The LuxMob Info Tags

This may seem like an obvious statement to some, but to others it isn’t. Spelling correctly on your website is a must, as is punctuation and capitalization.

Too often, I run into words spelled incorrectly on websites. No one is immune to this. I’ve been guilty of it a couple of times myself, but I’ve gone back and corrected it. Some things that are often spelled wrong include words with two vowels in a row, leaving out vowels, words with two identical consonants in a row and infrequently used words.

Also, there are words that are homophones, or sound the same, that are correctly spelled words, but used in the wrong context. Watch out for hear versus here. Also know when to use it’s instead of its, lose instead of loose, then and than, there, their and they’re. Watch out for two, to and too, were where and we’re, your and you’re.

Although this will not catch homophones, you might try checking your spelling for your website in a word processor like Microsoft Word. Another option is to use www.spellcheck.net.

Capitalization is also important. The first letter of every sentence should be capitalized. The first letter of any name should be as well. Every instance of the word “I” should be capitalized.

Correct punctuation is essential. Every sentence should have a period, question mark or exclamation mark. Please, please, don’t give every other sentence on your website an exclamation mark. Use it sparingly.

If you are quoting someone who has something misspelled, or any kind of error, you should not correct it. If it’s a misspelling, after the word write (sic) in parentheses, just like I have there. That word is Latin, meaning “thus” or “so.” In other words, you know that it is spelled wrong, but that was how the source material had it.

If you notice over time that you are missing some errors on your website write-ups, it may be time to get someone to help you. Grab a friend who was an English major, or one who worked for their school paper. Or if you’re lucky, you may know someone who is a professional writer who is willing to help you out.

No matter how you go about it, get those errors fixed. Having them on your website is a sign of unprofessionalism, so it is worth your time to fix them all.

Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com

I’ve got good news for you. If you’ve been struggling to get the results from your trading that you expected, then you’ve probably dismissed the most important thing, and it’s such a common mistake that struggling traders make and the pros don’t: treating your trading as a business you own, not simply something you do.

If it’s so simple, then What does that actually mean?

Let’s take a closer look and see.

While most people know the difference between a hobby and a business, most who aren’t profiting from trading fail to see that they are approaching their trading in the same way they would a hobby, instead of a business.

Hobbies are activities where a person has an interest and they enjoy the activity itself. It’s fun, exciting, enjoyable, and occupying. A hobby is part-time, do-it- yourself and a learn-as-you-go activity.

Unfortunately this is good description of trading for many people, except that they don’t recognize it as a hobby. For most traders, trading is an activity that they simply pour money into, not make a profit from, and it stays in the expense column of their financial report.

A business is an activity where the underlying purpose and everything involved is to make money and show a profit.

There are certain requirements for anyone to go into business, as a business owner.

First of all, you have to have a decent head on your shoulders. Not just anyone can trade, it takes money.

How did you come by the money to trade? You had to be smarter than average.

Perhaps you’re a high level manager, maybe a business owner, or successful professional. Regardless, the markets are not where the average or below average person can be. If you can’t show up with several thousand dollars, you simply can’t trade.

Just by being able to play the game, you’ve shown that you can amass a respectable sum of money, which takes being smarter than average.

Secondly, a business owner has to have reasonably developed management skills for managing the day-to-day operations, the money inflows and expenses, the exposure to risk.

In trading, risk management is at the core of the business. Not only making sure that every trade is properly balanced with regards to the risk involved on any given trade to the potential reward, but the exposure to risk of the account as a whole is critical.

Too many traders put too many eggs in too few baskets, and with the uncertainty of the markets, it is imperative that the trader fully understand and manage risk so that the business will survive any downturns and keep the doors open next month and next year.

Thirdly, the smart business owner understands the necessity of a team, a solid support staff.

Any business that is a one-man show is destined to limited success at best. Quite often, the story doesn’t have a happy ending. The number of hats that the owner has to wear involves too many, non-income producing tasks and time is not spent where it should be.

The most critical person to have on your team in a business is an experienced mentor and counsel. Any successful venture starts with a solid knowledge of the industry and the markets that are served. The inner-workings of that business and what mistakes to avoid, plus a deep understanding of what the real profit centers are, and the true potential liabilities, the risks involved, must be understood going into the business.

That is what a good broker can do for traders: provide the expertise and experience to tell the difference, and guide the trader to real opportunities, while safeguarding against dangerous situations and decisions that can ultimately ruin the profitability of the business.

Lastly, and most importantantly, traders need to recognize that they are people, and all that goes with that. They’re not computers where a new body of knowledge can just be loaded from a CD. It takes time to absorb information and develop skills.

Humans also have feelings. While knowledge is power, it is so often over-ridden by emotions that unless one develops a level of emotional control, the emotions that come into play when trading will cause a variety of poor decisions that cause substantial losses.

Success in trading first comes from recognizing that trading is a business. It is an activity where ignorance, inexperience and emotions are the biggest liabilities and the greatest risks.

By first locating a good broker for guidance and mentoring, then constantly devoting time to personal and professional development, especially practicing and developing particular skills, a person will give themselves the best odds of achieving the end-goal of having a profitable trading business.

Copyright 2006 New Ireland Ventures, LLC

Brian McAboy is a trader and developer of survival guides for traders. For more information on trader development, go to
http://www.traderssuitofarmor.com/sya1thing/.

Kakuro puzzles are the latest craze that is currently making great waves in the puzzle game field. It also has played a significant impact in many areas around the world. These puzzles are closely following the footsteps of the Sudoku puzzles that is currently enjoying worldwide success. Kakuro puzzles are also known as a numbers game, which require simple and pure logic as well as a basic knowledge of the addition and subtraction mathematical concepts.

Also referred as Cross Sums, especially during its early days, Kakuro puzzles are also considered by many as the numerical equivalent of the crossword puzzle. This is because it makes use of numbers instead of the usual words. And just like the crossword, the Kakuro also comes in various sizes, from the compact size to the giant size, and ranges, from the very easy to the extremely hard.

The modern version of Kakuro puzzles nowadays comes in a variety of forms. While the traditional type, which is of the square and rectangular shape, is still around, referred to as the classic kakuro, there are other variations of the puzzle game which have already been developed and which can surely catch the attention of many puzzle game enthusiasts. There is, for instance, the holey kakuro, which is similar to the classic kakuro, except for the fact that it has holes in the middle. Then there is the round kakuro which, as its name suggests, is round on the outside, although the shape is actually more diamond-like, with some versions having holes in the middle as well.

Today, with the advent of modern technology, Kakuro puzzles now also come out in computer software program formats, which naturally makes the game more enjoyable to play, in terms of visuals. The puzzle has also found it way on the worldwide web, where kakuro players are given the opportunity to try to solve the puzzle online. One can even get to see how other players are faring as far as solving the puzzle is concerned. Kakuro news and articles as well as various techniques and strategies designed to either make the game more enjoyable to play or make it easier to solve are also available on the internet.

However, many people still prefer to play Kakuro puzzles the old-fashioned or traditional way, which is the pen-pushing method. That is why the game is still being published in many newspapers as well as magazines. This is part of the reason why a new monthly magazine, known as the Kakuro Light, was conceptualized. Formally launched last March in the Netherlands by Sanoma Uitgevers B.V., the magazine, of course, carries the popular Kakuro puzzles and is marketed primarily for beginners of the game who are nevertheless eager to know how the puzzle is being played as well as finding out why this new puzzle kind in town is fast gaining the imagination as well as fancy of everyone who just happens to love the thrill of a puzzle game.

Getting focused on what you want to achieve and creating an action plan for making it happen are critical skills for you to master.

As bestselling author Napolean Hill once said, “Every well-built house started with a definite plan in the form of blueprints.” In other words, having a focused plan of action is the best way to ensure that you will reach your goals.

In last week’s newsletter, you were asked to answer some basic questions as part of the action exercise. Hopefully, you completed this part and wrote down which 90-day goal is most exciting to you. The rest of this article assumes that you have already set this goal. So if you haven’t done that yet, please re-read the previous article called “Why Clarity Is Essential To Building Massive Momentum In Your Business” and do it right now.

Now that we got that clear, let’s jump right into it!

Once you’ve determined the big goal that you want to accomplish in the next 90 days, one of the secrets to making it happen is breaking up that big goal into small, bite-size pieces. Successful entrepreneurs all across the world use this technique to bring more profits into their businesses year after year after year.

In a minute, we’ll cover a simple approach to create these bite-size pieces for your own goals. But let’s first think about why this is so important to goal achievement.

Have you ever wondered why many entrepreneurs don’t achieve their goals, even though they are passionate about their business and spend long hours working every week?

One reason this happens is that these business owners set a big goal they want to achieve in the next year, but they don’t create a detailed action plan containing bite-size pieces. And without knowing what “bite” you can take next to move you closer to your goal, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the big goal and feel like you will never get there.

As the famous Chinese proverb says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

And if you haven’t laid out a map for your thousand mile journey, you won’t be confident in which step you should take next, right?

So what is the easiest way to create your map and determine which steps you should take today, tomorrow, and the next day? Here’s a simple step-by-step procedure that you can follow right now to create a list of bite-size steps for reaching your big goals:

1) Write down your big 90-day goal in a notebook. This is the same big, exciting
s-t-r-e-t-c-h goal that you set for yourself in last week’s newsletter.

2) Break up this 90-day goal into three specific monthly goals. Ask yourself “What is the most important task or goal that I need to complete in Month One to be on track for achieving my 90-day goal?” Then ask the same question for Month Two and then again for Month Three.

3) Break up each monthly goal into four specific weekly goals. Begin by looking at Month One and breaking that up into specific weekly goals, starting with this week.
Ask yourself this question:
“What is the most important task or goal that I need to complete this week to be on track to achieving my goal for Week One?”
And then ask yourself the same question for Week Two, for Week Three, and finally for Week Four.

4) Look at the goal you set for Week One and break it up into a number of smaller tasks or sub-goals that you need to do in order to reach that weekly goal. The resulting list of tasks becomes your most important objectives for this week.
And when you have completed this for Week One, repeat this step again for Week Two, for Week Three, and then for Week Four.

And those are the simple steps for creating a focused plan made up of small, bite-size, achievable goals.

Here’s an example of how this can work.

Remember our friend Cindy from last week’s newsletter about Clarity? Cindy is the proud owner of Cindy’s Teddy Bear Company and she set a goal to gain 100 new customers
in the next 90 days. She has never accomplished this much before, so this is really an exciting, stretch goal for her.

Let’s go through the four steps listed above with Cindy to see how she breaks up this big, inspiring 90-day goal into bite-size pieces.

1) Gain 100 new customers in the next 90 days.

2) Month One: Gain 20 new customers
Month Two: Gain 40 new customers
Month Three: Gain 40 new customers
Cindy chose a smaller goal for Month One because she knows that she will be planting a lot of “new customer seeds” in Month One which can be harvested later during Month Two and Month Three.

3) Week One: Identify two local area communities and two non-local communities to target. Create a draft of a marketing campaign which targets these community areas.
Week Two: Finalize the marketing campaign and launch it in the first local community.
Week Three: Follow-up on every lead and get ten new customers.
Week Four: Finish following up on leads from this first campaign and launch another campaign in one of the non-local areas. This should result in another ten new customers.

(I’m sure you get the idea at this point with Cindy’s example, so let’s move on to Part Four of the action step formula.)

4) Week One Task List (to achieve Week One goal):

a) Order research report with income levels for local communities. Remember that Cindy’s ideal customer is a child of an upper class family, so income demographics are important for her to know.

b) Order research report with income levels across the nation.

c) Choose two local and two non-local upper-income towns based on the research reports.

d) Create a marketing campaign that will apply to all four of the chosen towns.

And that’s all there is to it! You can harness the power of focus in your business right away by creating an action plan that acts as a laser-focused step-by-step blueprint for achieving your 90-day goals.

Yes, this exercise will certainly take you some time to complete, but it will save you a lot of time and money in the long run. In addition, it will increase your confidence and belief in your ability to achieve your big 90-day goals. And you will achieve them!

This will become a simple, straightforward exercise once you have done it several times and you make it a consistent habit.

Once you get this focused action plan written down, you will be on your way to achieving massive momentum in your business! When your plan is in place, you’re ready to dive into the topic of next week’s newsletter — which is Action!

Set aside some time this week to go through the action planning exercise shown above. It’s very important that you break up your big goals into small, bite-size pieces. As you make this into one of your consistent habits, you will begin to realize all the big profits and time freedom that comes from creating massive momentum in your business!

Matt Zembruski (aka “Mr. Momentum”) is the author of this article and publisher of the Massive Momentum Now newsletter. Subscribe today to get your free audio special report called “The #1 Reason Why Businesses Fail and How You Can Avoid It!”. You will also discover a proven step-by-step system that gets you results…guaranteed. Free subscription if you visit our site today. ($197 value) http://www.mrmomentum.com