have a chance of remembering anything, the object, person or event must be: • drawn into our consciousness • encoded and stored in our brain • able to be retrieved at a later date. Additionally, we have three types of memory: sensory, short term and long term. Sensory memory is extremely short term – only a matter of seconds – and detects things that occur in your environment. It could be a loud sound or a car speeding past. With no need to store the information, those memories simply disappear. However, if you are motivated to notice something about the sound or the car, the dynamics are altered. For instance, if what you thought you heard was a gunshot, or you knew the car speeding past was driving away from a bank robbery, you would consciously register more information. The events would move into short-term memory. Interestingly, short-term memory has a limit to both the capacity of information that can be stored and the length of time for which it can be stored. When you are learning something new and you say your brain is full, you probably aren’t exaggerating. Short-term memory is the reason you may forget the last two or three digits of a telephone number you’ve just been told. In order to remember it, you need to repeat it a number of times. If you have speed dial on your phone, you may never remember it off hand. If you do repeatedly dial that number manually, at some point, it enters your long-term memory. Long-term memory is full of information from your short-term memory that you have chosen not to discard. Going back to the gunshot and the speeding car, if you know someone’s just robbed a bank, you may prioritise in your memory the colour of the car, the make and model and the registration number. However, if you find out later that the car that sped past you was the getaway vehicle from a bank robbery, you may have difficulty accurately describing even the colour of the car. You may not even remember a car speeding past you at all. We prioritise information that is meaningful to us. This explains
the human consequences of a poor memory. We have all had that experience of not being remembered by someone. Last time it happened to you, it is likely that you felt insignificant to the other person. In a business sense, it can make it harder to build rapport and create productive professional relationships, if you are consistently forgetting details about your colleagues and customers. So, what are some of the basic skills you can develop in order to maintain and improve your memory?
Remembering a person More people are better with faces than with names. This is because most of us are better at recognising rather than recalling. Others have to meet someone three times in order to register that they’ve met them at all. Again, it comes down to priorities. You need to decide that remembering people is a priority. The skills you use to remember a person are the same as remembering a name. If you remember their name, you are unlikely to forget their face.
Remembering a conversation Relationships are based on history. The more history you can remember about someone, the more interest they feel you have in them. We feel special when someone remembers the details of past conversations. Remembering details of people’s lives requires interest. As the listener, you need to be present in the conversation and register what is being said. At the same time, as the speaker, or the person wanting the details to be remembered, you need to be aware of your timing. Sometimes you have caught your listener off guard, or in the middle of something else, and the chances of igniting interest at that time are far less. Both parties have to be in tune to the needs of the other in order for high quality communication to occur.
Some other advice • At work functions, collect business cards. If there is anything you want to remind yourself of about that person, you can write it on the back of the card while it’s fresh in your mind. • Always offer your business card. It will help the person remember you. If you are not doing something you’d rather forget later, you can always benefit by being remembered yourself. • Always make a note of what you have promised and ensure you follow through with your commitment. Forgetting to deliver on a promise will make you memorable for all the wrong reasons. The art of recall is a skill that you continually need to practice in order to maintain sharp proficiency. Your priorities, interests and behaviour will influence your ability to remember details, as well as your likelihood of being remembered. A good memory for the details of others, and assisting them to remember you, can be of enormous benefit to both your personal and professional relationships, creating rapport and ultimately, strong and lasting connections. TB
With over 33 years combined experience, Kim Fenton and Penny Ombler founded Successful Minds with the vision of providing personal and organisational development via compelling and constructive coaching and training. www.successfulminds.com.au.
Remembering numbers It is important to de-clutter your mind. Brain clutter may be blocking your ability to store new information. If you can recite the entire script from Guys and Dolls, but you can’t remember your customer’s standing order, you may need to reprioritise your brain space. As discussed, you will also need repetition as numbers are best remembered when used over and over again.
Remembering names Forgetting someone’s name in any environment can knock a few points off your scorecard, even if they’ve only registered it in their subconscious mind. Building rapport involves a combination of subtle interactions over time and remembering a name is one of the more important in this subliminal process. Remembering a name is a twofold process. It’s all about the introduction and the priority. When you are introduced to someone, ensure you accurately catch their name. This requires that you are interested to know their name and that you prioritise its place in your memory. In order to ensure accuracy, make eye contact and repeat their name back to them immediately after the introduction to begin the process of recall in your brain. So it can go something like this: “Hi, I’m Brent Michaels.” “Brett was it?” “No, Brent.” “Hi Brent, I’m Laura Evans.” People don’t mind correcting you if you get their name wrong immediately after hearing it. However, if you continue to call him Brett for the next year, he will possibly be too embarrassed to correct you and it will affect the rapport you are able to build with him. Immediately following the introduction, make eye contact and use their name in the next three sentences you say. It could be:
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be prepared Changing times provide great opportunities By Michelle Murchison
With so much change over recent months with the global financial markets, there is still much to be optimistic about, provided we look at the other side of the coin.
T
his is a time of transfer of wealth, knowledge and new opportunities! I firmly believe, and know, that by supporting and helping my clients improve their wealth through strategic finance strategies and mortgage advice, they are truly increasing their prosperity consciousness and developing their natural ability to manifest wealth. This is not only demonstrated in financial gains, but the lifestyle, mindset and internal belief systems which help them to grow in their own self-confidence and self-belief. And self-confidence, reinforced by sound advice, assessing risk, and then taking action, is what truly creates a prosperous lifestyle in all areas of life. With the lowest interest rates we’ve had in many years, well priced properties on the market in great locations, and the First Home Buyers Boost (free money!) still available, there’s never been a better time to buy! Many First Home Buyers have the opportunity to buy their first home with little of their own money, repayments are similar or sometimes less than the rent they’ve been paying, and its their first strategic step into building wealth! If every First Home Buyer was to hold their property for the long term (beyond 10 years or more), it is surely one of the easiest ways for them to build wealth passively – by creating equity in the property, over time. And ideally, use that equity and cashflow to buy again, and again… A timely reminder of a universally accepted investment philosophy... It’s time in the market, not timing of the market, A long-term view is integral to our long-term financial well-being. To take action in spite of the nay-sayers takes courage and self-belief, so it’s integral to also surround yourself with positive like-minded people, so you have the support to maintain your convictions. It is also a great time for Investors to consider further expansion of property portfolios! With rental returns consistently attracting around 4-5% gross yield (sometimes more!) in good growth areas, and interest rates hovering around the same -- most properties could be close to neutrally geared. With the continued housing shortage in Australia, and a continued demand for rental properties, it is likely that this will retain steady
demand on well located properties for the long term. And yes, while we need to maintain ‘buffers’ for rainy days, rising rates and unexpected changes – it is easier than you think for contingencies to be factored into most of our circumstances with little or not much effort – with the right lifestyle and mortgage planning advice. Some key tips to capitalise on: • Maintain same repayments on your home loan as when they were higher interest rates last year • This provides a cushion/buffer within your home loan or offset account • This cushion then reduces your ‘stress’ of unforseen expenses or life changes • Aim for three months of expenditure cover in reserve • It’s not the interest rate, it’s the interest you pay • By maintaining higher repayments (and/or changing from monthly to fortnightly or weekly payments) you will save interest, and make your ‘buffer’ money work for you • Consolidate non-deductible debt using home equity and pay it off faster at lower rates (maintain same higher repayments of these loans) • Consider utilising ‘sleeping equity’ in your home or investment property/s to leverage and expand your asset base. From an investor’s point of view, risk management strategies and buffers are now more important than ever. And with lenders being more conservative and changing credit policies regularly, there are even more reasons to speak to your mortgage specialist and broker directly so that you have a finance professional working beside you to understand the rapidly changing policy conditions in this dynamic mortgage lending market, and importantly, to continue to give you a broad range of lending options. By preparing yourself now, smart and prepared first home buyers and investors alike can embrace the opportunities available in the months and years ahead. TB
Michelle is the owner of Money Advantage. www.moneyadvantage.com.au
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nature
thought tools Strategic thinking in tough times
By Brian Tracy
What are your choices in this economy? Has this economy got your attention? Has it put a dent in your sales and your income? Do you want to discover what to do about it in order to put your business back on top to make this year your best ever? Or perhaps branch out!
O
ver the years, you’ve put long hours into building your business and now, the economy, the credit markets and a whole bunch of stuff beyond your control have put a wrench in your plans to keep. What can you do about it? The first thing to realise is that you have a choice. The reason most businesses lose in a recession like the one we’re experiencing is that they use the same marketing strategies they used when the economy was in a boom cycle. That’s like wearing your summer thongs with their smooth soles in winter while trying to walk across snow and ice. It won’t work, and you’re likely to fall and hurt yourself. To succeed in this economy, you need proven marketing strategies that reliably generate leads, sales and higher profits. Without them, you could lose your profits and your business.
The quality of thoughtfulness The ability to think and plan strategically is perhaps the most important single skill of the effective executive. In a longitudinal study of leaders who, in retrospect, made the best and most effective decisions, the single quality that stood out from all others was the quality of ‘thoughtfulness’. Thoughtfulness may be defined as a careful concern for the secondary consequences of each decision and each action. This is the essence of strategic thinking.
Your most powerful tool The most powerful tool that you as an executive have to bring to bear on your work is your mind – your thinking ability. Everything you do that sharpens and hones your ability to think with greater clarity before acting, will benefit you and help you to move upward and onward more rapidly in your career or business.
Use a two-pronged approach The best way to approach strategic thinking is two pronged. This means to work simultaneously on the personal and the corporate.
Increase your ‘return on energy’ In personal terms, strategic planning is an exercise in increasing ‘return on energy’. Your greatest single asset is your earning ability. And your earning ability is nothing more than the total of the mental, emotional and physical energies that you can apply toward getting valuable results for yourself and your company. Anything that you can do to increase your return on energy invested will increase your overall levels of effectiveness and contribution in every area of your life, especially, and most importantly in your work.
Action exercises Here are two things you can do immediately to increase your return on equity and your return on energy. First, think about everything that you are doing in terms of its financial return to your organization. What are the things that you do that yield the highest return on equity? Whatever they are, do more of them. Second, think in personal terms about the things you do that give you the highest return on energy. Where do you contribute the greatest value and achieve the greatest satisfaction? Whatever they are, do more of these things. TB
At Brian Tracy International in Australia, we help companies and individuals who are very serious about improving their bottom line by improving the performance of their people. www.tracyint.com.au 42 thinkBIG
Nurture your way to money making genes....
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It is the age-old debate over whether a person’s habits, skills, talents and successes are manufactured through their environment or are an inherited disposition? By Brenton Tong
W
hen arguing the ongoing debate in what it takes to have money and financial success, it’s a combination of the right nature or genes with the right type of education and mentors that will change the odds. This can happen whether people are in early childhood or adulthood. One without the other will not produce the results that we either want for ourselves or for our children. Regardless of background, circumstance and education, if a person is hungry for knowledge and is ready to work for their success they have the opportunity to be highly successful. The world is dotted with many people that have met various levels of success and studying them will lead you to possibly working out what the secret to their success really is. If you look at four people, two of them from a wealthy and highly success demographic, the other two from a less encouraging and financially scarce environment, you would think you would end up with very different outcomes. However the circumstances in which these individuals grow, mixed with their own personal attributes will determine what type of life these people are going to lead. Their nature alone will not dictate the outcome, neither will genes. Of all the wealthy people I have dealt with over the years, I’m amazed how even siblings can end up with such different lives – you would think that success is partially genetic, but I’m not sure it is. Each and every person is born with a unique genetic make up, with some people being born with the real goods to get ahead, others not so. However, since these people grow up in an environment that is more money orientated, it’s often seen that an element of success will rub off on them. Those that have the smarts, and more importantly the drive, can take that raw talent and draw on the environment they exist in to take them to the very top of their game. Those that don’t have the gift, or the desire to become successful, but have grown up in an environment that already has a wealth of information on how to handle money will inherit some of the ideas and values that have enabled others around them to be successful. Their personal desire and abilities will determine how much of it is useful, however their education and the environment will effectively provide a solid foundation to ensure that the chances of success are higher.
The same can be said about the other two people in the equation. Without the basic drive or understanding of money, they will be faced with a financial life not too dissimilar to that of their parents. Yet, with drive, desire and understanding, a person that grows up without the influence of wealth will have to find the information they crave. They are the ones that know that there is more out there for them, the ones asking: why not me? Those from this background will typically have to fight that little bit harder to be ultra successful – for no other reason other than the answers they seek do not influence them on a daily basis. While normal State provided education does not encourage entrepreneurial spirit, it is the first provider of information outside the family. Thankfully with easy access to information, each person has the ability to find the answers and gain the information they need to start building a successful life. It has been proven time and time again that success is not only for the educated and inherently wealthy; Richard Branson and Bill Gates defied all odds of expected success after dropping out of high school. They are shining examples that any one of us has the ability to make it as big as we want. But the mere drive and desire to do it still insufficient. I have met many people who have sufficient desire to knock a building down just thinking about it. However, all that passion and desire has to be harnessed and the way to do this is through education – whether it be formal education, through a mentor, or just learning from other successful people. More is always needed. What does this mean for you? If you have the desire to make it big, harness the power and energy that you possess and channel it in the right direction. Pick your path and find anybody who has successfully walked it before, and start learning. Listen, and keep your eyes open. The way forward isn’t always obvious, but the answers are always there. If you’re reading this and think, ‘this isn’t me, but what if my children have that desire and passion that I don’t’? Ensure that you provide an environment that is going to nurture that raw ability and turn it into something great. TB
Brenton Tong, Finance Guru and Co-Author of Secrets of Male Entrepreneurs Exposed. Visit www.pdb.com.au to contact Brenton.
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Q &A
Property and Finance Q&A with Carly Crutchfield
By Carly Crutchfield
Carly Crutchfield is the CEO of Australian property and investment firm CCORP and its subsidiaries companies. She is a property developer, investor, public speaker and self-made millionaire. In this new and addition to ThinkBig magazine, Carly provides you with personalised answers to all your property and finance questions! Q. Is it not a bad time to buy properties under 500K as prices seem to be out of control? Fabrice Bellard A. With the current economic conditions, property has been affected in Australia, but not nearly as much as in other countries such as the US and UK. It is the top end of the market that has been affected the most here, while the tourism bottom-out has also witnessed many people having to offload their holiday homes. The lower end of the market has not been affected so badly and with Australians still largely demanding a supply of affordable housing. As long as your expectations are realistic, in today’s market there are many bargains still to be obtained. Q.When choosing an architect for a property development, what questions should I be asking them? Glen Hobby A. When deciding on an architect to use for a property development you should find out what kind of experience they have and what previous developments they have been involved with. Cost is important: how much they are going to charge and how long it will take them to design the project? It is also advisable to find out whether or not they have previously worked with that particular council. You will need to know what the best use of the site is and it is also a good idea to ask the architect if he can give you some referrals. Q.How do we juggle our lives and overcome procrastination to get on with the property game? How do we even find other people to connect with to help keep motivated? Sheryl Dupleiss A. This is the age-old catch 22. How do you stop being so
busy so you can make money and stop being so busy! The trick is to schedule it in. Playing the property game has proven to be such a successful source of wealth creation for so many people, and in most cases the money that you will make in property will pale in comparison to what you earn through your normal job. You need to set aside at least 30 minutes a day or three hours a week to sit down with the newspaper property section or start searching online for possible property deals. Also, by having the right tools at your fingertips you can maximise the use of that time. Tools such as Google Earth and rp data allow you to do 99% of your research in a short amount of time. Connecting with other people is a huge help as well and will motivate you and provide you with other views and ideas as well. You need to start networking with anybody and everybody that directly or indirectly relates back to property. This could be financiers, builders, architects, other investors, accountants etc. Just start calling them up, having a chat and forming relationships. You will come across some that you click with and some you don’t. Also, by attending seminars, expos and using online property forums and blogs you will be able to meet with likeminded investors and property people who can help keep you inspired and motivated. To get your property and finance questions answers, email Carly on carlyc@ccorp.com.au and look out in our next issue to see if your question is featured! TB Carly Crutchfield is a self made millionaire, the CEO of several national companies and has been involved in developments throughout Australia, New Zealand and America with a value of more than $200 million dollars. www.carlycrutchfield.com. au
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myth busting Copyright: 10 common myths, misconceptions and mistakes
By Daniel Kovacs
Most of us think we know a little bit about copyright but, as Alexander Pope (whose writings, you will be reassured to know, are now well and truly out of copyright) wrote, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”!
W
hile many of us create, use and enjoy copyright materials every day, there is widespread confusion about how copyright comes into being, how ownership is obtained and what copyright does and does not protect. Here are some of the more common myths, misconceptions and mistakes. MYTH 1: Copyright only applies to published, printed materials (such as books) and items like films, recordings and commercial software. In addition to protecting works of literature, music, drama and art, copyright covers many types of utilitarian materials that do not have ‘literary’ or ‘artistic’ qualities. For example, databases, business reports, diagrams, logos, spreadsheets, training materials, questionnaires and customised software may all be copyright protected. This is true even if they have not been ‘published’ in the traditional sense or broadly disseminated. MYTH 2: Copyright only comes into force once it is ‘registered’. Actually, in Australia there is no system for registering copyright. This stands in contrast with other types of intellectual property rights such as trademarks and patents. Copyright protection is automatic once a work is ‘in material form’ (e.g. reduced to writing or recorded on some other nontransitory medium). No registration or other formality is required. MYTH 3: There is no copyright unless copyright is claimed or the © symbol appears on a work. Again, this is not the case. There is no requirement to place the © symbol or other copyright notice (such as Copyright 2008 ABC Pty Ltd on a work in order to enforce copyright in it. A work that does not bear these symbols may still be protected. MYTH 4: The Web is a copyright-free zone. A common misconception is that the Internet is ‘the public domain’. However, just because a work is in an electronic form does not 46 thinkBIG
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mean that the owner has abandoned their copyright in it. Internet users should assume that their rights to use website materials are limited to viewing and use for private purposes, except where it is unambiguously clear from the site that wider use is permitted. MYTH 5: Once the author of a copyright work dies, the work is no longer protected. This is incorrect. In fact, copyright in most cases now extends for 70 years after the death of the work’s author. MYTH 6: If I make a few changes to material, I won’t infringe copyright and won’t need to get permission. This is a very common and dangerous myth. Copyright is infringed where a person reproduces a substantial part of a work without the permission of the copyright owner. What is ‘substantial’ is a qualitative (not quantitative) determination that varies from case to case. (For example, in the past courts have held that four lines of a 32-line poem was a ‘substantial part’, and that a few bars of a tune, as they were a recognisable part of the song, were a substantial and therefore protectable part.) MYTH 7: If I copy less than 10% of a work, I will not infringe copyright. While there are specific circumstances set out in the Copyright Act where a ‘less than 10% rule applies, these are of very limited application and mostly relate to reproduction of portions of materials for private study and research purposes and not for commercial purposes. MYTH 8: I paid for the work so I must automatically own copyright. Businesses often engage third party contractors, such as a software developer, freelance writers, graphic artists, advertising agencies and architects to create copyright materials for them. A commonly held misconception – and one that is at the heart of
many copyright disputes – is that once payment for such services has been made, copyright automatically belongs to the business that has commissioned the work. In fact, except in very limited circumstances, the contractor will retain copyright, unless they have transferred it to their client by written transfer. In the absence of a transfer or an agreement otherwise, the client will, generally speaking, have a licence to use the work for the limited purpose for which it was created. MYTH 9: Employees are the owners of copyright in any works they create. In contrast to the position with contractors, at law employees generally do not own the copyright in materials they create in the course of their employment. Copyright in these works automatically vests in their employer, unless there is an agreement otherwise. MYTH 10: I can do absolutely anything I want to the work, and even claim that I wrote it, if I own the copyright in a work created by another. This assumption is false and can lead to disputes. The Copyright Act provides that a creator of a work retains so-called ‘moral rights’ in works, even if the creator transfers copyright ownership to another. Moral rights are the right to object to derogatory treatments of a work the right to be attributed as the author of a work, and the right not to have another falsely attributed as the author of a work. TB
“Daniel Kovacs specialises in Intellectual Property law at Kliger Partners, Melbourne, representing number of high profile and well known brands. See www.kligers.com.au”
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thinkBIG business thinkbig
directorship Becoming a director on the board
By Todd Hutchison
Imagine spending your time at board meetings and getting paid well beyond the average Australian salary to do it. Very few people have built the profile and expertise to become a full-time company director, however being a director on a board can be very rewarding for the savvy business-person.
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he term ‘refers to an independent person who sits on the board and has no other employee-based role within the business, whereas the term ‘executive’ director relates to those employees who also reside on the board. Government, not-for-profit and corporations have governing boards, although the term ‘board’ is largely reserved for corporations, and terms like ‘Council of Management’ are more prevalent in incorporated associations. Each board can be structured quite differently, with companies typically having from five to12 directors, and not-for-profits often up to 15 Council members. Generally, the board is responsible for setting the strategic direction, establishing effective governance, evaluating performance and assuring financial sustainability for the business. Being a board director comes with common law and statutory obligations that include a duty to: act in good faith and honesty, act with care and diligence, avoid a conflict of interest, not to abuse a corporate opportunity or misuse information, and not to trade while insolvent. There can be significant personal liability for being a director where a business has gone to ruin from poor decisions linked to the board, with limited insurance safeguards available to protect your assets. Government-based board directors may enjoy extra protection under special Crown immunity clauses. While research has indicated that the majority of board placements are done through personal associations, the traditional ‘boys club’ membership is fading away due to the increased legislative responsibilities. Being a major shareholder may result in a seat on the board, however a high business profile and people network can be appetising to a searching board. Shares in a company can even be sold based on the quality of the directors on the board. To improve your odds to get on to a paying board you may consider the typical characteristics of quality board directors that may include: desirable business-qualifications, experience running businesses, leadership and human resource management experience, and time serving on boards. It is sometimes best to get
experience by volunteering on a not-for-profit board and getting valuable experience while contributing to a needy charity and giving back to society. It is highly recommended to join the Australian Institute of Company Directors to demonstrate a professional interest and commitment to the profession, and ideally complete the Diploma in Company Directorship to not only become a qualified director, but one who will become aware of the challenges and obligations of overseeing a business from the boardroom. TB
Todd Hutchison is the National Chairman of the Australian Project Management Institute Council, and Managing Director of People Rich Pty Ltd www.peoplerich.com
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thinkBIG special feature
By Jonathan Jackson
CPD–
Southern Cross University – Graduate College of Management
Suscess the key to
Effective professional development is vital for businesses, entrepreneurs and teachers to improve efficiency and knowledge in professional and working life.
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t’s not often that I’ll sit on a plane and chat to the person in the seat next to mine, however such is the world today that you never know who is sitting next you or how their life has been affected by professional development or success initiatives. On a trip home from Sydney recently, I put the iphone on to airplane mode, plugged in the headphones and got ready to chill out, when I noticed the gentleman next to me was reading a personal development book. We started chatting and it dawned on me that no matter who you are, where you are, or what your profession might be there are more people than you think who are dedicated to improving their skill and knowledge. The gentleman sitting next to me was a businessman who attends seminars and reads books to continue his personal and professional growth. In his mid-40s (I’m assuming), he seemed to me to already be successful in his pursuits, however it is clear that to continue his success he believed he needed to continue to learn. The majority of people would agree that continued learning is a necessary success tool. And they would be right. Professional development or as its known today, CPD is a growing tool for today’s businesses and business professionals to further their education and therefore careers. CPD not only strengthens an individual’s skillset, companies have jumped on the bandwagon to ensure that employees make long-term commitments through their own personal growth. Continued Professional Development has been described as “any process or activity, planned or otherwise, that contributes to an increase in or the maintenance of knowledge, skills and personal qualities related to the person’s role”.
This definition supports not only the more traditional forms of development such as briefing sessions, workshops, seminars and conferences, but also includes more progressive forms of development such as mentoring, coaching, work shadowing, individual advice sessions, peer review, and self directed learning. Professional development courses are either general, or skill-based. General professional development caters to general skills, through basic personal education. Skilled development on the other hand, deals with the current profession, leadership qualities, managerial skills and enhancing a person’s productivity. Courses are designed with the intention of developing a person’s level of competency and professionalism. The successful completion of the course opens avenues for unlimited growth. In 2000, a study conducted by the National Staff Development Council examined the award-winning professional-development programs at eight public schools. The study found that in each of the schools, “the very nature of staff development [had] shifted from isolated learning and the occasional workshop to focused, ongoing organisational learning built on collaborative reflection and joint action.” Specifically, the study found that the schools’ professional-development programs were characterised by collaborative structures, diverse and extensive professionallearning opportunities, and an emphasis on accountability and student results (WestEd, 2000). Professionalism is more than a definition, it is an attitude as well as a state of mind and it harbours creativity and collaboration for the betterment of institutions, businesses and individuals. Jonathan TB
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Southern Cross University is a dynamic Australian university that has campuses located at Tweed Gold Coast, Lismore and Coffs Harbour, with a new campus currently being developed at the Southern end of the Gold Coast. The Graduate College of Management offers a range of postgraduate business courses and programs, including a Master of Business Administration (MBA), Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) and a number of specialist masters degrees. We also provide customised corporate programs to meet the training and development needs of industry. Our graduates are successful professionals who report a high level of satisfaction with their study experience. Our courses are rated five stars for getting a job and are rated highly for graduate satisfaction*. The courses we offer combine professional relevance and academic quality with convenience, flexibility, and timeliness. They are delivered by highly qualified staff who possesses both academic and industry relevant qualifications, skills and experience. The lecturers and student support team are dedicated to helping our students, providing personal attention and a level of service that is often not provided at other universities. Our package of quality study materials, excellent student support and competitive fees represent real value to those contemplating a major investment in their future. Our large distance education program in Australia and our personalised on-campus program, attracts students from around the world. *Good Universities Guide Postgraduate Guide, 2009 www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/
Dale Carnegie® Corporation – 120 Modules in Professional Development Organisations have only one, true, competitive advantage – their employees. The Dale Carnegie® System in Leadership, Communication, Sales, Presentations, Team Engagement and Process Improvement offers growth of the organisation through the development of your employees’ skills. Dale Carnegie® has been in the business of improving performance for companies and individuals through the boom and bust of almost 100 years. It’s tried. It works. Dale Carnegie® courses are delivered over a period of time, so you’re able to absorb, retain and practice what you learn. Holding participants accountable to applying what they’ve learned is the biggest reason they achieve every goal. Most baby boomers will be retiring by 2010 leaving a huge talent gap. The primary need in business today is to hire, develop, and retain those who will be leading at every level of their businesses. Dale Carnegie® helps you develop skills for success throughout your organisation. www.dalecarnegie2009.com.au
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thinkBIG special feature
Live Life IN
ESSENTIAL STEPHEN R. COVEY LIBRARY
Cresce ndo By Daniel G. Taylor
If anyone has cause to rest on his laurels, that person is Stephen R. Covey. But like the saying goes, “If you’re resting on your laurels, you’re wearing them in the wrong place.” Covey has adopted a motto that means his best work is always before him: “Live life in crescendo.” A STORY OF GREATNESS
FROM EFFECTIVENESS TO GREATNESS
n 1989, Covey published The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which has sold more than 15 million copies. “Effectiveness is focused on results,” says Covey. “Efficiency is focused on productivity.” His research – 200 years of success literature – enabled him to see a clear break in the way people thought about success. Since the start of the 20th century, the symbols – wealth, celebrity, and achievement (what Covey calls ‘secondary greatness’) – have defined success. Before then, the quality of your character (‘primary greatness’) gave that definition. People now think owning the most toys matters more than a meaningful life. To restore the ‘character ethic,’ Covey taught principles as the guide to which practices to use on the way to success. A principle applies at any time, while a practice varies given the situation. Take the principle of trustworthiness (to be trusted, you must be worthy of trust). A practice to gain trust is to arrive on time. If things are in the right order, then the principle defines the practice. The other way round and you’re paddling against the current. When you work on primary greatness, secondary greatness often follows. For Covey, Time named him one of their top 25 most influential people. He founded his own company and after a merger it became FranklinCovey - that, in 2007, earned US$284 million. If Covey chose to rest on his laurels, he’d have plenty of padding. But while secondary greatness is important to him, primary greatness comes first – and he’s certain where it starts. “Everywhere I go, I try and give a pro bono speech on the family, because real character development begins in the family.” With his wife, Sandra, the Coveys are parents to nine, grandparents to 50, and greatgrandparents to four – some serious productivity.
Since publishing The 8th Habit in 2004, Covey’s lifework has a clearer centre. “In the US, many people are focused on celebrity. Their sense of identity comes from celebrity, and they neglect primary greatness.” Even many of Covey’s readers choose to apply principles only to the purposes of secondary greatness. Most selfhelp books deal with how to get what you want, not how to be a worthwhile person. While he knows both forms of greatness matter, Covey’s work now centres on primary greatness. To understand what Covey has done in The 8th Habit and since, a metaphor – effectiveness gets you the interview, but greatness lands you the job. The subtitles of his recent books reflect this theme. First came Everyday Greatness: Inspiration for a Meaningful Life, and last year he wrote The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. In The Leader in Me, Covey says “We only get one chance to prepare our students for a future that none of us can possibly predict. What are we going to do with that one chance?” Schools teaching the 7 Habits are making that chance count. “Kids learn how to solve their own problems,” Covey tells ThinkBig. “It’s encouraging to see how effective kids can be when people see them as leaders ¬– when teachers and parents see their worth and potential and affirm it.” Students at 7 Habits schools gain the academic
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The basis of Covey’s later work, a proudly battered copy belongs in the library of any success-seeker. Defining the principles (see main article) of effectiveness, it shows how secondary greatness divorced from primary greatness is worthless.
The 8th Habit. The 7 Habits are principles of effectiveness - this habit is of greatness. Greatness requires strong character, the core of 21st century success.
Everyday Greatness. Secondary greatness, by nature, is limited (e.g., not everyone can be the richest person in the world). Primary greatness is open to everyone. These stories from Reader’s Digest show ordinary people living greatly.
The Leader in Me. Aimed at teachers and parents, this book shows how unleashing students’ potential for primary greatness leads to secondary greatness – the students become better people, and their scores go up.
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thinkBIG special feature results needed to impress employers plus the life skills to master an ever-changing reality. The Leader in Me says schools report: • Significantly enhanced self-confidence and esteem in students • Dramatic decreases in discipline problems • Impressive increases in teachers’ and staff’s job satisfaction and commitment • Greatly improved school cultures • Parents who are delighted and engaged in the process • Business and community leaders who want to lend support First the 7 Habits scaled the peaks of business; now more than 600 schools globally – including Timboon P-12 School in Geelong, Victoria – have their eyes on the top. What’s next – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Prisoners?
THE GREATEST WORK LIES AHEAD Actually, that’s underway. Covey’s working on six books – including one about prisoners trained in the 7 Habits. That book, The End of Crime, looks at a new way of facing crime. In one prison, none of the former prisoners taught the 7 Habits have returned to jail. “When they leave prison, they care about their families, and they care about making a contribution.” Before he wrote the 7 Habits, Covey’s contribution was academic, and he returns in another book to that field. “The idea is that universities can be trim tabs – the small rudder that turns the big rudder that turns the ship – in their communities. They can be leaders in the community and the entire community can become involved.” But perhaps the most exciting book Covey is writing is based on his motto – Live Life in Crescendo – a book that stemmed from his curiosity about why women live an average of seven years longer than men. Hans Selye’s work around eustress – stress that is healthy and gives people a feeling of fulfilment - suggests the answer: women stay involved in meaningful work, while men get their meaning from their careers, and when the career ends, so do they. One of Covey’s heroes is Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, and they spoke not long before Frankl’s death. Covey asked him about his greatest contributions. “You’re speaking to me as if I’m checking out,” Frankl retorted. “I still have two projects I’d like to complete.” Frankl’s spirit lives now in Covey – and he’d like to finish one of those projects Frankl couldn’t. On the West Coast of the US, Covey hopes to erect a Statue of Responsibility. In size, it would match the Statue of Liberty, and the ideas they represent balance each other. “When you have responsibility and liberty together,” Covey says, “you have unleashed uncommon human potential.” Many of Covey’s children are finding their potential through building on their father’s lifework. Sean wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens and The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, making the 7 Habits easier to grasp for younger people. Another son, Stephen, has written The Speed of Trust. Maria has written Contentment, for mothers. And David, who once headed FranklinCovey in Australia, has a book underway. “The greatest legacy I can leave,” finishes Dr Covey, “is to see my children focused on contributing to other families, their communities, and the world, and not be focused on secondary greatness. I’d like to see their children make a real difference. I have four greatgrandchildren and that will be the real test – to see whether the culture continues.” TB
THE 7 HABITS & THE 8TH HABIT Habit 1: Be Proactive. You’re responsible for your results. Your life stems from careful design or careless choice. You choose to direct your life, or you choose to be the plaything of circumstance. Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. See the finish line before you start. How do you want people to remember you? What result do you want to have at days’ end? Habit 3: Put First Things First. Choose to do what it takes to reach your finish line regardless of mood or circumstance. Habit 4: Think Win/Win. Whenever it comes to others, ask how you can get what you want while helping them get what they want. Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. Listen before you speak. Get people to clarify their understanding of what you’ve said. Habit 6: Synergize. You get greater results working with others than the sum of your combined efforts working singly. Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw. Take the time to keep your mind, body, emotions, and spirit in peak condition. Habit 8: Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs. Make your unique contribution to the world and help others do the same.
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negotiation 5 powers of successful dealmakers!
By Peter Wink
To be a great dealmaker, you have to know how to use all the powers at your disposal correctly and methodically. (Powers you likely do not even know you possess.)
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his is not an area to be taken lightly, so let’s get started. First, I want to start out by saying that power is not about coercion, conning, or strong-arming people into doing what you want. True, you may able to get a quick deal utilising ‘power’ in manipulative fashion. But in the long run, one or all of three things will happen… 1. The person you did business with will warn others to stay away from you, which is sure to kill your reputation in an already overcrowded, competitive environment. 2. The ‘other side’ will seek revenge on you or possibly take you to court, which leads to less sales and/or a possible costly lawsuit. 3. They will never do business with you again under any circumstance, which means that all the money you spent developing a relationship, now goes out the window. So as you can see, power can be you worst enemy or your best friend (my choice). With that in mind, you need to completely understand how to unleash power to your advantage during every negotiation. You also must understand how much power the other side has, as well as predict how they’ll use it. This can be tricky, as everyone at the deal table puts on their best poker face. And some players are better than others. The goal is to unleash and leverage all of your power, while diminishing the ‘other side’s’. I’m now going to describe five sources of power you can unleash and leverage every time you negotiate. I’ve also included several questions you must ask yourself when considering how much power you and the other side really has.
Here we go… 1. Power of options Options are all of the various choices available to both you and the other side. The more options you have, the stronger your negotiating position. There are eight power options (and questions) you need to consider. • Purchasing options: Can I purchase this product or service elsewhere? How many different organisations sell this exact or similar
product/service? Is it readily available through a number of distributors or retailers? • Timeline options: What is my timeline for finishing the deal? Do I need to make a decision right away? Can I slow the process down? How many days, weeks, months, or years do I have to make this purchase? Will there be a better time to purchase based on market conditions? • Price options: Is this the best price available? Is it less expensive somewhere else? Do I get any benefits by paying a premium? • Quality options: Does this vendor give me the best quality merchandise or service? Can I buy a superior product or obtain a better service at the same price elsewhere? Is it worth the savings to buy a lower quality item? Can I buy it for less? Do I really need this level of quality? • Long-term options: Is there any long-term business potential with this supplier? Is this deal a one-shot sale? Do I need to make this purchase more than once? • Trust options: Do I trust this person? Do I have trust in other vendors with the same product/service? Does it matter if I trust this vendor or not? • International options: Can this product be purchased internationally? Can I buy the product in Japan, China, Russia, or anywhere else for a much cheaper price? Where exactly do I have to buy this product/service? • Supplier options: Does this vendor have any other buyers other than me? Am I the only organisation who supplies this product or service? Do I need to use this supplier? What other suppliers make this product or supply this service? • Always keep several options open: The more options you have, the better position you’ll have in the negotiation! And remember to remind the other side of all your other options. (Never tell them what they are…stay vague!) And always seek out new opportunities and keep your eyes open for better deals.
2. Power of risk Whoever has the most risk has the least power in the negotiation. And whoever has least at stake, ’is all mighty! Always do whatever it takes to minimise your risk.
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Ask yourself the following questions in relation to risk… • Can I truly afford to take this risk? Is this risk potentially too costly? Is there a good chance I’m going to lose everything or a substantial portion of my money? • Do I have the potential of losing more than I’m risking? Are there long-term ramifications to taking this risk? • Can taking this risk devastate my organisation? If I take this risk and fail, will I set my organisation back too much? • How much risk is the other side taking? Compared to myself, are they taking a substantial risk? • Can I recover from the worst-case scenario? If I fail, will I lose my home, retirement, savings, or the kid’s higher learning fund? All things considered, am I still willing to take the risk? • Have I taken this sort of risk before? If so, what was the outcome? • What is my gut feeling about taking this risk? Remember to follow your intuition. For most people, this is the greatest guide. Before taking any risk, make sure the “other side” bears the majority.
2. Power of knowledge The person, who knows the most and executes, has a huge advantage in the negotiation. There are no exceptions to this rule! Ask yourself the following questions in relation to knowledge… • Do I know enough about the other side to trust them? Have I eceived information from other vendors about past dealings with them? Have I gathered enough inside information? • With the information I have, should I make the deal or walk away? Does the other side know more about this deal than I do? • Have I investigated this product/service in depth? Do I know what a fair price is for this product/service? Have I truly done my homework? • Does this distributor have the highest quality product or service? Do I have knowledge about their competitors and the quality of their products/services? • Does the other side know me very well? Have they demonstrated that they know anything about me or my organisation? • What’s their financial situation? Are they wealthy or poor? Is their business large or small? Do they need me more than I need them? • Are they known to be good negotiators and dealmakers? What is their reputation in the business community? You cannot ever have enough information about the other side. Obtaining mass amounts of information is one of the keys to understanding the other side and getting them to agree to a deal that is right for them.
4. Power of time The individual or organisation having the most time to make a decision, has the upper hand in any negotiation. Time can work ‘for’ or ‘against’ you. Therefore, it’s very important to take time to negotiate major issues before time starts to work against you. By giving yourself more time, you have more options at your disposal. As time ticks away, your options start lessening at record speed. Haste makes waste! Let’s use an all-too familiar example…a teacher’s strike! School boards know to the ‘minute’ when their teacher’s contracts are up for renewal. In most cases, it’s the union that’s ready to sit down and start negotiations way ahead of time. Many school boards tend to feel they have plenty of time for a quick renegotiation. And what ends up happening? They start negotiating less than three months prior to the
opening of the new school year. They run out of time and schools end up opening late. And in many cases, they end up having to give in to the teacher’s union out of desperation. Time always seems to work against the school board and every year thousands of students suffer due to these deadlocks. Ask yourself the following questions in regard to time… • Have I given myself proper time to analyse the whole situation? Do I have a deadline to make this deal? If so, what is my deadline? If not, how much time do I really have? Am I ahead of time or way behind? • Am I being pressured to make this deal right away? Do I feel comfortable with the time I’ve allowed myself to negotiate for this product/service? • Is the other side on a tighter timeline than I am? Do they seem in a hurry to sign this deal? If so, why are they in such a hurry? Can I benefit as a result? • Can I stall the negotiation? Do I need more time to make an educated decision? • Are diminishing financial resources going to make negotiations difficult for me or the other side? Time is crucial to successful dealmaking! With the proper amount of time, you’ll have more time to strategise, analyse, and act on all of your options. Without it, you’re doomed to failure, and will play into the hands of the negotiator with time to make the deal. Whoever has the most time to make the deal usually has the most power in the negotiation.
5. Power of experts This is leveraging the power of outside experts. Utilising this power is a must when dealing with issues you and/or the other side don’t fully understand. The challenge is to find an expert having both the credentials and the ability to read the situation and its variables properly. Ask yourself the following questions in relation to outside experts… • Do they really have a full knowledge of this subject? Have they handled this type of situation before? • What are their educational and professional credentials? Do they have a successful track record? Did they stay objective? • How long have they been involved with this product, service, or industry? • What other organisations have they consulted with? Are any of these organisations similar to yours? • Can they show you samples of their work? Do they have solid references? • Do you trust them? Will you have to oversee their day-to-day work, or can they be trusted to work independently? As you can see, you have more power at your disposal than you think. And none of it includes manipulation, coercion, strong-arming or anything unethical. By utilising these five powers, you will have a much better understanding of yourself, the deal and the other side, allowing you to successfully close great deal every time. And that’s advice you can literally take to the bank! TB Peter Wink is a negotiating expert and bestselling author of Negotiate Your Way to Riches and Buying Secrets Retailers DON’T Want You to Know About. www.buyingsecretsretailersdontwantyoutoknowabout.com
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stock rental How to rent your shares for a regular monthly income… Part 1 By Aussie Rob
Wow, my last two articles have rattled a few people’s cages and got their creative investing juices flowing. I’ve been inundated with enquires about people wanting to learn more about ‘renting shares’. So let’s dig a bit deeper to give you a better understanding on how to manage this incredible cash-flow strategy.
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his is the first of a four-part series I’ve created to teach you step-by-step how to potentially achieve total financial freedom for life, so ‘ya’ better keep an eye on the newsstand or better still, subscribe to this magazine so ‘ya’ don’t miss out on future golden nuggets! Okay, let’s get into it… Writing Covered Calls is the strategy commonly known as share renting. It involves buying shares and then writing a Call Option against them. So what does this mean in English? “There’s money to be made here so let’s make it that bloody exciting you won’t want to put this magazine down!” Yeah I know, we live in a world of instant gratification where we want everything now, right now…. I hear ya screamin’ already, “Show me the Money!”
But it won’t happen. You have to learn the basic, boring fundamentals first. You have to learn the essentials of what options are all about and the nuances of why, what, how and when before we get into ‘makin’ the moula’. Here’s a basic summary of options: I don’t know why people make options sound so complicated because they are so simple. You see, there are only two options:
1. Calls 2. Puts Calls increase in value when a share goes up while conversely, puts decrease in value when a share goes down. The best way to remember the difference between Calls and Puts is to try and remember back to your dating days at High School. I had my eye on a hot little chick and finally got the courage to pick UP the phone to CALL her out on a date. And guess what she said? Ahh great, thanks for the confidence! :-)))) You were right, she said ‘No’, so I put the phone back down. (Calls up and puts down). So the best way to remember the difference between calls and puts is to think about how lousy my sex life was in High School. Okay, let’s get serious now. Why and when would you use Calls and Puts? Well, if you thought a share was going up, you would buy a Call. Why, because a Call costs a heck of a lot less than the shares. Buying Calls is a way to capitalise on the capital gains of a share while only putting a tiny amount of money on the table. For example: If a share was trading at say, $20, you could buy a $20 Call
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How Greedy Brokers, Stock Analysts and Financial Advisors Have Robbed You Blind... Don’t Get Mad - Get Even!
for $1. You are paying $1 per share for the rights to buy the share at $20. If you didn’t buy Calls and simply bought the share for $20 and it went up to $25, you would have made $5 on a $20 investment, or in other words, 25%.
Now here comes the real exciting part…. If you bought the $20 Call option for $1 and the share went up to $25, you have the right to exercise your option and buy the share at $20. Alternatively, the Call would now be worth $5, so if you were only interested in making the money and not actually buying the share, you would simply sell the Call for $5 and not exercise your rights to buy the share. Buying a Call for $1 and then selling it for $5 gives you a whopping 500% return compared with only 25% if you bought the share for just $20 and then sold it for $25. Pretty cool, eh? Do you now know why I ask, why on earth would you ever buy shares? Why on earth would you ever pay $20 for a share when you could pay only $1 to have the right to buy the share? Interesting, eh?
Dear Battered and Bruised Investor,
Hundreds of thousands of investors have been literally SWINDLED, LIED TO and RIPPED OFF BLIND by allowing so so-called financial advisors to invest on their behalf.
Here’s a brief resume of some of the results of these pimplefaced experts • 4,300 unsuspecting investors had a cool $320 Million wiped off by the now-forgotten Westpoint property trust disaster (Only 18 months ago - how quickly we forget)
• 2,800 trusting clients were out of pocket $820 Million... Giving total
control of their financial future to the likes of Opes Prime and Lift Capital
• 15,000 starry-eyed investors see 90% of their capital go up in smoke when Centro Properties announced a $3.7 Billion short-fall
• 10,000 “leave-it-to-the-financial-planner” investors lose over $770 Million when M.F.S. finally came clean and revealed their flawed , leveraged stupidity.
And on top of that, what about the risk? Well, how far can a $20 share fall? That’s right, it could go to zero. Therefore your maximum risk would be $20. Now on the flip side, if you bought an option for $1, the maximum you could ever lose is the $1 premium that you paid. You see, you’re actually paying $1 per share for the ‘right to buy’ the share. It goes without saying, if the share goes up, you would exercise your rights to buy the share so you can capitalise on the capital gains, or just sell the option for a profit. Conversely, if the share went down, you would never exercise your rights to buy it. For example, if the $20 share went down to say $15. You’d never exercise your rights to buy it for $20 when the market value is only $15. What an amazing difference in risk: 1. If you bought the share for $20 and it went down to $15, you’d lose $5 per share. 2. If you bought the option for $1, you would let it expire worthless. You’d only lose $1 per share. Hmmm, a $5 loss or only a $1 loss? Tough decision. Bottom Line: When you buy Calls you want the share to go up! Okay, so now you know what buying Calls is all about and why people would do it. Next edition I’m gunna teach ya the other side of the transaction and that is, what selling – or in option jargon – what writing Calls is all about. If you want to fast-track your learning about this strategy, you can check it out at my Foundation’s website: www.aussierobfoundation.org TB Aussie Rob has just released a brand new Covered Call training DVD called Aussie Rob’s Share Renting DVD that teaches step-by-step how to write Covered Calls.
www.lifestyletrader.com.au/products
Despite billions being lost by the so-called financial experts, who were all
licensed and approved by our authorities, nobody has got their money back and nobody has gone to jail. The poor investor who foolishly believed that somebody else can manage their money better than they can has been left holding the empty bucket. Something has to be done about it... and FAST! In this brand-new book called, “Millionaire Phenomena” 9 wealth experts from Australia and around the world are fighting back and educating thousands on how to invest their own money for wealth, profit and prosperity.
The Five-Star Lineup Featured In The Millionaire Phenomena:
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Josh Hunt - Multi-Millionaire Real Estate Developer Keith Grisman - Retired at 30 Using Real Estate Rick Otton - No-Money-Down King off Australia Dymphna Boholt - Cash Flow Real Estate Expert David Galtieri - Trading for Cash Flow Supremo Andrew Baxter - Elite Trader Brett McFall - Make Money While You Sleep Tom Hua - Big Profits Online Plus several other wealth and money-,making experts...
Not only do you get this massive wealth book, you also get 4 free audio sessions from many of the featured authors in Millionaire Phenomena. The value is $295, but if you take advantage of this offer in April you can get all that is mentioned here for free by going to the following webpage.
www.MillionairePhenomenaGift.com Copyright © 2009 Knowledge Source
Please Note: This is a one-time offer, appearing only once in this magazine. I can guarantee you that it will never appear again in any subsequent 59 www.thinkbigmagazine.com thinkbig publications. Take advantage of this now or simply miss out forever.
thinkBIG wealth thinkbig
streaming Recession proofing in the GFC By Jamie McIntyre
I was fortunate to have had a millionaire mentor some 15 years ago when I first made a commitment to becoming a self made millionaire before I turned 30. Despite learning many secrets to property investing and business, the one key distinction I learnt and modelled from him was developing multiple income streams.
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t the time he had approximately 15 different income streams from his varying companies and investments. Ever since then, I’ve also built up over a dozen different forms of incomes and investment streams from varying companies I’ve started. It’s a concept that I recommend others to consider. Imagine how much certainty you could have right now in a recession if you had two or three different income streams let alone 12 or 15. The reason most people feel uncertain around money is they are technically two weeks away from bankruptcy; meaning if they were made redundant – which is very possible in today’s environment – they could only survive two weeks from their savings before being unable to maintain their lifestyle.
12 months without needing to become a millionaire and with the technology available today this is now possible. Remember in times of financial crisis wealth is never lost but merely transferred to those that are financially educated and prepared to not only survive in this global credit crisis but thrive. TB
How can you get started with a second or third income? There are four key areas I’d suggest to create further wealth. 1. Property investing: This can be a great long-term income generator and provide capital growth. 2. The share market is one of the fastest ways to generate instant cashflow: by instant I mean within the next 30 to 60 days. I’m a big fan of using a combination of cashflow strategies such as ‘share renting’ which is a terminology I coined over a decade ago and have helped thousands retire from their jobs, along with other strategies that work hand in hand with share renting and also eminis trading. 3. Internet businesses: A great way to develop multiple income streams with virtually no capital at risk and can be done whilst you still have the security of a full time job. This strategy simply requires education and time. 4. Perhaps the fastest way and most overlooked is your current ‘career’. I like to teach my students how to turn their job into a semi passive income and create a millionaire’s lifestyle within less then
Jamie McIntyre is founder of 21st Century Group of Companies. www.21stcenturyacademy.com
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individual strengths Engaging groups to achieve an overall goal
By Naomi Simson
Employee engagement is critical to success in tough times, the more we enjoy what we do, the more productive we are. It’s about creating an environment where people are naturally passionate, understanding strengths is pivotal in achieving this.
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trengths can be tied to commercial return – having people doing what they love will make them more productive. The Gallup Strengths finder highlights what these strengths are and is used to work out what will appeal to people and how best to lead them. At RedBalloon we constantly look at ‘what percentage of the day was spent using our strengths (doing what we are good at), which makes us more efficient. The key to creating a team of focused and committed employees, all aligned with the same purpose is to harness the uniqueness of each individual and use this for the good of the whole organisation. Instead of saying people are our greatest asset it’s worth saying our people’s strengths are our greatest asset. The customer service team at RedBalloon is not the average call centre. This is our Pleasure Relations Team – simply because they are responsible for ensuring customers have a good time on their experiences purchased through RedBalloon. We also mix up their week, finding out what they are interested in and how it can add to the business. Our Pleasure Relations consultants are assigned project time every week allowing them to add value in other ways and to take a break from the high-pressure environment of answering calls 37.5 hours a week Some of the team for example: Brendan and Cindy both take on organising events and team building days for RedBalloon clients. Mitch works in IT support team for a few hours each day. Ben is a father of a young child who works part time and uses his expertise as a Dad to assist design gifts for men. Emma and Olivia work with the marketing team conducting competitor research while they complete their communications degrees at University. One RedBallooner, Arielle has been able to draw from her background in television and film production as well as staff training, to edit video RedBalloon website. Like her fellow colleagues Arielle is well aware of her strengths (communication, responsibility, woo, relator and activator) and the value she adds to the business. “I look forward to project time because I then contribute to other parts of the business, I can nurture my strengths and creativity and get out of the office. Which means when I’m with the customer
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I am more generous with my time and have the energy to be as empathetic as I can.” RedBalloon’s current engagement level (97% as awarded by Hewitt Associates) is employees using their strengths in the majority of the work they do. Also that they know the game they are playing every day, to change gifting in Australia so that two million people will have experienced a RedBalloon day by 2015 and they go home feeling like they are another step closer to achieving this. As leaders, our role is to become students of excellence, to focus on what is right, to focus on the good things and make more of it. By recognising positive behaviours it reinforces how people can best add value to an organisation, and we all like to know we’re making a contribution. Acknowledgement for a job well done and personalised rewards are proven ways to motivate people to perform and lift their discretionary effort. A recent study by White Water Strategies found acknowledging staff achievements – praising employees – had the same impact on job satisfaction as a 1% increase in pay, which was calculated to equal 5.2billion pounds for UK businesses alone. According to the Gallup Institute we forget seven days after we were recognised, this is why formal reward programs force management to watch, look for and celebrate positive behaviour within their business. The current economic situation is affecting all businesses in one way or another. Recruitment is low and redundancies are common. It is important that our employees are engaged and productive as possible during this period to ensure businesses can continue growing
with fewer resources. Simply noticing people’s contribution and their strengths will make a huge difference. Everyone likes to feel they are doing a good job and that what they are contributing is making a difference. Dr Anthony Grant, Director of Coaching Psychology, University of Sydney, says high performing teams have five times the number of positive interactions than low performing teams. “This includes positive reinforcement and meaningful complements, saying thanks and ‘good job’.” There are many ways to say thanks, experience based rewards, and especially shared experiences tend to increase in value over time because they provide us with memory capital over the years. Whereas, material possessions and ‘stuff’ lose value rapidly and often add to piles of clutter residing in storage. It does not have to cost a lot to be effective. In fact much of employee engagement is simply about making sure that people know what they are there to do in the day, that they have the tools to get the job done, that they are noticed for what they contribute and they go home feeling like a winner. If you do that you will be on a winning formula and that will greatly enhance your competitive edge. Having worked with over 1400 companies including half of the BRW Top 100 RedBalloon practice what they preach Happy People = Happy Profits. corporate.redballoondays.com.au TB
Naomi Simson is the founder and CEO of RedBalloon Days www.redballoondays.com.au
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strategy Property options — the new rich... By Mark Rolton
What I love about Property Options the most is the fact that there is no risk. The greatest tycoons of our time know the power of control instead of ownership. With control we own the profits of real estate, but not the pitfalls. This is where Property Options come into their own realm.
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oday, there are more opportunities than ever before. Liquidated stock, desperate vendors and developers offloading sites everywhere. The beauty of an Option is that we control the asset with the view to gain time. With that time (24 months) we have a number of ways we can produce enormous profits. Firstly, the key to securing the property under Option is by offering a little more than the current market price in exchange for time. This way we’re not trying to ‘crunch’ the seller on price, we’re in fact offering them over and above the market. At this point the seller is more than happy and with the value of time, we have two immediate ways in which we realise our profits: 1. On-selling the property to the market, highlighting that the future purchaser has 24 months to settle. In that period the market would have improved considerably and this way you get to redeem your profits the minute you assign the Option over to them. Without ever settling on the property yourself... 2. Or, you can “force value” upon the property instantly by doing a renovation or undertaking a development approval and then on-selling without ever being the physical owner. Even though the latter does require a small injection of capital, the greatest benefit is that we don’t have all the headaches of financing the purchase, credit checks, applications, deposits required and then servicing the debt each month.
development project in that time frame. Time is in fact the most prized commodity in real estate and the New Rich use this knowledge to tap profits formerly known to the tycoons. It’s here that we find the incredible profits of real estate without the challenges of owning. When cash is king you want the strategy that extracts the greatest return without the exposure. TB
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How can I be sure that I’ll be able to on-sell it at a profit? The answer here lies in the fact that most seasoned real estate investors understand the value of time. If a property doubles every 7-10 years, doesn’t it make sense to secure some of that improved value without the cost? And when you engage a real estate agent to on-sell, have them detail to the prospective buyer that they can wait for the market to improve. Potentially even co-ordinate the renovation, construction, finance or even pre-sales of a
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Mark Rolton is not just a peak performing dealmaker, but an ultra effective property mentor and coach that now has a vested interest in your success. www.propertyoptions.com.au
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thinkBIG your story
Against THE
odds
Serious ongoing health problems, family illness, and juggling a young family with his role as chief finance officer of the Australian Communications and Media Authority hasn’t stopped Southern Cross University student Derek Ambrose from pursuing an impressive education.
D
erek is well on the way to completing his Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) via distance education – the latest in a remarkable string of qualifications that he has completed against the odds over the last seven years, including three Masters and four graduate diplomas. The Canberra-based businessman said he had become accustomed to overcoming adversity from early on in life. “As a young person I was suffering around 60-70 asthma attacks a year, two of which I had to be resuscitated from,” Derek says. “In addition, my parents suffered from ill health, and I was put in charge of the family farm in Victoria at the age of 16. “All this meant that I missed a lot of schooling, and I was very disadvantaged educationally.” In 1983 Derek suffered a stroke, which left him with paralysis to 20% of his head and complete deafness in one ear. But a job in the public sector working for the Department of Innovation, Industry Science and Research finally marked the turning point in a lifetime of adversity. “I was struggling, but suddenly I found myself surrounded by people of good intellect in an environment that allowed me to challenge myself provided I gave my commitment,” Derek says. “I could see where I wanted to go and what I needed to get there, so I seized the opportunity. I worked hard, including weekends and nights, and I delivered. I started studying, and I still continue to this day.” In a few short years, Derek has risen through the ranks of the public service, from high range clerk level to his current role, where he manages the financial outcomes of the entire Commonwealthrun Australian Communications and Media Authority. Derek, who also completed his Master of Professional Accounting by distance education through Southern Cross University, says studying had been a rewarding experience. “I’m studying by distance but the quality of my supervisor is such that there is no real difference to studying face-to-face.
“Studying broadens your ability to analyse information and I’ve found I can apply the theories to everyday work, taking the whole of the organisation into consideration. “It’s been a challenge and I have had to consistently put in the work on a long-term basis, but I have been lucky to have a supportive wife and family. “Every time some adversity comes along, you have to beat it. My advice would be to be tenacious and you can overcome anything.” TB
“I could see where I wanted to go and what I needed to get there, so I seized the opportunity. I worked hard, including weekends and nights, and I delivered..”
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feature thinkBIG Feature thinkbig
Sharing the
vision By Jonathan Jackson
Health is an emotional pursuit as much as a physical one requiring dedication, willpower and a few life changing insights. Jonathan Jackson speaks with Andrew Simmons about fulfilling our physical goals.
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esponsibility is a trait that many of us lose sight of over the course of our lifetimes. Whether the concern is health, wellbeing or employment, the responsibility we have to ourselves to ensure our happiness is sometimes lost in a mire of disconnected emotion and wayward causes. It is therefore refreshing to find someone whose life goal it is to help others find the cause of their disconnection and get them back to a healthy and happy state of being. Andrew Simmons is the founder of Vision Personal Training Studios. He is a dedicated father of three children under five years of age, a bestselling author, university lecturer and fitness lover. He is a journeyman in the fitness industry, who has learnt much about life since he began his career as a personal trainer in 1995. A great deal of that education has come from Andrew’s growing ability to act as a ‘part-time psychologist’ to his clients. It is something he takes on board as being a necessary element of his profession and something that sets Vision apart from other personal training studios and gyms. “I love being able to take someone younger who is lost in life and help them grow and become better people, better leaders of people, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives,” Andrew says. The knack behind being able to do this is to ensure that all trainers under the Vision banner understand client needs. “Trainers must understand what the clients really want. Once you discover someone’s ‘why’, you help them personally and this goes for trainers as well. A lost trainer who doesn’t understand what he does may not be a very good personal trainer.” The trainers at Vision undertake a comprehensive education program to ensure they are empathetic to clients’ needs. “We spend so much time sitting down with our clients and not training them. Andrew says. “Until I understand what you do, what you are going to do when you leave and what you will eat for the next 42 meals for the week, I’m kidding myself if I think I’m going to help you.” In the early days Andrew struggled to get his head around the psychological nature of his work. “I struggled with that for years trying to cope with everyone else’s problems, but you have to see yourself as a professional and as part of being a professional who can help people you have to disassociate yourself from their problems.” Taking on everyone’s problems was an emotional drain and formed part of the reason behind Andrew’s business and team building exercise. This former failed accountant, who spent two years of his life
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‘clockwatching’, saw the value of sharing the load when it came to dealing with clients. It didn’t happen at once, however, and Andrew like many other successful businesspeople went through his own rites of passage. After leaving the Chartered Accounting firm that he found so boring, Andrew went back to school to follow his passion and complete an Exercise Science degree. While studying he found a job at a gym working the reception desk and taught aerobics classes on the side. Aerobics instructing led him to personal training. “I fell into being a personal trainer because I was writing programs for people, but then I wouldn’t see them until three months later. I thought no wonder they couldn’t get a result if they had to go and do it by themselves. I figured that if I saw them on a more regular basis they would get better results.” While still naïve in a business sense, Andrew was learning rapidly about what made strong businesses work. He had already fell upon the idea of complete client service and while teaching Body Pump and Body Attack for Les Mills he began to learn about systems and the systemised approach to growing a franchise. Andrew spent many of his weekends going around the country teaching instructors how to use Les Mills systems and thinking if this type of systemised approach could work for group training, it could work for personal training. The other lesson learnt was the value of teamwork. “I would travel around the country on weekends feeling I had a common goal with the people I was travelling with. At the gym I felt like a sole trader who was pretty isolated. I didn’t share my goals and experiences to become a better trainer.” So Vision started because Andrew saw the value of teamwork and shared goals, he saw the need for systemised training and he felt that he could achieve his goal and passion of helping people if he had more trainers on his side than not. Initially he brought in a business partner who was working at the same gym who shared similar goals. As the EAS Body for Life Challenge gained ground, Andrew and business partner Jess decided to leverage off the idea. “We decided to run our own little challenge. At that stage I was known as Andrew Simmons Personal Training and his was Jess’s Unique Physiques. It was his clients versus my clients and on that night we unveiled a new name called Vision and kept running the challenge 12 weeks on, 12 weeks off for two challenges a year. “Everything was going well and we had to take on more trainers because more clients wanted to do the challenges. So I started writing my own systems and it was going very well until the club was bought out by Fitness First and they changed the rules until we had no option but to leave.” The buy out by Fitness First was a blessing in disguise as it forced Andrew to take stock of what he was doing and where he wanted to go. “It was the catalyst for doing what we do today. At the time it was a
nightmare, but it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. It forced me to grow.” Growth has been organic and has been based upon training those trainers who really want to help clients achieve their goals. Trainers are taught four factors as part of Vision’s unique selling point: Emotion, Education, Exercise and Eating. “The most important thing is to work on someone’s emotions, understand what drives them. It’s not that someone decides to get fat, there is an emotion attached to their weight gain to start with. It then becomes a vicious circle because people become unhappy with themselves. You have to guess the root causes of their problems. “I trained AJ Rochester the host of The Biggest Loser and until she could deal with the demons of being raped as a young girl, there was no way she was ever going to get back to her goal weight. That’s an extreme case. I tried to have this conversation with a little girl a while ago and found out her communication wasn’t good and she wanted to learn how to better communicate. It all came down to not having the opportunity to express herself as a young child because her father was of the opinion that children should be seen and not heard.” Training is an emotional pursuit, not only for the client but for the trainer as well. Andrew relates it to the give/gain theory. “If you expect to gain without giving something in return, you’re dead in the water. The biggest thing I’ve learnt is to help people grow and invest in them.” Andrew invests in his trainers; he has to if he wants to reach his goal of having 225 studios in four countries by the year 2012. He invests in his clients by having his trainers take the time to found out why they have come to the studio and he invests in himself. His two biggest goals now are to set the standard for the fitness industry and become the world’s most reliable brand delivering outstanding results. “That’s our five year plan. I want to give those passionate people the tools to have a great career.” In the meantime he will also work to help fix the diabetes pandemic. “That’s where my drive comes from. It’s out of control and I want to make a massive dent in that industry. Unfortunately the medical fraternity doesn’t see us as being a viable option, but I think we’re the best option. The pharmaceutical companies give sufferers a pill to lose weight, but they are not helping them take control of the situation. We teach someone how to take control of their lives through their eating and exercise habits. When they feel good about themselves they become better people.” Control, responsibility, call it what you will, but Andrew is right when he says that too many people are hindered by negative emotions. The only way to truly rediscover your happiness is tackle the negativity head on and come out fighting. TB
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hat if you could have an internet business up and running within 24 hours with a simple nod of your head? What if all the hard work it takes to succeed online – the maddening, time consuming research… the endless task of sourcing and creating products… identifying where to advertise and all the rest was magically swept away? What if all you were left with was the opportunity to make hundreds… thousands… even tens of thousands of dollars and finally break free of the rat race with a simple click of the mouse? Sounds too good to be true – I know. After all, I often get asked if anybody is really making a cent on the internet selling things other than sex, Viagra or ‘how to get rich on the internet’ type information. But just take a look at these undeniable statistics and you’ll see the internet is not some ‘blip’ on the radar screen or some ‘fad’ that’s going to fizzle out.
The Secret To Making A Killing Is To Find A Hungry Market
Well, there’s no doubt that the World Wide Web is huge. According to the World Fact Book, 186 million Americans, roughly 63% of the population now has web access. Throw in us and the rest of the English-speaking world and millions more who are fluent in our language and it’s a pretty good bet that well over 30 million consumers and business people are out there.
300 Million Not Enough For You?
Translate your message and websites into Spanish and you’ll pick up about 100 million more prospects in the US, Mexico, Central America, South Africa and of course, Spain. Add French, German, Russian and Portuguese sales messages and you can talk to 116 million future customers. And if you can figure out a way to make your sales message readable to web nerds in China and India, you’ll pick up another 136 million prospective customers. That’s about 650 million people world-wide, and still the web is just getting warmed up. Here’s an interesting fact. In 2007, about 136 million new folks joined the internet community for the first time. That’s 248 NEW web users every minute… more than 15,000 per hour and more than 372,000 per day, 365 days a year. At that rate, the number of people on the Internet will DOUBLE again, to about 2 billion users in the next 4 years.
subject. You can see the writing on the wall. And I have to warn you – your window of opportunity is closing pretty damn quickly! The “Big Boys” with deep pockets are waking up to these statistics and facts. And they’ve got their sights set on dominating the internet and muscling in on the action. However, just like those who bought shares in Microsoft in the early days, if you take advantage of this trend now, I’ll show you…
How To Make Thousands Of Dollars Every Week Without Working 9am5pm For It
Imagine the impossible – making money without working like a slave. Well, it’s not impossible. Not anymore. I want to show you proof of what is possible on the internet, and the best part is that it wont cost you a cent. You can get access to this insider-information totally free. Here’s how... Recently a brand-new wealth blueprint was launched that featured some of the best internet marketers, not only in Australia but across the globe. You get the same secret strategies our crack team of internet marketing masters use to rake in anywhere from $500.00 - $47,000.00 in a single week. Many of the guys you’ll see haven’t even been to college. And they’ll be the first to agree The wild-card is India and China. When they they’re nothing special. get going, and they will eventually, the number of Anyone can do this, once they know the users will probably double again. jealously guarded secrets internet marketers have So what? I hear you ask... been keeping under the covers about creating true wealth.
FACT: There are 928 million internet users in the world as of June 2005, according to data published by Internet World Stats (that’s a heck of a lot of people to sell to) FACT: Over 75% of online consumers do not care whether an online store is run by a large or small company. Source: TNS, 2004 (good news for all of us) FACT: $1.6 trillion was made via e-commerce in 2003; $7.1 trillion is expected in 2007. - Source: IDC, 2004 (wouldn’t you like a small share of that?) FACT: Nearly 100 million adults made purchases What If You Could Make More Money after doing online research last year, coming close Working Less... Would You Do It? For A Limited Time Only, We’re Giving to the number of adults who purchased through Away This Information For Free! My friend, listen up. Today the average wage is catalogs, direct mail ads and telemarketing calls about $38,000... combined You can download it now by going to: A close friend of mine has a website that millionaire-phenomena.com/internet FACT: Small businesses who use the Internet have grown 46% faster than those that do not. produces a $49,000 per annum income that sells This information is all about launching an internet a $37 eBook on a subject he knows nothing about. business fast, creating products fast, bringing in (American City Business Journals) He literally spends 2 hours per month monitoring FACT: More than 724,000 people say that eBay it. That’s mainly to look at his sales figures anyway bucket loads of cash fast, and getting you out of the rat race fast. is their primary or secondary source of income. (I’ll reveal his site at the seminar). Another 1.5 million individuals say they supplement You’ll be shocked. The Millionaire Phenomena is Another friend of mine makes over US$500 much, much more than just about the Internet. their income by selling on eBay, according to the a month with a quirky site on how to make your July 2005 survey. Survey conducted for eBay by parrot talk... He hates parrots! ACNielsen International Research. Jon Giaan is a renowned underground wealth Another friend pulls in US$2,500 per month on creation expert. He’s the secret weapon FACT: According to Package Facts, rich consumers are more likely to shop online. Overall, how to train your Labrador... He doesn’t even have behind dozens of real estate, stock market 34 percent of respondents said they made an online a dog! and online gurus, as well as the author of purchase over the last year while 50 percent of Oh! What about this?!? A 76 year old mass affluent respondents and 57 percent of the grandmother makes over US$1,000 per week with the tear-away success book, Millionaire highly affluent used e-commerce. (wouldn’t you a little website on crochet! She actually loves the Phenomena. millionaire-phenomena.com/internet www.thinkbigmagazine.com thinkbig 71 rather be selling to people who have money?)
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Thought Leadership Reviews edited by Daniel G. Taylor Daniel G. Taylor publishes a weekly e-newsletter – Thought Leadership – spotlighting ideas from the best success books. Email daniel@danielgtaylor.com to subscribe.
The Better Woman How do you get to the top? If you’ve ever grappled with that question, this playful novel will provide a pleasant retreat. Irish-Australian writer, Ber Carroll, who once was a finance director in the IT industry, knows enough about climbing the corporate ladder to fill a book. In Ireland, Sarah Ryan grows up learning business in her grandmother’s shop and running to escape the depression that threatens to overtake her. In Sydney, Jodi Tyler grows up driven to succeed to escape her stepfather’s abusive advances. As they overcome tsunami challenges, at work and at home, they hurtle
toward a job only one can have. Common to their careers is something success teachers often discuss – the importance of adding value – which these women do by finding solutions to their employers’ pain. This works whether your employer is your boss, your customer, your spouse, or your kids. If you want to get ahead, find a way to fix something. To get to the top, follow this timeless principle. The Better Woman by Ber Carroll Reviewed by: Daniel G. Taylor
The Tao of Warren Buffett Anyone serious about creating wealth, and even many who are not, may enjoy some awe-struck trembling at the success of Warren Buffett. But how does he make the decisions that have made him the world’s most successful stock market investor? In The Tao of Warren Buffett, you come up close to see how his brain judges businesses and crunches numbers. His former daughter-in-law, and another Buffettologist, team up to give one Buffett aphorism per page, plus the context to help readers apply the insights. The book repeats lessons, sometimes seemingly to
the point of redundancy. Don’t be fooled! Repetition is vital to retaining information, and you can’t act unless you first know. That said, Buffett’s effectively simple philosophy is buy quality stocks cheap. The secret is in judging quality and patiently awaiting bargains. If you wanted a readable intro to Buffett, or a primer for becoming a better money manager, here would be the place to start. The Tao of Warren Buffett by Mary Buffett & David Clark Reviewed by: Daniel G. Taylor
Forget the Elephants, Watch Out for the Fleas Set down the path toward success and quite soon you’ll realise that slam-dunking your goals isn’t as easy as many experts make out. Justin Herald isn’t one to recycle the same trash. He wants you to realise that often what derails your goals are the tiny issues, those that are much harder to see than the in-your-face giants. One small issue to fight is daily dissatisfaction that comes from failing to achieve unlimited success right now. What’s sensible and reasonable for you? Set smaller goals (sizewise and time-frame) so you can enjoy success every day,
rather than setting yourself up to hate the path you’re on because you never feel closer to that Ferrari. Herald’s an engaging writer with vivid metaphors for a fresh slant on old topics (just look at the book’s title), and if you haven’t read him before, start now. If you’ve ever aimed for a goal and missed it, you need this book. Forget the Elephants, Watch Out for the Fleas by Justin Herald Reviewed by: Daniel G. Taylor
Rich Brother Rich Sister “In reconnecting with Tenzin, I realised that a rich life has two balance sheets…a financial one and a spiritual one. My financial balance sheet was strong but my spiritual one paled in comparison.” Robert Kiyosaki Robert Kiyosaki’s latest work of inspiration is Rich Brother Rich Sister. This is a more spiritual book than his previous works and deals with his reconnection with his sister Emi Kiyosaki (Venerable Tenzin Kacho). In this book, Robert explains how even though he was strong financially, he had lost sight of his spirituality and what the true search for a spiritual life really meant. In 1962, the United States detonated an atomic bomb ten miles off the coast of Christmas Island in the South Pacific. From that moment, two people, born of the same parents into the same household with the same childhood experiences, found themselves on distinctively different
paths towards God, money and happiness. Robert became a world-famous entrepreneur, author and teacher of all things financial. Emi became a highly devout Buddhist nun, author and teacher of all things spiritual. Their lives take them from the Big Island of Hawaii to Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, to the hippie communes in Haight-Ashbury and to a monastery in India, to private encounters with Dr.R.Buckminster Fuller, to a seat at the foot of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and ultimately back together again. Rich Brother Rich Sister is about living the lives they were meant to live. Something we should all take stock of. This book will inspire you along your own life’s journey as you search for your own truths, purpose and path to wealth – both financial and spiritual. Rich Brother, Rich Sister by Robert Kiyosaki & Emi Kiyosaki Reviewed by: Jonathan Jackson
From Bicycles to Bentleys A journey of success – Beijing to Sydney The 7 Habits of Happy Kids What do you want most for your youngsters? Every parent knows the answer – the true one and the more commonly given quiet-all-Iwant-is-quiet. In The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, Sean Covey creates the playful world of 7 Oaks, where Goob Bear, Jumper Rabbit, Sophie Squirrel, and their friends, learn what really makes them happy, things like having a plan, thinking of others as well of themselves, and how balance feels best. A parents’ guide follows each of the seven picture stories, with questions to talk about what kids have learned, and baby
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steps kids can do to live the lessons. Sean Covey’s gift is taking his father’s lifework and making it accessible for younger people. He first did this with The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, and now he’s opened the habits up to more kids. We want our youngsters to be happy and here kids get the compass that will lead them there. The 7 Habits of Happy Kids by Sean Covey and Stacy Curtis Reviewed by: Daniel G. Taylor
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Joseph Chou was born in Beijing in 1962 and in his formative years was driven by a strong desire to break the shackles of a closed mindset. Armed with self belief, an absolute focus on outcomes, dogged determination and $4,000 in his pocket he began his new journey in Australia. His first job was delivering pizzas for $7 per hour. Today, Joseph is CEO of a dynamic property investment brand. Bicycles to Bentleys is the inspirational story of Joseph Chou, whose journey, so far, has taken him from an old bicycle in a mountain town outside Beijing to a brand new Bentley in
metropolitan Sydney. This is not just a migrant’s story, it is a story everyone can draw inspiration from and proves that determination and a little knowledge will push you a long way to achieving your dreams and goals. The Honourable Philip Ruddock, MP, Former Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs further observed: “Joseph’s book exemplifies the story of many people coming to Australia to seek a better life. As former Immigration Minister, I witnessed and heard of many such stories time and time again but few as moving and intricate as Joseph’s.” If you believe you have what it takes, but need an extra push, From Bicycles to Bentleys should indeed motivate you to do so. From Bicycles to Bentleys by Joseph Chou Reviewed by: Jonathan Jackson
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thinkBIG AUGUST/SEPTEMBER ISSUE SHOWCASING
FRANCHISING – ‘A COMMERCIAL MARRIAGE’
Franchising is a way of doing business, a marketing concept, an innovative method of distributing goods and services. As the economy and consumer preferences change, technology advances, and new products are introduced, franchising becomes an important option to grow or start a business. As such, in our August/September issue thinkBIG magazine will showcase, the trend towards franchising including services, branding, operating systems and support systems. thinkBIG magazine will feature the most up to date, relevant and informed insights for our 162,000 readers to decide on their future in the competitive world of Franchising. Franchising offers a win-win relationship for the franchisor to expand its market presence without eroding its own capital, and for the franchisee to gain through access to established business systems at lower risk, for their own commercial advantage. The intense competitive nature of Franchising in Australia requires companies to be innovative and adaptive in identifying and capturing a discerning group of new clients and customers, thinkBIG magazine is positioned at the forefront of these high spending individuals and families who are looking for empowerment. thinkBIG magazine is Australia’s number one Personal Development magazine, with an unrivalled distribution representing various sectors in the personal development, education, business, wealth creation and investment fields.
BENEFITS: • Customised link to send the digital on-line version of thinkBIG to your database as a gift from you. • Indirect access to thinkBIG affiliate email partners: each issue of thinkBIG is emailed to over 250,000 people through our network including: Australia, New Zealand, US, UK and Ireland. • 9,000 distributed to newsstands nationally and overseas. • 27,150 paid and free subscriptions.
For more information and for your free copy of the magazine contact: Graham Maughan 02 9925 8016 graham.maughan@thinkbigmagazine.com 74 thinkBIG
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