One of the first things you learn in Business 101 is to always have the end in mind…

Amish and I were recently approached by a company called Bitzio who were interested in purchasing our company Digispace, mainly to acquire the ownership rights to our famous Magic Bullet System and Tracking Platform.

Bitzio is a company involved in mobile technology, specifically mobile applications for smart phones. They want to give the Magic Bullet System a face-lift and incorporate some new features and technology into it. It should be really exciting stuff!

So Bitzio wanted to acquire Digispace and approached Amish and I with a deal we simple couldn’t refuse. The numbers were great, their motives were on-point, so we made the deal to make it happen.

That being said…

Amish and I aren’t going anywhere!

We are both still heavily involved in the internet marketing space and we both have some big plans we are focusing on right now…

Amish has become very passionate about building apps for Smartphones and he is killing it right now! He recently releases his course, The App Code, and has been practicing what he preaches!

You can keep in touch with Amish by checking out his personal blog here:
http://www.amish-shah.com

As for me, my passion has always lied in social media and I’m going to be returning to my roots. I used to make $50k+ per day just on MySpace promoting affiliate offers and now the social scene is way better! I really missed the social media game so I’m excited to get back to dominating it all over again now that it is much bigger than it was when I started focusing on the Magic Bullet training a few years back.

To get things started off right…
I’m going to be building a huge multi-million dollar social media marketing business this next year in a bunch of different niches. I recently ran a Facebook contest for my good friend Frank Kern and we were able to generate over 11,000+ unique opt-ins in only a few short days using only 100% viral traffic! How would you like to be able to do the same thing?

I’ve also been working behind-the-scenes on some awesome new stuff for you guys like an awesome social media contest platform and some crazy-advanced self-hosted tracking technology that is going to be insane!

I’m really ready to take my business to the next level and I hope you’ll join me. I’m going to be giving away a bunch of free training material over the next few months, tools, some of my personal resources I use regularly and even some money-making methods you can use to quickly rake in some cash if you need to.

But more importantly, building the Magic Bullet brand into a $15 million dollar business really taught me some valuable lessons that I would love to share with you. I know these lessons will not only help you build a million dollar business yourself, but will also help you avoid some of the pitfalls and hard-lessons I learned on my way to the top.

Are you ready to finally make something happen with your internet marketing efforts?
Have you been in IM for a few years but haven’t really found a place to call “home”?
Do you want to build a real-solid business that products revenue and not keep making a few bucks here and there to make ends meet?

If you answered “Yes” to any of those questions than I invite you to join me and follow me as I not only build a highly-successful company in less than 12 months, but also help you build one as well along the way.

We can do this together…

Are you ready to take the next step in your life?

You can have all the passion, visions, dreams and goals you want…
…but until you actually DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, they are just “thoughts”.

Let’s make shit happen TODAY.

Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

To your success,

Jose Rivera (aka Jay Styles)

P.S. – I strongly urge you join my newsletter by signing up in the upper-right hand corner of your screen. Then, you can be sure you will always receive the latest up-to-date information on how to grow your business and make some serious money in 2012.

See you on the other side my friend!

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“You tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you’ll be”

I remember when my Aunt used to tell me that when I was growing up. I’m sure you may have heard it here or there as well when you were younger.

What does it mean exactly?

Well, there is a general rule of thumb someone came up with many years ago that basically states that you probably earn a yearly income that is the average income of the Top Five people you surround yourself with (not including your children or significant other). So if you were to list your Top Five friends and estimate their yearly incomes, it has been proven time and time again that more often than not, your income will fall somewhere in the median of those five people.

Here’s my point…

It is no secret these days that surrounding yourself with like-minded people who are motivated to become wealthy or have already achieved success in their businesses is the best way to get on the right path to success and wealth yourself.

You will discuss business more frequently, feel more motivated and driven to reach your goals and have better opportunities than someone who is surrounded with people in less-fortunate situation.

While there have been many studies to prove this, I have my own personal story I would like to share with you today in hopes that it will inspire you to take a different path than I did and help you avoid some of the pitfalls I have found myself in previously.

I have personally made over $10 million dollars in the past few years marketing online. I have almost lost it all at the same time.

I almost lost it all by surrounding myself with people that didn’t have the same dreams and aspirations as me. They were what I like to call the “same routine every month” crew. They are the guys that like to live life in the social scene constantly, partying every day and coming up with an agenda. You know those types – they have Monday Fun Day’s, Taco Tuesday’s, Industry Night Thursday’s, etc. They always end up complaining that they are broke but keep to the same agenda that landed them there in the first place.

I was one of those guys for a period of time…

I found myself going through some major changes in my personal life. I was in the midst of a divorce, I was involved in some lawsuits and I just wasn’t happy with the business I was in. Instead of facing it like a man, I decided to go party the feelings away. It didn’t make me any happier and it also didn’t help the problems go away. It also left my unmotivated to work towards my goals and gave me a lack of energy and focus.

It wasn’t until I decided to leave that crowd that things started to turn a new leaf for me again.

I started networking and hanging out with people like me. The guys and girls that love to talk ‘tech’ and internet business. As soon as I started hanging out with these folks, everything changed…

My passion to build businesses came back. I once I again felt the urge to challenge myself to do great things and defy the odds of ‘normal’. I was in a much better place personally and…

I was attracting wealth.

The more I noticed these changes, the more I thought back to when I first started the cycle that had originally helped me make my first $10 million dollars. It was that passion to be somebody that had got me there. It helped me make the decision to join the Navy when I turned 18. It helped me work hard enough with my real estate venture to get me noticed by Donald Trump and have him hire me at only 23.

It was also what helped me get back up after I got knocked down.

If things just don’t seem to be going right in your life, try looking around and seeing where your support system lies.

Are you surrounding yourself with the right types of people?

Your friends don’t necessarily have to be successful to be a good candidate for your network, but they should have the passion to achieve more, to never settle for just enough and should be motivated to become better people.

This will ensure you feel the same way and are always looking to achieve greatness in your own life.

What do you think about attracting wealth? Are there some changes you need to make in your life today?

Let me know your thoughts below!

To Your Success,

Jose Rivera

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Do you ever find yourself regularly starting projects but never seeming to finish them?
Or maybe you plan out a venture only to look at the project outline and decide it’s just too over your head?

You have the best intentions and know many of your ideas would probably turn out really well if you could just get something finished!

If this is you, the upside is you’re definitely not alone. I would guess 99% of internet marketers and entrepreneurs suffer from the same thing on a daily basis.

The good news is, there is a way to circumvent that inside feeling that mentally ‘handicaps’ us and causes us to develop a mental paralysis of sorts that keeps us from doing what we really want to.

Here are the facts:

We are living in the information age. We have resources and  tools available to use that allow us to do things as speeds that weren’t even though possible just a few years back.

Seriously…

It is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times contains more information in it than people from the 18^th century would learn in their lifetime!

The opportunities, along with the availability of all these tools and resources (most that are only a click away), give you no reason you should be holding back any longer.

You might have a great idea for an information product. Maybe you can write the product, but you’re not sure how to format it into an eBook. Maybe you can find great niches to built sites around, but don’t know how to get your site ranking organically. Maybe you are great at affiliate marketing and can write ad copy like a copy genius, but don’t have the funds to really take your business to the next level.

What do you do?

Tap into the resources that are available to you.

There are tons of people out there that might have skills you don’t. You can easily hire someone to format your eBook for less than $20. You can hire someone to rank your niches sites for you or even JV with someone and split the revenue. Find a partner for your affiliate marketing business that has the credit line or cash-flow available to take your business to the next level and pay them a percentage on their money.

You don’t need to do everything by yourself. You might be afraid someone will steal your ideas or copy you, but what you probably don’t realize is that even if they did do that at some point, you’d probably already have reached your goal. If you found your D.I.G in one of my previous posts about the Daily Income Goal, you’ll probably find you don’t need to do everything on your list to reach that goal.

You might only need $15k per month to have a fulfilling life and you can do that with less than a handful of relationships. You can share your ideas as much as you possibly can at that point and still get there. When you have awesome ideas and are emitting that positive energy I’ve pointed out a few times in my previous posts, you WILL attract the right people.

There are also tools to automate processes you may not be the best at. There are also millions of people out on the intraweb right now looking for you to team up with to build an internet empire. There are even more looking to make a few bucks and are quite happy with just getting paid a small fee upfront.

Take advantage of these resources, use them and then use them some more.

In the last two months, I’ve really started to embrace working relationships with people that have strengths I think could benefit my business.

I’m not good at everything. I didn’t design my blog; I don’t create my landing pages in Photoshop. I simply hit up my designer and tell them what I want. They take my ideas and make them tangible.

When I think of cool tools to automate my business, I don’t learn how to program. I just get a programmer to make the tool based on my ideas.

In today’s day and age, your handicaps don’t apply anymore. It doesn’t matter where you came from, what kind of degree you have or who you know.

All that matters is how you leverage the power of others to strengthen your business.

All you need to make it big online is a few goals, a good dose of determination and focus to follow through on the projects you create and find the right people and tools to make sure it gets done correctly.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Go to your projects list or if you don’t have one, create one.
2. Sort them by priority and focus on one at a time.
3. Find out what will be difficult for you to do on your own and go find a JV partner, tools or a worker to help you with those tasks.
4. Finish up the things you can do and make sure your team finishes their portions.
5. Reward yourself each time you hit a milestone. Take your family out to dinner or go reward yourself. This will keep you motivated to continue.
6. Once a project is underway and there is not much to do, move on to the next project and follow these steps again.

You will be amazed at how well these 6 steps work.

Give them a try and I’m sure you will be able to complete more in the next 6 months than you have in the last 5 years!

Best,

Jay Styles

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Bill Gates. Warren Buffett. Richard Branson. Jose Rivera.

Ok…

Maybe I’m not AS financially successful as the people I mentioned before me, but I am just AS successful!

Have you ever thought about what really makes people successful?
Is it based on the people you associate yourself with?
Or maybe the way you were raised?
Maybe it’s the school you went to or the degree you have?

While all those things can definitely impact whether or not you become successful, they are definitely not the main thing.

The main ingredient in baking a big pan of success is YOU.

You can be spoon fed, have the most successful parents in the world and still be a complete bum. Someone could give you a million dollars and you could be bankrupt in a few years just like most people that win the lottery.

We make ourselves successful. It’s not about how much luck you have, or how many degrees you have or even based on how you grew up. You have your mind, you know what’s right and wrong and ultimately you determine your success.

When I was growing up, I was always told what I could and couldn’t do. For example, I was told I had to live with my grandma and that I couldn’t live with my mom. I didn’t understand at that time why that was the case, so I would always ask “Why?”

I didn’t have my mom telling me to do something so I questioned everything and was labeled a trouble-maker because of it. Whenever something wasn’t going the way I thought it should, I asked that questions over and over. I even had the nickname “Terror” on the baseball field lol. I thank God my kids aren’t in the same situation, they are good kids but they are also not put in some of the situations I had to endure when I was a kid.

So being the “Terror” that I was, I always felt like I had to prove something. All the people that told me I couldn’t do certain things made we want to do them even more. I knew I had to do something, I knew I had to be somebody.

I was determined.

Determination can under-mind pretty much anything. The consistent motivation and determination to be something better is what got me to where I am today.

When I look around at some of my successful friends, I can clearly see why they and I are successful. We were always (and still are) committed and focused on doing something and we always have full speed ahead energy that emits from us, showing our determination in our attitudes.

Another thing I noticed was passion. I personally love technology. I mean seriously, anybody who knows me can tell you how I get when we start talking about tracking platforms, scraping this, putting this data together or whatever. I build these systems (which helped get me to where I am) and put out that energy of determination with technology (my passion).

You see, as you travel your own path of success you will come across roadblocks. Some of them may be easy to pass, while others might take extreme measures and calculations to overcome. These can be in the form of vocal abuse and doubt from the people that surround you, or they could be financial restraints or lack of knowledge in a specific area.

No matter the obstacles you may come across in your journey, determination and a passion to do better will eventually get you to your final destination.

I guarantee it.

To your success,

Jay Styles

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Hey guys,

Hopefully you’ve read the Introduction to this post already. If you haven’t, please go back and read it before beginning this one.

You can find it here:

http://jaystyles.com/ youre-only-1-mind-tweak-away-from-success

In my previous post I introduced you to the mindset you need to have to make it in business or internet marketing. Today let’s talk about it a bit more in-depth. It’s what I like to call:

Laying the Foundation

Laying the foundation is the process of deciding on what it is that you want in life. Not just tangible things, but also feelings, memories, and accomplishments you want to achieve…

How do you see yourself living a day in the ideal life of yours?
Are you lying next to someone when you wake up?
Who are you with?
What would you do that day?
Where would you go?
What do you smell?

Yes, go as deep as to even imagine the scents and smells around you. The more you can learn to understand what you really desire, the happier you are going to be.

What do you really want in this life of yours? It amazes me how many people don’t take the time to actually think about this.

It was my actually my good friend Frank Kern that first asked me that question and I’ll never forget the day. I was watching his Core Influence video series and I was thinking, “How is this dude so gangsta?” I mean he had so much energy – he was determined, confident and was making a good deal of money. I went to bed that night and was barely able to get any sleep thinking about it. I finally figured it out early the next morning.

It was because he was focused on what he wanted in his life.

To be perfectly honest, I only recently discovered what I really wanted in my life, and let me tell you I am the happiest I have ever been! I already have pretty much everything I could ever ask for in my ideal life. I have two great boys and we get to enjoy the finer luxuries in life together each and every day. Once you find out what you want in life it becomes ‘tunnel vision’ to you.

You emit an energy and confidence so strong that it literally attracts others to you who want to reflect the same expressions!

Bill Glazer said it best when he said,

“Most people are wandering around with their umbilical cord in hand, just looking for a place to plug in.”

Why? It’s because you know exactly what you want… and most others don’t.

Yet most people just don’t get it. You do have the 1% of people that actually do get it – and become successful because of it – but what about the other 99% that don’t? Well these types of people usually go through life thinking to themselves that they will figure out what they want when they have money. They figure they shouldn’t focus on what they really want until they have the money to get it. What ends up happening is they never end up with the money and when they do finally figure out what they actually want, they’re life has already been passing by without them. Do you see the problem here?

I’m telling you right now, you’re not going to get what you want in life until you know what that is!

Once you know what those things are you can ask yourself, “What can I do to get this” or “What else can I do to get that”?

You need to think about everything. You need to picture your entire dream life including what you would do during the day, places you would go, people you would see, and everything in between.

Once you have figured out your ideal life, you can enter the details into your D.I.G. Calculator.

Your probably thinking, “What D.I.G. Calculator? I don’t have one!”

Well, today I am giving you my D.I.G. calculator for FREE.

Although I was planning to originally release this only to a select group of people inside one of our mastermind projects, today I am giving it to YOU at no cost whatsoever.

So what exactly am I giving you today?

Your D.I.G. Calculator is a system I built to help you find out your income goals for living your ideal life. This will include all your potential expenditures as well as other current debts you may need to pay off like credit cards, medical bills or student loans.

Anything that involves money will be entered into your D.I.G. Calculator. Once you’ve finished entering in all the details into your D.I.G. Calculator, it will generate your own person DIG.

What is my DIG?

DIG stands for your Daily Income Goal. This income goal is the amount you would need to earn each day to live the life you just created. It is the approximate number (based on your expenditures) to your complete happiness and life you’ve been dreaming about. Depending on your dream lifestyle, you may need $200 per day or $1,000 per day. That means you would need to sell as little as one product a day or a few products each day to reach your DIG.

Once you have your DIG it should put your life’s roadmap into perspective. Since you now know what you want, you can start focusing on what matters…

What is going to get you to your DIG?

The next time you’re reading about a new information product or some new money-making method on a forum ask yourself, “Is this going to help me reach my DIG?”

Ask yourself this question throughout the day like when you sit down to watch TV or want to go out and party. I do like to party myself, but I knew that in order to party and live that type of lifestyle I had to first reach my DIG.

Find out what you want in life and then calculate you’re D.I.G. It will motivate you to work towards that lifestyle…

You deserve to have.

Best,

Jay Styles

Download the DIG Calculator Here
(Right-Click and select ‘Save Link As…’)

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What’s up everybody,

Today I want to talk about something that I think is a huge problem with all struggling entrepreneurs today. I find it to be the biggest factor in whether you will succeed and achieve your goals or not.

What am I referring to? Mentality

Mentality is usually overlooked and very under-valued. I remember when just a few years back I was probably just like you… or in the same boat. I was buying information products and courses and the main thing on my mind was MONEY. I’m sure I was like many of you, looking for the best way I could to make tons of money in the littlest time possible. I wanted to get rich quick, have a house (or two) fit for an episode of MTV™ Cribs® and own so many cars I would have to drive a different one each and every day of the week just to keep the batteries charged!

Sound familiar at all?

While it’s ok to imagine having those nice things, it is definitely not the best way to go about reaching your goals. The most successful men and women in this world – the 1% of people that actually achieve their dreams – didn’t reach their goals by telling themselves they wanted a big house and fancy cars. No, they dug deeper into themselves to find what they truly wanted in life beyond the money and flashy lifestyle.

You see, it is important that you leave that mindset behind and focus on what you really want in life. Once you discover your true needs and desires, you will reach your goals faster than ever before. You will find yourself being more productive than you have in years. Your life will almost “come together” and you will find yourself finally headed down a road where you finally know within yourself what lies ahead.

So take a moment and ask yourself, “What are my main goals in life”?

Don’t just settle with single word goals like ‘money’, ‘mansions’ or ‘cars’. You may think that is what you want but I’m telling you, dig deeper!

If you think you want all that money, those houses and those nice cars, why do you really, truly want those things? Do you want a big empty house for just yourself? I doubt it.

Maybe you want to have a family and want a big house so you won’t feel so crowded in a smaller home?
Maybe you want a lot of money to make sure your kids can go to any college they want or never have to go ‘without’ like you might have growing up?

Maybe you want to travel and visit different countries!

Maybe you are fine with your lifestyle already and you’re just looking to create a business with enough passive income so that you can spend more time with your family.

Maybe you just want to do it because so many people have told you that you “can’t”.

Have I got you thinking yet? I bet I have.

The point I’m trying to make is that focusing on money only and not finding your true desires in life is not going to get you where you want to go.

Money is just like a vehicle, if you keep focusing on the vehicle and not on the road, how are you ever going to get anywhere?

Don’t get me wrong, money can help you out tremendously but you need to first find out what you need it for before it can help you!

Once you find out why you want it, you will find yourself on a much clearer path to getting it. Believe me when I tell you that once you know what you want in life, the money will soon follow.

Now that I have you in the right mindset, my next post is going to be talking about finding your D.I.G.

What is D.I.G. you ask?

You’ll have to wait for my next post!

Best,

Jay Styles

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I find myself wanting to tell you so many things but sometimes I just can’t figure out a way to properly structure and organize everything I need to say.

This morning I decided I’m just going to tell it how it is

So here it is…

This is my mind.
This is ‘Jay Styles’.

The internet has presented an opportunity unlike no other in history. The internet is still relatively new and it continues to change at lightning speeds.

While this might sound a bit overwhelming at first, it should be absorbed as quite the opposite actually. With change comes opportunity, which basically means that as the internet continues to grow, so do the opportunities surrounding it.

There are literally a million ways to make a significant amount of money online.

You no longer need to be a big corporation or huge multi-million dollar business to make it in this world. There are tons of people starting businesses today from their garages or in their kitchens that will be the next big thing in years to come.

It’s about us now, the people. The internet has given us the opportunity to compete with the likes of other people and Fortune 500 companies all at the same time… I mean look at me.

I grew up without anything. I didn’t even have the privilege to go home to a mother and father like most of you did.

I grew up in the hood. Brooklyn, NY was my stomping ground and let me tell you it wasn’t easy. I have seen poverty first hand and it’s something I wouldn’t wish upon anybody… ever.

So how did this kid from Brooklyn start competing with the big dogs online?

My first internet-based venture was pretty simple…

I had a company in China to send me some sample Mini Helicopters and after setting up a cool looking landing page to sell them on and sending some traffic to it, I was making more than I ever could have working a career (even with a degree). I couldn’t even supply the demand for these things… and they were just RC Helicopters!

What about when I as using MySpace to promote affiliate offers and pulling in over $50k per day? Did I have some huge corporate building with 100’s of employees?

No, it was just me and my laptop.

What made my business thrive? Customer Service

When I couldn’t keep up with the orders, I had to call most of my customers and tell them I just simply didn’t have the stock in hand. I offered them a refund but most of them told me they’d wait.

They were happy I had given them that personal connection that most businesses didn’t, and it made them feel even more secure in their purchase.

That’s why the internet is such a powerhouse. It is this giant infrastructure of communication. You can reach your customers and connect with new ones through all kinds of different methods. Twitter, social networks like Facebook and Myspace, blogs, email and more…

As the internet grows, people are buying more merchandise and services from other people rather than giant companies. They want to talk to someone… not something.

Most people are only one thought away from being able to tell their own rags-to-riches story. You can import products all day long and make more cash than you could have ever imagined. You can create an information product covering something your good at or a hobby you like and make good money selling that information to other people.

It’s all about thinking outside the box…

If you can’t think outside the box you can copy one of the many things I’ve already shown you how to do in some of my products I’ve released and still make a sick income by simply copying me!

I mean seriously, anybody can tell you I’m no Einstein.

I’m not some Harvard Scholar that got my Doctrine in 12 different subjects.

I’m a high school dropout. I have a G.E.D. and the only reason I have that is because I needed it to get into the Military back in the day.

Even without an impressive resume of my educational achievements or a list of companies I’ve worked for showing how I climbed to the top of some corporate ladder by gaining rank in modern-day Corporate America…

I still managed to create a full-time income selling mini RC helicopters out of my bedroom.

I still created a business on MySpace that made me $50k a day on almost complete auto-pilot.

I still somehow built a multi-million dollar affiliate marketing business that makes up to $100k per day by simply testing and doing what worked over and over.

I even created a software development business that has grown so significantly over the past few years that it was featured in the Inc 500 in 2010 as one of the fastest growing companies in America simply by taking ideas and turning them into systems that help companies each and every year automate their business and lessen the daily work load they usually face.

I’ve made millions of dollars and built multi-million dollar companies…

How?

By simply taking some of my ideas and running with them. I never stopped running. I’ll never stop running either.

That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m telling my story.

No matter what the circumstances are that are currently surrounding you, no matter how trapped you feel in your current situation – you can think outside the box and create any life you choose.

You know how your parents told you that you could be anything you ever wanted in life?

Why can’t that be true after all?

You can create a business from an idea and live the life you have always wanted.

I am here to help you.

I have been in a bad situation before. I was in what some call a “bad situation” for most of my life actually.

I am your living, breathing proof that ANYONE who wants to change their life can do it.

Take my story as your inspiration.
Read my blog posts as your motivation.
Copy my ideas to avoid procrastination.

Keep grinding and you WILL change your life.

To your success,

Jay Styles

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You have to love technology, this information is unreal! I pulled this from Fast Future and had to post it on my blog.

Fast Future’s 50 Forecasts for 2010

In October and November we shared the first 25 of our top 50 forecasts for the world in 2010. We have had a number of requests to publish them all together for ease of access – so here is the full list of 50 – we’d welcome your feedback:

Global Challenges

1.Facing up to Ageing – In the developed economies, lifespan estimates are increasing by up to five months every year and there is up to a 90% chance that those under 50 will live to 100. These patterns will be emulated for citizens in the developing economies as their incomes, lifestyles and health outlook improve. At the same time we know our pension systems cannot cope – they were not designed for people lasting 15 years past retirement let alone 35. In addition, with population decline in many developed economies, we know that the ratio of workers to retirees is shrinking – reducing the pool of pension funds available to serve a rising level of demand.

Governments, businesses, the media, society and the pensions industry all have to accept that this is a crisis of our own making – it is not something that’s happened overnight. We have had warnings about an impending pensions crisis for over 20 years and have chosen to do little about it. Over the next two years we think the debate will move beyond the current search for blame as people begin to realise that their pension funds won’t be able to cope. We will all be forced to think about how we can fund ourselves for a 100 year lifespan. This might mean working well into our 70’s, looking at alternative financing and investment models, changing our lifestyles to reduce our spending, ensuring that we will be healthy enough to keep working and keeping our skills and capabilities relevant.

2. Dealing with Debt – The current- potentially temporary – respite in the financial crisis is allowing governments to take stock of the impact of rescue packages on public finances. We know that in 2010 the debt of the richer members of the G20 is expected to rise close to 100% of GDP. Tough choices will be required on how to service the interest payments and bring down the size of the debt burden. Policy options are limited and potentially unpopular. Cuts in public spending, reducing public sector workforces, higher taxes and encouraging inflation are the most likely instruments. These will have a dampening effect on the economy and slow the pace of recovery. It will be interesting to see the choices made by different nations. The impact will be severe on public sector suppliers – consultants, lawyers and other servi ce providers could experience some of the biggest cutbacks. Redundancies in these firms will be an inevitable consequence.

3. Sustainability 2.0 – While we expect a continued focus on environmental sustainability, we also think there will be a lot more debate about the long term sustainability of our governance and business models. What are the right set of processes, voter engagement mechanisms, funding approaches and controls required to manage a country in the 21st century? Is globalisation the right growth model for large corporations, what is an acceptable level of growth to target and what business and financing models should underpin these choices?

Politics Gets Complex

4. New Routes to Change – The range of challenges facing developed and developing economies grows ever more rapidly – as does the outpouring of ideas from every corner on how to fix them. Many governments seem almost clueless as to how to make progress on multiple fronts and how to harness a diverse range of inputs. Despite the scale of the challenges, many are still reluctant to ‘think the unthinkable’ on issue as diverse as effective governance for the 21st healthcare funding, banking regulation and environmental protection. Increasingly we will see foundations and independent initiatives funding such ‘clean sheet thinking’ projects – enabling them to sit outside the political process and consider a wider range of options than most governments would dare to. The results will then be used to facilitate public debate and influence governmen ts from the top down and ‘outside in’.

5. Embracing Complexity – The finance crisis has helped us understand that our world is increasingly made up of highly complex interconnected and adaptive systems whose behaviour is difficult to model or predict. Governments and businesses will increasingly start to embrace complexity thinking to help understand and plan for the world we now operate in. The real breakthrough will come when we start to teach our children about complexity and how to make decisions in an uncertain world with imperfect information.

6. New Rules of Engagement – The failure to reach any serious binding global agreements on climate change at the COP-15 Summit in Copenhagen in December 2009 could herald the end of an era on global agreements. Increasing attention will be paid to finding new models for reaching consensus that don’t require leaders and administrators to fly around the world desperately seeking to configure a deal which then gets ignored in practice.

7. Public Unity – Private Retrenchment -The G20 members will continue to talk boldly in public about collective global action and open markets. In practice, nationalistic attitudes will abound. This will result in more protectionist trade policy, greater competition to attract inward investment, a bias for awarding of government contracts to local suppliers and a tougher immigration stance.

8. Training gets a Boost – We anticipate a number of publicly funded initiatives to support training and retraining from developed economy governments. The goals will be to try to reduce welfare costs, cut or prevent unemployment and speed the economic recovery. Where elections are due, these may be seen as politically motivated acts.

Economic Power Shifts

9. Joyless Growth – A recovery has begun or will soon start in most economies. However, while the headline figures will be positive, sentiment will be slow to recover as markets remain nervous about the potential for a ‘double dip’ recession. Redundancies will continue, firms will struggle to cope with persistent lower price expectations from customers, and public spending cuts will bite. Even small items of bad news could see market confidence ebb away and economies head back towards negative growth.

10. Analysts find the Future – Investment analysts are still reeling from the client backlash over them missing the downturn and its impact on the companies, sectors and countries they cover. Many analysts are starting to recognise the need to assess far more than a firms’ past performance, order book and product pipeline. Greater emphasis will be placed on assessing the future readiness of a firm or country’s leadership, the quality of the foresight work they are doing, the strength of their external networks and open innovation processes, their preparedness for a range of economic scenarios and their resilience in the face of possible decade of turbulence.

Customer and Consumer Trends

11.Spending – The Playing Field Has Changed – The downward shift to lower priced products and less conspicuous consumption is unlikely to see a rapid reversal in 2010. The spike in sales for Christmas 2009 should not automatically be seen as a turning point. High levels of personal debt, uncertainty over job prospects and general nervousness about the economy could lead to a more permanent 3-5 year downward shift in market behaviour.

12. Savings in Fashion – Despite government exhortations to help spend our economies out of the downturn, many consumers in developed markets will look to reduce personal debt and increase their levels of savings. Economic uncertainty, pensions concerns and healthcare costs will all be contributing factors to this new found thrift mentality. Some may wait for a second downturn before adopting such behaviours.

13. Ethical, Green and Cheap – Consumers will be increasingly willing to buy products with strong ethical or green credentials. However, in the mass market, price will remain a key consideration and it remains unlikely that vendors will be able to charge a premium for such products in the near term.

14. Zero Tolerance – Customers will increasingly vote with their feet or their fingers in the face of poor service or website failure. Whilst they may tell their friends about the poor service experience, they will be less and less inclined to inform the vendor – particularly where the amounts involved are relatively small.

15. Customer Insight gets Neural – A growing number of firms will adopt neuromarketing and related techniques to develop real insight into the neurological basis for customer behaviours. Others will continue to do market research whilst ignoring the wealth of direct customer feedback already available.

Global Business

16. Internationalism Becomes the Norm – In ‘Globalinc. An Atlas of The Multinational Corporation’, Mederd Gabel and Henry Bruner suggest that the number of multinationals has grown from 3,000 in 1990 to over 63,000 today – rising to 820,000 if affiliates are included[i]. This number is expected to accelerate in 2010 as would-be multinationals from China, India and other emerging nations seek a foothold and buy-up troubled businesses in key markets. At the same time, developed economy businesses not already abroad will be looking to enter emerging markets and form foreign partnerships in an attempt to overcome sluggish conditions at home.

17. Africa Bound – In the search for new growth, businesses from developed and developing economies alike will make an aggressive push into markets across Africa. Entrepreneurs from Asia may fare better and see faster results as they are more able to adapt to local business practices to secure opportunities than less fleet-footed global firms.

18. Clipped Wings – The airline industry will continue to experience turmoil as business passengers in particular are slow to return. Casualty rates could be high – airlineupdate.com lists 90 airline failures and 7 mergers for 2008 and a further 31 failures and 6 mergers for 2009. We can expect 30-40 more failures and further mergers by the end of 2010.

Business Strategy

19. Customer Lock-in – Nervousness about the strength of the recovery will drive innovation in sales and pricing strategies. Where possible, suppliers will seek to lock customers in to longer term deals during the early months of the year – with options such as subscription models, long-term discounts and staggered payment arrangements. Equipment suppliers will increasingly have to adopt an approach of providing the product for free and then charging a rental fee or proportion of the savings or increased revenues / profits where these can be attributed.

20. Free or Fantastic – Vendors of both physical and electronic goods and services will have to face up to the fact that hyper-competition and almost unlimited consumer choice are driving prices down to zero. A range of alternative revenue streams are then required to make the endeavour viable. Those that want to generate direct payment will have to demonstrate that their offering is truly fantastic and worth paying for. For example in the UK newspaper industry, the Financial Times has successfully raised its hard copy cover price on a regular basis and charged for its premium content online. In contrast, the London Evening Standard has had to abandon the charging model and move to a free circulation model.

21. Accelerating Innovation – One of the most interesting responses to the downturn has been the rising focus on innovation. This has ranged from a wave of new product launches to radical rethinks of entire business models and operating systems. However, many larger businesses have found their internal processes a barrier when it comes to turning ideas into reality. We think the focus of innovation initiatives will increasingly focus on streamlining decision making to allow more rapid testing of new ideas.

22. Open Innovation – Wave 2 – While there are notable examples of businesses such as P&G and Apple succeeding with open innovation, the reality is that many have struggled to make it work. Internal processes, legal issues and a prevailing mindset of distrust have seen many such initiatives fail. We expect to see three dominant approaches in the next wave of open innovation in 2010. Firstly, some major corporations will bite the bullet and truly embrace the concept. The majority of large firms will followed the route of controlled experimentation to open up particular innovation opportunities around new product development using platforms such as Innocentive. The third will see a growing band of innovators who use open and crowd sourced approaches to conceive, develop and market their products and services.

23. Improving M&A Potential – The downturn has left a number of firms struggling for survival or at least significantly weaker than 18 months ago. The risk of a double dip downturn makes many even more vulnerable. Cash rich corporates, investment funds and even private investors will be more active in seeking out opportunities to acquire and integrate or break up these ‘bargain basement’ businesses.

24. The Quick and the Dead – In most sectors, over the next 12-18 months, we expect to see a wave of new ventures and industry level initiatives taken by entrants and existing players. These are entrepreneurs and firms who took advantage of the downturn to take or accelerate bold moves. The results of their efforts will come as a shock to many in the sector who ‘didn’t see it coming’. A second breed of ‘dead men walking’ will become apparent as traditionally successful businesses struggle to come to terms with a new world order.

Business Operations

25. Leaner and Meaner – Businesses that emerge successfully from the recession should be fitter than before, raising the possibility both of increasingly competitive firms and of a jobless recovery.

26. Sustainability Goes Mainstream – Google’s SmartMeter provides information on your Google home page on how you use electricity and how to be more efficient. The emergence of such applications, and the money they can help save, will appeal in a post recessionary world where sustainable products and services will be increasingly common. The challenge will be to demonstrate that products are truly sustainable in a clear and simple manner.

27. Responsible Investment – As the green credentials of company spending and investment increasingly come under the microscope, the need for a Director of Responsible / Sustainable Investment will manifest itself and become apparent in many organisations.

28. The Listening Organisation – We expect to see more Chief Listening Officers appointed to ensure companies are truly hearing and responding to customer needs, concerns and comments emerging from direct feedback and via the social media such as Twitter.

29. Skills Shortage – Despite unemployment rates of up to 10% in the U.S. and across the E.U., many industries will face continuing shortages in key areas owing to a misalignment of skills required and available qualified talent.

30. Travel Under Scrutiny – Cost pressures and nervousness about a double dip downturn will continue to impact corporate travel budgets. Despite the evidence about the value of face-to-face meetings, travel restrictions will be imposed, and investment will rise in electronic alternatives from teleconferencing to virtual events. This will drive the growth of alternatives to business travel, such as Telepresence and Halo rooms. Increasing political instability in various world regions may also have a restraining effect on travel plans.

31. Telecommuting Grows – Rapidly increasing worldwide broadband connections and real time technology connections now make it feasible to be fully effective from home. Globalised work teams also render the concept of ‘going into the office’ a pointless exercise if your team is on another continent. At the same time, the desire to reduce office space requirements and overheads, cut CO2 emissions, avoid gridlocked transport systems and retain happy talent will all drive the take up of telecommuting.

32. Rise of E-Learning – The desire to maintain skills and motivation while containing costs and responding faster to business needs will see firms and training providers make greater investments in the use of e-learning. Increasing use will be made of virtual worlds to deliver simulation-based training in fields as diverse as healthcare, auditing and financial services.

33. Growth in Software as a Service (SaaS) / Cloud Computing – A growing number of businesses of all sizes will adopt SaaS / Cloud Computing strategies. This trend to renting applications from third party providers over the internet will grow as businesses look to improve the functionality they can offer, increase flexibility and control costs.

Engagement with Social Media

34. Social Networks Harvested – A number of models will emerge claiming to offer approaches to monetizing individual or corporate networks. While some will be transferable from one business to another, many will not prove to be portable from their originators to other entities.

35. Business Gets Social – As yet there are relatively few examples of big companies that have scaled social initiatives beyond one-off marketing or communications initiatives. One exception is Best Buy’s Twelpforce, which leverages hundreds of employees to provide customer support via Twitter. Cost and service pressures will see more firms developing business-wide social media engagement strategies that encompass customers, prospects, suppliers and partners.

36. Internal Social Media Policies Tighten – With user rates booming across the social media platforms, and growing pressures on headcount, we could see growing restrictions on the internal use of the social networks. Even where the company understands the benefits and is making an investment in social media, strict controls may be adopted on how much time staff can spend visiting such networks in company hours.

Ethics and Environment

37. CSR Backlash – Product advertising is now full of claims about firms’ ethical and green credentials. However, consumers are becoming cynical about exactly what is being done. There will be real pressure for transparency on exactly how much of the item price is actually being donated to build schools, buy books, plant trees or train a teacher. There will also be a real focus on providing evidence of what is being done with the money.

38. Our Friends Electric – There will be a major increase in activity in the electric and hybrid vehicle markets. Existing car manufacturers will announce a number of new vehicles and concept development projects. New entrants to the sector will start to bring products to market and a number of vehicle projects will find investors. Activity levels in China will be particularly high.

Science and Technology

39. Serving the Masses – We will see rapid growth in mainly science and technology based solutions targeted at the needs of the developing world. Inspired by examples such as the Nokia Money mobile money transfer service, big corporations will increasingly develop offerings targeted at the low income mass markets.

40. Loving the Labs – The government stimulus packages announced in 2009 included a major boost for science and technology investment. Notable examples included 10Tn Yuan (1Tn Euros, US$1.5Tn) in China, 900M Euros in Germany, 731M Euros in France and 685M Euros in Norway. Business and the investment sector will also place a major focus on investment in science and technology ventures as a route to driving new growth opportunities.

Ten emerging areas of science and technology that we expect to hear a lot more about in the next year are listed below:

41. The Rise of Citizen Science – Public participation in scientific research will become increasingly popular. Amateurs will see and seek out greater opportunity to gather data, participate in collaborative studies run by both professionals and amateurs and lend their computers to large scale ‘grid computing’ efforts such as SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).

42. NBIC-convergence – The convergence of the domains of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technologies and cognitive science offers the potential for truly transformational scientific breakthroughs in fields as diverse as brain science, energy, environmental protection and food production.

43. Synthetic Biology – Synthetic biology involves designing and building basic biological building blocks that can perform functions as diverse as cleaning up toxic waste, growing electronic circuits, and producing artificial drugs food and fuels.

44. Personalized Medicine – Commercial services such as 23andme.com are already available that can read and map a significant part of an individual’s genome for less than $500 in 2-4 weeks. Advances could see the price fall to around $100 to sequence our entire genome in eight hours or less. This would enable medical treatments to be tailored to our unique genetic profile.

45. Novel Energy Sources – As the level of government and private venture capital funding for green technology increases, so the range of candidate technologies will grow. Expect to see regular coverage of ‘breakthrough concepts’ as diverse as energy producing kites, liquid and printable batteries and a variety of initiatives attempting to capture energy from human motion.

46. Food Production Methods – A variety of approaches will be discussed for closing the gap between production and demand. Expect to see Genetic Modification back under the spotlight along with concepts such as vertical farming, salt water farming, precision farming using satellites to optimise seeding and harvesting and artificially reared meat.

47. 3D Printing / Personal Fabricators – Three dimensional printing techniques have been used for some time in manufacturing to create 3D items by bonding particles together layer by layer. As the costs and footprint of 3D printers come down, so the potential emerges for ‘print on demand’ fabricators to be deployed on the high street – enabling stores to offer a far wider range of products while reducing the physical stock holding. The ultimate would be the personal fabricator which sits at home next to the washing machine and which enables us to print items (for example a plate) locally – using ‘recipes’ we have purchased and our own designs.

48. Ambient Intelligence – The expectation is that everyday objects from wallpaper to carpets, furniture and our clothing will all have embedded intelligence and an IP (Internet Protocol) address so that our environments can interact with and adapt to us. For example, picture the scene, we are having a stressful phone conversation, our mobile phone picks this up and responds. It communicates to our clothes to increase the air circulation around our body, requests the wallpaper to display a brighter tone and instructs the photo frame to display a happy or uplifting image. While all of these may sound far fetched, each development is already being worked on in the labs and ambient intelligence is seen as the glue to help link these developments together and shape the environment to the needs of the individual.

49. Self Replicating Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Real world applications of AI surround us – from satellite navigation to aircraft autopilots and washing machine control systems. The next generation of AI programs to emerge from the labs will demonstrate ever greater capacity to learn, adapt to their surroundings and even replicate themselves.

50. The Singularity – The basic concept was popularised by futurist Ray Kurzweil. He argues that we can expect the continued application of Moore’s law – the doubling of computer power every 12-18 months – for many decades. Moore’s law coupled to advances in AI will lead to a point around 30-40 years from now when devices will have so much computing power that machine intelligence will exceed human intelligence. A film on this concept is scheduled for release at the end of 2009 and will lead to widespread debate on the issue.

[i] http://www.globalenvision.org/library/2/1179

Here’s the link to the original Article : http://fastfuture.com/?p=102

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I had to post this on my blog after reading this, it’s so true.. I actually see this happening to me now.. Getting caught up in all the noise.

Facebook, Twitter, Employees, Online Friends, Skype. Do you and align yourself with what you want, don’t let the noise get in the way!

***THIS IS A EMAIL FROM BY BUDDY JOHN REESE****

If you’ve been on my newsletter list for the
past year (or more) then you know I’ve got through
quite a personal transformation…

In early 2009, I had moved from Florida
to California. I spent about 12 months there
and then decided I wanted to go somewhere
else. And I decided to do it in a bit of a ‘dramatic’
fashion…

I decided to get rid of everything I owned
(things) and just travel the world out of a small
backpack with just my laptop and a few days worth
of clothes. I called it my MINIMALIST ADVENTURE.

I travelled to 3 different continents over the
next several months, and technically I’m still
on that trip — although, I got a bit burned out on
living out of a small bag (and not having a home base)
and so I decided it was better to set up a
‘home’ and then travel to and from there, and of
course acquire some more clothes and normal
stuff to be able to enjoy myself a bit more. But
I’m still going to keep things to a minimum and
not acquire tons of things like I had in the past.

I’m back on the east coast and happy
to be closer to my family. But here’s my ‘point’
to this message today and what I’ve learned
from my little ‘experiment’…

During the past several years, as I’ve talked
about many times before, I failed to release many
new marketing products. Even ones I mentioned
were in the works ended up fizzling out when I
either changed my mind or got distracted with
other things; such as working on unrelated
business ideas.

I started out with a ‘bang’ back in 2004 when I
released “Traffic Secrets” (that most people
know me for) and then after that (I am willing
to admit) my popularity pretty much went downhill
from there because I did a poor job of releasing
a lot of new stuff — I’ve made it known how much
I hate product creation, and that had a lot to do
with it.

I ended up working on a lot on non-marketing stuff
during those years; I built a large content network
of sites (driven by articles and syndicated content)
and worked on some software projects.

But during the past 4-5 years or so something else
happened that affected everything I was working
on…

I GOT SEVERELY BURNED OUT.

I used to be a “marketing junkie” and maybe
you are too. I used to read everything about
marketing (online and offline) I could get my hands
on. I read Advertising magazines, Direct Marketing
periodicals, bought all the new marketing books,
you name it. I lived and breathed marketing.

And what used to be a “fun” topic for me turned
into something that I had lost my passion for.
I felt like my creativity and the ‘fire’ that fueled
me as a serial entrepreneur since I was about
10 (when I ran a BBS and other little businesses)
was fading.

But then one day I really started to realize ‘what’
the problem was…

TOO MUCH NOISE.

And this is the same premise as to why I decided
to do my little Minimalist Adventure…

I was spending 10-15+ hours per day online. Reading,
researching, and communicating with people. I was
getting over 3,000 emails PER WEEK, and was involved
in all sorts of ‘networking’ stuff with social networks, etc.

I quickly reached over 5,000 ‘friends’ on Facebook… over
25,000 ‘followers’ on Twitter. I was getting hundreds of
“direct messages” on Twitter and Facebook in addition
to all the emails that hit my inbox every week.

The Internet truly is like drinking from a fire hose. And
I think it’s just becoming a bigger fire hose everyday!

To say I had personally reached ‘Information Overload’
is an understatement. I had very little time to actually
THINK and to be creative. Basically, I was becoming
a data zombie — like most people are today.

So I Decided To Make Some MAJOR Changes…

If you’ve been on my newsletter list for the past year
then you noticed many of them…

1. I deleted my Twitter account.

I came to the realization that using Twitter just
wasn’t that profitable for ANY of the projects I
was working on. It was becoming more of a
‘chat’ service than anything and had me
wasting a lot of my time.

2. I deleted my Facebook account.

Facebook had me logging in many times a day.
(Like most people are doing right now.) It was like
“Extended Email.” Just another place people
were bombarding me with messages. And to
be honest, I was spending a lot of my time filtering
through information about tons of people that
I didn’t care about. I don’t mean to say I didn’t
care about the people, I mean I didn’t care to
see every ‘update’ that they were taking their
kids to soccer practice, or how their dog just
puked on their rug, or that they were excited
that their husband was finally taking them out
on a “date night” etc. I’m sure you know what
I mean. Facebook is really the “TOO MUCH INFO”
system of all systems. It exposes you, at least
in my opinion, to too much info about people’s
lives.

3. Several months ago, I left all the ‘mastermind’
and ‘brainstorming’ groups I was a member of.

I used to have regularly scheduled phone or
Skype chat sessions, usually multiple times
a month. I had a little ‘brainstorming’ setup
with a friend of mine that was in the software
business (not marketing related) and we’d do
a call together every other week to talk about
our latest projects, what our bottlenecks were,
and to encourage each other to keep staying
productive (or helping solve problems). But
I realized this was taking up a lot of my time
and after a few sessions, there wasn’t a lot
to keep talking about. So I decided to stop
doing them, and my friend understood and
actually was feeling the same way.

I was also a member of a mastermind group
that mainly communicated via email — like
an email discussion list where one person
could post something and everyone would
get it, then someone would reply and everyone
would get the reply, etc. etc. This was a
very influential group with some of the top
marketing ‘gurus’ but it also included some
other major infoproduct publishers – from
fitness, real estate, stock trading, relationship
advice, etc. The members in the same
industries would try and support each other
with cross-promotions and JVs, and the
entire group would share test results and
talk about their business goals, challenges,
etc. It was tough making the decision to
leave this group, but it was just another
thing adding to my inbox load as well as
just being another ‘pipe’ of information that
added to my overwhelm. So I resigned
from the group and everyone understood
as I was moving on to other things in my
life and was trying to ‘downsize’ everything
I had going on.

4. I changed my email address.

I just couldn’t take the amount of email I
was getting. It was just too much. It
gave me so much stress it wasn’t even
funny. Maybe you are dealing with the
same thing? So basically I declared
“email bankruptcy” and just changed
my email address. And I only gave my
new email address to my family, close
friends, my employees & outsourced
workers, and other ‘mission critical’ people.
I still get ‘some’ emails from people
that I had to contact for something (and
they saw my new email address) etc.
but overall I have greatly reduced my
email load.

Today I get less than *20* total emails
per day.

And considering that 50% are probably
from my Mom (Mom, I do like
your emails!) I don’t get a lot of email
from that many different people. And
I’m glad.

AFTER ALL OF THESE CHANGES, I COULDN’T
BE HAPPIER.

I’m now 100 times more creative than I have
been in the past 5 years. I have less stress
and most importantly I spend a lot
less time on the computer. I never realized
how much I was using the computer everyday.
It’s actually a pretty amazing thing to only
be online a short amount of time each day.
Go figure.

And as many of my long-time customers and
subscribers know, for over 2 years I’ve been
“in motion” of following a lifelong dream… to
be in the Video Game/Entertainment business.
I’ve talked for years about making games and
working on other ‘fun’ projects. It’s a much
different business than an Internet publishing
business, but I really enjoy it — even, though,
the new company has been slow with generating
revenue (we’re getting there, though.) That
industry has really changed in the past few
years. You still need some capital to build
a business there, but you no longer need
$20MM to create a ‘console’ game for the
Xbox, Playstation, etc. Small indie developers
are finding success with iPhone games and
Facebook too. I’d love to create the next
“Angry Birds” or “Doodle Jump” but we’ll
see. For those that don’t know, the
99 cent game “Angry Birds” on the iPhone/iPod
Touch has now generated over
$10,000,000 in sales! I think that includes
their $4.99 version for the iPad too. But it’s
amazing especially when the
game has barely been out for one year.
And they’re already talking about leveraging
the game into possibly a cartoon and other
merchandising opportunities. And that’s just
ONE game idea. I have tons of them.

I now have a little ‘Game Studio’ in the
Philippines, and setting that up and my
experiences with it is what really motived
me to do my “Outsource Force” class earlier
this year. I really think it’s a HUGE component
to building a scalable business — leveraging
labor costs and having others grow your
business for you. We’re also now in a position
to do contract work where we build games
(and other apps) for other companies — another
great opportunity. The demand for iPhone apps
and other mobile application development is
HUGE now. (And growing.) In fact, it’s one
of the fastest growing industries in the world.
So I’m looking forward to our future. This is
a really exciting time in history — the ‘shift’
from desktop computing to mobile computing.

The outsourcing advantages are common sense really.
Steve Jobs isn’t assembling iPads in a factory
somewhere. In fact, Apple itself doesn’t
really build many of their own products.
Almost all of their products are manufactured in China
now. It just makes the most financial sense. We
live in a Global Economy now and as a business
owner you need to tap into all the resources at
your disposal to have the best chance of survival.

So I’m spending most of my time on this little
game/apps company now. As I mentioned a few
weeks ago, I’m now spending only about 10%
of my time on this marketing business,
and I’ll probably shut it down within 6 months –
all my employees are in the process of moving
over to the new company and I just have less
and less time to spend teaching. While I do
love teaching (and of course all my great customers)
I ultimately love being an entrepreneur myself.
And I’ve made it no secret that I never
wanted to be a ‘guru’ anyway. Just not really
my cup of tea.

* I’m still working on the TS2.5 update that
all TS owners will get for free. You’ll get an
email when it’s done with download instructions.
(Thanks for your patience.) Aside from that
I won’t be producing any new marketing products.

I recently signed a ‘brokerage’ agreement with
Sedo, one of the top domain name companies
in the world, and they’re in the process of selling
my income.com domain. They’ve listed it at
$1MM but think they can sell it for more. We’ll see.
I want to use the additional capital to build the
game/apps company.

THE BIG ‘TAKEAWAY’ FOR TODAY…

I know my ‘moves’ aren’t the best for everyone,
but I do challenge you to think about minimizing
your communication with your online ‘friends’ that
you connect with on Facebook, Twitter, and via
email. They very well may be taking away from
your life and your business rather than adding to
it. We really do only have just so many hours
available to us in a day, and it’s really hard to
reach your goals if you spend a large percentage
of your time “communicating” and “researching”
and not “doing.”

Yours For Online Profits,

John Reese

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