Category Archives: Business Tips

You Get What You Think About

I am sharing with you the things I learned from Abraham Hick and a lot more of his different thinking. If you are thinking about what you DO NOT HAVE, you are getting that.

Let us focus more on positive thoughts and what WE WANT.

Anything that’s negative, I catch the thought for a moment and reverse it to positivity.

In business, if you think about the negative stuff, you’re going to NOT get the results you want to achieve.

Personally, I was sitting on a flight back home from Cancun and had this epiphany of making it a habit – focusing on the things that are positive and aligned with what I want.

Anytime I catch myself with thoughts that I don’t need or want to have, I ask myself, “What’s the opposite of that?” Then I flip things around.

TIP: If you hold a thought for 15-20 seconds, it may turn into something positive or change for the better.

Do not spend time with things that are out of your control and do not intend to have or want.

Abraham Hicks: You don’t have to talk about these negative things at all.

Get u and do something positive, listen to a song that pumps you up, do things that inspire you.

If you can’t take the scenario right now and turn it into a positive thing, think back to the situation where you were happy or successful and re-think the steps on how you came into it.

Consider failures as positive learning experiences.

A lof of successful people have failed or “experimented”

How to Live Stream Video Yourself

After presenting a speech about live streaming for a Toastmasters speech this week I got quite a few questions. That was to be expected in giving a five minute speech on a topic like Live Streaming.  So here are the answers

How to Live Stream Broadcast Video Yourself

What you need to live stream video

  1. Smart Phone
  2. Install App
    1. Facebook, YouTube, Meerkat, Periscope
    2. Account with above app (you create after installing)
  3. Good wifi or cell phone connection (app will alert you)

Take it to the next level with the following

  1. Good lighting
  2. Lavalier microphone wired or wireless.
  3. Tripod or camera mount  (or camera crew – Thanks Steve)

TIPS When it is time to broadcast put your phone in do not disturb mode (so phone calls don’t stop your streaming) and make sure it is fully charged or plugged in.

(If you are super cool you broadcast live on all of these at one time aka Tai Lopez see the tripod with multiple phones?)

Tai Lopez Camera Mount for Live Streaming
Tai Lopez Camera Mount for Live Streaming
Tai Lopez tripod with multiple camera mounts for live streaming
Tai Lopez tripod with multiple camera mounts for live streaming

So one of the questions is which platform should you be live streaming on? As of May 2016 Facebook has opened up live streaming to everyone. And YouTube also has live streaming available as well. They are the two gorillas in the room so I’d suggest live streaming on one of those platforms if you are just starting.

Another easy way to choose is where do you have a larger following?

Why would you want to live stream something?

Facebook will show your video live at the top of your friends/followers “news feed”. This means they are promoting you and whatever you are offering right now for free (FREE Marketing).  Many companies now have to pay to reach their followers (people who have liked or followed their page) And your video lives on after you are done recording so people will continue to watch it.  It is like a DVR is built into the Facebook ap.
Another reason to live stream is the instant feedback while you are broadcasting. You can ask your audience if they have questions concerning you topic. (Might help you come up with articles to write, and videos or products to make)  You can ask them where they are from etc.
You are also creating content and letting your audience connect with you.  Supposedly people want to look at me and you 😉

A really good reason marketing reason to live stream

With Facebook they keep a list of who has viewed your video so you could advertise something to them later.  Then they take this to the next level and will create a (look alike) audience which is much larger who you can advertise to.

**I highly suggest you advertise to visitors of your website as well as your Facebook/YouTube pages since they were interested in your content.  And Facebook and Google can create lookalike audiences from the visitors to your site**  (Ask me if you advertise but are missing out on these opportunities)

Did you know more videos on mobile devices are watched on Facebook than YouTube as of 2016? Facebook wants to promote video thus they highlight that you are live and that you have recently recorded a live stream video. The other apps are Periscope, Meerkat and maybe Blab.

Pro Tip: If you have been building a YouTube video channel also load your videos up to Facebook directly (remember they are competing with YouTube for views) and they are more likely to show your post to your friends/followers if the video is on Facebook rather than YouTube.

A quick recap of who should be live streaming video anyone who sells their services or has something to show or teach someone:

  • Speaker
  • Teacher
  • Horse Boarder
  • Cat Owner
  • Homesteader
  • Interesting Person
  • Concerned Person
  • (yes I’m trying to include everyone of you)

You can create a following in a niche market
( There are over 1 BILLION active Facebook users and YouTube viewers).  If you are interested in it so are others.
I typed in “under water basket weaving” and Facebook said  1000 people were talking about it.

How do you look and sound good? Microphones and Lights

Many people like Chalene Johnson sit in a chair while live streaming.  She recommends a halo light and a lavalier microphone.  She has a great podcast with lots of tips and thoughts for live streaming.  She takes the audio from her live broadcasts and uploads it for her podcast.

Here are two lavalier microphone choices on Amazon.

You could also use these with your smart phone to record solo podcasts. I’ve used my standard iPhone headset in the past for recording. If you can keep it from rubbing on your clothes it is adequate.  If you are going pro I can list about $1,000 or equipment for the best audio.

As for lighting I bought a light from home depot that is like the more expensive Halo lights on amazon. There are kits for studio lights on amazon for $50 or $52 umbrella light set and the more expensive halo light with remote $280. These lights eliminate shadows.

Tips for the content of your live stream/broadcast

As for tips think for the content of your live broadcast.  You can treat it like a short speech with a call to action to get engagement.
Tell them who you are, tell them what you are going to tell them and summarize.  Keep them short to start with and ask and answer some questions to get some feedback. And then monitor the views and comments on the video as time goes on. For example in the past day Facebook says 270 views and 6 comments.

When you end your broadcast you have the option to save the video to your smart phone.  Then you can upload it to the YouTube, Facebook, your website, Vimeo …

And a last tip for those of you who read down to here (even for those of you who skipped down here).  Ask viewers to share your video!

The Boron Letters a must ready for advertisers and copywriters

I learned about these direct mail copy writing letters on Rick Mulready’s podcast “The Art of Paid Traffic” and began reading them. They are good and have helped me come up with many an idea to implement for videos as well as advertising. They are a quick read but I’m only reading a few a day and often rereading them to fully absorb them.
I heard about these when reading these books which are also good:

I’ve skipped the first three which focus on being healthy more than tips for good copywriting.
These books are suggested reading in the Boron Letters:

Why hire a Virtual Assistant? How do I work with one?

Why hire a virtual assistant? 

Virtual Assistants have been in the business for over 5 years but their employment has reached a peak over the last 2-3 years. Working with a virtual assistant can be very flexible, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to work on the same time. Most VAs have background in podcast posting, you can show them an instructional video on how you want your podcast uploaded and they can do it for you right away.

You are saving a lot of your time, energy and money when you are working with a VA. Moreover, you can do the things you love (your passion, your hobbies) when more work are delegated to your trusted VA.

How to share email duties, files, podc

How to work with virtual assistants

  • Podcasts, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram?
  • The most common way in communicating tasks with the VAs is e-mailing – daily or regular emailing in of tasks for the VA to accomplish (with a time frame) is utilized by most VA-client teams.
  • For files, Dropbox is the most common file-sharing tool used. You create an account and share a folder (give access to the VA) where you both can upload files.
  • YouTube/Facebook/Instagram – most clients who use VAs would provide full access to their social media sites for management. (Facebook) clients usually have already created their own business pages before hiring a VA then access is given (Admin level) to the VA for social media management. (Instagram) Give the VAs your log in information so they can manage the page – Instagram is a mobile app so it requires one username and password for one account.

How to share applications – Remote desktop, Dropbox, FTP (Security?) Back-up?

  • This depends on what the clients would normally require but Dropbox is the most common.

How to manage to-do lists, tasks

  • There are lots of ways to manage tasks – the most common is through e-mails and updates on tasks, ASANA is also one of the best tools on the web for this. It is a project management web-based app for the client and the VA to monitor the tasks.

What tasks can a freelancer virtual assistant help with? (bullet list)

  • Social media management (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn etc)
  • Email management
  • Blog posting (WordPress, ActiveRain etc)
  • Phone support
  • Bookkeeping
  • Transcription
  • Online purchases
  • Admin work
  • Some VAs are capable of basic SEO 

Is there a need for a site to look at VA profiles? How do you get and review VAs?

  • There are sites which you can find a list of VAs and their resumes (skill sets and experience) – examples would befreelancer.com, oDesk, VSF, Scriptlance, TaskRabbit or even Craigslist. But utilize these sites depending on your own requirements for a VA.

Yo  You can leave reviews about the VAs you hired on any of these sites when you   already reached a point where you worked long enough to assess them in terms of efficiency and competence.

Newsletters – autoresponders (how to for these)

  • Mailchimp is one of the best tools out there for weekly or monthly newsletters, you can use this for free if you don’t require extensive mass mailing.

How to track work for VAs?

The easiest, most common method is e-mailing. The VAs will email you on the tasks that have been done as well as the outstanding ones.

You and you VA can agree on a management app to track your progress in terms of tasks completed and those which are pending. ASANA is an awesome web-based app which you can use to track the progress. There’s no need for you to email each other back and forth as notes can be left on a certain project or task.

EVERNOTE also works the same way.

Book Review of Gary Vaynerchuck’s Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook


This is a Book Review of Gary Vaynerchuck’s Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook

If you want to or need to learn more about social media and how it applies to marketing and business this is a must read. I know a little about advertising and marketing online but this book took my knowledge to a new level. He gives you his insights as to how to use social media and how each plat form is different. The book includes actual examples of ads on the different platforms as well as how to use each platform. And he points out how we should all keep up with the latest and greatest.

With over 80 detailed case studies from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest – this book is a learning material for those who are marketing their businesses online, with social media being the best tool at this point in time.

Below are some of the best lines from the book.

Jab—the one conversation, one engagement at a time that slowly but authentically builds relationships between brands and customers—the  78
but because it embraced authenticity and “realness.” And maybe I needed to make sure that my clients and others who turned to me for advice were doing the same.  106
I’d spent the majority of my time and effort over the years emphasizing the importance of the long view, and teaching people how to communicate in such a way that would develop authentic and active customer relationships.  108
No matter who you are or what kind of company or organization you work for, your number-one job is to tell your story to the consumer wherever they are, and preferably at the moment they are deciding to make a purchase.  131
Consider this book a training camp to prepare you to storytell on today’s most important social media sites.  140
But the secret sauce remains the same: The incredible brand awareness and bottom-line profits achievable through social media marketing require hustle, heart, sincerity, constant engagement, long-term commitment, and most of all, artful and strategic storytelling. Don’t ever forget it, no matter what you learn here.*  150
Where’s your phone? In your back pocket? On the table in front of you? In your hands because you’re using it to read this book? It’s probably somewhere within easy reach, unless you’re one of those people who are constantly misplacing their phones and my question has you rummaging through the laundry basket again or checking under your car seat.  155
HOW SOCIAL BLENDED INTO DIGITAL  183
In fact, adding a social layer to any platform immediately increases its effectiveness.  191
every social media platform has its own language. Yet most of you haven’t bothered to learn it. Most big companies haven’t put in the financial resources, and most small businesses and celebrities aren’t putting in the time.  226   • Delete this highlight
HOW STORYTELLING IS LIKE BOXING  235
Jabs are the lightweight pieces of content that benefit your customers by making them laugh, snicker, ponder, play a game, feel appreciated, or escape; right hooks are calls to action that benefit your businesses.  246

Three Steps a Day Challenge

I have been out attending conferences and just launched my new niche podcast site for Autocross so I wasn’t able to post much over the last week or so – but it’s a good thing that I got busy because I learned a lot from attending conferences and reading awesome books!

I just started reading Will It Fly by Pat Flynn and when I was in a conference, he was one of the guest speakers.

The book runs you through the things that you should do to help you organized get it done.

Chalene Johnson – she records podcasts via periscope and sends it to her team.

Three Tips – here are all the successful people do, these are what you need to do.

  1. Daily Brain Dump
  • get it out, Tai Lopez said the best time is at night so you feel refreshed the next day
  • I feel more relaxed when you do it before bedtime

2. Write down 2 or 3 ten-minute steps for the things I care for

  • How can you get it done?
  • If you take 20 minutes doing things – small steps toward your goal (my own 30-day challenge)
  • How do you create this challenge?
  • Before I get down of the car – I write what I need to do
  • How can you tie it to a habit?
  • If you have this list of small things, tick off some of them before mid-day – you’ll feel good about yourself.
  • If you are really tired, take a rest.

3. De-clutter

  • Clean something every day.
  • Daily actions is important.

Break down your process.

Help people accomplish things – what can I help a specific type of person?

I hope you will challenge yourself and learn where it leads you.

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Snapchat: kinchreindl

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Twitter: justkinchit

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Great Gary Vaynerchuck books I recommend

These are some great books I have read over the months. This one in particular by Gray Varnerchuk called #ASKGARYVEE I’ve and it is good with him answering a great many questions. His last book #JabJabJabRightHook was also really good it made me decide to get this most recent one. And after hearing Gary Vee on The James Altucher Show podcast I think I’m going to buy Crush it as well, only $3.99 on kindle or kindle app or $12.92 paperback.

Happy readying, everyone!


Book Review of Sam Walton’s Made in America

This is a riveting story  full of inspirational and sometimes funny anecdotes about what they call the “rules of the road” of both Main Street and Wall Street, Sam Walton chronicles the inspiration, heart, and optimism that propelled him to lasso the American Dream. Click here to buy it on Amazon $5.97 paperback or $7.99 kindle

If I had to single out one element in my life that has made a difference for me, it would be a passion to compete.

It’s a story about believing in your idea even when maybe some other folks don’t, and about sticking to your guns. But I think more than anything it proves there’s absolutely no limit to what plain, ordinary working people can accomplish if they’re given the opportunity and the encouragement and the incentive to do their best.
I learned from a very early age that it was important for us kids to help provide for the home, to be contributors rather than just takers. In the process, of course, we learned how much hard work it took to get your hands on a dollar, and that when you did it was worth something. One thing my mother and dad shared completely was their approach to money: they just didn’t spend it.

Then I got to know Helen’s family, and listening to her father, L. S. Robson, was an education in itself. He influenced me a great deal. He was a great salesman, one of the most persuasive individuals I have ever met. And I am sure his success as a trader and a businessman, his knowledge of finance and the law, and his philosophy had a big effect on me. My competitive nature was such that I saw his success and admired it. I didn’t envy it. I admired it. I said to myself: maybe I will be as successful as he is someday.

Note: Another mentor for him

The principle behind this is simple: the best way to reduce paying estate taxes is to give your assets away before they appreciate. Note: Reminds me that Mark Shepard had his kids own part of his farm before it was anything other than a field.

It wasn’t lavish or exorbitant, and that was part of the plan—to keep the family together as well as maintain a sense of balance in our standards. HELEN WALTON: “It was great moneywise, but there was another aspect to it: the relationship that was established among the children and with the family. It developed their sense of responsibility toward one another. You just can’t beat that. Read more at location 197

Here’s the thing: money never has meant that much to me, not even in the sense of keeping score. If we had enough groceries, and a nice place to live, plenty of room to keep and feed my bird dogs, a place to hunt, a place to play tennis, and the means to get the lads good educations—that’s rich. Read more at location 212

We all love to fly, and we have nice airplanes, but I’ve owned about eighteen airplanes over the years, and I never bought one of them new. Read more at location 215

Note: So far I can say I’ve never bought a new car, yet I’ve bought more cars than I needed so still not so wise.

But sometimes I’m asked why today, when Wal-Mart has been so successful, when we’re a $50 billion-plus company, should we stay so cheap? That’s simple: because we believe in the value of the dollar. We exist to provide value to our customers, which means that in addition to quality and service, we have to save them money.

Mother must have been a pretty special motivator, because I took her seriously when she told me I should always try to be the best I could at whatever I took on. So, I have always pursued everything I was interested in with a true passion—some would say obsession—to win. I’ve always held the bar pretty high for myself: I’ve set extremely high personal goals.

Looking back on such boyhood episodes helps me to realize now that I’ve always had a strong bias toward action—a trait that has been a big part of the Wal-Mart story.

I worry that it seems like I’m bragging or trying to make myself out to be some big hero. It particularly bothers me because I learned a long time ago that exercising your ego in public is definitely not the way to build an effective organization. One person seeking glory doesn’t accomplish much; at Wal-Mart, everything we’ve done has been the result of people pulling together to meet one common goal—teamwork—something I also picked up at an early age.

Note: Reminds me of Ken Lay of Enron fame how he exercised his ego and put himself first. This I learned from the book “Give and Take” talking about givers and takers and Ken was a taker.

I guess I was just totally competitive as an athlete, and my main talent was probably the same as my best talent as a retailer—I was a good motivator.

It taught me to expect to win, to go into tough challenges always planning to come out victorious.

It never occurred to me that I might lose; to me, it was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I learned early on that one of the secrets to campus leadership was the simplest thing of all: speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you.

“Sam is one of those rare people who knows every janitor by name, passes plates in church, loves to join organizations.

EZRA ENTREKIN, FORMER CIRCULATION MANAGER OF THE COLUMBIA MISSOURIAN: “We hired Sam to deliver newspapers, and he really became our chief salesman. When school started, we had a drive to get the kids in the fraternities and sororities to subscribe. And Sam was the boy we had do that because he could sell more than anybody else. He was good. He was really good. And dedicated. And he did a lot of other things besides deliver newspapers. In fact, he was a little bit scatterbrained at times. He’d have so many things going, he’d almost forget one. But, boy, when he focused on something that was it. Read more at location 336

He had been a barber in Odessa, Missouri, before he and his brothers started a variety store chain which had grown to around sixty stores by that time. I would talk with him about merchandising, how to do it, and how well it was working out for him. He took an interest in me, and later even offered me a job. Read more at location 346

Note: Kind of a mentor

I had a high school girlfriend whose father was a very successful salesman for General American Life Insurance Company, and I had talked to him about his business. Read more at location 349

Note: Another mentor or real life teacher

The deal was pretty straightforward—report to the JC Penney store in Des Moines, Iowa, three days after graduation, June 3, 1940, and begin work as a management trainee. Salary: $75 a month. That’s the day I went into retail, and—except for a little time out as an Army officer—that’s where I’ve stayed for the last fifty-two years. Maybe I was born to be a merchant, maybe it was fate. I don’t know about that kind of stuff. But I know this for sure: I loved retail from the very beginning, and I still love it today. Not that it went all that smooth right off the bat. Like I said, I could sell. And I loved that part. Unfortunately, I never learned handwriting all that well. Read more at location 357

Then, of course, the icing on the cake was when James Cash Penney himself visited the store one day. He didn’t get around to his stores as often as I would later on, but he did get around. I still remember him showing me how to tie and package merchandise, how to wrap it with very little twine and very little paper but still make it look nice. Read more at location 376

I worked for Penney’s about eighteen months, and they really were the Cadillac of the industry as far as I was concerned. But even back then I was checking out the competition. The intersection where I worked in Des Moines had three stores, so at lunch I would always go wander around the Sears and the Yonkers stores to see what they were up to. Read more at location 378

1945, I not only knew I wanted to go into retailing, I also knew I wanted to go into business for myself. My only experience was the Penney job, but I had a lot of confidence that I could be successful on my own. Our last Army posting was in Salt Lake City, and I went to the library there and checked out every book on retailing. I also spent a lot of my off-duty time studying ZCMI, the Mormon Church’s department store out there, just figuring that when I got back to civilian life I would somehow go into the department store business. The only question left was where we were going to set up housekeeping. Read more at location 404

Note: He loved it enough to read all the books about it

My naïveté about contracts and such would later come back to haunt me in a big way. Read more at location 434

But at the time I was sure Newport and the Ben Franklin had great potential, and I’ve always believed in goals, so I set myself one: I wanted my little Newport store to be the best, most profitable variety store in Arkansas within five years. I felt I had the talent to do it, that it could be done, and why not go for it? Set that as a goal and see if you can’t achieve it. If it doesn’t work, you’ve had fun trying. Read more at location 435

For all my confidence, I hadn’t had a day’s experience in running a variety store, so Butler Brothers sent me for two weeks’ training to the Ben Franklin in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

It was a real blessing for me to be so green and ignorant, because it was from that experience that I learned a lesson which has stuck with me all through the years: you can learn from everybody. I didn’t just learn from reading every retail publication I could get my hands on, I probably learned the most from studying what John Dunham was doing across the street.

Note: Today we can check out our competitions website

HELEN WALTON: “It turned out there was a lot to learn about running a store. And, of course, what really drove Sam was that competition across the street—John Dunham over at the Sterling Store. Sam was always over there checking on John. Always. Looking at his prices, looking at his displays, looking at what was going on. He was always looking for a way to do a better job. I don’t remember the details, but I remember some kind of panty price war they got into. Later on, long after we had left Newport, and John had retired, we would see him and he would laugh about Sam always being in his store. But I’m sure it aggravated him quite a bit early on. John had never had good competition before Sam.

I learned a tremendous amount from running a store in the Ben Franklin franchise program. They had an excellent operating program for their independent stores, sort of a canned course in how to run a store. It was an education in itself. They had their own accounting system, with manuals telling you what to do, when and how. They had merchandise statements, they had accounts-payable sheets, they had profit-and-loss sheets, they had little ledger books called Beat Yesterday books, in which you could compare this year’s sales with last year’s on a day-by-day basis. They had all the tools that an independent merchant needed to run a controlled operation. I had no previous experience in accounting—and I wasn’t all that great at accounting in college—so I just did it according to their book. In fact, I used their accounting system long after I’d started breaking their rules on everything else. I even used it for the first five or six Wal-Marts.

Note: What can or do people use today? Quickbooks? How can it be improved? Is it as thorough

At the very beginning, I went along and ran my store by their book because I really didn’t know any better. But it didn’t take me long to start experimenting—that’s just the way I am and always have been. Read more at location 467

Note: Learn to expire meant in your business! Every day every week every month

It was new and different—another experiment—and we really turned a profit on it. I paid off that $1,800 note in two or three years, and I felt great about it. I really didn’t want to be remembered as the guy who lost his shirt on some crazy ice cream machine.

As good as business was, I never could leave well enough alone, and, in fact, I think my constant fiddling and meddling with the status quo may have been one of my biggest contributions to the later success of Wal-Mart.

But this store was ahead of its time too, self-service all the way, unlike the competition. This was the beginning of our way of operating for a long while to come. We were innovating, experimenting, and expanding. Somehow over the years, folks have gotten the impression that Wal-Mart was something I dreamed up out of the blue as a middle-aged man, and that it was just this great idea that turned into an overnight success. It’s true that I was forty-four when we opened our first Wal-Mart in 1962, but the store was totally an outgrowth of everything we’d been doing since Newport—another case of me being unable to leave well enough alone, another experiment. And like most other overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making. Read more at location 638

Note: More experiments and a 20 year overnight success

Of course I needed somebody to run my new store, and I didn’t have much money, so I did something I would do for the rest of my run in the retail business without any shame or embarrassment whatsoever: nose around other people’s stores searching for good talent. That’s when I made my first real hire, the first manager, Willard Walker.

But he said I would get a percentage of the profits, and that appealed to me. When I went to quit TG&Y, the vice president said, ‘Remember, Willard, a percentage of nothing is still nothing.’ But I went ahead and took the job. Sam was down there every day from the time we started until the time we left. He rolled up his sleeves and worked every day until we built that store from scratch.

shelf brackets to hold the merchandise. Then I went somewhere to look at what Sterling Stores was doing—most everything I’ve done I’ve copied from somebody else.

I started raising money for the pavement, but it got real complicated, and in the end I decided I had better take my whipping, so I backed out of the whole deal and went back to concentrating on the retail business. I probably lost $25,000, and that was at a time when Helen and I were counting every dollar. It was probably the biggest mistake of my business career. I did learn a heck of a lot about the real estate business from the experience, and maybe it paid off somewhere down the line—though I would rather have learned it some cheaper way.

DAVID GLASS: “Two things about Sam Walton distinguish him from almost everyone else I know. First, he gets up every day bound and determined to improve something. Second, he is less afraid of being wrong than anyone I’ve ever known. And once he sees he’s wrong, he just shakes it off and heads in another direction.

Whatever money we made in one store, we’d put it in another new one, and just keep on going. Read more at location 740

Note: Re-investing the money into their own stores not the stock market or somebody else’s idea only what they controlled probably with a new best

Also, from Willard Walker on, we would offer to bring the managers we hired in as limited partners. If you had, say, a $50,000 investment in a store, and the manager put in $1,000, he’d own 2 percent.

Note: Letting managers buy into the store is a way to keep them involved and caring about the profits

By now, you know me. I began looking around hard for whatever new idea would break us over into something with a little better payoff for all our efforts. Read more at location 752

Note: To expand kept looking for opportunities by looking at what others were doing

And he took everything I said down on this yellow legal pad.

Note: Sam took lots of notes not just trusting his memory

CHARLIE CATE: “Sam had us send our sales report in every week, and along with it we had to send in a Best Selling Item. I mean we had to. What he was doing was teaching us to look for what’s selling all the time. You had to look because you had to send in this report every week, and if you reported that nothing was selling well, Mr. Walton would not be happy. He would think you weren’t studying your merchandise, and in that case he’d come study it for you. He’s been that way ever since I first met him in 1954.

Note: He wanted people to be aware of what was selling best which meant they had the truck when I was selling and take notice and then figure out why it would be the key
A SUCCESSFUL COMPANY: TEN RULES THAT WORKED FOR ME

One I don’t even have on my list is “work hard.” If you don’t know that already, or you’re not willing to do it, you probably won’t be going far enough to need my list anyway. And another I didn’t include on the list is the idea of building a team. If you want to build an enterprise of any size at all, it almost goes without saying that you absolutely must create a team of people who work together and give real meaning to that overused word “teamwork.” To me, that’s more the goal of the whole thing, rather than some way to get there.

these rules are not in any way intended to be the Ten Commandments of Business. They are some rules that worked for me. But I always prided myself on breaking everybody else’s rules, and I always favored the mavericks who challenged my rules.

So pay special attention to Rule 10, and if you interpret it in the right spirit—as it applies to you—it could mean simply: Break All the Rules.

RULE 1: COMMIT to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work.

RULE 2: SHARE your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners.

Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Offer discounted stock, and grant them stock for their retirement. It’s the single best thing we ever did.

RULE 3: MOTIVATE your partners. Money and ownership alone aren’t enough. Constantly, day by day, think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs.

RULE 4: COMMUNICATE everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them.

RULE 5: APPRECIATE everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we’re really proud of.

RULE 6: CELEBRATE your successes. Find some humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, and everybody around you will loosen up. Have fun. Show enthusiasm—always.

RULE 7: LISTEN to everyone in your company. And figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines—the ones who actually talk to the customer—are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there.

RULE 8: EXCEED your customers’ expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want—and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them.

The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: “Satisfaction Guaranteed.” They’re still up there, and they have made all the difference.

RULE 9: CONTROL your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For twenty-five years running—long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation’s largest retailer—we ranked number one in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales.

RULE 10: SWIM upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.

Here’s how I look at it: my life has been a tradeoff. If I wanted to reach the goals I set for myself, I had to get at it and stay at it every day. I had to think about it all the time. And I guess what David Glass said about me is true: I had to get up every day with my mind set on improving something.

Having now thought about this a lot, I can honestly say that if I had the choices to make all over again, I would make just about the same ones. Preachers are put here to minister to our souls; doctors to heal our diseases; teachers to open up our minds; and so on. Everybody has their role to play. The thing is, I am absolutely convinced that the only way we can improve one another’s quality of life, which is something very real to those of us who grew up in the Depression, is through what we call free enterprise—practiced correctly and morally.

A lot of people think it’s crazy of me to fly coach whenever I go on a commercial flight, and maybe I do overdo it a little bit. But I feel like it’s up to me as a leader to set an example. It’s not fair for me to ride one way and ask everybody else to ride another way. The minute you do that, you start building resentment and your whole team idea begins to strain at the seams.

As I’ve said, our country desperately needs a revolution in education, and I hope Wal-Mart can contribute at some level, if for no other reason than selfish ones.

You may have trouble believing it, but every time we’ve tested the old saying, it has paid off for us in spades: the more you give, the more you get.

Finally, a lot of folks ask me two related questions all the time. The first one is could a Wal-Mart-type story still occur in this day and age? My answer is of course it could happen again. Somewhere out there right now there’s someone—probably hundreds of thousands of someones—with good enough ideas to go all the way. It will be done again, over and over, providing that someone wants it badly enough to do what it takes to get there. It’s all a matter of attitude and the capacity to constantly study and question the management of the business.

The second question is if I were a young man or woman starting out today with the same sorts of talents and energies and aspirations that I had fifty years ago, what would I do? The answer to that is a little harder to figure out. I don’t know exactly what I would do today, but I feel pretty sure I would be selling something, and I expect it would be at the retail level, where I could relate directly to customers off the street. I think I’d study the retail field today and go into the business that offered the most promise for the least amount of money.

Book Review of The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea

I just had the amazing time of reading this powerful book The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg, John David Mann. 

It is a captivating book that shines new light to the old adage “Give and you shall receive.” I highly recommend this book for those who are just starting their business, planning on starting one or even those who’ve been in the game for a long time.

The Go-Giver is the story of a young man named Joe, very ambitious and determined to reach the greats, who has always been on the lookout for success. Joe is a quintessential go-getter, though he felt like the more he reaches his arms out to achieve something and the harder he plays, the farther he seemed was in getting the results he wanted . Below are some of the key points I absolutely loved in this book. Enjoy!

Five Laws of Stratospheric Success.

  1. THE Law of Value:   Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.  – The First Law determines how valuable you are.
  2. The Law of Compensation : Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.  – the Second Law that determines how much you actually do earn.
  3. The Law of Influence: You influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.
  4. The Law of Authenticity: The most valuable gift you have to offer I yourself.
  5. The Law of Receptivity: The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.

“Typically, the more successful they are, the more willing they are to share their secrets with others.”

Lesson: find successful mentors via books, blogs, YouTube or in real life when you can.

“But to get really, really big, to reach the kind of stratospheric success we’re talking about, people need to have something on the inside, something that’s genuine.’”

Lesson: let your genuine show, share your inspiration and interests     

The secret of “Giving” – give more value than people pay for.  In business you must give before you receive.  Must make and save money before you profit from money.

“So you’re saying, successful people keep their focus on what they’re…giving, sharing”

“Most of us have grown up seeing the world as a place of limitation rather than as a place of inexhaustible treasures. A world of competition rather than one of co-creation.”

“Here’s what you do get—you get what you expect.”

So make sure you have positive expectations for yourself, for others as well as for outcomes.

“Or put it another way: What you focus on is what you get. “

Go looking for the best in people, and you’ll be amazed at how much talent, ingenuity, empathy and good will you’ll find.

Lesson: once again change your outlook to change the outcome.  Look for the positives and the opportunities you want and you are much more likely to find them.  Change any negative outlooks into positive ones.

“The world treats you more or less the way you expect to be treated.”

The Law of Compensation

“I need you to agree that you will test every Law I show you by actually trying it out. Not by thinking about it, not by talking about it, but by applying it in your life.”

Lesson: taking action in applying something you learn is the only way to change your life, your future.  And habits are only formed when you take action.  I look at sharing ideas with others as taking action.  Otherwise what good is it to have a lot of knowledge?     

“The guy radiates success,” he thought. “It’s not just money, it’s something far more powerful than money.”

“A very useful thing to remember: appearances can be deceiving.”

Underneath that jovial, bigger-than-life Italian chef persona there was a powerful sense of focus and intention.

  • “Everyone likes to be appreciated.”
  • “And that’s the Golden Rule of business,”
  • “All things being equal—”
  • “—people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust.”

“A bad restaurant, tries to give just enough food and service, both in quantity and quality, to justify the money it takes from the customer. A good restaurant strives to give the most quantity and quality for the money it takes.

“But a great restaurant— ahh, a great restaurant strives to defy imagination! Its goal is to provide a higher quality of food and service than any amount of money could possibly pay for

“Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.”

Questions

  1. “The first question should be, ‘Does it serve?
  2. Does it add value to others?’
    1. If the answer to that question is yes, then you can go ahead and ask,
    2. Does it make money?’”

 

“Exceed people’s expectations, and they’ll pay you even more.”

“But the point isn’t to have them pay you more, it’s to give them more. You give, give, give. Why?” “Because you love to. It’s not a strategy, it’s a way of life. And when you do,” he added with a big grin, “then very, very profitable things begin to happen.”

This is what many of the successful people online are doing these days, they give away lots of advice and content for free and in many cases most of their content and advice for free and this leads to opportunities.     

What would you do for free?  Give for free?

“All the great fortunes in the world have been created by men and women who had a greater passion for what they were giving—their product, service or idea—than for what they were getting”

THE LAW OF VALUE   Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.

5: The Law of Compensation     

“True worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment     “

“The First Law determines how valuable you are,”

“Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.”

“Or to put it another way, your compensation is directly proportional to how many lives you touch.” And the impact your make on those lives

Lesson: so if you are trying to make more money how can you server more people?  This is obvious to those of us in business and is usually the question we all try to answer to get more sales.

This makes me think of all the new ways to attract customers which include:

  • free content on YouTube
  • free or cheap ebooks or whitepapers which explain what you do
  • growth hacking strategies where you build growth into your product or offering

“If you want more success, find a way to serve more people. It’s that simple.”

“It also means there are no limitations on what you can earn, because you can always find more people to serve.”

If you are a personal coach you can reach more people when you record your coaching and offer it online.  You record it once and thousands or millions of people can learn from you.

 

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘Everybody can be great because anybody can serve.’

‘Everybody can be successful because anybody can give.’”

THE LAW OF COMPENSATION

Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. Some of these tasks she enjoyed more than others. However, she approached each one as though she loved it. She did this by reminding herself that, regardless of how much or how little she cared for the task itself, she relished the opportunity to survive, save and serve. 661

“Survive, save and serve?” 664

“They are the three universal reasons for working.”

  1. Survive—to meet your basic living needs.
  2. Save—to go beyond your basic needs and expand your life.
  3. And serve—to make a contribution to the world around you.”

“Changing my focus from seeing what I could git to what I could give was when my career started to take off. Started to. But in a business like mine—actually, in any business—you also need to know how to develop a network

I don’t necessarily mean your customers or clients. I mean a network of people who know you, like you and trust you

This could be a spouse, an accountability partner, a business partner, parents or friends who all want to see you succeed or as the book says they always have you in the backs of their minds.  And you feel the same about them.

 

They might never buy a thing from you, but they’ve always got you in the backs of their minds.”

“They’re people who are personally invested in seeing you succeed, you see? And of course, that’s because you’re the same way about them. They’re your army of personal walking ambassadors.

“You want to know what makes that kind of network happen?  Stop keeping score”

“Just that. Don’t keep track. That’s not networking—that’s poker. You know how people say ‘win-win’?”

“Always look for the solution where you both come out ahead.”

I often want others to succeed so there are other people to hang out with during the working week!  So a win-win could be to help others find financial freedom so they can spend more time with you.  This can be applied to a spouse as well.

“That’s right, and it sounds great—in theory. But most of the time, what people call ‘win-win’ is really just a disguised way of keeping track. Making sure we all come out even, that nobody gets the advantage. Even-Steven. I scratched your back, so now you owe me.” He shook his head sadly. “When you base your relationships—in business or anywhere else in your life—on who owes who what, that’s not being a friend. That’s being a creditor.”

“You want to know the Third Law of Stratospheric Success?”

“Watch out for the other guy. Watch out for his interests. Watch his back. Forget about fifty-fifty, son. Fifty-fifty’s a losing proposition. The only winning proposition is one hundred percent. Make your win about the other person, go after what he wants.

“Forget win-win—focus on the other person’s win “

The Third Law, the Law of Influence:   “Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.”

“Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.” 751

“Because if you place the other person’s interests first, your interests will always be taken care of. Always. Some people call it enlightened self-interest. Watch out for what other people need, with the faith that when you do, you’ll get what you need.”

What creates influence? Putting other people’s interests first.

  1. Helping
  2. Encouraging
  3. Teaching

Givers Attract “They love to give. That’s why they’re attractive. Givers attract

“Givers attract,” … “And that’s why the Law of Influence works. Because it magnetizes you.”

The next part of the book is referencing an interaction between a husband and wife where they each get 30 minutes to talk about their day with each other:

Fifty-fifty’s a losing proposition. It was Sam, of course. Even-Steven. I scratched your back, so now you owe me…that’s not being a friend, that’s being a creditor. 

The Law of Authenticity

A genuinely sound business principle will apply anywhere in life—in your friendships, in your marriage, anywhere. That’s the true bottom line. Not whether it simply improves your financial balance sheet, but whether it improves your life’s balance sheet.”

“I believe there is one reason, and only one reason, that we have stayed together so long and are as happy together today as we were forty-eight years ago—more so, in fact. That reason is this: I care more about my wife’s happiness than I do about my own. All I’ve ever wanted to do since the day I met her is make her happy. And here’s the truly remarkable thing—she seems to want the same thing for me.”

    The next part of the book is when a lady is speaking at a conference, she recounts when she came to the conference as a down and out real-estate agent. 

“… importance of adding value to what you sell. ‘Whatever it is you sell,’ he told us, 942

‘Whatever it is,’ he said, ‘you can excel by adding value. If you need money,’ he said, ‘add value. And if you need a lot of money, add a lot of value.’

‘What if you need a lot of money fast?’ … ‘Then find a way to add a lot of value fast

“I learned something that day. When I said that my life as a mom, wife and household manager left me with nothing the marketplace wanted, I was wrong. There was something else I’d learned over those years, and that was how to be a friend. How to care. How to make people feel good about themselves. And that, my friends, is something the marketplace wants very much—always has, always will.

Reminds me of the saying people will always remember how you made them feel.   

“The speaker at that symposium had said, Add value. I had nothing to add but myself. “And, apparently, that was exactly what’d been missing.” 975

I’m here because I have the awesome responsibility and honor of selling you something far more valuable than a house.  “What I’m here to sell you on is you.

“People, remember this: no matter what your training, no matter what your skills, no matter what area you’re in, you are your most important commodity. The most valuable gift you have to offer is you

“Reaching any goal you set takes ten percent specific knowledge or technical skills—ten percent, max. The other ninety-plus percent is people skills. “

The core of it is who you are. It starts with you. “As long as you’re trying to be someone else, or putting on some act or behavior someone else taught you, you have no possibility of truly reaching people. The most valuable thing you have to give people is yourself. No matter what you think you’re selling, what you’re really offering is you.”

“You want people skills?” she repeated. “Then be a person.” She looked around from face to face. “Can you do that? Will you do that?”

She looked to the left and to the right, again, meeting the gaze of dozens of individuals. “It’s worth ten thousand times more than all the closing techniques that ever have been or ever will be invented.

“It’s called authenticity

Authenticity.

The Fourth Law THE LAW OF AUTHENTICITY: The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.

The Law of Receptivity

How many of us have heard it is better to give than receive?  How many have taken this to heart and accepted it as true?

This was very interesting to me since I’d rather give than receive, this chapter points out how that really doesn’t work.  Also I realized that if you are a giver you need to only give to those who are open to receive and in many cases those who are going to receive help and multiply it with their own work. 

“It’s not better to give than to receive. It’s insane to try to give and not receive. “Trying not to receive is not only foolish, it’s arrogant. When someone gives you a gift, what gives you the right to refuse it—to deny their right to give?

“In fact, every giving can happen only because it is also a receiving.”

Every giving can happen only because it is also a receiving….

“All the giving in the world won’t bring success, won’t create the results you want, unless you also make yourself willing and able to receive in like measure. Because if you don’t let yourself receive, you’re refusing the gifts of others—and you shut down the flow.

This makes me think of the law of attraction. If you are not open to receiving then you will not have as many opportunities to receive.

Because human beings are born with appetite, nothing is more naturally geared toward being receptive than a baby, and if the secret of staying young, vibrant and vital throughout life is to hang onto those most precious characteristics we all have as children but which get drummed out of us— like having big dreams, being curious, and believing in yourself— then one of those characteristics is being open to receiving, being hungry to receive, being ravenous to receive!”

“So the secret to success,” Joe went on, “to gaining it, to having it, is to give, give, give. The secret to getting is giving. And the secret to giving is making yourself open to receiving

“The Law of Receptivity.”

The Fifth Law THE LAW OF RECEPTIVITY   The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving. 1190

“The point is not what you do. Not what you accomplish. It’s who you are. 1217

4 – Book Review of Mastermind Dinners by Jayson Gaignard

This is a Book review of Jayson Gaignard’s Mastermind Dinners: Build Lifelong Relationships by Connecting Experts, Influencers and Linchpins.

The book is well worth buying it on as an eBook or paperback. It is small and a quick read with a lot of tips. He shows you how he networks via dinners, lunches and coffee bringing like minded people together.

The kindle version is free on 12/23/2015 and 12/24/2015
Amazon link to the book.

He also gives you the audio version for free with a link inside the book.

His podcast is titled “Mastermind Talks Podcast“.

Let me know how your dinner goes!