Update to laptop blog

Computers,

10 days ago I wrote a blog about how to select a laptop.  It is the first blog that I have written that is really catching on.  Each day it actually gets MORE hits than the day before.  I guess people are emailing the link around.  So I decided to re-read it and I found that I had even more to say on the subject.

I decided to edit that post instead of making a new post so that everything would be in one location, so I am creating this post to let all my readers know about the update, If you read it and liked it then read it again for the new sections.  I put a section on power usage, and a large section about the process I would go through if I was selecting a laptop in todays market.

CLICK HERE to go to the UPDATED “How to Select a Laptop” blog entry.

Computer Entry: Flash Memory, Everything you need to know.

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Another entry in my Computer Entry Series.

Flash memory is a type of memory that will store data even when there is no power for it. This is called Non Volatile memory. Why is this useful? Well it useful because you can store data, unplug the chip then move it or store it and at a later time plug it in and use it all again.

It is used all over the place but most people know them for the USB Flash Drives that many carry. You also have seen it in your digital camera, or your cell phone. Flash memory has replaced the floppy drive years ago for portable storage.

Now you probably knew all the things I have told you, now let me share some other facts that may help you.

Speed Counts: First, flash memory has a wide range of speeds. For small amounts of data, speed is not very important, but when you use flash memory often and for larger data it really starts to irk you. A good speed for many drives is about 1 GB in 2 minutes. This is the speed that my USB flash drive does, but many others I have tried take up to 10 minutes. Due to how flash memory works it is MUCH faster to read the data from a flash drive than write to it. For many digital cameras you can have major problems if your memory is too slow.

OS on flash: Did you know that you can install an OS (Operating System) on your memory card or USB Flash Drive.  Here is a great web page that lists many different OS choices that you can install on your drive and take your OS with you.  Boot up any computer and have everything with you.

Ringtone heaven: Almost all nice cell phones have a place for a memory card. Once you have one you can download thousands of free ringtones from the web, save them on your card, and have all the free tones you like. Never buy another ring tone. You can even make your own from any MP3, simply by making it smaller, and mono.

MP3 Flash Drive: For a few extra dollars you can get a 1 or 2GB Flash drive that also doubles as a MP3 Player. It uses ones AAA battery, if you love music and want to carry a flash drive then consider one of these. A 2GB flash drive/mp3 player is only about $30.

SD is the standard: There are many different types of non USB flash memory out there but SD has by far won the standard contents. It has the most devices that work with it, and it is supported almost everywhere. It is also now the cheapest because of the economy of scale. I would not even consider buying a different type. SD stands for Secure Digital because when it first came out it was meant to be a way to distribute music securely so that it would only be copied by those with permission.

Buy microSD: Most digital cameras use SD memory, but most phones use Micro SD Cards. The cool thing is that if you buy a microSD card you get a free adaptor to make it a normal SD Card. Most companies make much more microSD than SD now, and they use the smaller, higher tech stuff for it, so they are often actually faster. Also you can buy a group of these and use them for many different things and take them with you because it is such a small form factor. I hardly use my USB flash drive any longer because my microSD is so small I can carry it easier and most computers finally have a memory card reader. I keep an adaptor in the case for my PDA in case they don’t have one where I am going.

Backup Heaven: Almost all of our customers have one major problem in common, they don’t back up nearly often enough. The average user has less than 1GB of data that they really need to backup, the average small business has less than 4GB of data they really need to keep. With the small size, its ease of use and portability, flash drives are one of the best ways to back up data. I have a 2GB micro SD card in my cell phone, about half of that is music and ringtones I downloaded, but the other half is a backup I use often. I also keep a microSD card taped to the back of my drivers license. It is easy to make a simple back up script in windows, you simply use the backup program in your OS and you select what you want to back up. You can save this script and link to it with an icon on your desktop. Simply insert your flash memory, hit the icon, hit go and 5 minutes later you are done.

Oh no, I washed it! I have heard this more times then you would think. People are always forgetting their USB flash drive in their pocket and running it in the washing machine. I have done this at least 3 times. Each time I have seen this, if you simply let it dry it will work, just be sure to let it dry for at least a day. If you plug it in when it is wet it may short circuit, and this may cause it to stop working forever, but waiting has always worked for me. (I have not tried it after getting wet from salt water, but I heard it will not work even after drying)

A Flash Future: Flash drives continue to become faster, and cheaper. Some laptops and basic desktop computers are already being shipped with solid state hard drives, basically a large flash drive with a hard drive interface. They read almost as fast as hard drives for random small files due to having no seek time. Small ones that are 8GB or so are in use now as a cheaper alternative, but soon you will see larger drives. In a few

Our favorite memory as of this writing is a 4GB microSD Card made by AData. It is very fast, and it is also microSD so you have the most uses. It is 4GB so it will save all of the data of most of my readers. At a price of only $25 it is a steal. Email me if you want one.

Bottom line, if you have not made Flash Memory part of your toolbox you are really missing out on a great tool.

Daily Self Motivation Made Easy

Business, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, , , , , ,

If you read any good book on self motivation one of the main things that they say is put your goals in writing.  It is proven over and over that those who do are MUCH more successful.  As you know the top 5% of our nation owns about 80% of the resources of our nation.  It is also proven that among this top 5% over 90% have written goals.  They may have done that because they are success driven, they also may have become successful because they had written goals.  But the same data says that of people in the bottom 80% on income earners only 2-3% of them have written goals.  This is a huge contrast.  If there is anything that can determine success it may be having written goals.

I also have been talking to successful people, and almost all agree that you will not be really successful until you have a WHY, a reason why you NEED to be successful to meet the purpose of your life.  Many tell you that you need to have a BIG why.  You need it do be 10-20 years out.  For many people they like to put their why as a photo montage on top of just writing it, have the photos of the car, the house, and the lifestyle you want.  This makes it more real.

I take this much further, I also make a HOW.  It is great to have a why, but with no plan you can never get there.  Next I have Mid Term Goals, these are usually goals that are 6 months out, something that is hard enough that it will push me but not so hard that it is unrealistic.  Some of them are Goals on what to do with the success we make, others are business benchmarks to make sure we get that success.  Lastly, and most important, I have a Daily Action sheet, this is a list of activities, that I need to do daily in order to get to the Mid Term Goals.  If I do this action then the goals should be simple.

Now I take all of these and put them in 28point font and print them out and hang them on the wall of my bathroom.  It is a place where I have time to read a few times a day, but also a place where not too many others will see my goals.  Because I am a business person, I try not to share my goals with W2 people, you know the people who work for someone else.  The reason is simply because they don’t get it, and they almost always are more negative than positive.  But because my readers here are NOT like that I will share my list HERE, simply click HERE to download it, edit it so that it has meaning for you and post it.

Action Plan for today. If you don’t have it already, then write down your Why, How, Mid Term Goals, and Daily Action, and put it somewhere you can see it daily.  DO IT NOW, WHILE YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT IT

Tell me what you think, leave a comment, and you made your own signs I would really like to hear from you about what you put on your sign.

Computer Entry: How to select a laptop.

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This article is part of my Computer series, click here for the list of other entries.

Today there are so many features on laptops. For most businesses they simple need a good laptop that works for a long period of time and at a great low price. So when they look at laptops they see units that are almost exactly the same with huge price differences. Many upgrades and things in the laptop world simply are not logical and not needed. I will talk about many of them and tell you the secret to finding the best prices.

For example 250 GB hard drives are fairly new, and 320GB laptop hard drives are still very rare. The standard is a 160GB hard drive. The larger hard drive, can ad 100-200 dollars to the price of the laptop, for just a bit more space. The average business customer uses less than 40GB of space so it is crazy to pay extra for this space.

One thing that you should know about laptops is that all laptops sold are really only made by 7 companies, and all of these companies are Chinese. Every brand you see is really a laptop from one of these companies branded with the company logo. Dell uses 5 of these 7 companies. Because of this you will notice laptops from different brands that look exactly the same, you will also notice laptops from the same brands that look totally different. The only one of these makers that sells laptops direct is Acer, but their laptops are usually very low quality and it is usually better to pay a bit more for better quality.

In the world of computers the price of something is more about how many of them are being sold and NOT about how good or complex the item is. The main cost in any item is the designing of the item and the equipment to make the item. For a CPU for example it costs up to a billion dollars to design a new chip and may cost less than $10 to actually make the chip. So if you make 20 million of these chips the cost is $60 per chip, but if you make 500 million of them your cost is $11 per chip. You even get more savings that that when you build a lot of the same item. Because of this many newer, better and faster things are much cheaper. Many CPUs are much higher in level than what you are buying but the maker just takes the higher ones and disables some higher features and sells them as a lower unit because it is cheaper to do this than make the lower unit any longer. RAM is also the same way, DDR2 is much better and faster than DDR but because it is made in much larger amounts it is cheaper. This is called “Economy of Scale” and it hold true from everything from your TV to you Car.

In the world of laptops this idea works all over the place. In my opinion HP and Toshiba make great laptops and because they sell so many they are actually better and more updated than laptops made for the same price by other companies. Because Sony is so much more money they sell less, and have a higher cost, a bad situation to be in. By far most laptops that are sold have a 15.4 inch screen, so laptops with this size are also the lowest priced of all laptops. Touchpads are by far the most popular and their price has plummeted so they now have the lowest price and are now the only choice most companies offer. DVD burners do everything you would want an optical drive to do, and because they are built in such number now they are cheaper than all of the lower types to put in, thus every laptop you will see has a DVD burner, because it is cheaper and has a larger perceived value to the customer.

The choice of CPU, Hard Drive, Optical Drive and many of the other parts of a laptop, and computers in general are based on this idea. Now to get the best deal you need to look at many different laptops and notice the trends. A laptop that floods the market may be $100 less than the others and yet be much better. This is why people hire my company to find their next laptop, we know the trends and we have a very small markup. They can pay us and still end up with a faster and better laptop and pay LESS money than if they went to wherever they normally go for laptops.

What Exactly to look for in a business laptop.

When you look for your laptop simply compare the specs from one laptop to another, but it pays to have a huge source and look at large lists of laptops because you will often find a better deal on that list.

Balance: When you look for any computer look for balance, too much CPU power at the cost of everything else will result in a slower computer. Also think about what you want to use the laptop for. If you want to play high end games then insist on a laptop with a higher end video card, it may cost $100 or more extra but will do what you want. With computers running vista you really need at least 2GB of RAM to do things efficiently. If you find a great deal on a laptop with only 1GB, buy it then upgrade the RAM later, it may be much cheaper. Don’t spend the extra money getting a much larger hard drive, first 90% of all users never use the space, second if you need more space you can get an external hard drive later, but mostly that extra bit of space really costs a lot of money in most cases. Almost every laptop comes with Vista Home Premium. This is ok for about 90% of the people out there, but if you expect to join a domain be sure to get the business version. Also if you really need XP you are looking for a older out of production laptop, these would have been sold at a much higher price to the seller and they will be asking more for them, and you get less new features than a Vista laptop.

Battery Life: Also think about battery life, for the road warrior out there it is important to have that computer last a long time. So this is what you should look for, first you need to have a processor that can scale back and use less power when you don’t need full power, but can scale up as when you do need the power. The AMD Turion is the best AMD chip at this job, but Intel really dominates this concept with their Core 2 Duo and their entire Centrino line.  Companies have spent a lot of time and money focusing on power saving, so newer technology chips are much better at this than older ones.  For any laptop the MAIN use of power is for the screen, usually it is hard to find the power consumption of the screen, but again newer technology is better.  To get all this best technology be willing to pay for it.

Size: For many people, the size of the laptop is very important, they want a smaller, thinner and more portable laptop. Because of economy of scale there is a common size that most makers make, small enough to sell in huge number and large enough to not be too much money to make. When you want to go smaller you fight economy of scale and also the fact that smaller parts cost more. Because of this smaller, thinner laptops cost much more. Every now and then a company will make a really small laptop in a large quantity and if you find that you can get a great deal on a laptop just the way you want. Don’t get the smaller laptop unless you really have figured out how much you are really paying for that option.

Laptops also change really fast. Think about how they are made. The design of the laptop, and making the first one is over half the cost of the entire run. So companies will make the really hard analysis to decide how many of a laptop design to order from the places that make them. Once the production run is over that laptop is usually never made again. Because it takes so long to build a container of laptops, maybe 2 weeks, then 2 more weeks to ship them it these companies have to predict upfront how many may sell. Usually the production run is less than a few full shipping containers. So the company, lets use HP, designs a laptop, orders 10,000 of them. They are made and shipped, they arrive in the US and are quickly sent to wholesale warehouses and retail stores all over the US. Amazon buys some, Wal-Mart buys some. Before the container even lands in the US HP will try to have it all sold. If it is all sold they may order another production run of 10,000. Almost every week a new, better chipset or CPU or something comes out, and often for a better price. So the designers are always looking to go to the next thing. And that brand new, popular design is now put out of production, never to be made again. Most designs are already put out of production before the first customer even gets one. It is a harsh business with huge risks and huge investments. This is also why only a few companies are really players in this business.

Every now and then a design is produced in a larger amount than that which can be quickly sold off. When this happens they slash the price and dump it on the wholesale market. Sometimes they just sold this computer for $700 to Wal-Mart and have only 500 units left and the design is no longer made so they dump it for $500 or less. Most wholesale companies only mark up parts 10% or less because there is huge competition. Only computer companies can usually buy from these wholesale places, this is exactly what we do here at Emerald Computers. We look for the best of these wholesale deals, select them and we post an online flyer and send email updates to our customers. If you are not getting our email you really are missing some great deals.

So what would I do it I was going to buy a laptop today? You choice for a laptop or any computer is based on what you plan to use the computer for and your personal habits.  Here is the logic that I use, if you need help choosing a laptop then email me your phone number and I will call you and help you with the process.  Lets make it fair and give me a budget of under $1000.  First I would budget in a Microsoft Wireless Laser Optical Laptop Mouse.  They are really a must have for me for long usage, and at under $25 they are a bargain.  Next I would look for a Turion based laptop unless I could find a special on a Intel based one.  The Turion ones are usually at least $100 less for the same speed.  I almost never go a long time on battery power so for me personally batter life is not much of a concern.  What is a concern is a high resolution screen.  I would stick to a 15.4″ size simply because it is just the right size for me, 17″ it is a bit to big, but I try to get at least the 1440×900 resolution, maybe the 1680×1050 (WSXGA+).  I would not get the very common 1280×800 because for me and my eyes I can see much better than that and I need the space.  I don’t game on my laptop so an average video card is good for me.  And I have a few external hard drives, and most of my data will stay on my main computer so a 160GB drive is ok for me.  I like to multitask so I would need 2GB of RAM, I would not get more than 2GB because it takes extra power to run that extra ram, and I almost never go over 2GB, also I like to hibernate my computer and more RAM makes that much slower. When a new OS comes out I may upgrade the RAM.  I would still look at computers with 1GB because I know can upgrade the RAM very cheap on my own.  I do watch DVD movies and I like to have good sound so I would look for a computer with a nice DVD drive and good speakers.  I would also look at a picture of the laptop first, different makers have much different styles and I only like some of them.  I also like black better than silver, but that will not kill the deal.  I found a laptop just like this for only a bit over the budget.  You need to look for one based on your needs.

So when you are ready for your next laptop you now have much more information, you will probably have more than the employee selling the products. I wish you good luck, and if you ever need help feel free to email or call my company, we will be happy to help you.

CLICK HERE FOR THE UPDATE I WROTE ABOUT MONITORS

Computer Entry: Hard Drives

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I have been in the computer industry for over 15 years now. I have been to almost every Comdex and CES that you could go to. I have been spending many hours over the last decade thinking about technology and studying it. This will be the first of many blog entries with the name Computer Entry in front, in these entries I will talk about the world of the computer. It may be interesting or very boring depending on where you sit. My target audience is the business owner, not the techie. I will share what I have told hundreds of clients, in an easy to understand format. It will start basic and get more complex as the blog goes along.

THE HARD DRIVE

The hard drive is a small disk that is inside your computer, it is used to hold data for long term storage. (Contrary to what many customers think the hard drive is NOT the tower that you see.) The hard drive is also not your RAM even thought it has random access. Your computer has two main types of memory. First is your RAM, RAM is fairly fast, directly connected to the motherboard, and requires power at all times, even it is the working, short term memory. Your hard drive is about 1% the speed of RAM, it only uses power to read or write data and is MUCH larger than your RAM. You hard drive is where all of your files and programs are stored. The hard drive stores data on metal disks called platters. These work much like you would imagine a record player working with a read/write head on the end of an arm that swings back and forth, it is moved by changing a magnetic field at its other end. On each disk there are thousands of tracks, these are not viable but only magnetic. Along each track the metal is charged by a small magnet on the tip of the write head, the charge will stand for either a 1 or 0.

The first hard drive I used in my first computer was 4 inches tall and 6 inches wide, it was about 10 inches deep. It had 4 platters, each side of each platter was used and contained a whole 4MB of data, for a total of 32MB. The year was 1988. There were a hand full of companies that constantly worked to make the drives smaller, faster, cheaper, quieter, more robust, and most importantly contain more data. Every month a new drive was released that would set a new standard, a trend that is still true today. By 1995 I purchased a drive that was only 3.5 inches wide and 1 inch tall, the same size standard for most of todays drives. It was much faster than my old drive and held 540MB of data. It also used the new IDE interface. Every few years a new standard would come out for communicating the data from the hard drive to the motherboard, but by far IDE was the longest serving, most widely used standard. Not until 2006 was it surpassed in usage by SATA. Sata2 is now the main standard, it is faster, uses less power and has a very small wire which is nice for airflow. We put this type in all of the computers we build.

When it comes to hard drives people really like to focus on speed. Unfortunately the total speed of a hard drive is a complex formula that is very hard for most people to understand, so many people look at just part of the formula and often get misled. The interface used to matter for speed but for now SATA2 is so fast that it is faster than all drives that exist so the interface no longer matters. Lets think about it in easy to understand terms. It is made up of three basic things. First you need to know how fast the arm can move the read/write head. Because you are always moving to and from different locations they take the average and give you that rateing. Usually it is from 3-10ms. The faster the better. Once you have moved the head to the right location you need to wait for the disk to spin and the data you need to move under the head. It could be 1% away or 99% away or anything in between, so most people use the number for the disk to spin half a rotation. The faster the disk spins the shorter this time will be, and also the faster the data will go under the head.

Many people stop here when they shop. They only look at RPM and Random Access Time and think that will tell them how fast their hard drive is BUT they are VERY VERY mistaken. Even high level tech people are fooled by the most important part of a hard drive. That is how dense the data is that is on each track. If you are dealing with very small bits of data it does not matter much, but today most people deal with very large files, you may have to spend a second or two reading one file. There is a drive out there called a Raptor, it has a very fast arm and it spins at 15,000 RPM BUT it only holds 74GB of data on two sides of two platters, the data density is very small by todays standards at 18GB per side of a platter. Now we can take the standard 320GB hard drive that our company uses on our basic computers, it has a slower random access time and spins at only 7200RPM, BUT it uses only one platter, with 160MB on each side. So the Raptor will find the data much faster but the “Slower” hard drive I use reads it 5 times faster once it is found, it only takes a few 100k of data and my drive is now faster. For a large file, or files that are stored in the same order they are accessed my drive smokes the Raptor every time. For many small files the Raptor wins. The Raptor is much louder, much hotter and for 1/4th the space it costs 3 times the price, not a good deal for anyone I know, but their marketing sure sells hard drives.

Another thing you need to think about is gyroscopic forces. You have a metal platter spinning at a rate over 140 times per SECOND. Anyone that has played with a gyroscope will tell you that when you move a spinning object in one direction it will push in another. If the head is over the part that bends the platter could crash into the head and scratch the platter, this what they mean when a drive crashes. To avoid you need to avoid moving a spinning hard drive. Now this is harder than it sounds when you consider many people have a laptop as their main computer. Because of this laptop platters are smaller and spin much slower and they also have a lot of shock absorbing. Some even have features that sense a fall or too much movement and quickly move the head off of the drive to prevent a crash. Even with all of this I am still very careful with moving a laptop too much, and I always back up data from a laptop.

Now everyone has heard about defragmenting your hard drive. What is this all about? Well sometimes, in order to fit the data on the drive the hard drive spits up the file into separate pieces. It is still one file to your os but it is stored in many different fragments, this really hurts speed because for you to read that file you have to read ever piece. If there are 100 fragments it could take a few seconds. Back in the days of DOS and Windows 3.1 it would write the data in the first open slot and was always fragmenting the drive. Each newer OS puts more and more safeguards in place to try to keep this from happening. Now with Vista this problem is almost gone.

I will leave you with the info on the my newest hard drive. It is the first Terrabyte hard drive to only use 3 platters, each with 160MB per side, the highest you can buy. It is 7200 RPM, very quiet and HUGE. Samsung really did a great job on this drive. This drive cost only half the price of that drive I told you about from back in 1995. Impressive how far we have come.

Thanks for reading. For more tech stuff on hard drives go here.

I am torn between all that is possible

Business, Computers, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Marketing, MLM, real estate, , , , , , ,

Right now I feel that I am at a cross roads. I know so much, I know so much that I could never hold down a job, I know what it out there, and working for someone else is not an option. I am a true entrepreneur. Now that being said there is so much out there that I can do but I have limited time and limited focus. I choose to spend a good deal of time with my family because that is a priority. Let me tell you, my readers, what I am thinking about right now.
My main company for over a decade has been Emerald Computers. It was a great business from 1997 until about 2003 but then the industry changed, and got much more cutthroat and less fun. Also the profits dropped out. I lost my passion for it. Passion is a subject I have been thinking about a lot recently. If you do not live your life doing what you have have passion for you are living a wasted life. 80% of people can not stand their job, they can not stand what they now do for a living. 20% of the people their work is their passion, and they love to do it. For years I loved computers, not because of the technology but mostly because I could open peoples eyes up to what is possible and I loved that. But my business did less and less of that and more and more of the grinding out work that was not fun. When the passion left so did the profits. I went from averaging 70 hours a week working my company in 2002 to about 30 in 2005 to almost less than 5 in 2007.

I always was thinking about Real Estate, how it is a business where you make real things that stand there for many years. I know people that drive around a city and point out buildings they had a hand in making a decade before. Also I LOVE the art of the deal, where you negotiate price and terms and come up with a deal. It is like a huge game, trying to get the best for your side in every deal, nothing in business is more fun for me. Real Estate is the land of the largest deals, and the fastest way to make real big money. You can be creative and make transactions by bringing parties and ideas together in unique ways.

Now the problem with real estate is that you need knowledge or you need money. I don’t have this type of money because my computer company took it all, and my knowledge is all theory. I think I know at least 90% of what I know, but every time I think I have it all figured out I find out more I don’t know. Because of this a fear has set in so I do nothing, which is the worst thing of all to do. When you do real estate with no money to invest you will find the deal every now and then but it is far from steady, so I wanted to have something that was more steady.

Because of this I started looking for a MLM, because before Emerald Computers, and even during it I made some good money in the world of MLM business. With all the tools I have for online marketing and communications I figured I would have a huge advantage at any MLM that I would join. So I spent a good deal of time looking into everything that I could do. After looking for months almost all of the major MLM businesses that I saw were promoting a health product that they produced for $5 and sold for $50. I figured out that I really don’t have a passion for doing a MLM that is based on a health product, I think deep down that many of these don’t work, and that even if they do I don’t want to spend my life selling them, I have more important things to do.

So after a while I decided to work with a company called Nouveau Riche. What they do is have a college right down the street from my house. For 1 week every two months they teach a full week of really high quality classes about Real Estate. I bought the CD version of these classes, they were good. Next they provide a community of investors. It all sounded really great, just what I wanted to do. Then I really pushed it hard, trying to find people to invest with, trying to find people to pay to go to the college. They had an event where you could invite people to and they would have a 6 hour sample of classes that were taught by the school. I had been to them in the past, and they were great. At the end they would have a short 30 minute sales pitch for the college. This time there was new leadership and they promised it would be even bigger and better than before. I was really excited. I invited over 100 people. I got 40 people to say they would be there. It was all going well. Then on the day it was backwards, it started out with over two hours of hard sales, worse than if you went to a timeshare. That was followed by even more sales, and then an hour of decent education, followed by 2 more hours of hard sales. The people I had there all felt screwed, and lied to. They wanted education and what they got was this junk. After that day I have not gone to any meetings and have not talked to any leaders in the company, it was a bust for me.

So then I started looking a MLM that was for something that I could stand behind. I set down some rules. First it had to be something that was a good value, it had to save people money or make them money. Next it had to be something that was product driven, I wanted to product to sell the company. (One of my best friends Fred Coit is a big leader in Monavie and they have a great product driven company.) But next I wanted to do something that I would have a passion for. Last I wanted something with no marketing restrictions. You many not know that most MLM companies have many restrictions on how and where you can market, and I wanted something I could hit heavy online, and be creative with my marketing.

After about 2 months of looking I finally decided on SendOutCards, they offered a product that was only 1/3rd the cost of the competition with better service, it was product driven meaning that most people in it only really promote the product. I think that they are the BEST MLM for my style.

Now I am torn. What do I do with my days, I have a computer company, I have a ton of time, energy and passion devoted to getting into the real estate business, which is my true passion. And now I have this new business that is really fun and has a great product. For the last two month I have been floating. I have been like my 10 month old son, I focus on whatever seems the best at the time, but I may change on a whim. Last week a typical day was for me to wake up and talk to a few computer customers, then talk to a real estate agent about some houses then call a few people and tell them about SendOutCards. For the last few months when people ask me what I do for a living I really don’t have a good answer for them. I was at a meeting last Wednesday where I stood up and talked about Emerald Computers and SendOutCards, handed out flyers for SendOutCards and business cards for Capital Active (The Real Estate Company). I must have seemed very confused to some of these people.

So this is where I sit now. Emerald is the business that is putting food on my table, it is what I live on but every time I want to make money I have to trade large amounts of time for it. Sometimes it is easy and I get a call and make $500 in 2 hours, other times I make calls all day and make nothing. SendOutCards could be a huge business and with two months of good effort I could have a team large enough that I could pay all my bills from the money it makes. And Real Estate could make millions with ease and joy if I could get all the pieces to the puzzle together.

So my question for my readers, is this multitasking normal for someone who is a serial entrepreneur, and what would you do? This is interactive so please leave a comment, I will reply to them.

Follow-up is the key to customer growth and retention

Business, Computers, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Internet, Marketing, Money, , , , , , , , , ,

Follow-up is the key to getting a new customer.
Sales Statistics
•    48% of sales people never follow up with a prospect
•    25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
•    12% of sales people only make three contacts and stop
•    Only 10% of sales people make more than three contacts
•    2% of sales are made on the first contact
•    3% of sales are made on the second contact
•    5% of sales are made on the third contact
•    10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
•    80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact
WHEN ARE YOU GIVING UP ON YOUR PROSPECT?

Follow-up is the key to keeping customers.
Why Customers Stop doing business with you.
•    1% Death
•    3% Move Away
•    5% Buy from a friend
•    9% Sold by a Competitor
•    14% Product Price
•    68% Perceived Indifference

The easy Follow-Up and appreciation solution
So what is an easy way to do both.  You want to keep your image and your marketing message in front of as many customers as possible.  One of the best way to do that is to send out greeting cards.  If you were to send out thank you cards and other marketing to your top 25% of customers you could add as much as 50% to your sales revenue.  If you send follow up marketing messages and cards to your prospective customers you will gain many more customers, and explode your sales volume.

So most people know this, but they don’t do it, because to most people sending out greeting cards is HARD.  They have to shop for them, buy them, write them, stamp them and then mail them.  They have to keep track of what was sent to who and when it was sent.  What if we used the power of the internet to do ALL of this for you.  All you do is log on, select the card, customize it if you wish and click send.  The rest is all done for you.  That is exactly what a great new company called Send Out Cards will do for you.  They have over 8,000 different cards to choose from, organized so that they are easy to find.

Because you are a reader of this blog you have access to a special account where you can get 2 free cards.  All you need to do is go to http://www.sendoutcards.com/az and click on the big red button in the middle.  If you have any questions about this process or if you are ready to take your business to the next level right now email us at dragon@capitalactive.com or call us at 602-579-4919.

Thanks and I hope you act on the message, and take your business to the next level.

The best MLM for me, and why

Business, Computers, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Internet, Investment, Marketing, MLM, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I finally did it, after about 3 months of research, investigating, going to meetings and trying to figure out what I wanted I finally selected the BEST MLM that I could find.

I have been in many MLM / network marketing companies, I have been to hundreds of meetings over the last 15 years, I have built teams, I have sold products, I have marketed many things but this is the first time that I stood back, and researched the pros and cons of different MLM concepts. You may remember back in April I wrote a series of blogs about the idea of a MLM. You can read them HERE, HERE, and HERE. I never wrote the last two in the series because I was still doing my research. In the process I actually joined 4 other MLM companies even before I was sold on them and all of them did not pan out. But now I finally found the best MLM company I have ever seen, more on that later.

So what makes this company better than anything else I have ever seen. There are so many reasons why. Read these reasons and compair them to any MLM that you are looking at.

Well first it is a product that EVERYONE can use, it is easy to understand, and everyone has a need for it. It also is something that you can easily prove, too many MLM promote a product that you just have to have faith that it works. (Most nutritional companies.) But for me the MOST important reason I think that this is the best MLM is because it is a great value, cheaper than normal way of doing things, and the reward of using this product is measurable and instant. You can sign up and start making money the same day, and with only three sales you are already in the black, in MOST MLM companies it is very hard to become profitable, in this it is easy. There is no other company doing anything even close to what they are doing. They are old enough to have their act together but not too young to be saturated. They are in a multi-billion dollar industry and with a radical new way of doing things will take huge market share from the two companies that have over 80% of the market share. Another thing I really love, is that everyone who hears about this product says something like “Of course that is a better way to do it, sign me up.”

If you are in a MLM now, or are thinking of joining one read that list and objectively think about how the company you are with stands up to all of these things.

The name of the company is something you probably never heard before. It is Send Out Cards. What they do is print and mail physical greeting cards that you select, customize and order online. It is a great business tool, allowing you to follow up and keep in contact with all of your co-workers, customers and business contacts. It is also a great personal tool, helping you make the people around you feel good. If you would like to try it out right now I have set up a special offer for all of my blog readers, you can CLICK HERE and you will receive a free account where you can send out two cards to anyone you like, you can play with all the features and see how it works.

Even if you are already busy building your own business you need to look at Send Out Cards as a marketing tool for that business. What would happen if you were able to follow up with EVERY prospect 2-3 times? What would happen if you sent a thank you note to each of the top 20% of your customers, how much extra business would they bring in. Think about it, try out a demo now.

I hope this blog shows some light on your journey to success. If you are looking for the best network marketing company around this one may be for you, it may not.

Phoenix Business Expo – What Fun

Business, Computers, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, Internet, Marketing, MLM, Money, , , , , , , , ,

On June 25th We went to the business Expo. This is a once a year event put on by the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. It had 200 businesses that purchased a space there. One thing they did that I really liked is that they made the price very cheap so that even the smallest business could afford it and they limited each business to only 1 booth. Most were 10×10, about 50 were just a table around the outside and 5 were larger for the sponsors. I have been to many events where some large company buys up 10 booths to show off everything and drown out the competition. None of this was here.

To me this is one of the most fun things I get a chance to attend during the entire year. You get ideas of what other people are doing. You get to see what people think will be successful. You also get to see booths from distributors for many of the MLM’s, it lets you see which ones are popular beyond the internet.

The motto of the expo this year was “Stay Up in a Down Economy”.

The highlight of the expo was a free seminar they hosted. It was all about the new way of marketing, using relationships, the first speakers was Victoria Trafton from the Referral Institute of Arizona. She talked about how it is so important to build up relationships with your customers and get them to refer your business.

The second speaker was Raymond Lambert. He is an expert at using a website called linkedin. Here is his LinkedIn page. I have known about linkedin for a long time now I even created a profile about 6 months ago, but I never realized how big and important it is. After going to his event I would suggest that everyone create a linkedin page. It costs money to get the advanced features but it may be worth it so most people. He really made it hit home that this is a great way for you to build any business you are in, or to just promote yourself.

The last speaker was Dave Barnhart from Business Blogging Pros, here is his blog and his other blog. He has a business where he helps people unlock the power of blogging.  Most of what he said is stuff that I already knew, but I only knew them because I am a blogger and a techie.   After it was over I talked to him for a few minutes and he was very smart and knowledgeable.  He suggested that I try Feedburner, and that I also try Typepad instead of WordPress because it has many more features.  If you are looking for someone to help you blog you can call me for the basics, but if you really want the advanced stuff call Dave.  (He lives only a few miles from my office, I think I will call him later and ask if he wants to market eachothers products)

As a direct result of this Expo I have already wrote over $1,500 in business and I have reminded many previous contacts about our company.  I have upgraded my linked in page, and added more features to this blog.  I also handed out over 100 business cards and collected about 100 so that I can call them this week.  After the expo was over they had a great reception, free food and 2 hours of mingle time with about 400 other business owners.

All and all it was a great event, that I look forward to all year.

You are meant for much more than you are now.

concepts, Entrepreneurship, Inspiration, , , , , ,

Yesterday I saw the movie “Wanted“. In general it was a great action flick but one of the main premises was that most of us live up to only a very small part of our potential. There is so much more that we should be doing, and most of us have tragically missed our calling. Here is a quote from the movie, it is not perfect but close.

It a choice, Wesley, that each of us must face: to remain ordinary, pathetic, beat-down, coasting through a miserable existence, like sheep herded by fate, or you can take control of your own destiny and join us, releasing the caged wolf you have inside. ……. This is the decision that lies before you now: the sheep, or the wolf. The choice is yours.

This is something that I have always thought about, There is so much more to living than the meager existence that most people live in. This is something that has always challenged me, I know that I have been called to be much more than I am today, I know I have wasted a ton of time and a ton of effort with little progress.

There is a group called SwitchFoot that sings about this concept. They have many songs about this the best of these is “Meant to Live” and “Dare You to Move”

Here are some quotes from these songs.

The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside

Dreaming about Providence
And whether mice or men have second tries
Maybe we’ve been livin with our eyes half open
Maybe we’re bent and broken, broken

We want more than this world’s got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life, yeah

They are good poets. Click the links and watch the videos.

You we are all meant to live for something more than our current existence. This is something that I strive to go for often, but usually it gets lost in the busyness of the day. To remind myself I wrote down my “Why” the reasons that I do what I do. I posted this in my bathroom so I read it each day as I get ready. I also posted my “How” and my short term goals.

Find your calling and go for it.  Do it today.  Don’t wait for an uncertain future to do what you want to do with your life.

Thanks for reading, please post a comment.