Can You Market Audio Interviews Without a List?

As I have said before, list building is the way to go in marketing. But I’m also going to say, another best way to market is joint ventures, hands down. You don’t have to have a list and you don’t have to be an expert. If you can be the guy who just can do the interview and you can secure the rights to the interview, and if you can take that interview to someone who does have a list, but doesn’t have any marketing, you are set.

You’ve got an interview, you’ve got a tool that sells, that you want to hope it sells, if you’ve done it right and you’ve done your research and you take your time with it you’ll have a good audio interview that will sell either an expertise or a product or a service, that is valuable. It’s like a winning sales letter. What’s a winning sales letter worth? You know, in a huge market.

I mean if you have a large market on something and if you have a sales letter that sells a product and every time you put it on the Internet or every time you mailed it and you tested it, it makes money for you, it’s like a money printing machine.

Well, the same thing a good audio interview is like that. It’s a valuable asset that you can turn off and turn on anytime you need it. I’ve got an interview on my site, it’s an interview with a cold calling expert and I was able to negotiate a good joint venture proposal with him and I went the extra mile to do this interview with him for free and this has been going on for about five years, maybe five years I’ve had this audio on my site and just for some reason and first of all it’s a very hot topic; cold calling within the sales field.

A lot of people on the phone want to learn how to cold call and he’s a very good marketer so once I generate the lead through that audio recording that plays on my site, it gets downloaded on my site, that is seen on YouTube, seen on Facebook, seen on iTunes and its’ seen out there and the intellectual property that I control and it’s a little money machine and it just refers them over to their affiliate deal, that keeps track of everything.

That is really the easiest thing and I don’t have to ship a product and all I have to do is that one interview, one time, edit it, get it done right, set up an affiliate deal and you want to make sure you can trust the person and you want to make sure you can control the flow of that lead that you generate because you’ve invested a lot of time and effort in creating that audio recording, that sales piece and you want to make sure you’re paid on that.

There are methods that I teach  how to do that and it’s very important. Every single audio recording is valuable.

Get a Bargain at Festival Park – Mallorca’s Premier Shopping Centre

Shopping is not something that you would usually associate with Mallorca, but the Spanish island’s Festival Park is a bargain-hunter’s dream that will be the highlight to any family holiday.

When staying in a Mallorcan villa, why not take a break from the sun, sea and sightseeing for a bit of retail therapy at one of Europe’s best shopping malls?

One of the bonuses about the shopping complex is that it is not just great for shopaholics – the fairground rides, kids’ games, cinema complex and many restaurants will keep the whole family entertained.

Festival Park is easy to reach from almost any location in Mallorca. Situated just a short drive from Palma, it is next to the Inca Highway at the Sa Cabaneta and Santa Maria exit. There is plenty of parking available, but for those without a car the public transport is regular and there are buses and trains that take you straight to the shops.

Clothes shops dominate Festival Park, but there are also jewellery stores, craft stalls and a spectacular puppet shop that will be a favourite with the kids. Bargains can be found all over the park with savings of between 30 and 70 per cent to be had on a range of popular brands. Some of the shops, where lucky holidaymakers can save heaps of money, include Diesel, Roxy, Quicksilver, Miss Sixty and Mango.

There are also a number of sports outlets, including Nike and Reebok.

But the pedestrian-only complex, which is designed like a traditional Spanish village, is not just about shopping, there are plenty of other activities to keep the family entertained.

A day care centre is available to drop off those little ones who are too young to appreciate retail therapy and you can guarantee that they will be looked after safely. There are slides, a bouncy castle, carousels, a bungy jump, pedal cars and donkey rides to entertain the kids.

If you want family-fun then a ten-pin bowling alley could be just what you need.

There is also a 20-screen cinema complex and laser games.

When you have exhausted all the shops and entertainment there is still more on offer at Festival Park, as the complex has more than 30 restaurants, cafes and bars.

5 Things to Know Before Shopping Personalized Leather Bracelets for Women

The engraved leather bracelets make an ideal gift for someone special in your life. They are the casual style of jewelry that looks cool on almost anyone. You can order these custom bracelets from any online gift store. So, lets check out the vital things to know before buying online personalized leather bracelets for women.

1. Eye-Catching and Multifunctional Piece

No matter which style and design you pick and how you decide to wear it, a leather bracelet is a versatile accessory goes with every outfit. At present, the fashionable leather engraved bracelets are enjoying popularity in a variety of styles, including ID Wristbands, charm bracelets, and more. A decade after decade they remain in style. You can pick wrist cuffs or slender strip bracelets secured by buckles, snaps, or a lot of other jewelry clasps.

2. Broad Color Choices

In the old times, the choices for the leather bracelets for women are limited to the shades of black and brown. But now you can find them in a rainbow of colors. While the men may still prefer the primary colors, the teenagers and women love sport leather wristbands in shades from blue to green, pink to orange tones.

3. Advanced Methods

The traditional technique of adorning leather by hammering it using metal or wood die is fast becoming the best thing of past. At present, you will find the leather bracelets engraved using the high tech way, i.e., laser etching. This method offers the engraver to create a more tailored design as per the requirement freely.

4. Engrave Almost Anything

Yes, you are not limited to just having words carved on the leather. The popular choices at the best online gift store include your full name, your lover’s name, only your initials, short & meaningful phrase, your school name, best friend’s name, your crew’s name, or a set of BFF bracelets engraved with both of your names.

Plus, you can also go for the logos and pictures in the space allowed as long as the engraver can handle your demand. For this, you need to discuss this before you make your purchase for engraved leather bracelets for women so that you won’t be disappointed by limitations later.

5. Look for the Correct Size

Few personalized leather bracelets manufacturers provide the adjustable sizing. So, you must measure your wrist to identify out the current size you will require for a bracelet. The way to accomplish this is t by wrapping a flexible tape around your wrist at the exact point you want your band to rest and then measure it. Few people usually prefer a tight fitting at the smallest point above wrist bones and other love their leather to lie below the wrist bones just above the hand.

How To Start An E-Commerce Business

The growth of e-commerce businesses is on the rise. The credit goes to the increasing use of the Internet and the growing market of the smartphones. Therefore, even small retailers are launching their online stores. If you want to start your business on the web, we suggest that you follow the tips given below.

Methods

Businesses done online are known as e-commerce. Nowadays, you can use either of the two methods to launch your store on the web: you can start either an e-commerce site or join a marketplace online.

  • Proprietary e-commerce website

Starting your own e-commerce website is a difficult option as you have to develop a website, a payment gateway and then you have to launch a marketing campaign to get the word out about your products. Also, you may want to keep in mind that starting an e-commerce business requires a long-term commitment on your part. Apart from this, you need to spend a lot of money if you really want to turn your site into a success.

  • Joining an established marketplace

Joining an already established marketplace is an easier way to go. All you have to do is get a bank account as well as a tax registration number. This will help you apply more easily. The e-commerce marketplace will handle everything else, such as payment gateway, marketing, technology, web development and web design, just to name a few. For a new seller like you, the workload will be reduced considerably.

Given below are the registration steps that you may want to take when getting started:

Registration

First of all, you may want to get your business registered. Once your company is registered, you can open a bank account in the company name. This will make it easier for you to get the tax registration number.

Tax Registration

To start selling online, you need GST registration no matter whether you are going to launch your website or sell through a marketplace. You have to get tax registration done.

Bank Account

As soon as you have incorporated your company, your next move is to apply for a bank account in the name of the company. If you are going to start a proprietorship firm, you will have to get the tax certificate as well. You have to get this certificate or you won’t be able to get a bank account.

Payment Gateway

If you own an e-commerce site, you have to have a payment gateway in order to process the payments via debit cards, credit cards or internet banking, just to name a few. With a payment gateway, you can accept digital payments. With a digital payment gateway, the payment made by your customers will be transferred to your bank account without any delay. The payment may take up to 24 hours to get transferred to your bank account.

Remember: if you have plans to sell via the marketplace, you don’t have to get a separate payment gateway. The marketplace gateway will be used to make payments.

So, if you want to start a business, you will have to meet the legal requirements given above as well as all of other requirements in your area.

5 Good Reasons For Doing Market Segmentation

Due to the broad nature of the market, promoting products will be too high and unattainable. There is need to divide it into smaller sets so that maximum satisfaction to the set of customers could be achieved. The following are several reasons to segment a market.

1. Increase in Profit

Except for few organization that are not profit oriented, Most businesses are setup to make profits.However, customers have different disposable income and also their sense of spending are quite dissimilar. Segmenting a market will enable organization sell same product to different set of customers based on their disposable income. Organizations can enhance their profits this way by raising their prices for different segments.

2. Popularity in the Market

Through careful segmentation and proper targeting, smaller businesses are able to compete with stronger and leading ones in the market. Usually strong companies have an edge over smaller ones in terms of production and marketing cost which are very lower since they already are the choice of the customers. But by dividing the market into smaller groups and focusing on just the need of target market segment, the smaller firm will be able to have an edge in this target segment.

3. Better Customer satisfaction

As stated above, customers sensitivity are different. So also are their needs. By creating separate solutions for each segment a better satisfaction to the customers can be achieved.

4. Better opportunity for product sales growth

Market segmentation can build sales margin. A customers may be encouraged to sell a product he has bought before for another one (trade-up) so as to improve the sale margin of the later one.

5. Very easier customer-business communication flow

Manufacturers of products need to advertise and deliver their message to a relevant customer audience. And where there is a broad target market, there is a strong risk that the key customers will be missed and even the cost of communicating to customers will be too high. But if the market has been segmented, the target customers can be easily reached more often and at a lower cost

Review: Flip City

Since Dominion hit the markets back in 2008 and had a widespread success all over the world, many deck-building games appeared trying to take a slice of the pie and share its success. More or less these games, differ in theme, some of them are cooperative but, in general, they share the common mechanic of starting out with a small deck and gradually building a better one. Today I am going to review a “deceptively simple microdeckbuilder” game, as it is described in the box, called Flip City. The game is designed be Taiwanese designer, Chen, Chih Fan and was originally titled “Design City” and published by Homosapiens Lab in 2014. In 2015, Tasty Minstrel Games, published the second English edition of the game, titled “Flip City” and containing one more optional card type than the original (the Office Expansion).

Flip City can be played by 1 to 4 players, 8+ years old and lasts about 30-50 minutes. As its title suggests, it centers around building a city but you also have to keep its residents happy at all costs. The game consists of merely 86 cards of 6 different types that represent parts of a city and which are double sided, with the “flipped” side being an upgraded version of the original or sometimes a completely different building. Namely, the cards are:

  • Residential Area / Apartment
  • Convenience Store / Shopping Mall
  • Factory / Power Plant
  • Central Park / Station
  • Hospital / Church
  • Office / Trade Center

Each player starts out with an identical deck of cards, like in all deck-building games. These cards are 4 Residential Areas, 1 Apartment, 1 Convenience Store, 1 Factory, 1 Hospital and 1 Central Park. This small deck is shuffled, taking special care not to flip the cards while doing so and not to see them. Next, the general supply of cards is formed, consisting of the following cards:

  • 12 x Convenience Store
  • 10 x Office (an optional expansion)
  • 12 x Hospital
  • 8 x Factory
  • 8 x Central Park

The game is played in 2 phases:

  • Play cards phase: The revolutionary concept of Flip City is that players don’t draw hands of cards but must play cards one by one from the top of their deck instead, until they feel it’s time to stop. That means that, theoretically, one can play his entire deck of cards, shuffle and continue to play. The cards once played, provide coins, points, unhappiness and may also have other abilities. After each card played, the active player must decide if he/she will play an additional card, looking at the top card of their deck. The crucial point to stop playing more cards, is when you get 2 unhappiness symbols because that’s the limit that your city can handle. If, at any time during the play phase, there are 3 unhappiness symbols among the cards already played, your turn ends immediately without proceeding to the end phase. In other words, a wasted turn. During this phase, you can also recycle cards from your discard pile that have the recycle symbol on them and gain whatever is indicated on the card.
  • Building phase: With the cash gained during the previous phase, you may choose one of the following actions:

    • Buy a card from the general supply by paying the amount of coins indicated on the card. The newly acquired card goes to your discard pile
    • Flip: Choose a card from the discard pile and “flip” it to its other side by paying the cost indicated on the card.
    • Develop: Buy a card from the supply and flip it by paying both costs

After the building phase, you can check if a victory condition is met. There are 2 victory conditions in the game:

  1. Gain 8 points during your Play cards phase or
  2. Satisfy another victory condition specified in a card played (such as the Convenience Store that states that “If you play 18 or more cards this turn, you win!”)

If no victory condition is satisfied, played cards go to the player’s discard pile and the next player can begin his turn. Cash, points and unhappiness gained in a turn do not carry over to subsequent turns.

There is also a solo variant of the game which features the following differences from standard play:

  • the general supply consists only of 4 cards from each type
  • each time the player’s deck is shuffled, he must choose a card from the general supply and remove it from the game
  • if the general supply is depleted before any winning condition is met, the player loses the game.
  • when an apartment is flipped, it is removed from the game

These are the simple rules of Flip City, so let’s see now how the game scores in our usual scoring categories:

Components:

Flip City’s only components, cards, are beautifully designed. Each card type depicts an area of the city in a cartoonish style, yet in great detail with bright colors and clear graphics. The symbols used on cards are pretty big and easy to understand on their own and the card text is printed in a special background, using a font size that make it easily readable. The cards are made of very good quality cardboard, however it’s always good to sleeve them. The flipped side of the cards is distinguished by not having a buying cost. Most flipped-side cards also have a recycle symbol on the bottom right instead of a flip symbol (except Apartment).

The folded rulebook explains the simple rules of the game in a most efficient way, leaving no room for questions, or at least not obvious ones.

The small box that hosts the game, seems pretty ideal for the job. It fits all cards, even when sleeved, while, at the same time, leaving no extra space for them to scatter around.

All in all, the components of the game are more than satisfying and I couldn’t ask for more. 10/10

Gameplay:

When first reading the rules of Flip City, I had the feeling that this was going to be a very simple game, maybe too simple for what I’d expect from a deck-building game. However, after a few plays, I understood that its motto, “a deceptively simple microdeckbuilder” was very accurate. Although the game features only 6 types of cards (actually it’s 12 if you add the flipped cards), these seem enough to generate a very challenging gameplay. Both phases of play are very interesting. During the play cards phase you have to be very careful, not to exceed the unhappiness limit of your people, so whenever being at unhappiness level 2, there is this “press your luck” element that will keep you at the edge of your seat. Sometimes, drawing an extra card, without losing your turn, may prove crucial to the amount of coins you gather in order to buy an expensive card or make a flip. Other times luck won’t help you and you will stumble upon a residential area on the top of your deck, which must be played no matter what and will ruin your plans, making your turn a complete waste of time. I totally like this kind of challenge and struggling with statistics. You can get a bit of help in your estimation by checking cards at your discard pile while having in mind that you start out with 4 residential areas. The building phase is equally challenging, by forcing you to make important decisions about how to develop your deck. Should you buy a card or flip one from the discard pile or buy and develop? Usually you will have all of these options available, except during the first few turns and your decisions will have crucial impact on your progress. By playing Central Park / Station, you have the opportunity to buy / flip an additional time, broadening your choices even more.

Flip City includes some interaction between players, through the Apartment and Power Plant that enable you to place bad cards (Residential Areas / Apartments) in an opponent’s discard pile.

During setup, there is some downtime in order to sort out the cards that form the general supply but since there are not so many cards in the game, that doesn’t take too long.

The game can be played by 1 to 4 players and is equally enjoyable with any number. The inclusion of a solo variant is more than welcomed as it enables you to exercise on your own when having no company and experiment with different strategies to win. However, this variant, has limited replayability because there is no further goal to achieve once you win the game and try different strategies, I.e you can’t have a better score of victory points or achieve victory faster as you only goal is just to win.

Luck plays its role in the game, but players have equal chances to be favored or not by it. The important thing is that players can choose to push or not their luck. One can play conservatively and never risk, or be intrigued by the challenge and try to get an edge while risking to lose it all.

The recycle ability is an interesting feature that enables you to take advantage of cards in the discard pile. It appears on flipped versions of the cards, in addition to their standard abilities and it helps a lot towards achieving your goal. 7/10

Learning Curve:

The rules of the game are very simple and explained thoroughly in the rulebook. One can start playing within minutes of having begun to read the rules and that is a very welcomed feature by many, mostly casual gamers, that are easily bored by hearing long descriptions and explanations. Even if you haven’t played a deck-building game before, you will have no trouble, learning to play Flip City. In fact, it may be the ideal game for introducing someone to the genre. 9/10

Theme:

Flip City is about building a city, or rather trying to build the best city you can while keeping its citizens happy. Thematically, I can picture the sequence of the game like this: You start out with a small town with a few residential areas, an apartment, a convenience store, a factory, a hospital and a central park. During the play cards phase, you watch your city function, with the different buildings provide some benefits (money, points and some unhappiness). Then, during the building phase, you get to expand your city by building more or developing the existing buildings to improved ones (through flip / develop). This process succeeds in making you feel like really building a city, although maybe you won’t think much about it during play, being absorbed by the gameplay.

An issue that crossed my mind about the application of theme in the game has to do with unhappiness. What is it that makes your citizens unhappy? It’s too much construction! That is translated into some of the constructions in the city bringing unhappiness. I definitely agree about a power plant bringing unhappiness to people, however I am not so sure about a residential area having that effect and certainly not a hospital. Who wouldn’t like a hospital being handy, near their home? I guess it served the mechanics of the game to tie unhappiness with the specific buildings.

As for the cards’ special abilities, these aren’t really tied to the theme and I don’t think there was an easy way to do that. However, that leaves our imagination free to think about what each ability could stand for. For example, when you place a Residential Area / Apartment into another player’s discard pile, that could, thematically speaking, mean that you are building his city instead of yours.

All in all, I find the incorporation of the theme into the game quite successful in relation to similar deckbuilding games. 7/10

Replayability:

Flip City is a very enjoyable game as it is and I am always happy to play a game or two during a gaming session, despite the fact that it always uses the same stack of cards for the general supply. Nevertheless, there is a lot of room for expanding the game with new cards and abilities, thus multiplying its durability. An expansion has already been announced for the Japanese / Chinese version of the game, called “Design City: Reuse” and featuring 2 new double-sided cards, with 10 copies each:

  • Hardware store/urban redevelopment office: This interferes with the development of your opponent’s cities.
  • Flea market/recycling box: This card can be used when needed to give you extra money.

The small packaging of Flip City makes it ideal to carry on a journey. Have in mind, however, that it requires a rather big surface to play, as you will have to lay down all the cards you play plus have some space available for the general supply. I think that Flip City has great replayability and even greater potential if enriched with more expansions in the future. 7/10

Fun:

I have a very good time each time I play Flip City. However, it’s not the kind of game that will cause bursts of laughter and sometimes it will require concentration and some serious thinking on important decisions such as whether to play another card or which card to buy / flip. That kind of mind-boggling decisions can be fun as well. 7/10

Final Verdict:

Flip City comes in a little box but has a lot more to offer than one would expect from such a small package. It has depth and an original mechanic of playing cards from the top of your deck, instead from your hand plus a press-your-luck element that makes it challenging and fun. Its replayability is somewhat restricted from the fact that it uses the same 12 types of cards in every game, but there is a lot of room for future expansions that could elevate its value and durability. It’s equally fun to play with any number of players and it even includes a solo mode, enabling you to practice different strategies on your own. A highly recommendable little game, targeted to kids as well as adults, people more or less experienced in board games, practically everyone!.

Pros:

  • easy rules
  • clear and nice artwork and symbol use
  • challenging and original gameplay
  • you can choose how much to push your luck
  • suitable for all ages and levels of expertise in board games

Cons:

  • rather limited variety of cards

Recommended for: just about everyone, deck-building game fans

According to our scoring system, scoring categories have different weights. Components have 15% weight, Gameplay 35%, Learning curve 5%, Theme 5%, Replayability 25%, Fun 15%. According to this system and the above scoring in each category, overall weighted scoring of the game is:

Overall: 7.6

Safety Tips for Shopping Online

Credit card fraud seems to be everywhere, and thieves love using the internet to steal people’s credit card information, due to the anonymity it provides. Many consumers think the only way to protect themselves is to just avoid shopping online all together. Although that is one way to avoid one’s credit card information from being stolen, it also means one can never shop online again. The online marketplace for goods and services is growing at a rapid pace because consumers know they can quickly find the best deals when shopping online. By just not shopping online anymore, one would be giving up on all these great deals. Using this method to avoid credit card fraud is like deciding never to fly in a plane again to avoid terrorists. True, one would not become a victim in any terrorist plot that involved planes, but that also means having to deal with the inconvenience of not being able to fly when traveling. Like anything else in life, the key is not to avoid the problem, but to understand the problem and to adopt a smart strategy to minimize the risk of being a victim to credit card fraud while shopping online.

First, let’s talk about steps one can take if credit card fraud has already happened. There is no need to panic. Once the cardholder reports that his or her credit card information has been compromised, the credit card company will not hold the cardholder liable for any fraudulent charges, even for charges made before reporting the credit card information has been stolen. The credit card company will shut down that card from further use and issue a new card in about a week or two, but this is still an inconvenience most people would still rather not want to deal with, if possible.

Next, online shoppers could utilize Google’s Safe Browsing Tool to check if a website is safe to visit, assuming one trusts Google of course. This tool will report if a website is suspicious or not, when Google last scanned it, if the website done anything suspicious in the past, and report if it is linked to any suspicious websites even if the site itself is not doing anything suspicious. To see if a website is safe, simply copy and paste “http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=” into the address field on the browser, and then add the url of the site to be visited. For example, to a company’s website, just enter “http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=websiteurlhere.com” into the address bar of the browser being used. Once this is entered, Google’s tool will bring up a simple half page report on whether the site in question is in fact safe or not.

Another layer of protection one can use when shopping online, is to use trusted 3rd party payment methods. Just about everyone has heard of PayPal. They are probably the most widely used 3rd party payment method in the world. They allow for customers to make payment for goods and services through them. For example, this means when a customer buys something, she is not directly paying the website that she is shopping on. She is paying the amount due to PayPal, and then PayPal pays the merchant, which means the merchant never sees her credit card information and her credit card information was never transmitted over the internet during this transaction. It does not matter if the customer shops at one website or a hundred websites. As long, as a 3rd party payment method was used, credit card information was never transmitted so, that information is not floating around on online at each website a purchase was made. Other 3rd party payment methods similar to PayPal include, Google Wallet and Amazon Payments.

Armed with this information, online shoppers can now make sure the websites they visit are safe to shop on, and also avoid entering sensitive information when purchasing. So, there is no need to pass up all the great deals when shopping online due to fear of credit card information being stolen.

5 Powerful Ways To Raise Your Online Profile

More businesses than ever are recognising the power of the online marketplace. The internet offers unrivalled opportunities to connect with potential clients and customers, share your message, and convert interest to sales.

But for many, the disadvantage has been that the online marketplace is crowded, even oversaturated. There is more competition than ever before, and standing out is a challenge.

Clarifying your mission, offering genuine value, and ensuring that you are highly visible, are all vital aspects of achieving success online.

That’s where the tips below come in! Here, we explore five powerful ways that you can raise your profile online and create a genuine connection between your business and its customers.

1: Collaborations

You can stand out in the online marketplace by joining forces with colleagues, peers, and complementary companies in your industry. You could run joint offers, discounts, or campaigns, as well as give interviews to local magazines or websites.

A collaborative, engaging approach tends to work very well online, as this is the perfect space for interaction between businesses and customers who may be all over the world!

Collaborating with others on a piece of content or specific project also means that when the time comes to promote your work, there will be several businesspeople immediately on hand to lead the promotional efforts – all of whom will have an interest in ensuring the work is seen by as many people as possible.

2: Search Engine Optimisation

The first and arguably most important aspect of standing out online can be summarised as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

When a potential customer types words related to your business into a search engine like Google, Bing, or others, search engine optimisation is what will help your company to be one of the first results! Appearing high up – even on the first page – of the search results can be crucial for attracting customers.

Search engine optimisation is one of the most powerful tools you can use to attract clients, achieve sales, and grow your business. This is because online search engines are now one of the first places that customers go when looking for specific products or services.

More companies than ever are recognising the value of search engine optimisation and investing in professionals who can create search engine optimised content for them that will generate huge amounts of traffic.

3: Social Media Campaigns

Social media platforms are a great way to generate interest in your business, engage potential customers, and convey your values and products in an interesting way. Standing out in this space can be challenging however, but carefully constructed social media campaigns can help.

Perhaps you are launching a new product, have a special offer coming up, or want to engage in discussions of a pressing industry issue.

In these cases, creating a week’s worth of related content designed to drive customers towards a particular product, service, or blog post on your website, could be especially helpful – teaching customers step-by-step how your business can support them and what assistance you can provide.

Don’t underuse social media by only posting fun or eye-catching material! Merge this approach with a strategic drive towards your products and services, while always conveying their value, and you will have a great chance of success.

4: Events

Consider holding special events – whether online or in-person – that can generate additional interest and engagement with your business. Live Q&As or product demos, for example, can be conducted completely online, while in-person events could include conferences or ceremonies, or speeches from industry experts perhaps.

Whether you choose to operate remotely or in-person, events can be a great way to do a launch, create a buzz, or educate customers on the value and uses of your products.

5: Awards

If your circumstances allow and it is appropriate for your business, consider giving awards or recognition to peers for delivering excellence in your industry; this could lead to collaborations and mutual growth with businesses who complement yours.

If you run a travel business, consider reaching out to a market-leading travel insurance company, for example. Or if you run a stationery business, how about connecting with an art materials supplier?

By using an imaginative and collaborative approach which involves joining forces with others and celebrating their achievements, you can harness a powerful way to build connections and increase your reach!

The Coast Is Not Clear – Signs of an Impending Major Stock Market Crash

Despite the recent correction, and regardless which popular metric you use; PE, Shiller’s CAPE Ratio, or Buffett’s Market to GDP comparison; this is one of the most expensive markets since 1923. The other two were the 1929 and 2000 markets and we know how those turned out. Incidentally, 1923 was the year the “Composite Index” was introduced, the S&P 500’s precursor.

The record shows that, while stock prices can continue at elevated levels for a long time, they eventually reverse to the mean. That can happen in one of two ways. Either the market goes sideways for a long time until earnings catch up, or there is a sharp drop to bring prices in line with historical PE ratios – a reversal to the mean. History has shown that investors are not a patient bunch. They will put up with a sideways market for a while, but eventually they will tire of meager returns and put their money to work where they believe will yield greater gain potential. Once that ball gets rolling, the market exits en masse and a severe bear market takes hold. The upshot: there is a big market drop in store.

The question is when and was this past correction a hic-up or a prelude to the big plunge. A study of major bear markets indicates the latter is more likely. Indeed, a review of 28-plus -percent market drops since 1923 reveals there is always a preamble to every major bear market. Some folks are under the mistaken impression that stock market crashes occur at market tops. That is far from the truth.

The stock market may well be fickle, but providence is kind. It always gives us advance notice of a coming crash, grabbing our attention amidst our complacency with a surprise drop and providing an opportunity to get out before it crashes in earnest. This is shown in the analysis below for each of the following major bear markets (28% decline or more): 2007, 2000, 1987, 1973, 1968, 1962, 1946, 1937, and 1929. Intraday prices and daily closes are only available for the S&P 500 from 1950 on. Therefore, Dow Jones Industrial Average closes were used for the markets before that.

2007

The initial top for the 2007 market came July 17 when the S&P 500 had an intraday high of 1555.90. The index would drop the next week and eventually settle to an intraday low of 1370.60 a month later on August 16 – a drop of 11.9%. Henceforth, all highs and lows are intraday unless otherwise stated. The market would climb for seven weeks to reach a market top for the index of 1576,09 October 11, 2007 – 1.3% higher than its previous high. An initial 5.5% dip was followed by a quick recovery to 1552.76 October 31, before succumbing and dropping 10.8% to a low of 1406.10 November 26, 2007. The index would recover to a high of 1523.57 and continue on a series of lower lows and highs until its nadir of 666.79 March 9, 2009 for a 57.7% decline.

2000

The 2000 market gave plenty of warning before the Dot.com plunge. The market faltered right after opening the New Year January 3rd. After reaching a high of 1478, the S&P 500 dropped to 1455.22 at the close. It dropped below 1400 the next three days and recovered to 1465.71 – the high January 20, 2000. From there it did a roller coaster ride down to the 1329.15 low of February 25 – a 10.1% drop from its high thus far. The market finally climaxed at 1552.87 March 24, 2000. It would drop precipitously April 14 to a low of 1339.40 – a 13.7% drop – but then slowly recovered to 1530.09 by September 1, 2000, only 1.5% below its all-time high. Thereafter it steadily went down with some sharp drops followed by rallies but only to the downtrend line. The market bottomed at 775.80 October 9, 2002 for a 50.1% decline.

1987

The 1987 bear market was a swift one. After vacillating to a high of 337.89 August 25, 1987, the S&P 500 dropped to 308.58 by September 8 – an 8.7% hit. It quickly recovered to 328.94 by October 2, only 2.6% down from its high. It wobbled to a close below 300 October 15 before crashing the next Monday to close at 224.84 – a loss of 20.5% for that day. It would close lower December 4, 1987 at 223.92 but the low point for the move came the day after the plunge, October 20, when it dipped to 216.46 for a loss of 36.0% from the August high.

1973

This, along with the 1968 bear market, were part of the mega bear market that spanned 1967 – 1982. The S&P oscillated within the 100 and 110 range for most of the year. It cleared the 110-barrier in late summer only to dip below it again before making its final surge as the year closed. It peaked at 119.79 December 12, 1972 and then dropped 4.3% to 114.63 December 21, 1972. The New Year propelled the index higher reaching a top of 121.74 January 11, 1973 – a 1.6% gain from the previous high. It quickly dropped to 111.85 by February 8 and then proceeded to careen downward over a series of bumps until hitting bottom at 60.96 October 4, 1974 – a 49.9% loss.

1968

After an initial drop to start the year, the market climbed steadily from March through November finally topping December 2, 1968 when the S&P 500 maxed out at 109.37. The index dropped to 96.63 by January 13, 1969 (an 11.6% drop), fizzled in its rally coming within 0.43 points of the low March 17, and then rallied all the way up to 106.74 May 14, 1969. After coming within 2.4% of the top it succumbed finally hitting bottom May 26, 1970 at 68.61. That was a 37.3% haircut.

1962

The stock market steadily climbed from October 1960 to December 1962 when the S&P 500 topped out at 72.64 December 12, 1962. Then it dipped to 67.55 January 24, 1963 for a 7.0% loss. The index quickly went back to 70 the next week and eked out a small gain the next month finally peaking at 71.44 March 15, 1.7% below the high. Thereafter, the index plunged to 51.35 June 25, 1962 for a 29.3% decline.

1946

The market had been on a tear since the latter part of World War II and started 1946 the same way gaining 8% by February. Intraday highs and lows for the S&P 500 were not available for the analysis so, hereafter, Dow Jones Industrial Average closes will be used. The Dow Jones closed at 206.61 February 5, 1946. The index then plunged 10% to close at 186.02 February 26. It quickly recovered its previous high and surpassed it on a bucking horse ride up to 212.5 May 29, 1946 – a 2.9% gain from its previous high. The bumpy ride continued until August when the index reached 204.52 on August 13 and then fell in exhaustion finally closing at 163.13 October 9, 1946 for a 23.2% decline. Despite a number of rally attempts, the market would continue to struggle until February 1948 with a maximum loss of 28%.

1937

After a precipitous drop from 1929 to 1932, the market seemed to be on recovery mode until it plateaued in early 1937. The Dow Jones closed at 194.4 March 10, 1937 to mark the end of the uptrend. The index then drifted lower for three months until bottoming June 14, 1937 at 165.51 for a 14.9% loss. It spent the next two months on a steady climb eventually topping at 189.34 August 16, 2.6% below the previous high. That was its last hurrah as the market plunged 49.1% to its 98.95 March 31, 1938 Dow Jones close.

1929

Much like the 2000 market, the Big Crash of ’29 gave plenty of warning. After going sideways for the first half of the year, the market went through a 10.0% correction when it swanned from a 326.16 Dow Jones close May 6 to 293.42 May 27. Thereafter, it rose undaunted until reaching the market top close of 381.17 September 3, 1929. It drifted lower, slowly at first, but then gained momentum until reaching a low point Friday, October 4 with a 325.17 Dow Jones close – a 14.7% loss. It made a mad dash effort to recover the next week but was only able to manage a 352.86 close October 10. At 7.4% lower than the September high, this was the lowest percentage close to a previous high of any of the major bear markets. Then again, this was the granddaddy of all bears. Ten trading days later, on October 24, the index closed below 300. It dived Monday, October 28 and again the next day closing at 230.07. The market continued its plummet until eventually reaching bottom July 8, 1932 when the Dow Jones closed at 41.22 for a record 89.2% decline.

Conclusion

Historical data shows that every major bear market since 1923 always provided investors with a warning. After seemingly peaking, they went through a significant decline before rising again only to plummet thereafter. In two instances, 2000 and 1929, it gave two warnings; the first a correction months before peaking, and the second after peaking.

Declines after the initial peak ranged from 14.9% to 4.3% with an average of 10.8% and a median of 11.6%. In three out of the nine cases, 2007, 1973 and 1946, the second peak was lower than the first. The range was from a loss of 7.4% to a gain of 2.9% with an average of -1.4% median of -1.7%. Taking out the 1929, 7.4% outlier, the average was -0.63% and the median -1.6%. The time between the two peaks ranged from 30 days to 5.4 months with an average of 96.7 days and a median of 93 days.

Starting from the premise we are in the beginning stages of a major bear market, and having gone through a 10% correction, what is in store for us? Surveying the data, it turns out we are average. There seemed to be no relationship between the severity of the bear market and the time lapse between the two peaks. However, five out of the six times the market went through a bonafide correction, 10% or more, it took months, between 2.9 and 5.4 months, for the market to top and begin its downturn in earnest. The notable exception was the Crash of 1929, which only took 37 days between the first and seconds peaks. Although there was no consistent pattern for depth of the initial decline and the total decline, it is notable that the four largest initial drops led to declines of 49% or more – a level only achieved by the 1973 bear market after only a 4.3% decline. There is no discernible relationship between the initial decline and second peak level, nor the total decline and second peak level.

It could be that Morgan Stanley’s prediction this Monday, that a slowdown may loom starting in the second quarter, may be correct. We have already gone above the -7.4% level from 1929, so it would seem this market does not correlate all that well to that one and the wait to the next decisive peak will be measured in months. Regardless, I would caution all to watch the market’s advance very carefully. If the S&P 500 gets within 2.6% of the 2872.87 January 26 top, i.e. 2798, that is your signal to exit the stock market. No sense being greedy about the last 1 or 2 percent gains and risk losing much more.

Japan in San Francisco, Bay Area

Japan Town, San Francisco, is located near center of the city. When one drives on Geary from east approaching Van Ness, one begins to see 5 stories Japanese style Pagoda. There is an office of National Japanese Association on Post Street, if one is interested in learning Japanese American History. There is a lot of Japanese monuments in Japan Town. The symbolic is the tower located in North Center of Japan Town on Post Street. It says “Japan Town” in Japanese.

This tower copies Fire Watching Tower in Japan. In Edo period of Tokugawa Shogun Government, volunteer and professional fire fighters were watching fires from the top of the tower. When they find a fire, ring the bell inside and alarm residents and signal fire fighters depart from the base station.

The most symbolic in Japan Town is the Japanese style 5 stories Pagoda. Pagoda was built to preserve and save Buddha bones after he deceased. This Pagoda is in the Center Square of 2 main buildings in Japan town. The square is a good place for having lunch with your friend in weekdays. The square today was full of young Asian tourists.

There is a wall on the Geary Street side of Japan Town, between main 2 buildings in the area. The wall was quite solemn. There are 2 Chinese Characters engraved on the wall. The Characters, on the wall, mean “Peace” in Japanese. This square is for preserving and recording what happened in the World War II to teach people how war can affect people.

In Japan Town, Street Names are shown both in English and Japanese. Japan Town is the unique place to find the street names are shown in both languages. I cannot believe 2 countries have a history of war in taking a look at this arrangement.

Walking into the one of 2 main buildings, one would not believe that he still is in the US. One feels like walking in some shopping mall in down town Tokyo, such as Shinjuku.

There are lots of Japan related shops, such as Kimono (Japanese Traditional Clothes) Shops, Japanese Traditional Dram Training Place, Japanese Antique Shops, or Japanese Restaurants. Everybody loves Sushi restaurant in Japan Town, San Francisco.

In the US, historically an immigrant’s country, it is not so hard to find any ethnicity. Japan is not an exception. The most typical is Japan Town, but even without visiting Japan Town, San Francisco, there are Japan anywhere in Bay Area.

Driving on El Camino Real, which runs across California as a historic drive, one can find an Authentic Japanese Garden, in Central Park San Mateo. The person who designed, built, and maintained is 1st generation Japanese gentleman. His name is Sam. Sam came to US, when he was 10 years old.

After he had changed his job several times, San Mateo County hired him. Until he retired, he was the main person who took care of the Japanese Garden. In winter, he took out all the carps from the pound and changed water. In the spring, he took care of flowers and sharp wood branch tips so that children who play there were not hurt. Even after his official retirement, he goes to his garden and make sure everything is in order. His constant care and effort kept the garden beautiful.