Hardly a day goes by when some neophyte doesn’t try to partake of my financial wisdom. Let’s see, there’s Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, The Donald and The David. There aren’t too many of us left. The Carnegies, Rockefellers and the Mellons have left their fortunes to unworthy off-springs, so we are carrying the torch in today’s world. Of the four, only Trump and Sahud have devoted most of our talents toward real estate.

Donald and I made our entrance to the Atlantic City market at about the same time. He pushed to buy the new Hilton Hotel on the Bay, because one of the Hilton directors was found to be on the “Unacceptable List” of the NJ Gambling Commission. It turned out to be a distress sale and Donald was right on the spot. I, on the other hand, being of higher ethical standards, did not choose to be the beneficiary of ill-gotten cost advantages. I bought a new three bedroom condo right on the beach in Brigantine (just over a small bridge from Atlantic City) for list price. Those were the early days of Atlantic City gambling and there was no doubt that real estate values were going to soar. I was convinced that I had made a brilliant investment, while Trump was struggling to salvage a fledgling hotel.

So we proceeded to furnish our beach front condo lavishly and awaited the onrush of guests, all of whom used it as a base for exploring the new Atlantic City. Our condo became a free hotel for friends and relatives, who graciously accepted the room and board, dashing off to the casinos with the last bite of free food still in their mouths. Judy served as cook and maid, with me as a non-handy handyman. Unfortunately, we were not blessed with as large a staff as Trump and wore ourselves out.

Three years later, with Atlantic City not growing fast enough for us, we decided to sell our condo. This took brilliant planning, since we were at the beginning of a real estate crash in Atlantic City. Four condominiums in Brigantine ceased construction and went bankrupt. It took several months to find a buyer for our elegant condo. We finally found one named Sal Smith (not his real name to protect my ass), from Reading Pennsylvania, who was a close friend of the heavyweight champion, Larry Holmes. He was 250 pounds of solid muscle, with knuckles dragging. It didn’t take long for me to realize that he was not a Cum Laude graduate of Harvard. His raspy voice and snappy clothes were reminiscent of many cast members of “The Godfather.” With his close ties to the crooked boxing industry, I was convinced that if he wasn’t a member of the mob…..then I am Winston Churchill.

His “Wife” was an unadulterated “Bimbo,” with a shrieking expletive-laden speech pattern, chewing gum like a cow. She was definitely a “Moll” from central casting. She leaped off our ground floor deck to assure herself that we were really on the beach and brought three pounds of sand into out carpeted living room. Hopefully it will be her living room – full of sand.

While I was thrilled to sell the condo and lose lots of money, the closing was an episode of “The Sopranos.” Marie Smith (not her real name for same reason) was screaming and cursing at the three teen age kids (of undetermined origin) and Sal was telling her to shut up. The payoff was even stranger. Sal handed over five certified checks from five different banks totalling the purchase price. So while Donald was wrestling with men of ill-repute at the Hilton, I was probably trading in stolen money.

Fast forward to 2005. One late October morning, over our usual breakfast of chitlins and hog fat, Judy turned to me and said, “We should sell our house and move into a retirement community.” The stairs were getting to be too much for us. The neighborhood had changed in 44 years and we hardly knew our neighbors.

I answered, “OK, but could you let me finish my breakfast and give me a few hours to work it out?” She said, “Yes, but don’t procrastinate like you usually do.”

Ignoring the sarcasm, I set out to work. Google presented me with a Del Webb-Pulte Retirement Community being built in a hamlet called Wanaque, New Jersey. This god-forsaken place was only 35 miles from our home in New City. Two hours later, we were in the sales office. Twelve minutes thereafter we wrote a binder check for $1000, with a 10% deposit two weeks later. The price was right and we could sell our house in the middle of a real estate boom in New City. Two houses on the block were sold for outrageously high prices. We called a realtor and she recommended we wait until we returned from Florida in the spring before putting the house up for sale.

But the drive from Florida must have taken longer than I thought. On our arrival, we saw three comparable houses for sale. The prices were the October prices minus $100,000. WWDD- What would Donald do? First of all, he wouldn’t have committed to a new place without selling the old one (although he didn’t exactly have the mark of success stamped on his casino bankruptcies).

As he saying goes, “When you have lemons you make Tortellini Alfredo,” (or something like that). So we put our house on the market for $5000 less than the other three houses.

Now all we had to do was wait for the thundering herd of buyers. Unfortunately the hoof beats were few and far between. For every one of the nine viewers, we huddled in the corner of our den, like orphans in a storm and kept quiet, unless questioned. We heard doors opening and closing, shoes thumping and voices ringing as they walked right past us. Some visitors and agents were very complimentary about the condition of the 44 year old house. There were obviously futile questions like, “Where is the swimming pool?” or “Why is the master bedroom so small?” or “What- no fireplace?” or “Why is the bedroom on the second floor?”

One Chinese engineer being transferred from Boston asked if we would throw in the baby grand piano. Little did he know that I would have been glad to even throw in five grandchildren and two dogs.. But I played it cool and told him it was negotiable. He never came back. Word has it that he bought a much cheaper house.

Prospect number 9 gave me an opportunity to demonstrate my marketing skills. A Chinese UN employee in his fifties watched his adopted five year old daughter leap up the stairs ahead of him. As she ascended to the top, she saw our large deck and wooded backyard and shouted “Daddy I love it!” From then on I never took my eyes off the little girl, smiling, winking and holding my wallet in my hand. (She will be on my payroll forever). Mr. Smith (also not his real name to protect all of us) made us an offer that night.

We settled on the price through the agents. There were three closing postponements due to hitches with his buyer. Visions of having to default on our condo flashed before us. I wanted to discuss the situation with him directly to better understand the status. But his lawyer and his agent held him hostage for fear that I might upset him.

When I finally spoke to him on the walk-through before closing, he was a nervous wreck. He had been through the same insecurities as us. In fact he asked if we could leave the front door unlocked so that the movers could enter during the closing. My answer, “It’s your house.”

In the meantime, Donald trump came out of bankruptcy and I began to ponder my next move. Perhaps we could build a casino in beautiful downtown Wanaque, in back of the garbage dump?

About the Author

David Sahud is a retired businessman with extensive background as CEO of several companies in the plastic films and insulation industries. He has a masters degree in chemistry and a second masters in management engineering. He spends his free time writing short stories, traveling and chasing the cold weather.

Building a relationship is important because it can make the difference between making a sale and losing it to your competitor. If you had a choice between making a purchase from a friend or a stranger if you needed a certain product or service, all other things (including price) being equal, who would you choose to buy from? Your friend of course. People like to do business with people they know and trust.

Email Marketing Can Give You A Competitive Edge

When two companies offer the same or similar product or service, building a strong rapport with your list can give you the competitive edge.

How to Build Rapport With Your Subscriber

• Keep in touch with your mailing list often.
• Don’t mail them only when you need to promote a product
• Ask about their needs and concerns.
• Use questionnaires and get them involved.
• Ask them what they want you to provide for them to help them with their business.
• Send them freebies occassionally. It could be in the form of free reports, blog templates, graphics or even free membership access!
• Be personal. Let them see your human side or your personal life. It sure beats dry, stale E-mails that talk about product launches all day.
• Be educational. When you impart something of value to your subscribers, they will see you as your industry-expert that lends credence to what you have to say. This will come in handy when you want them to ‘listen’ to you and buy whatever you are selling

Establishing Your Credibility

• Talk about your experiences as a business professional. If you’ve run an offline business before, use it to establish your credibility as a business owner. If you’ve been in sales and marketing before, use it to establish your credibility as a marketing professional.
• Let others tell the story. It would be better to let others sing your praises – especially in the form of testimonials.

Helping Small Business Owners Leverage The Internet

• Increase your sales and profits while reducing your marketing expenses
• Grow your business with cutting edge internet tools
• Creating your own internet driven marketing systems is time consuming, demanding and intimidating if you’re not technologically savvy.

Introducing The Instant Sales System

• Develop and Nurture Trusting Relationship With Your Customers
• Reduce your time on the computer to engage with your current and future customers

You can see Introducing The Instant Sales System From Priceless Possibilities on my Youtube Channel along with other videos about Small Business and Video Marketing.

Tell Me More!

Your online personal brand is the same as your reputation.  Everything you do, say, don’t do, don’t say, etc. becomes part of your brand, your reputation, and how others perceive you. There are many ways you can strengthen your personal brand. However, what took so long to build can be destroyed in a matter of seconds in four easy steps!

Procrastinate

Don’t do today what you can do tomorrow. Your brand can create itself, right? WRONG! You already know what your niche is and you already have a plan. All you need now is to put your plan in action. Remember, you are in charge of your own personal brand. If you don’t build it up, who will?

Be Inconsistent

You need to define your brand. Your brand also has to be consistent. For example, McDonald’s hamburgers taste pretty much the same no matter where you are located. When you walk into any McDonald’s anywhere, you KNOW exactly what you will get. That is consistency. Your customers will expect to see your brand wherever you are online. If they don’t, they won’t recognize you.

Bad Time Management

You need to know how to manage your time properly. If you cannot keep track of your own work and time, why would clients trust you with their money? Part and parcel of your own personal branding is to deliver the goods on time and in a consistent manner! There is no point having really good products but at the same time being unreliable. Clients take reliability into account when choosing your brand.

Get Stuck in a Rut

You need to constantly keep on moving. Your ideas need to be fresh. If you just stick to the same old concept all the time, someone is bound to take your idea and an extra zing to it. So keep those fresh ideas coming. You don’t want your personal brand to stay on a plateau phase all the time! You want it to keep growing and growing!

There are many other ways to kill your online brand like being rude in a public forum, not following through on your brand promise, being dishonest, having poor quality products or services, and much more.

Video can also be viewed on my Youtube Channel How to Kill Your Personal Brand in 4 Easy Steps

You don’t have to be the originator or all the content you provide to your target market. YES original content is important so you should definitely provide as much original content as you have. However, there are many other ways to help establish yourself as your industry expert. How?

Share Other Industry Expert’s Content

Does this mean take someone else’s content and put your name on it? NO! That would be stealing! It DOES mean that you could and should SHARE their content with your target market/lists/clients/potential clients.

Be Selective, Do Your Research

You don’t want to just share anything. Remember your goal is to provide VALUABLE information from other authorities in your niche. The more value you provide, the more people will follow you, listen to you, and know where to go when they need answers/solutions/products/services. How?

Set up an RSS Feed

Don’t listen to me – this is not my area of expertise. However, it IS one of Kimberly Castleberry’s so read her post Create or Subscribe To Google+ Public Shares By RSS Feed with PlusFeed. How’s that for a real-life example of what this post is about?

Why Should You Establish Yourself as Your Industry Expert?

SEO! Need I say anymore?

What Do You Really Know About SEO?

Learn More About How to Utilize the Power of Video In Your Business

Update your website pages often. One of the reasons that blogs tend to do better in search than websites is because we are constantly adding new content to our blogs. There is no reason why you can’t update/modify, and enhance your regular website too.

Offer additional value on your website. The more value your website offers your potential and current clients and the more frequently you add valuable content, the more likely they will want to keep coming back to your site. 

You should offer content, discounts, and special offers to visitors of your website. You can allow customers to ‘opt in’ to get these discounts and special offers. Place a link on your site to invite customers to ‘opt in’ to get a monthly newsletter or valuable coupons.

Add social share and bookmarking inks to your pages so they can be easily shared with others. 

Be sure to use consistent branding on your website so that visitors always know they are on your site. Use consistent colors, logos and slogans. 

Always provide a ‘Contact Us’ link on every page.

Create a ‘Our Policies’ page that clearly defines your philosophy and principles in dealing with your customers. Also post your privacy policy as well so that clients know they are secure when they visit your site. This helps set expectations, helps your clients get to “know” you, and eventually trust you.

Include an FAQ page to address possible doubts and to clarify exactly what your product or service is so it is crystal clear. This helps to resolve most of the customers doubts in their first visit to your site and can actually cut down on the number of support calls/emails you might get. 

Ensure that each page on your website has appropriate and relevant titles and keywords so that your customer can find their way back to your site when they need/want to come back. 

Never spam a client, who has opted-in to your newsletters or email updates.  Later if they decide they want to ‘opt out’ of your mailings, be sure you honor their request and take them off the mailing list. They may still come back if they like your products. But they will certainly not come back if you continue to flood their email box with mails.

And last but not least, use the power of video to attract, engage, and inform your website visitors.

Get a FREE Video Marketing Strategy

The Internet is a HUGE place and the competition in most markets is fierce! So what can YOU do to get more customers, get more customers to buy more often, get more customers to make larger purchases, and grow your business?

Capture the Contact Information of People Coming to Your Website

You absolutely MUST know who is visiting your web site!  If you don’t, you might very well be leaving money on the table. I was having a conversation today with a woman who is not using her website to make money, but instead to help people who have a need. The concept is the same. How can she know who has come to her website, who needs help, and how to follow-up with them if she is not capturing the contact information of those who DO visit her website?

Get Your Website Visitor’s Footprint – Why?

• You will now know who visits your website
• You NEED their PERMISSION to send VALUABLE emails to their inbox
• You can and should follow-up with relevant, helpful, compelling content via auto-responder emails
• You can and should develop and nurture the “relationship” with your website visitors
• You now have the ability to continue to provide information they need or want
• Gives them the opportunity to get to “know” you so they learn to like and trust you
  
• Keeps the relationship moving forward and when your product or service meets the needs of your potential clients, they will already know, like and trust you, and then they will buy from you

You Have Their Attention – Now What?

Now is your opportunity to connect with and establish a relationship with your website visitors and potential customers/clients. Once they opt in to your list, they have given you permission to send them emails and/or newsletters, do your best to provide VALUABLE information to your list. Don’t jump right in and start trying to make a sale. That is not how the process works. Instead, focus on providing information, tips, trick, and other information that they will find useful, that they need, or that they can relate to. Let then get to “know” you, like you and trust you. Be genuine, be yourself, and start establishing yourself as your industry-expert with your potential target market. Even if they aren’t ready to make a purchase immediately, when the time does arrive that they “need” or want your company offerings, they will remember that you provide solution(s) for their needs and will more than likely make a purchase when they are ready.

Learn More From New Horizons 123 Today!

As business owners, we need to remember that our potential clients or customers don’t care about what our product or service does for others, they only care about how it will help THEM!

Many business owners get caught up in promoting the features of their offerings, when they need to pay more attention to the BENEFITS.

Stop Selling the Product. Start Selling the Benefit is a very interesting blog post about how to “tie your product or service to emotion…“and uses some pretty interesting examples.

Did you ever wonder why the mannequins in stores wearing the clothes the store is selling don’t have faces?

Shane Russell, from Suited Marketing, explains why in his blog post. Read his blog post HERE!

How Would You Like To Win $1,000 in Cash? If you are a raving “Mad SEO Scientist”, that cash can be yours!

We are celebrating the launching of MySEOCommunity with an Awesome Guest Blogging Contest. There are lots of neat and valuable prizes too!

Why Should You Enter?

Increase your SEO, win prizes, network with your fellow SEO Pros, get more RSS subscribers, and more. There are tons of great sponsors too.  Check it out to find out more and enter today!

Here is the Contest Link!

Don’t forget to check out all the sponsors below this video. Enjoy!

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There are no business tips… rather this is my sharing with you something that has become very important to me. Below is the what and why…

I received a phone call a month or so ago from the author of a book who was looking for someone to create a video book trailer. Her name is Sylvia Ramsey and she is a survivor of Bladder Cancer and much more  – her life was filled with way too many harsh realities for one person to have to deal with. I read Sylvia’s manuscript prior to creating her video trailer and was totally mesmerized by her strength, courage, sense of humor, and dedication to spending the rest of her life to helping others with Bladder Cancer. Sylvia tells her story in an effort to reach out to those who are diagnosed with Bladder Cancer deal with their circumstance and to raise awareness of this Cancer to the level of other Cancers. Bladder cancer does not have to be a death sentence if diagnosed early.

I became so much in awe of Sylvia. If I had gone through what she has gone through in her life, I would be rocking back and forth in a corner in a fetal position for the rest of my life! It is for this reason, that I have decided to donate my time in helping her help others! Please help us and SHARE with ANYONE AND EVERYONE – you never know who you might be helping.

Raising Awareness of Bladder Cancer by Survivor Sylvia Ramsey

A presentation by Sylvia that I turned into a video to tell her story and share important facts about Bladder Cancer.

Here is the book trailer I created for Sylvia’s Book – worth re-posting!

Traveling a Rocky Road with Love Faith and Guts: Book Trailer by Sylvia Ramsey

Traveling a Rocky Road with Love, Faith, and Guts: Bladder Cancer, COPD, Caregiving, Polio and More has Just been released on Amazon and is now available for sale. Sylvia is donating 100% of the proceeds to The Bladder Cancer Society. You can grab your copy HERE!

Sylvia is also donating the proceeds from her other books ALL to The American Bladder Cancer Society and can be purchased  HERE.

Whatever you can do to help spread the word will be very much appreciated. You don’t have to buy the book, but think how easy it is to simply SHARE the information wherever you can. You never know who you might be helping.

Thank you Sylvia for showing me that with love, faith, and guts, anything is possible!

Email Marketing is Instant

It’s Perfect for a Time Sensitive Offer

It’s Virtually FREE

Email goes Everywhere

It can be Automated

Provides Massive Exposure Which Means More Sales!

The average person checks their email 2+ times/Day

Video Email marketing is 3 to 5 times more effective

78% look for emails from businesses they frequent

68% make purchases after receiving email

Repeat customers spend 67% more

Sales to a customer are much easier than to prospects

So How Specifically Do You Increase Exposure for Any Business?

• Capture Contact Info of your Prospects & Customers
• Automate Follow Up With them to Increase Exposure/Sales
• Contact them Whenever & as Often as You Like

How Much is More Business Worth to You? Click on Image Below!