What the upcoming election and economy means to you...

While I’m interested in saving the economy, I’m more interested right now in your success and sanity along the way. If Obama gets elected, Republicans may go crazy, if McCain gets elected the Obama people may cry foul and go crazy. Either way, I suspect there will be some kind of pandemonium… and America will be different. Hopefully for the better, but as the doctor often says, it may get worse before it gets better. So, what can you do about it in the meantime?
What control do you have over the economy? None really. However, you have 100 percent, complete and total control over your own mindset. Believe me, your mindset is the most important thing right now. 
If you can keep calm, and actually see the opportunities available to you right now, when everyone else sees threats – what do you think is going to happen? You'll find more clients who are perfect for you. And you'll grow your business, your sales, your profits and your wealth faster.
If you are a real entrepreneur, you’ll be looking for the opportunity in here. People still need and want your product or service. Sure, you can do your part to change/save the world, but for now, I recommend building your own strength for what’s coming down the road. As if you were in a sailboat, how would you trim your sails (sales) to keep going?
I recommend that you open your business plan (since you likely have BizPlanBuilder) and first review what it is that you offer – I mean You, then your business. How might you tweak your business? How can you further know yourself and stay on track with your purpose in life and values no matter what. When they say, “The sky is falling!” You cover your ears and say, “la la la la…” and focus your mind on the following thoughts:

• Where is the opportunity? How can I capitalize on this?
• What deals can I take advantage of?
• I’ll re-do my financial projections (using the BizPlanBuilder model). What needs to change? How can I re-prioritize?
• Who can I collaborate with?
• How can I support my friends’ businesses? (That also means paying their price, not asking for a discount!)
• How can I buy from the local businesses and perhaps avoid the big box stores? (Seems it would be more useful to build relationships with local merchants wouldn’t it? I would introduce myself to the business owner and tell them I came here instead of Wal-Mart... and invite them to my business.)
• Who can I call to rekindle an old relationship?  Rebuild my relationships before I may want something from them. What can I offer them? (My girlfriend from college just emailed me!)
• What do I have that I can appreciate? (God & Co. seems to bring more of what you think about… Complain or appreciate? What are you praying for?)
• What [new] needs do my customers and potential customers have now?
• Choose with whom I’m around with consciousness to make sure I am influenced by quality relationships (avoid the doomsayers, etc. and hang those who are looking for solutions.)
• Everything comes in waves. Paddle a bit and ride this wave. Paddle some more and ride the next one.
• Find more ways to have more fun!
• Keep this ‘prayer’ handy:
  "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…
  The courage to change the things I can…
  and the wisdom to know the difference."
  ~ Reinhold Niebuhn, 1918

Be willing to cope with some confusion for a while, and shape / shift  your plan as you go. Allow some disorder, and then out of it create order. If you get too detailed in the beginning you may find yourself worrying over low-priority potential problems and non-productive details, instead of what’s really important – getting the job done.
Here is an interesting brief podcast on this subject from my long-time friends and mentors at Productive Learning & Leisure:  http://xtraordinaryliving.blogspot.com/2008/09/podcast-50-sky-is-falling.html
~ Burke Franklin, Founder & CEO of JIAN, Developer: BizPlanBuilder Software, Author: Business Black Belt

Tips & Tricks:
Tired of typing the full web address?
Tired of typing “w, w, w, dot,”[company name here], and then “dot, c, o, m”? Try this: In the address line of your web browser just type the essential web address sans the ‘www.’ and the ‘.com’  Then click CTRL & ENTER at the same time. It automatically fills in the ‘www.’ as well as the ‘.com’ and takes you to the website! For example, type just ‘jian’ then click CTRL & ENTER at the same time. Viola!

Watch Me Online: “The Thinking Behind Your Business Plan”

(We’ve had a glitch on our website, but now you can watch this video in it’s entirety.) Now you can watch this 100-minute video on your computer. I’ve given this presentation a number of times to groups of entrepreneurs about the various aspects of business planning, and about the audience to whom you are presenting your business idea and plan. At risk of being politically incorrect at times, I talk about what I’ve been seeing and hearing from angel and VC investors, and give you some ideas for successfully getting through to them.

Marketing Tips: Five Principles of Brilliant Sales & Marketing

1. Never miss an opportunity to present yourself well. Every contact with the outside world is a marketing opportunity! We know some entrepreneurs who always dress well, carry sophisticated business cards (in an attractive case,) and make a special point of smiling, listening and making a good impression wherever they go. Those are the ones whose businesses have doubled in size every time we bump into them.
2. Spend ten minutes a day marketing your company. Marketing is a practice, not a one-time thing. You can't get marketing-fit by working out once a month. We recommend that you take the first fifteen minutes of every workday to think about and work on your marketing.
3. Know what makes you special to customers and prospects. If you are in business today and have customers who make purchases, there is something special about you or your offerings that is motivating them to buy. But what? What is your greatest strength, what marketing asset shines forth and catches the customer eye? We usually find that marketers and managers are not fully aware of their greatest marketing assets and as a result are not using their limited sales and marketing resources effectively. Try to focus on and communicate your greatest strengths whenever you do marketing.
4. Sort out the prospects who don’t want or can't buy what you’ve got, and eliminate them right away. Finding polite ways to avoid the poor prospects is essential. Every time you make a sales call on someone who isn't ready to buy, or send a mailing to someone who doesn't have enough money to buy, you are wasting your marketing resources. Screening for the highest-quality leads is perhaps the single most powerful way to boost sales and profits in the short term.
5. Simplify your growth strategy. If your plan is complicated, you aren’t done with it. The best marketing is blindingly simple. Every time we encounter a complex, confusing marketing plan or set of product offerings, we have learned to recognize the symptoms of excessive complexity. Success in business always comes from simple, powerful ideas and strategies. We like to reduce a client's varied activities and strategies to the one, single, powerful idea that can unify all they do and give it "legs" to travel forth in the marketplace and bring back new business.

Alex Hiam, author, Marketing for Dummies and Marketing Kit for Dummies
Celia Rocks, technical editor, Marketing for Dummies and Marketing Kit for Dummies. The authors are available for consultations. Please see "About Us" on the home page of www.insightsformarketing.com.

We like to pass along useful ideas to our entrepreneurial customers. When you have something to share, please email us here: Editor-Business Black Belt

Talking Tip: “No problem…”

You might think I’m overly sensitive in my listening, but I listen to how sales, support and customer service people speak to me because I’m interested in my reactions – I’m not much  different from you, but I do make studying businesses my business and part of my laboratory is my direct personal experience. A number of times recently (enough times to get my attention to say something about it), when I’ve thanked a person for their assistance, they respond with, “No problem.” Not really a problem… but I feel that there is a better response: “My pleasure.” Saying, “no problem” introduces the concept that there was a problem (and perhaps I’m it!). I can, however; appreciate that whatever problem I brought into their world is reduced to ‘no problem…” Nevertheless, when I compare my reaction to, “my pleasure” (a overall positive response), I feel an entirely different sense of relief and satisfaction with the service just rendered me. If you’re willing, practice speaking positively: “no problem” becomes “my pleasure.” “Don’t forget” à “Remember”

More to Learn: There is a Better Way...

I’ve been reading business and self-help books for a long time. The best are written by people who have actually been there and done that, not so much by those observing from the sidelines. I even wrote a book myself (Business Black Belt, noting what I learned building this business) and we list our favorite and most useful books on JIAN.com – If you read them you’ll see how much we’ve incorporated into our software. And now there’s a new way…
What if you could watch a 10-minute video every day and learn a new strategy, tactic or skill?
As if you need more to do… but the world is constantly changing (you’re changing it!). A lot has been learned already. Power is slipping away, disappearing from some circles, and reappearing in others. This is not a threat, but an opportunity for you – the playing field has tipped to your advantage.
To earn more you have to learn more. The secret to success is not to try to avoid, get rid of, or shrink from your problems.  The secret is to learn new ideas that allow YOU to grow bigger than any problem you might have.
In 1937 Napoleon Hill wrote a book that has remained the best selling success book of all time.  The wisdom shared in this book has influenced so many of today’s success stories.  Brian Tracy says “This is the best single book on personal success ever written: it made HIM a millionaire – starting from NOTHING.”
To quote Napoleon Hill: “It is one thing to WANT money – everyone wants more – but it is something entirely different to be WORTH MORE! Many people mistake their WANTS for their JUST DUES.  Your financial requirements or wants have nothing whatever to do with your WORTH. Your value is established entirely by your ability to render useful service or your capacity to induce others to render such service.”
What’s in it for you? Two things...
1) learn new things from proven masters,
2) build a passive income by  turning on others.
To see this in action, visit http://www.ilearningglobal.biz/burkefranklin

HR Planning Tip:
DOL Provides Wage Estimates

Planning for additional people? Recently the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) introduced a new publication, Labor Standards for New and Small Businesses. The guide covers the major statutes administered by the division, covering the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), youth employment, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Consumer Credit Protection Act (CCPA), immigration policies and more.
“We produced the guide to help new and small businesses properly and effectively stay in compliance with the often complex laws and regulations administered by the division," further explains Loren Smith, DOL Office of Public Affairs spokesperson. "The WHD recognizes that new and small businesses often need help identifying and understanding labor standards laws and regulations that apply to them. The guide provides these businesses with easy-to-understand general information and facts about where else in the department or federal government a new or small business could go for additional information.”
On this page are Median and Mean hourly and annual wage estimates for almost every industry.
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/NewSmallBus.pdf

Tax Tips: Hyper Progressive Taxes are Self-Defeating

We received the following information from Bill Leonard, an elected member of the California State Board of Equalization. Here are some thoughts on the Personal Income Tax program. There is new discussion on raising rates on the top 1% of earners. This would be a serious mistake. Two weeks ago, liberal George Skelton pointed out in the LA Times one of the reasons. California's hyper-progressive tax structure, or tendency to make wealthy people shoulder the greatest share of the tax burden, is a major part of our current deficit. When you rely on a relatively small group of people to deliver so much, when something happens to members of this group, the effects are magnified. Skelton's example of this is in 2000, the peak of the dot-com craze, the top 1% of earners paid 49% of the California income tax. Two years after that bubble imploded, the top 1% paid only 37%, and we have been in deficit ever since because we counted on revenue that never came in.
According to the latest figures, the top 1% is back to shouldering almost half (48%) of the state's income tax burden. In calendar year 2006, 14.1 million California income tax returns were filed with the Franchise Tax Board. 1.9 million had adjusted gross income above $100,000. This group paid a whopping 83% of the total ($36 billion) even though they comprised less than 14% of the returns filed. Roughly 120,000 Californians had an AGI of over $500,000. This group comprised less than 1% of California's returns, but paid 46% of the income tax.

These numbers are from the Franchise Tax Board's Annual Report for 2006:
http://www.ftb.ca.gov/aboutftb/annrpt/2006/2006AR.pdf

As I have argued many times, going after wealthy people by raising taxes makes the wealthy change their behavior. When people's wealth is not secure, they hide, hoard, and consume it -- or move -- rather than put it to work in pursuit of greater gains. At the root of all this is the basic fact that wealth is created only one way -- by private production, not government spending. One phenomenon we ought to cheer is the incredible growth in the number of households making more than $1 million a year. In just three years (2000-2003), American millionaires nearly doubled from 181,000 to 354,000. Since rich people pay a lot more taxes, and create wealth by investing and starting businesses, the best tax policy is one that does not impede the growth of the number of wealthy people."

We like to pass along useful tips to our entrepreneurial customers. When you have something to share, please email us here.

For You: Earthquake Survival...

Please read this and pass the info along to your family members; it could save their lives someday!
Excerpted from Doug Copp’s article on, “The Triangle of Life”
My name is Doug Copp. I am the Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International (ARTI), the world’s most experienced rescue team. The information in this article will save lives in an earthquake.
I have crawled inside 875 collapsed buildings, worked with rescue teams from 60 countries, founded rescue teams in several countries, and I am a member of many rescue teams from many countries. 
I was the United Nations expert in Disaster Mitigation for two years. I have worked at every major disaster in the world since 1985, except for simultaneous disasters.
The first building I ever crawled inside of was a school in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake. Every child was under its desk. Every child was crushed to the thickness of their bones. They could have survived by lying down next to their desks in the aisles. It was obscene, unnecessary and I wondered why the children were not in the aisles. I didn't at the time know that the children were told to hide under something.
Simply stated, when buildings collapse, the weight of the ceilings falling upon the objects or furniture inside crushes these objects, leaving a space or void next to them. This space is what I call the "triangle of life". The larger the object, the stronger, the less it will compact. The less the object compacts, the larger the void, the greater the probability that the person who is using this void for safety will not be injured. The next time you watch collapsed buildings, on television, count the "triangles" you see formed. They are everywhere It is the most common shape, you will see, in a collapsed building.

TIPS FOR EARTHQUAKE SAFETY

1. Most everyone who simply "ducks and covers" WHEN BUILDINGS COLLAPSE are crushed to death. People who get under objects, like desks or cars, are crushed.
2. To continue reading (really, you want to…), please click here: http://www.jian.com/library-of-business-information/a316/safety/update-earthquake-survival.php

We like to pass along useful ideas to our entrepreneurial customers. When you have something to share, please email us here.

What do you make of this?
Your life, $90,000 off!

From a recent email I received from Senator Barbara Boxer, D-CA – Recently, it was discovered that the Environmental Protection Agency appears to have lowered the statistical value of a human life from $7.8 million per life five years ago to $6.9 million today. This recalculation of almost $1 million per life can have grave consequences for a range of environmental analyses and cost/benefit comparisons. The EPA’s decision to reduce the value of a human life when it considers the benefits of new environmental regulations is outrageous and must be reversed. EPA may not think Americans are worth all that much, but the rest of us believe the value of an American life to our families, our communities, our workplaces and our nation is no less than it has ever been. We like to pass along useful ideas to our entrepreneurial customers.

When you have something to share, please email us here: We like to pass along useful ideas to our entrepreneurial customers. When you have something to share, please email us here.

For fun: New Words you can use…

Here is the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the Person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido : All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn a fter finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:

1. Coffee , n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted , adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate , v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade , v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly , adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent , adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph , v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle , n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence , n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash , n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle , n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude , n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon , n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster , n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism , n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent , n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men

We like to pass along [silly/profound/fun/ny stuff] to our entrepreneurial customers. When you have something to share, please email us here: Business-Black-Belt

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