How to Lose Weight and Reduce Sexual Promiscuity and Just About Anything Else Worth Doing

By Tom Ziglar

Dad is famous for a lot of great quotes. Somehow, he has the “knack” for saying really big things in really simple ways that are easy to remember. One of my favorite quotes from Dad is this one:

“You are who you are and what you are because of what has gone into your mind. You can change who you are and what you are by changing what goes into your mind.” Zig Ziglar

In other words, what you put into your mind impacts everything you do! The chain of events works like this:

What goes into your mind determines your thoughts.

Your thoughts determine the words that you speak.

The words that you speak determine your actions.

Your actions determine your habits.

Your habits determine your character.

Your character determines your destiny.

I wish I had a really sophisticated reason as to why The Purity Diet worked for me. All I can say is I was fat for over 35 years and then I decided that I needed to focus on eating pure, unprocessed foods and not eating any artificial chemicals. My ability to stick to this idea was not because I have incredible will power or the pure food was easier and tastier, but because for six months before I even started the diet I was focused every day on putting the right things into my mind. Then, when the “idea” of the Purity Diet popped up in my mind, I started a quest to learn about all of the pure and best foods available and the benefits of them. I started talking about them to everyone and then I started making pure food choices. Before I even realized it, this became a habit and my taste buds even changed! Now eating pure is really a character quality I have, and I can tell you that my physical destiny has really changed since I have lost 80 pounds.

A new study shows that promiscuity in young girls goes up directly related to how much adult-themed, sexually-oriented TV they watch. Here is how the above principle plays out in the minds of young girls who put the wrong message into their heads. “Hmm, seems like all the cool and successful people are ‘fooling around.’ I think I will talk to my friend about it. Yeah, everybody is doing it, I think I will give it a try. I mean, why not, I will be careful…”

So, you see, the thought was inspired by what had gone into the mind and this led to words and then actions and so on. Of course, many argue that watching TV isn’t that big a deal and really doesn’t influence what people do. How much are Super Bowl ads again?

Dad boils all of this down into the Be, Do, and Have philosophy. You gotta Be before you can Do, and you gotta Do before you can Have. The Be part starts with what you put into your mind. Until you BEcome the right kind of person, DOing the right things consistently will be very difficult, and HAVING any type of consistent, long-term success will be nearly impossible.

Whatever you want to accomplish starts with what you put into your mind. Simple, I know. Might as well put the pure stuff in if you want to get pure stuff out.

Tom Ziglar is the proud son of Zig Ziglar and CEO of Ziglar. This article was taken from his blog, www.tomziglar.com.

What's Just as Important as Your Product?

By Suzanne Richardson

My hand was already reaching down to toss it in the trash... but, suddenly, I stopped.

I lifted the catalog back up... and examined the front cover again.

"Free Shipping - No Minimum Order."

Hmm, I thought. Maybe I'll just take another look inside and see what I can find.

I love free shipping. It can persuade me to buy something... even if I wasn't going to buy anything in the first place.

What sort of magic is at play here?

Sometimes your bonus is just as important as the product you're selling.

Take a look at any sales letter... or any infomercial... even some banner ads... and you're bound to find a bonus.

A bonus is the free special report you get when you sign up for a newsletter... the MP3 download you get when you buy a book... the 6-in-1 kitchen tool and set of precision steak knives you get when you order a Ginsu knife... or the free shipping you get when you order a Land's End fleece jacket.

Sometimes, as Bob pointed out, the bonus is that little extra push your customer needs in order to buy. A really good bonus shows her just how much value she is getting for her money.

In one example that Bob gave, a newsletter publisher compiled a "best of" collection of his most popular column. When he started offering the compilation as a bonus, subscription rates skyrocketed. Another newsletter publisher found that when he offered a reprint of his annual industry salary survey as a bonus for new subscribers, orders for new subscriptions increased 25 percent.

So the next time you come up with a sales offer, make sure you include a valuable bonus that can give your customer one more reason to buy.

Build Your Home Seller Assist Program

What were your biggest disappointments in 2008?

Practically every company and individual resists analyzing their mistakes. That's a shame, because this is where the best learning comes from. I try and do this all of the time when working the Home Seller Assist program created by John Aexander and also known as We Provide The Cash.

No matter how well everything is going, we all make mistakes. The trick here is to examine what preceded them, what you could have done differently, and how you can prevent making the same mistakes in the future. Even though 2008 was the best year of my life (so far), I still had my share of disappointments, both personally and professionally. I won't bore you with the details.

As you did with your accomplishments in 2008, list your biggest disappointments - and then identify several takeaways for each one.

Link-Building Step #1: Link Research

The first step is to do a bit of research. What kinds of sites do you want to get links from? How do you go about finding them? There are several strategies, but one that will get you going in the right direction is to research your competitors' links.

Let's say you just launched a new site selling homebrew supplies. You would likely know that a popular competitive supply shop is NorthernBrewer.com. By finding the sites that link to the Northern Brewer website, you would instantly have a list of relevant sites that would potentially be willing to link to your site as well.

And you don't need any fancy software. Both Google and Yahoo provide ways to perform this link research right from their websites:

Link research on Google. To research the sites linking to your competitor, Northern Brewer, on Google, you would enter the following in Google's search box: http://www.northernbrewer.com.
Link research on Yahoo. To research the sites linking to your competitor, Northern Brewer, on Yahoo, you would go to a special section of Yahoo's site called Site Explorer (https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/) and enter Northern Brewer's URL in the field at the top. Make sure to click the "inlinks" tab to get the list you are looking for.
Now Google is a little stingy with their information. They will typically display only a portion of the links that they have in their database, which is why it's a good idea to use Yahoo's Site Explorer as well. In our example, you'd see that Google shows only 352 links for Northern Brewer while Yahoo shows 62,810.

Any way you slice it, that's a lot of links. Now the hard work starts. You have to go through all those sites and determine which ones you want to have link to your site. Why not just pick them all? Well, just because a site is linking to Northern Brewer doesn't mean they were asked to do it. Remember, any website can link to any other website for any reason at all... and without the site owner's knowledge. There can be some link farms and other dubious low-quality sites in the mix, and you definitely don't want to get links from them.

Make It Count!

By Debra Pearlman

I attended a book signing/networking event in New York City several weeks ago. It was hosted by The New York Enterprise Report at the Strata nightclub. With approximately 250 people in attendance, the rather large space felt cozy. For those of you who know me personally, you may be surprised to learn that I was feeling a bit shy that evening! Hey, it happens.

Anyway, there was a crazy lady there! The reason I say crazy is she was literally running around like crazy shoving her business cards at as many people as possible. She tried twice with me. I can tell you that I do not remember her name, what her business card looks like, or the business she was representing.

While you may think this is an extreme example, it is a true story and not the first time I have experienced this tactic.

The point for my telling you this is simple:

Don't make the same mistake. Make every day, every thing you say and do count.

Take a step back and review the inner workings of your organization as if you were a hired consultant. Look at your own calendar and the meetings you attend. Think about the conversations you have - what you say, how you say it, and your body language while you say it. Pay attention also to the body language of the person to whom you are speaking. Are your conversations value driven or sales pitchy?

Ask yourself and your sales staff...

• Is the daily activity of our sales efforts giving us profitable results?
• Have we developed our own best practices? Are we maintaining prospects, qualified leads, and contacts in a systematic, structured and organized manner?
• Am I conveying a consistent and enticing message throughout my marketing efforts? Including emails, conversations and voicemail messages?
• Is every step I take laser focused and leading me closer to my goal?
• Are we maintaining consistent follow-up with current and previous clients?
• Are we asking for referrals and testimonials - effectively?

Each of the above requires a well thought out and structured process. For example: Rather than simply asking for referrals, you may develop a few feedback questions to ask first. Before making that call, decide what you want the outcome to be. Or, instead of telling a prospect about the services you provide, you might develop questions to assist in determining their qualification as a client.

Don't focus on quantity of contacts until you are sure of the quality of your messaging.

Debra provides in-depth sales analysis, sales coaching and consulting in the area of hiring effective salespeople. For more information go to www.dpsalespro.com

Numbers Game

In the view of some loan-modification specialists, halting as many foreclosures as possible is the best way to address the slide in real estate prices, and collateral damage such as reduced property-tax rolls, underfunded schools and destroyed neighborhoods.

Rice, for instance, says when an investor loses a home to foreclosure it hurts two parties — the renter who gets evicted from it and the investor.

He suggests that lenders temporarily reduce installment amounts investor-owners pay. "A permanent change isn't deserved, but a three- to five-year plan would make sense to get payments down to a break-even level (with rents) while we get through this crisis," he said.
Sometimes, getting borrowers to come forward and seek a loan modification can be a problem because they don't want to admit they're in trouble, says Salvatore Buscemi, managing director of Dandrew Capital Partners, a distressed-real-estate investment fund in New York.
Treading Water

Buscemi buys defaulted paper and repossessed properties from lenders. He says he'll negotiate with any owner on a mortgage he holds — an investor or primary resident. But he says investors walk away more often than owner-occupants, as "it doesn't hurt them emotionally."

And now other investors can use the 1% funding provided by the Home Seller Assist program created by John Alexander to purchase these properties and flip them immediately.

Bedard, who has many investor clients, calls aid bias toward owner-occupants unfair. Many investors "just want to work it out to where they're not underwater," he said.
An investor might hold five or 50 homes, he says, so saving those can have more market impact than saving one primary residence.

Investor Jae Kim, with four Arizona homes, is working with Bedard's firm to seek aid. Four months into negotiating with his lenders, he still can't tell if his loans will be modified.
"I think every borrower should be treated the same," he said. "They've all put their hard-earned money in, whether it's for a retirement home, investment or primary home."