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Checking the briefing offered by trendwatching.com is often very interesting. This month’s trend briefing was in the form of videos that addressed a few interesting questions.

There were two that were particularly interesting. One was Car vs Phone. It surveyed a fair number of people from all walks of life and in different countries as to whether they would prefer a car or a mobile phone. Surprise? More people voted for the mobile phone.

What does this say for the motor industry? Maybe nothing at all. On the other hand, if you lived in a country where public transport is dirt cheap, totally accessible at all times and used by most citizens what then? Would you really want to bother with a car and the costs involved, never mind the danger of driving on roads with other mad people.

Is this what is killing the motor manufacturers during this current recession? It’s not really at all about consumer spending, it’s actually about life style changes. And if that is the case, then the motor industry is in a far worse state than one can imagine because then it’s the death knell isn’t it.

But the video that truly fascinated is called Who Cares. It’s not so much a revelation as the car vs phone one was to watch. It was more a confirmation of what one knows already. Public opinion on whether brands or the company that makes them care about their customers was quite strong and universal.

The overall consensus of all the people asked was that nobody cares. Companies only want you to buy. The bottom line and making sales is what it’s all about. All the time.  Nothing else matters. Certainly you as consumer do not matter to them. That was the opinion voiced by these consumers.

Nobody surveyed in the video could think of one company or brand that they felt represented a business that cared about it’s customer. Very sad.

But surely that’s a business opportunity isn’t it? If you truly care about your customers or potential customers then imagine how ahead of the pack you are. Unbeatable in fact.

An interesting statistic was mentioned in a post on Huffington. Unemployment for those making $150 000 a year was only 3% in the last quarter of 2009 whereas the percentage of unemployed was a staggering 31% for the bottom 10% of income (USA stats).

So much for an across the board unemployment rate. Put a figure to the percentage and the number of people involved is officially at 15 million but estimates make the figure closer to 26 million if one counts those who have given up looking for work.  A third of these are placed in the bottom percentile.

In other statistics offered in articles on the employment situation it is generally pointed out to the reader that the most affected group are the young people joining the work force. This ties in with the 31% in the bottom 10% of income.

Young people enter the workplace with no actual work skills. This is especially true for young University graduates. Historically many disciplines offered at academic institutions have been fairly divorced from the real life of the work environment. Classics, philosophy, ancient literature and many more fields do not provide graduates with employable skills.

True, University students will always learn how to conduct research, put together a logical dissertation on a point and hopefully do this using good language skills. But does one need to spend three to four years learning this with the resultant large student loan to have to pay off for the rest of ones life?

Regrettably, academia tends to sit huddled in its ivory towers not prepared to budge from its self-image of ‘pure knowledge’. Whatever that might mean. Perhaps what will help them budge might be the exodus of young people who will turn to other resources and institutions available to continue with their studies.

What is indisputable is the fact that young people will need to acquire different skills from those traditionally offered by present day colleges and universities. Some of these will be about how to start ones own business, invest for wealth, marketing and selling ones skills and many more that will enable young people to become entrepreneurs rather than working for a company.

Self-sufficiency will be the key for the following generations.  The key to the factory doors have been tossed in the garbage bin never to be found again.

Of course it also means a mind set change for parents.  As parent there is no longer the easy option. The concept of college and job for your children doesn’t cut it anymore. It just got a whole lot more complex.

Instead of constantly trying to get your child to conform you will need to encourage them to take risks. You will need to help them with thinking outside of the box, to plan for a future that is totally unpredictable.  No more life time jobs, no more single career lives. It’s all up in the air.

It’s a totally different scenario. We cannot approach this in the same way as our parents or grandparents did. New ideas and innovations will be king, not drone like ‘follow my leader’ behaviour.  Are we up to the task? We better be.

How long would you consider to be sufficient time before you gave up on a project that for all intents and purposes was dead in the water. Have you had a business idea that you gave up on? A career path or a hobby? A sporting achievement?

At what stage would you consider that you had given it your all. Maybe after a year? What about two years? Maybe even five? What would be your cut-off point when you finally give up on the project?

The question arises, surely, when one reflects on Nelson Mandela’s walk from prison. All of 27 years of a prison sentence later.

He never gave up. He wrote volumes of papers. He gave out words of encouragement to his political co-prisoners,  to the ANC troops outside of prison and outside of South Africa. He kept himself fit and healthy in the belief that at some stage he would be released and have a role to play in eliminating apartheid.

Even during the last years in prison he was still negotiating, arguing and pushing for a one hundred percent democracy. He was offered freedom with certain conditions attached. He turned it down and sat on the now famous island for another few years.

That’s being persistent. Might make us reconsider when we want to give up on a project or challenge we have set ourselves. On the twentieth year anniversary of his famous walk to freedom we can reflect on his achievement and what we can take from it.

Nobody hesitates to see a doctor when they have a broken bone. Toothache? Phone the dentist. Financially ill or business in the pit? Muddle along on your own. What for? Get a coach, employ a ‘financial or business doctor’. Don’t go it alone.

Top athletes depend on their coaches for peak performances. The top teams in basketball, ice hockey, football and more perform in line with the abilities of their coaches. Top politicians employ personal coaches, people serious about diets have nutritionists helping them.

Becoming a serious financial or business expert will be much easier if a coach is there to help. This may be an intimate one on one relationship or may be spread amongst a series of people whose advice is absorbed and followed.

The coaching relationship may include consultations or phone calls. It may just be offered via newsletters, blogs, podcasts or articles in newspapers and magazines. Find the one that appeals and that speaks at the right level of competence for easy absorption.

Add a mentor to this mix or a mentoring group of people. It is easier to try a new field if there is support. A coach might be too aggressive. A mentor might be a better choice. Either way it is important to find support to ensure that assistance is on hand.

In line with finding the right coach and mentor, it is also important to find the time to practice and apply oneself. All top performers spend more time practising than participating in their game. This is the same whether following the careers of grand chess masters or a Roger Federer on the tennis court.

These top achievers have one thing in common. They relentlessly work to improve their game.  Tiger Woods spends hours hitting the ball (and other activities!), David Beckham kicks the ball one hundred times and recording artists spend hours in the studio.

Practising to become an expert business person is relatively painless. It even costs very little if you try your luck at becoming an internet marketer. The entry level capital required is minimum. In fact it’s just a computer and access to the internet.

Or alternatively allocate a small sum of money, an amount that is affordable, and invest on a trial and error basis. Learn using small steps practising along the way. However, the coach is not only essential in helping to increase the income. Learning how to budget and reduce unnecessary debt is as important in the quest to become a financial expert.

Many people might find the practice period to be boring and unproductive. Yet it is a necessary component towards any kind of expertise. Anticipate that some of the practice sessions will not exactly sparkle with excitement.

It’s the same with all new skills. There is a period where the basics have to be learnt and acquired whether learning to play the piano or riding a horse for the first time. None of these are particularly fun. But if persevered with, they can bring untold pleasures. This is the case with acquiring some business expertise as well.

Make 2010 the year of finding a good coach and practising a lot. It will pay off handsomely.

The stock markets in 2009 were the place to make some nice profits. The FTSE in London rose by 22%, Germany’s Dax by 23% and France’s Cac by 22%.  These gains have been attributed to the recovering global economy.

The global financial system stabilised over this period and it appears a major recession has been averted. Most asset classes felt the effects of concerted effort, co-ordinated across markets, of policy intervention by governments.

US shares also performed well. Despite a last minute drop by 1% on New Year’s Eve on the fears of further instability in the financial markets instigated by a cry for further bailout help for US mortgage lenders, the broad-based S&P 500 index was up nearly 25% on the year.

The Dow Jones gained 20%. The technology-driven Nasdaq index doubled those same gains by rallying to a startling gain of 45%.  Yet, in comparison to China’s gain, these disappear into insignificance.

China’s main stock index rose 80% during the year 2009. Economists predict that the Shanghai index could move higher during 2010 backed by the improving economic recovery, stable policies implemented by a supportive government and continued optimism.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose by a particularly encouraging 52% while even the slightly more stuttering economy in Japan led to a 19% increase. The Japanese economy is still suffering from deflation in the midst of a fear of a recession.

Most economists fear that these gains are unlikely to be repeated. It is most probable that governments will withdraw economic support and cut stimulus packages.  There are some fears that without these stimulus packages the economies might struggle.

To a certain extent stimulus packages could have masked the underlying problems and falsely created a rosie glow of optimism. On the other hand should the stimulus packages continue, the real problems could very well be covered up for a further year leaving 2011 to be the year where the real pieces are picked up.

Commodities were not left behind. Crude ended the year with an increase of 78% showing off the biggest annual climb in about 10 years. Gold price touched new highs in 2009 hitting a high of just over $1,220.00 an ounce. That worked out at a rise of about 25% for the year.

All in all the year 2009 was a prosperous one for investors.  The same can hardly be said for the man in the street. Headlines proclaiming job losses were never far off the front page of newspapers.

Especially in the US continuous declines in employment opportunities created much financial stress. Unemployed numbers stood at 15.4 million in November 2009 at 10%.  According to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics the rate for adult men stood at 10.5%, adult women at 7.9%.

Population groups suffering the most were teenagers at 26.7% and blacks at 15.6% unemployment. In other words, problems were most stark for those working in the unskilled labour market.

How can this situation be reconciled? The stock markets show a comeback of massive proportion whereas in stark contrast unemployment figures rose to unacceptable levels. What solutions are there?

Plying ones trade as an internet marketer is a fairly new profession. It was unheard of a few years ago to consider making a living by offering a good or service. Even the online giant of Amazon has only been around since 1995. That’s hardly a long time never mind a life time although it does feel like longer.

It has taken the people a bit longer to start considering the internet as a way to make money and to develop a career in. Mostly it could be attributed to the fact that the internet runs on a technology fairly foreign to the normal person or non-geek.

Having to cope with technical issues is a frightening concept and many people would have hesitated to try their hand at internet marketing. It’s so much easier to set up a table at a fair and sell goods that are tangible and where one can use a plastic tupperware bowl for the cash register. A fascinating talk on technology is worth checking here.

Do you know how to create graphics on a computer? How about using HTML to put a web page together, know any of that? Would you know how to set up a shopping cart? Can you check the statistics for your traffic to see what sales campaigns are working? Does that sound like it is all too much for you to try?

What has changed then? It’s the availability of tools such as WordPress that has changed the online environment. This innovative online application was first available in 2003. WordPress allows ordinary people like you and I to easily set up a blog and be ready to publish our words of wisdom for all to read in a matter of moments.

It’s not only WordPress that has set us non-geek people free of the technology that had held us back in the past.  A slew of little software applications are now available that help with such things as shopping carts and traffic analytics. A plethora of free template designs and graphics available at no or little cost allows even the totally inept marketer to upload something passable onto the internet.

These tools have opened doors for marketers to venture into the technologically challenging environment of the internet. No longer does one have to be a computer geek to be able to set up a website as a lot of help is available to make the task so much easier.

You don’t even have to be a qualified graphic designer to produce good looking sites. It’s not necessary to be a famed journalist as one can buy good quality articles from online marketers that are topic specific and appropriate to ones field. And one can bring in low cost technical assistance if one is really stuck.

What it means is that the tools and information on the internet have made it easier for marketers to set up shop on the internet. Of course those marketers who are creative, have a flair for copy writing, can spot a good product to sell or have a great own product do have an advantage as internet marketers.

The one thing the internet offers though is a low cost entry into the world of buy and sell and a huge, often free, library of information to assist even the newest of marketers to make a successful go of it.

Of course it’s not as easy as that. You still need to find those customers before you can sell anything. And that in itself is not as straight forward as one might think. Having people walk past your table at a craft fair is easier than getting shoppers to click through to you. But it can all be learnt. So no need to run away in horror. Give it a go.

This hot topic is being talked about everywhere and not only on the internet. It is often associated with people who show off with a picture of themselves clutching an oversized  cheque that shows hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of earnings - for one month!

This kind of ill-gotten publicity has given internet marketing a bad name. It has resulted in an old-fashioned gold rush where many people are bringing their shovels and sieves and are hoping to pan near somebody who has already found the motherload.

In typical Wild West style the snake oil sales people are out there offering instant cures. They promise untold riches in three easy steps if you follow their lead. They tell you it’s all about easy easy easy, success is guaranteed, money will flood in within a few days, no more worries. Trust us. Pay us.

This entire hype has resulted in many people running around on the internet just like headless chicken do in a farmyard. They jump from one ‘big’ solution to the next. None of them are working for them. It’s easy to understand why. The fundamental principles of marketing are being ignored.

For all those people, and for anybody who is new to the concept of internet marketing it might be a good idea to sit back, take a deep breath and have a look at what internet marketing is really about.

In reality, just like opening a shop on the main street, internet marketing is about the ordinary concept of selling and buying.  You offer something for sale and somebody comes along and buys it, or maybe decides not to buy it.

The only thing that is different is that it’s done digitally. In other words the internet marketer uses the internet to promote and sell his goods. This brings with it many benefits and a whole stack of disadvantages which the internet marketer has to learn about before he can become a success.

It’s no different to trading on the high street. Lessons have to be learnt. In fact many of them are quite similar to what the owner of that little dress shop had to learn. The basic principles of trade have been around since the early days of humanity.

Learn these principles and add new ones that apply to the internet before launching yourself into this commercial environment. And having a fair amount of patience is also a good character trait to have. It’s not as easy as many people try to tell you and success is not to be had overnight.

Just as McDonalds started with one restaurant many years ago and grew into a huge empire, so can you start a tiny business on a website or blog and grow it into an empire. The only thing to remember is that it took McDonalds 15 years of hard work and much experimentation before it really took off!

As with all types of business, knowledge and patience will be useful when trying out internet marketing!

Something that I noticed, in fact bowled me over, was the courtesy of the Asian people. And I wondered at the time whether we parents in the so called developed West are letting our children down by not teaching them better manners.

But then it’s more than our children. An interesting post on Tom Peter’s blog about civility and how it affects the bottom line came up at the same time as my experience with polite Asian people. Not only are we not teaching our children good manners but we are also neglecting to insist that our staff exhibit good manners to our customers.

Flying from Heathrow London to Bangkok in Thailand I sat next to two Asian girls. I’m going to guess they were Thai. I didn’t really speak much to them, they were part of a larger group and busy with their own community and I was happy to just vegetate in front of the movies. Three of those later…

Everytime they wanted to get up to the toilet they helped me with all the goodies on my small table, to lift, tuck in earphone cables, hand cups to other people to hold and in general in a gentle manner help as much as possible to make the interruption as hassle free as possible.

This genteel and friendly service has continued to be part of my experiences as I traveled to my final destination being Hanoi in Vietnam.

It was therefore quite interesting to see that several business books have recently been published that deal with the ‘power of civility’! And how this affects the bottom line.

It has been noticeable for some time now that good service is hard to come by. As customer you are lucky to be treated with indifference. That has become the standard now. It’s outright rudeness that is the more common story.

In fact any company that has staff who are friendly is so instantaneously noteworthy and memorable that people talk for days on end as to how shocked they were at this extraordinary level of service.

As much as companies need to take stock and realign their staff’s thinking toward the customer it is parents and child minders who really need to get back to basics. Maybe it’s time to reconsider the principle that children have the freedom to behave and do as they wish. Maybe the idea of common courtesy could be brought back into the curriculum. It certainly will help business.

What about the rest of the world? Would we have as much strife and war if people learnt to respect each other? Would be worth a try. No cost involved!

More than anything else, for the internet marketer looking to generate income with an online business, signing up to an affiliate program is one of his best options available. It’s also one of the biggest growth areas in online business right now and for new marketers a course offered by experienced affiliate marketer Anthony Kirlew could be a good move.

What does the term actually mean? Simply stated it’s a program where you earn commission by introducing visitors or buyers to another website.

There is a trend towards calling this form of marketing performance marketing. In other words if a visitor who you sent to the site views the page, signs up to a membership site or buys a product, you get paid for that performance.

There are several types of affiliate marketing and some do not require a visitor to buy anything for you to earn a commission. A visitor to the site may just need to sign up to a newsletter or sign up to a site such as a dating site.

A visitor may also just click on an ad and you can earn some commission on that. The most commonly known of this is Google’s Adsense. Most bloggers have taken part in this program. A few years ago when the web was not quite that populated with bloggers, these click through ads paid out fairly handsomely.

Nowadays this is no longer the case and you would need a blog with huge amounts of monthly traffic to earn a living with Adsense advertising on your blog. These ads are generally text ads but there are increasing numbers of graphic ads being offered as well.

Regardless of the effectiveness of click through advertising commission most bloggers do have some text link ads on their blogs. It is one of the easiest to set up and this is something technically challenged bloggers can do themselves.

The bulk of the revenue made in the affiliate marketing space is commission based. About eighty percent of earnings are made via the revenue sharing form of business. As a prime example one needs go no further than Amazon.

In fact Amazon has been credited with being the first serious online shop offering affiliate marketing opportunities. Although other smaller traders worked on this before Amazon, it is this huge online retailer who really got it going and in fact has patents on many of the processes involved.

Amazon does make it fairly easy for somebody to sign up as an affiliate. The process is straight forward and the advertising material that you may use on your blog is good. The only real problem is that Amazon pays a very small percentage on a sale. In other words the commission is low.

Amazon is therefore very much like Google Adsense where you can only make some money if your blog or site has high amounts of traffic, for high traffic read hundreds of thousands of visitors.

For the average blogger this kind of traffic is not a reality and neither Google nor Amazon’s affiliate programs are of much use to them when looking to make a living. However there are many other vendors - that is people or companies offering goods for sale - who offer a much higher commission structure and these are definitely worth signing up for.

The third affiliate program type is a cost per action program. Nineteen percent of affiliate revenue is earned through this form of commission payment. A cost per action program would be one where the affiliate gets paid for inducing a visitor to sign up for an opt in e-mail list for instance.

These are the three predominant affiliate programs currently on offer for Internet marketers. Deciding which one would suit you the best would depend on your interests and what kind of serious traffic your blog attracts. If you are new to this form of business you might want to attend a course being offered by an experienced Affiliate Marketer.

Read, watch, listen and do is the winning combination that this new Multi-media eCourse offers you.

What is on offer is a Multi-media eCourse on “How to write Articles for maximum Effect”. The course consists of 21 chapters and 14 videos providing you the student with a seriously comprehensive guide on how to write articles.

The course is a product of true team work between Andrew Rondeau and myself. Andrew compiled the excellent video material while I provided the written content. It’s designed to offer a whole range of different learning opportunities. For those who prefer to read, there’s a comprehensive book. For the more visual people the videos will let you watch and learn.

And the fourth way to learn? You send in your articles to have them evaluated and some positive feedback sent back to you. Read, watch, listen AND DO. How many courses do you know of that offer you such a variety of ways to grasp the material and to immediately practice what you learnt.

Why would we put so much effort into an eCourse that teaches you how to write articles? It’s because the written word is back with a vengeance. You can do nothing online unless you can string some words together into compelling copy.

That applies to whatever you want to do. Write an article for your blog? Definitely. Post an article to an article directory to promote your blog and products you are trying to sell? Of course.

What about commenting on other blogs and on forums, setting up a page on Facebook? Yes, most definitely. Presentations? LinkedIn profiles? Twitter tweets, quick comments on social bookmarked sites such as Digg? Yes, yes, yes!

You need to be able to write. What the telephone killed for a while, that skill of writing beautiful letters, has come back with the online world demanding you write to express yourself and to communicate with people.

It doesn’t matter whether you have a blog, are an internet marketer selling products, building a profile online to help your offline career prospects or just having fun with your friends on Facebook or MySpace. You have to be able to write.

Does it always have to be an article? Of course not. But the same principles apply to whatever format you will be writing in. This eCourse presents 21 chapters that cover a wide variety of topics dealing with the written word. And the videos show you visually how to go about it.

Some of the content covered in this eCourse: What to write about, Who are your articles meant for, How to do research on your topic, Why the format is so important, You must have a compelling title, Get rid of those erros, Just do it - start writing, Overcome the dreaded writer’s block, You can make money with your articles and more.

There are 21 chapters jam-packed with information for you with 14 videos for you to watch and learn from. To get your free extract, a full 6 chapters of this book with video access visit the How to write articles for maximum effect site. It’s not going to cost you anything and you will most definitely learn something.