Howto...

adsense

2007-01-13T19:35:00.000+01:00

This is a test:

here should it be:

does it work

Blog moved...

2006-10-19T18:52:00.000+02:00

Hi there... this blog has moved to: http://pizzawars.blogspot.com

How to get rich… a guide - part 1: 10% rule

2006-10-15T14:04:00.000+02:00

In the next couple of post we will try to define richness. And give you a new perspective of the possibilities there are available today.

What is richness?
First we need to define richness. For most people, the answer is: “Lots of money”. But that’s not all. What good is millions of dollars, if your health had suffered a great deal while earning them, or of you had to work so hard, that your family left you?

Richness is not only a matter of money in the bank, but also a question of:

- Health.
- Family and friends.
- Travel
- And achieving your goals.

All of these areas of your life have to be somewhat complete or fulfilled, before you truly feel rich.

Money:
For now we will focus on the money. Not that this is the most important area. But we’ll cover the other later.
First if you haven’t read my article Goal settings for beginners, I strongly encourage you to do so.
This will give you some techniques and help you achieve whatever goals you may have.

10% rule:
The first concept we’ll use is the 10% rule.
Basically it’s like this:

Take 10% of what you earn and save them.
Take 10% of what you earn, and earmark it for giving away.
Take 10% of what you earn and use it on you.

Now you can properly hear your inner voice saying “this is not possible, I cant set aside 30% of my salary”.
Well, you have to. What usually happen is, that the more you earn the bigger your expenses will be.
And therefore the sooner you get started, the easier it is.
It is much more harder to set aside $1000 from $10.000, than $100 from $1000.

Why it is so important to save?
Richness is a state of my mind, among other things. And when you know you have money put aside, it surely gives you this feeling of richness. And another very important benefit, is that the 10% gives you an opportunity to invest.

Why is it so important to give away then?
First of all, it feels really nice to give someone you love something.
Next when you are giving, it creates a very special and important feeling inside of you. The feeling of having more than enough.

And last but not least. You are important. You really need to buy something nice for you. After all you are the one who has been working hard for the money. So go get yourself something nice. Maybe something you’ve been wanting for some time now.

That’s all for now. Next we’ll take a look on the term passive vs. active income. Stay tuned.
Bye for now.

Categori: Finances

Goal setting for beginners

2006-10-11T16:58:00.000+02:00

What are goals and why define them?

We all know what goals are, but why are they of such importance?
When you make a shopping list, you do that, because you want to make sure, that you return from the supermarket with the right groceries.

See this as making a shopping list, you want to make sure that you get what you want.
Life is like a big supermarket, and this is your shopping list…

And that’s why it’s so very important to write them down on a sheet of paper.
The answer my friends, is blowing in the wind. No seriously, the answer is commitment to your goals and to get you to keep moving towards achieving them…

Preparation.
What you need for this first step, is some sheets of paper, 5 pieces should do.
And get a marker or pen of some kind.

How to define your goals:
I will post some examples while we go, so you have an idea of what to do.

I’ve decided to write this as a step-by-step guide; the idea is that you should write your goals down while reading this.
So go find some blank pieces of paper and a pen. NOW.

Personal Development:
First we are going to define your goals. So what I want you to do now, is to take a blank piece of paper. Write Personal Development as the title.
Next, use a couple of minutes to write down some things you would like to change in your life.
Write at least 9-12 things.
Note, that you should not write things concerning your financial situation, neither that you want a new car or similar.
Get going RIGHT NOW.

Finance and career:
Fantastic job. Now we are going to define what you really would like in terms of career and finance.
It’s the same process as before. Define 9-12 financial goals on a blank piece of paper. Title it financial goals
Get started now.

Material things:
Well, there is nothing wrong about being a bit materialistic some times.
And help yourself now, please.
Imagine you are an 8 year old kid, with 30 minutes in toysRus. Take everything you can.
Don’t be shy, whatever you would like. GO!

Fantastic. Now, let’s move on to step 3.
Right now you probably have a lot of goals on these three sheets of paper.
Let’s narrow it down a bit.
Take the first sheet, the one with Personal development in the top.

We are going to sort all of these goals.
Pick the three things there are most important for you, and put a circle around each one of them.

Do this with every one of the three papers.

Now. Take a new piece of paper, as a title you should write something like “My Goals” and this particular date next year.
Then start copying the three most important goals, from each piece of paper, to the new one.

Now you should have something like this in front of you: (The xx.xxx.xxxx is the date)

Almost done…

This is actually one of the most important steps.
You’ll need to associate some feelings to every goal.

Take a look at your list, take the first goal, in my case “Be better to speak in public”, you’ll need to put words on the feelings you’ll have, if you had already reached you goal, ex. “…if I had my new car today, I would feel free, because it could take me anywhere I would like to go, and I would fell happy and in control when I were driving in it.”

Do this with everyone of the nine goals on your list, there is no need for you to write this down. Just do it inside your head!

The next and final step is to hang it somewhere, choose a place, where you will see it every morning.
The refrigerator is a good place.

Now, every morning, before you go to work or what you do, take five minutes, look at the list, say out aloud, every goal, and how you would feel if you already had achieved it.
This is a very good way to start you day, and it will help you to keep on track.

If you feel like, do it once more in evening before going to sleep, or even a third time in the middle of the day.

Congratulations. You have a list of nine goals to achieve within a year.
If you follow the directions and keep on track nothing is impossible.
Remember it is not important how far you get everyday, the most important things is that you keep moving, constantly and in the right direction.

Enjoy life, and achieve your goals. Please.

Gategori: Personal Growth

Rules to live by?

2006-10-11T00:19:00.000+02:00

A lot of these self-help gurus out there, claim that you, by listening to their cd’s and audio, can change your whole life, in as little as 30 days or less.

When you start to work on yourself and your personality, it is important to understand, that you are not a new person before next dawn. These things takes time. But we do change all the time. Small changes. The key is to control these changes and to make sure that you are moving in the right direction.

Just remember that this is a life long journey, and try to enjoy it all the way…

I will in the following try to slighty touch these subjects; you could, if you like, call them some sort of guidance rules:

· Accept the situation, the way it is.

· Take responsibility.

· Go to work on youself, not others.

· Create or build a self image that you like.

· There is no such thing as failure.

· Hang around people who already are successfully.

· Know the difference between short- and long term satisfaction.

· Keep growing.

Accept the situation the way it is:

To change something, or to make a difference, you have to look at the realities.How else, should you know what to change?

Take a craftsman, he is building a garage, he got 15 square feet to build at, but back home, he made a sketch of a garage measuring 10x20 feet.

If the craftsman won’t accept realities, and start building anyway, his project will fail (well, nor exactly, but more on that later…)

The same applies when you are going to change something in your life, or something about your personality, if you don’t know (or wont accept) the situation as it is right now, you will find that the road to success will be harder and longer than needed.
If you have the map, and know your destination, but have no clue what so ever, of where you are right now, it will be quite difficult to end up at the right destination.
Either you could find out where you are on the map right now, or you could just start walking, but chances are big, that you are going in the wrong direction.
So therefore, first priority must be to find you exact location, and be true to yourself.
Only then will you be able to move yourself in the right direction on the path of life…

Take Responsibility:

When you know where you are, and where you won’t to go, take responsibility for your own life. No one else is going to do this for you. You are the ONLY person who really cares about you.
And you are the only person, who can make these changes you want to make.
Accept that this is you life, and this is where you are now.
Make a commitment to yourself, about what you want to change, and that you are going to move in the right direction. Every day. It really doesn’t matter how fast you are going to be there, the only thing that matter, is that you are moving a bit closer every day.

Go to work on yourself, not others.

It is so much more easy to change one person, than it is to change the whole world.

Therefore you need to focus on working on you, and not others.
Thereby not said, that you shouldn’t pass on what you learn on you way, just try to remember your goals, and set yourself first.

Build an inner photo of a perfect you, and keep moving towards it:

Later, on this blog, I will write an article to cover this subject in more details, but I will slightly touch the subject now.
It all depends on setting goals. This is a technique where you will visualize youself as you would like to be, on all areas. Body, mind, finance and socially. When you have created this image in your mind, you’ll be able to see it infront of you, when times get rough, or when you have doubts about your path…
You could compare it to IKEA furniture. Inside the box is a lot of pieces, and a step by step guide telling you what to do. But sometime, you just need to know what it should look like, when finished.
This is what your self image is all about. Knowing what you are moving towards.
But in the near future I’ll write an article explaining what to do in details.

There is no such thing as failure:

Remember the story about the craftsman. Well all he has to do, to eliminate failure in this particular case, is to take a step back, look at the situation and learn something from it. Then suddenly it isn’t a failure anymore, but a success. In this case he could easily learn, to be more prepared, and visit the building grounds and measure, before going back home and start drawing. This will save him a lot of work in the future.
If you eliminate failure from your inner dictionary, you have are already taken a giant leap towards your goals. It is so much more easier to do things and take some changes when you know you can’t fail.
Think about, and from now on, everytime something didn’t work out as planned, learn from it.
Next you could ask yourself: “If I know I couldn’t fail, what would I do”?

Hang with people who already have success, and are as you want to be:

If you spend some time with those who are as you would like to be, then after a while, you’ll start thinking like those.Take and old married couple for instance. They are actually starting to look like eachother, both in looks and in their way of thinking. There are a longer scientific explanation for these things, we wont go so far today, but the point is, that people have effect on each other.
Both negative and positive, by the way.
So it might be appropriate, to mention, that while you should focus on, spending time with creative, energetic and fun people, try at the same time, to eliminate anyone with a negative influence. Don’t worry, it will happen automaticly over time, but why slow the process…

Learn to know the difference between short and long term effects:

Imagine that you are going to eat a whole plate of chocolate. The short term effect, is that it gives you some kind of satisfaction. It tastes good. It melts on the tounge. Delicius.

But after the whole plate, and maybe even a couple of haour later, your enercetic niveau are falling, you starting to feel tired, your bloodsugar is going low.
If you ate a plate of chocolate every day, imagine now, what lang term effect this would have on you, on lets say a year from now…
Not good right.
If you consider these three effects on your body, mind, healt and so on, evertime you are going to do something (not only eating), then you’ll probaply find, that a lot of your actions, may have a nice short term effect, but what about the long term effect of your actions?

Keep growing:

This part almost speaks for itself.
Try to move a bit closer to your destination every day.
As I wrote a bit earlier, it really doesn’t matter how fast you are moving, as long as you are moving. And in the right direction offcourse.
Try to learn something new everyday, and learn from your mistakes, and thereby eliminating failure from your life.

Keep on going, and have fun. Enjoy life...

Categori: Personal Growth

How to deal with telemarketers… or how telemarketing works

2006-10-10T00:01:00.000+02:00

My story

Well. Let’s begin at the beginning.
In January last year I was hired by a telemarketing firm.
I had absolutely no clue about selling, and especially not over the phone.
I was fortunate enough to have some very intelligent mentors around me, and after six months I was literally able to sell anything to anyone, in less than 15 minutes.

That’s my story. Nearly a year after, thinking back at my time as a telemarketer, I get a bad taste in my mouth. I really did con people. And this is my way of saying I’m sorry, and hopefully help someone, to not be intimidated by these guys.

How can someone you never met sell you a product, over the phone?

“Isn't it funny - you hear a phone ringing and it could be anybody. But a ringing phone has to be answered, doesn't it?” (quote from phone boot).

Try this at home if you like, give some random number a call.
When the phone is answered, say you sorry, wrong number.
Redial. Wrong number. Redial. Wrong number. See for how long you can do this. You’ll be very surprised.

The basics of manipulation:

This is what telemarketers do. They manipulate.
It often sounds like arguing. But it is not. Skilled telemarketers choose every word with caution, and every word opens up a new door inside your brain. Its true.
In short, if you answered 10 random questions with yes, then you are very likely to answer question no. 11 with… yes.

Not only that, its harder to say no, and be rude to a friend of yours, someone you have empathy for, than it is to someone you don’t like.
And off course, telemarketers use this fact in their manipulation. They aint trying to sell you something, it just happens that they have this amazing offer, and since you are such a nice guy (or growing company, former customer or whatever), they are willing to give it to you. Aint they just the best...

Another technique they often use, is assuming the sale, before the sale is closed.
As soon as they have you on the phone, between the lines, they are assuming, that you have already said yes, and your subconsess get that… and after they have softened you up a bit, the difference between yes and no isn’t that big. All they have to do is to ask the right question at the right time, and another sale is put on the board.

In fact, most telemarketers are able to hear a change in tonality, when they have taken control, and then they strike. It is very difficult to explain, but I used to describe it as, “their voice is getting tender”.

How to avoid being caught up in the net

Most people say: “no telephone salesman could ever make me buy anything I haven’t seen first…”
Well… let me tell you, first off all, we really liked when someone as the above was on the other line.
They were the easiest, its like a shark feeding from the bottom of the sea.
It was so easy. These people thought they could argue us out of selling. They thought they were better than us, and just wanted to play with us, like a cat with a mouse.

But when they did realize, that it was us playing with them, it was too late. They were already cought in the net, you could say.

So rule no. 1: Hang up.
As soon as you realize that it is a telemarketer, hang up the phone.
If it is difficult for you to hang up a phone, do as they do. Get interrupted.
In the middle of a sentence, hang up. Or even better, disconnect while they are in a middle of a sentence.
Chances are that they are not listening, but only talking for most of the time, so when they realize that you have hung up on them, they probably wont bother calling back.

In fact there shouldn’t be any more rules. rule no. 1 should be efficient enough, and the guy in the other end of the line, is probably a lot more skilled than you at arguing, especially about the given product. Remember, that he spend a lot more time than you talking with angry people in the telephone. Lots of hours each day.
So, don’t try to argue with him, at some point or the other, chances are that he is going to win the argument enough times, to eventually get you to buy whatever he is selling.

If you can’t hang up the phone, then ask him to send something written to you. He’ll probably give you some speech about how he already did send something out, and as a follow-up, he is calling you.
Ask him to send it again. And hang up.

How do they make people sell like that?

I think that we can agree that this isn’t the most honourably thing to do for a living.
So the question is, how do these firms get young people to con people like that?

Manipulation. Yes. That’s right. The employers are manipulating the employees as well.
Often they act like role models, for these young folks, and drive around in big expensive cars, wasting money and so on, and so on…

I’ve been there. I’ve seen these guys, and I have seen young people keep working almost for free. Working towards a dream of financially independency, big fancy cars and clothes, spend money they didn’t have too keep up with the lifestyles of their employers.

In my salesroom, every time someone made a sale, there was this big bell, that you had to hit hard.
Everyone was clapping and hoeing, it was a fantastic feeling. We should all wear suits. After work we hit the bars and discos in the area, acting like hotshots. Our bosses would off course join us, and mostly it was on their initiative.
All of this was a way of manipulating all of us, to do their dirty work. To keep working, even though we didn’t get paid.

Summary

I really hope that in the future when the phone rings, and a salesman is on the other end, you’ll think tvice before saying yes to anything.

But as a kind of disclaimer, I think it is important to let you know, that all of the above, is my own personal experience, and I don’t believe that all telemarketing firms are like this.
I bet there are some of them, who actually, sell good products, and really accept a no.
But you have to ask yourself this. If the product they are selling, are so fantastic, why use telemarketing to sell it…?

I hope that you, at least, find my post interesting, and hopefully, you are able to use something from it sometime…

Have fun and enjoy life. Please.

Welcome...

2006-10-06T12:40:00.000+02:00

Hey bloggers...This is my newest blog, got a couple more out there.

My idea with this one is, that it should be a bit more useful, and not just about what I am doing in my daily life.

I have for a long time, been using personal development programs, I believe it is of most importance, to continue growing, not just in a work environment, but also as a homo sapiens.
Therefore I have read, watch and listen to a great number of self-help coaches.
I believe that one the best ways of learning is to teach, and this is the primary reason I have created this blog. To teach, and hopefully to help others improve in their daily-life as I have.

So summasummarum, I sincerely hope that you will find some of my articles useful, and that you can tolerate my English, which probably will have some misspelling now and then.

Please fell free to leave a comment, if you fell like.

Best wishes, Hjalte.