Retire Before 25

There are absolutely, unequivocally, no shortcuts to lasting success as a young entrepreneur. Allow me to qualify what I mean by this. I am not saying that you cannot build a business very quickly from the ground up. I am saying that you cannot “cheat” or “cut corners” or “stack” or anything else like this and expect to create real, true, lasting residual income.

Content is king? What do you think? Do you like visiting websites that offer absolutely nothing of value? Can you tell when people are only after your business as a paying customer? I certainly can and I don’t like it. You need to offer people a real value if you’re going to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Ask yourself this question: “Do my products or services seem like a good deal to me?” Now of course, since you’re marketing these products they seem like a good deal to you but take away your commission, take away your pay and see if you’d forfeit your hard-earned cash for the very products you offer. Would you? Be honest with yourself. My company has a variety of products and I don’t really care for most of them. Why? Because they aren’t products I would ever buy personally.

Point #1: Market Something You See Value In

I believe content is king. You might dupe one person into buying your product but you won’t get the person’s friends or relatives business. Network Marketing is about building a network! Do you think I’m just talking about your downline? Eh!! Wrong!

Point #2: Build a Network of Customers That Trust You

In most network marketing businesses it only takes a few lifetime customers to retire in the Bahamas. The key here is “lifetime” customers. These are people that believe in your products and will spread the news for you. These people are like walking billboards! A satisfied customer means a lot.

Point #3: Don’t Be Afraid to Wait

Rome wasn’t built in a day. I know you want success but what kind of success do you want? Do you want quick success? You can cut some corners and build a business fast but what happens 10 years from now? Will your business have any integrity left? Don’t be afraid to wait for the right people to come along. I don’t do business with everyone I talk with and neither should you. Now I am not saying you turn down business because you don’t like the color of a person’s shirt. I am simply saying that you should never be selling anything. You have something of value, right? If they want it, they will come and get it. Period.

Point #4: Stuff the Funnel

This is the most important principle I can ever teach you. Learn what it means to “stuff the funnel”. This (in essence) means traffic. Get people to visit your website, pass out business cards, write articles, post on forums, stay active on your blog, run email campaigns, etc. etc. If no one knows about you then no one will ever buy from you. Exposure is key.

In Summary:

I want you to understand that quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to who you do business with. However, when it comes to marketing the opposite is true. Studies show that between Company A and B the company that comes out ahead is the company that gets out there in a big way first. Your products will never be perfect. Your website can always be tweaked. That flyer will look hideous to you a year from now. Just get it out there and stuff the funnel.

Cheers,
Cody

Hello. Welcome to 2010.

Just 15 days into this new adventure and I feel like the Lord is teaching me so much already. As you know,  I usually try and write articles here on the blog that will either instruct or inspire people. This post attempts the latter.

Here are a few things I want to share with you…

1. Money is not the secret to happiness. If you’re unhappy now then you’ll be miserable with money. Why? Because right now there are things that you want but you can’t afford them. As far as you know these things would make you happy. But the truth is, if I gave you a bunch of money you’d be just as unhappy that day as you are today. You would quickly realize that money is not the magic happiness-maker you once imagined it to be.

2. Don’t think so much, you’ll only wear yourself out. There are certain people out there that seem to think that you can attain great success in life if only you will apply yourself. Just dig a little deeper. Work a little harder. Well, the truth is sometimes we need to be silly. Sometimes we need to do things because they don’t make sense. Science is great but it hasn’t figured everything out yet. Rejoice in the mysteries and wonders hidden all around you. The next time you eat, slow down and try to experience every flavor and texture. Go outside and let the rain consume you. Build a sand castle. Play in the mud.

3. Grow in love. Our world’s greatest need is not oil or electricity or truckers – it is love. Take the time to learn what real love looks like. Read the Bible. (1 Corinthians 13) Love the unlovely and accept God’s great love for you. Bask in the shimmer and glow of true love.

4. Stop trying to force it. Success shuckshmesh. Who really cares? Are you enjoying today? Have you focused on the blessings in your life right now? Are you thankful for the things you have this moment? Be careful not to get lost in future plans. The rest of today isn’t promised. What makes you think tomorrow is? If you achieve it, then you bear the burden of maintaining it. Let the Lord bless you instead. (This is not an excuse to be lazy.)

As you can see, I believe that personal development and spiritual growth are far more important than money or success. Life is a journey. Enjoy the road.

Cheers,
Cody

The key to profits is traffic. Twisting arms simply doesn’t work. (and it’s horrible customer service!) Think about this…

Someone is ready right now with cash or credit card in hand just waiting for exactly what you have to offer. The problem is traffic. Exposure. Low traffic means less profits and less profits means selling your collection of teletubbies to make rent. (Did I type that out loud just now… ?)

The SEO Backlink Tool is the answer. You can submit to over 3,000 directory sites. Most of these sites are ones I’d never heard of. You probably haven’t heard of most of them either but who cares? They raise your pagerank and traffic! Let’s say you just get 1 hit off each site every month. How would you like a 3,000 visitor increase to your site every single month?

I’m not trying to peddle you some piece of junk software. This program actually does what it says it does. It does require some work, though. It is what we call, “Semi-Automated” – it does most of the work for you but you have to use it to see results. To my knowledge there is no fully-automated system that can do what this one can. Use it. Love it.

What good is a treadmill if you never run on it? The choice is yours.

YES! I want to BOOST my Site’s TRAFFIC… CLICK HERE!

NO! I’d rather DO NOTHING and stay where I’m at. (NO CLICK NECESSARY!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR,
Cody

Are you serious about retiring at age 25? Here’s how you can do it:

Ingredient #1: Residual Income

This is the most important ingredient. If you’re making Tacos, this is the tortilla. If you’re making soup, this is your broth, if you’re making a hamburger this is the ham… er… 100% all beef patty.

True residual income means a steady flow of cash each week, month, or year. In order to build this stream of income you need to market a service product that people are likely to keep… say, electricity. People are probably going to want to keep the lights on at their house. You can market electricity with my company.

If this doesn’t trip your trigger then what about healthcare, shopping, legal care or home warranty services? People are making thousands a week marketing these products and the monthly residuals are the real deal, with people I know personally making $1,300 a month and up doing absolutely nothing to maintain their income.

Residual Income, built right, will maintain itself.

If you want real residual income send me an email at: cody@retirebefore25.com

Ingredient #2: Mutual Funds

Now that you’re making the kind of money that continues to come in every single month whether you work or not, let’s plan for the worst. You may think I’m being absurd but what if your residual income stream dries up? Though this is highly unlikely given the nature of the Residual Income we have built, it is possible.

Mutual funds average around 8% interest annually. So invest $250,000 at age 25 and in 35 years (at age 60) you will have almost $1,000,000 in the bank.

How realistic is this plan? Well, first you need the principle ($250,000) at age 25 which most people won’t have. So let’s say that you are currently 25 and would like to have your principle in 5 years by the age of 30. You would need to save $4,166 a month, every single month to come out with $250,000 at age 30. Let’s say you can live off half your income. You’d need a little over $8,000 a month or so to successfully save the $4,166 a month necessary to fund your mutual fund.

You’d need to be earning $96,000 a year, after taxes (take home income) to make this self-funding plan work.

Is it possible? Absolutely. How? With your residual income we talked about in ingredient #1. At a decent 9 – 5 job you and a spouse would be taking home $40,000 + a year together. Add in your residual income and you only need $56,000 a year extra. (This is absolutely NOTHING in the world of residual income.) I can personally introduce you to people that have made as much as $1.2 Million dollars a year (that’s $100,000 a month) through Residual Income.

Heck, you may want to lose the job altogether and just earn the $96,000 a year from residual income. (Please understand I am not advocating quitting your job until you have the residual income to replace your job, including any benefits received on said job.)

Lastly, the great thing about mutual funds is that they are a “liquid” asset which means you can cash out at practically any time. Your money is not tied up somewhere in Tijuana. It is your money and it is accessible. (Make sure you do read the fine print on your mutual fund beforehand, though. I can’t help otherwise.)

Ingredient #3: Be Smart

Live within your means. At every level of success you have to understand the principle of living within your means. While you’re building your nest egg and working on your residual income you may find that you are living well under your means (saving most of your cash), this is OK.

Here are a few tips to close out this post.

• Buy nice used cars. Cars depreciate way too fast. If you like the new car smell you can buy a used car that is new enough to still smell like it or you can buy a $0.69 air freshener at 7-11. There is zero benefit to buying a car brand new off the lot other than bragging rights, pride and/or ego-pumping. Never lease.
• Avoid credit cards like the plague. A credit card says, “buy now and pay later”. Why not just pay now? I am not saying you should never use credit. I used credit to buy my fiancee’s engagement ring but these were the conditions: no interest for three months (deferred interest), where I paid off the ring before the three months were up and I had over 70% of the cost of the ring in cash in my back pocket at the time. Lastly, I had a job that would positively allow me to pay the remaining 30% off. (Assuming I kept that job, which is a risky assumption altogether.) Bottomline: Avoid Credit. Don’t live in their world.
• Renting is OK. I know so many people that absolutely would never, ever, rent a house or apartment. Why not? Do the math for yourself. There are plenty of circumstances where renting is the more sound financial option. Forget about equity. You have plenty of time to establish equity in a home that you pay 100% down on. If you’re worried of what other people will think of you if you rent a house or apartment, please, get over it. Stop caring so much about what other people think of you.

If you’d like to chat more about your particular circumstances and how residual income can help you achieve your goals and dreams, email me here.

Merry December,
Cody Miller
214.682.5331
cody@retirebefore25.com

I’ve been playing Risk a lot lately. And I’ve learned a valuable lesson from it – create an army and blast the competition.

You don’t even need to know how to play the game of Risk to understand this concept. The idea is simple. Focus your troops in one territory and then drive into the next… and the next… and the next… before you know it you have dominated the playing board. So how does this apply to your personal marketing strategy?

I thought you’d never ask.

Pick a product and focus all your resources on pushing that one product everywhere you go. Cragslist, MySpace, FaceBook, Blogs, Articles, Squidoo Lenses, etc. Blast your product into the marketplace with everything you can muster and guess what happens? A lot of those advertisements won’t make it. Someone will flag your posts as spam, a site will close down, a blogger will delete your comment etc. However, certain posts will remain. Reinforce and do it all over again.

This really goes back to the law of averages. Most people aren’t successful marketers because they aren’t talking to enough people – they don’t have enough exposure. This is a great way to get more exposure. Let me break this process down for you with 6 simple steps.

• Step #1: Aim. Choose one product you want to push.
• Step #2: Focus. Choose a website, email or phone number you want to drive your responding traffic to.
• Step #3: Make Time. Create an empty weekend or evening and set aside several hours.
• Step #4: Target. Create a physical or mental list of places you wish to advertise online.
• Step #5: Attack! Open fire. Post any and everywhere it is allowed.
• Step #6: Repeat as desired.

A closing thought – I am not advocating SPAM. What I am advocating is the ageless principle of averages – sowing seed. Some seed is going to last and some is not. (Some will actually bear fruit!) The key is not to get caught up in the “managerial mindset”. Don’t focus on the details so much. Look at the whole board, and let me know how this strategy works for you.

Remember, the more seed you sow the more rewards you will reap. Marketing is a numbers game. Some will, some won’t, so what? Someone’s waiting to hear from you. Someone is waiting for a product just like yours, right now. Happy marketing, soldiers.

Cheers,
Cody
cody@retirebefore25.com

Looking for winning products to market? Send me an email or call me at: 214-682-5331 for more information.

If you’re like most young entrepreneurs, if you’re like me, you’ve chased some people around before. You like what you have to offer and you believe in working for yourself, so naturally you want others, especially family and friends to feel the same way.

Well, stop.

Amateurs “sell”, Pros “sort”. Amateurs try and convince people of why they ought to purchase their products, invest in their company or start up with them, while professionals walk right by.

Why do pros sort? Sorting is much easier than selling. I don’t have to convince anyone of anything. I simply share the information with them if they’re “open for more information”. Practice that phrase, “Are you open for more information?” If they are, give them some, not too much but just enough to satisfy them. If they aren’t interested, Rejoice! You’re one person closer to someone who is interested. Move on and stop bugging the same people time and time again.

Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about, you’ve stalked people around like Godzilla, you’re the person they pretend not to be home for! Knock it off! Most of the people you’re trying to convince to do something wouldn’t be any good as an entrepreneur (or they wouldn’t enjoy your product) anyway. So leave them alone and start looking for people who are interested.

The reality is, out there, somewhere, there is someone who is looking for exactly what you have to offer. Your job is to find them and give them more information. That is, if they are open for more information.

Marketing is a numbers game. Expose as many people as possible to your business and sooner or later someone will be interested – it’s the law of averages and it works, every time. It’s all a matter of “sooner or later”. Just keep going, keep working, keep promoting and keep believing.

Everyone has a number. This is not a magic number but a very practical number. You see, everyone has an exact number of people that they need to talk to in order to reach their income goals. For you it may be 1,000 people, for some it may be 1,000,000. It all depends on how big you dream and… chance. Yep, dumb luck. No one knows what their number is until after the fact. So keep count and let me know what your number is once you’ve achieved your dreams.

Looking for a network of young entrepreneurs to link up with? You can start your very own company for just $99. So shoot me an email if you’re… open for more information. cody@retirebefore25.com

Cheers,
Cody