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Articles from John AOV | Selfgrowth.com
- ***In Real Estate, Fortune Favors the Brave - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVJust how bad is the current real estate market? It is difficult to say. Last week, a story on Fox News reported that "The pace of U.S. home building unexpectedly strengthened in September as new housing starts rose 5.9 percent." However, a story in Mortgage News Daily emphasized that despite ...
Views: 749 - ***Get the Trump Mindset for Real Estate Riches - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVWe have a lot in common. We both started reading books about real estate when most of our fellow students were only thinking about buying cool cars. After we graduated college, we pursued our real estate dreams in different ways. Gary put his energy behind acquiring properties, while Donald ...
Views: 741 - ***Five Strategies that Outperform "Fix and Flip" in Today's Real Estate Market - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVYou've read the new stories. Record numbers of houses are sitting on the market unsold. Prices have sagged. New housing starts in October 2006 fell 17.9 percent behind October 2005. And to make the situation worse, interest rates are high enough to scare away buyers. When you add up all those ...
Views: 647 - ***Powerful Marketing Ideas for the New Internet Age - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVLast week I had lunch with a CEO who had just asked his Website team to re-optimize his company's site. "We've got to get more traffic to our site," he told me, "or else we're never going to sell more product." Of course, he's right. To sell on the Internet, you need traffic. But getting ...
Views: 736 - ***Guerrilla Advertising - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVIn my post of November 3rd, I promised that I would follow up in a few days with a post about guerrilla advertising. Here it is - a packet of ideas on how to create high-impact advertising on a low budget. Use newsletters to stay in touch with customers or clients. Your publications should ...
Views: 644 - ***Power Marketing for a Fast-Changing World - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVIn today's competitive marketplace, marketing makes the difference between failure and success. If you doubt that statement, look at your shoes. With millions of different shoes on the market, how did those two particular shoes make it onto your feet this morning? You might say that you picked ...
Views: 1292 - ***Jobs for Sale - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVI have never seen an advertisement that said "Great Jobs for Sale," and I bet you haven't either. But if someone offered to sell you a great job, for a reasonable price, wouldn't you say yes? Imagine receiving the additional job benefits of having a new job with a healthy income stream that ...
Views: 825 - ***When You Own a Business, You Own Your Life - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVSeveral weeks ago I had a conversation with Larry Gessner, a very active member of the Trump University community. If you spend any time on our Discussion Boards, you're already familiar with Larry's keen insights about what it takes to be a successful businessperson and entrepreneur. Larry ...
Views: 557 - ***What You Don't Know about Refinancing Can Hurt You - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVTrump University President Michael Sexton interviews EJ Ridings, President of Trump Mortgage Most people refinance their homes when they need a large sum of money to install a new kitchen or pay college costs. But there are right and wrong ways to refinance, as we'll learn in the following ...
Views: 815 - ***The 101 Percent Formula for Entrepreneurial Success - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVIf you are starting a new business, the day will finally come to stop planning and start interacting with your customers. That day is of critical importance. Ultimately, it will determine your success or failure. To get the most from that moment, I recommend an approach that I call giving your ...
Views: 634 - ***Why Starting a Business Remains the Path to Success - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOV--Secrets of the Self-Made,-- an interactive multi-media article on Forbes.com, offers a revealing glimpse into the minds of some of America's entrepreneurial billionaires. Among the more interesting information, for me, are the descriptions that these ultra-rich individuals share about their ...
Views: 578 - ***Your Marketing Is Your Company - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVIn my blog post this morning, I would like to confront a rampant misconception about marketing. It is that marketing is something that a company does - just another activity like HR, accounting, training or product development. I would like to blow that misconception to bits. Because marketing ...
Views: 546 - ***Know Your Customer, Create Your Success - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVGood morning, Mr. or Ms. Entrepreneur. I'd like to ask you a very basic question today: Do you know who your customers are? That's an interesting question, because there are so many ways to answer it. As an experiment, I asked our Executive Editor Barry Lenson to call three entrepreneurs and ...
Views: 557 - ***The Great Marketing Information Giveaway - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVYou’ll be glad that you stopped by today, because Trump University is giving away some of the most powerful marketing ideas available anywhere - information that can make your enterprise vastly successful in today’s competitive marketplace. Better yet, we are not giving away this information ...
Views: 465 - ***Entrepreneurship Defined - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVAn exclusive first look inside Trump University’s newest book, Trump University Entrepreneurship 101 The term entrepreneurship leaves much to be desired. You have to wrap your mouth around the word, making creative pronunciation choices on three of the five syllables. Dictionaries define it as ...
Views: 782 - ***Triple Your Income from the Customers You Already Have - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVYou probably don’t think of your customers as expenses. But if you add up all the money you spent to win their business, you will discover how costly they really are. To win them, you spent a lot of money on advertising, salespeople, a Website and other marketing initiatives too. Customers are ...
Views: 521 - ***Beyond Location: A Potent Way to Boost the Value of Investment Properties - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVWhen you investigate properties to buy, look ahead. What will their neighborhoods look like in the years and decades to come? Take a close look at what needs improving, because the problems you see are opportunities. The more of them you can correct, the faster your property values will soar. ...
Views: 678 - ***Avoid the Mistakes that Kill First-Time Property Investors - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVIs it a great time to invest in real estate? Or is it a terrible time? Today and every day, those are difficult questions to answer. Some things are bad about the current market ... we’ve all read that housing starts are down and that there are many houses sitting unsold on the market. But we ...
Views: 868 - ***How to Make Banks Want to Loan You Money - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVA power strategy from the pages of George H. Ross’s book, Trump Strategies for Real Estate George Ross, Senior Counsel for The Trump Organization, is a formidable negotiator and businessman. In his book Trump Strategies for Real Estate, he sets out this simple strategy that can actually make ...
Views: 909 - ***Avoid the Mistakes that Sink Start-Ups - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVA student in our Entrepreneurship Mastery Program is a smart and courageous woman. Ten years ago she started a business that failed after four years. Now she is with us, acquiring the knowledge she needs to be successful the second time around. Just a few hours into the course, she learned an ...
Views: 619 - ***How Healthy Is Your Enterprise? - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOV
Views: 602 - ***The Best Gift You Can Ever Buy for Yourself: A Business of Your Own! - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVIf you have any desire to be in business for yourself, then now’s the time to make your move! In fact, there has never been a better time to take that step. So this year, buy yourself the greatest gift of all - a business of your own! Over the past year, I’ve met and spoken with thousands of ...
Views: 623 - ***The Only Risk-Free Way to Become an Entrepreneur - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVDo a simple experiment this morning. Go to the search engine of your choice and search for the term “businesses for sale.” You are going to be astonished by what you find. Businesses are changing hands at an amazing rate in virtually every area of the United States, and thousands of attractive ...
Views: 550 - ***Don't Let Mold Steal Your Real Estate Riches - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVBack in 1997, a copper pipe burst in the wall of one of my properties. My plumber and I tore the wall open. He patched the leak. I let the hole stay open for about a month before I closed it up again. I repainted the room and moved on to the next job. Then a few of my friends started asking me ...
Views: 804 - ***Dig Big Profits from Properties that Other Investors Ignore - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOV“I have been doing great during the recent slump,” a Michigan-based developer named Jonathan told me recently. “I buy, renovate and resell one and two-family residential houses in inner cities. Other developers ignore these properties and prefer to work in more upscale locales. But there are ...
Views: 1008 - ***Your Own Company Is Your Road to Riches - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVWhen you think of starting a company, you probably think about all the hard work it will take. Hopefully you also envision all the benefits, such as wealth, freedom, and a sense of personal accomplishment and significance. But have you also thought about how efficient owning a business really ...
Views: 616 - ***What Public Relations Gives You that Advertising Never Can - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVA post on this blog a few weeks ago described the marketing traction that small businesses can develop by sending out press releases to local media. Today, I would like to add to that strategy. The first step is to have your company contribute to the quality of life in your community. You could ...
Views: 476 - ***Don't Leave Your Customers Stuck on the Runway - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2009 from John AOVCustomer service lessons from the JetBlue disaster JetBlue is still recovering from its February fiasco at JFK Airport in New York. You remember - snow and extreme cold brought air travel to a standstill, but JetBlue decided to keep flying anyway. Its planes rolled out onto the tarmac and got ...
Views: 559 - ***Your Small Company Can Market as Effectively as the Big Boys - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVIf you're a small business owner, the word “marketing” can be scary. How can you compete with the big companies in your line of business? How can you catch up with competitors who have a head start in the race for customers? The good news is, you don’t have to compete with them. You can set ...
Views: 560 - ***When You Really Have to Say, "You're Fired!" - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVAlthough it’s become one of my signatures, firing people is not something I enjoy doing. In reality, I’d rather hire really great employees in the first place so that firing them is something I never plan on doing. But in reality, managers are often placed in tough situations when they have to ...
Views: 501 - ***The Five Critical Habits of Real Estate Success - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVIn his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey observed that a lot of our success is built on the small habits that we cultivate daily. That principle applies to real estate investing too. If you observe successful real estate investors and developers, you will see ...
Views: 830 - ***Spot Real Estate Opportunities the Donald Trump Way - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOV“Education, research, knowledge - learning in general - are at the core of my success.” - Donald J. Trump We’ve been working on a new book here at Trump University, Trump University Wealth 101. It won’t be published for a few months, but I didn’t want to make you wait that long to learn some ...
Views: 733 - ***Nine Simple Secrets of Great Advertising - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVThe television show I was watching last night was punctuated by some pretty crazy ads. I saw flying cars and a talking toilet. To judge from those ads, you might think that you need to be a creative advertising genius to get your customers to buy anything from you. Not so. These classic ...
Views: 559 - ***Two Marketing Mistakes that Kill New Businesses - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVWhat are the most disastrous marketing mistakes that new entrepreneurs make? Now that our Marketing Mastery Program is entering its second successful year and we have worked with hundreds of students, we can answer that question with some certainty. The two marketing problems that most new ...
Views: 550 - ***Change Your Life in Three Days - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVTrump University Takes Live Learning a Level Higher Since the day Trump University opened its doors, students have been asking us to add more live instruction. We are starting now, with a new program of three-day seminars that we are calling Immersive Retreats. These live retreats have been ...
Views: 545 - ***Do You Need a Professional Valuation Before Buying a Business? - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVFor most small businesses, hiring a professional to perform a valuation is not necessary. First of all it is expensive, and more often than not, it simply does not reflect reality. For example, I recently read a valuation on a local company handling specialized telecom components in a very ...
Views: 553 - ***What Is It Worth? Secret Strategies for Evaluating a Business - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVRichard Parker, professor of our Art of Buying a Business course, tells me that getting a realistic estimate of a business’s value can be a much simpler process than many professional valuators would like the rest of us to believe. The challenge for you, the buyer, is to formulate a price that ...
Views: 1403 - ***Property Selling Secrets of the Masters - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVWhat is the best way to sell a property today? Keep it simple. The more unsettled the market becomes, the more important it is to stick to the basics. Identify your ideal customers. Are they young couples just starting out, baby boomers nearing retirement age, or something else? Identify ...
Views: 802 - ***Bootstrap Your Way to Startup Success - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVBootstrapping is the process of conserving financial resources to the extreme during a business’s startup phase. It means pulling yourself up by your bootstraps by doing most of the work yourself. Because you want to go into any new business enterprise with your eyes wide open, let’s take a ...
Views: 591 - ***Seven Ways to Tell if Starting a Business Will Work for You - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVContrary to what you might think, most successful entrepreneurs enjoy a sense of calm control over their own lives. Compared with people who spend their lives working for other people, subject to whims not remotely under their control, entrepreneurs have a much better shot at happiness and inner ...
Views: 575 - ***Leverage Huge Profits in Multi-Families and Multi-Units - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVIn response to my post of May 6, Trump University Member 8230 posed a question that will interest all our members: “Three years ago I decided to expand a small one-room business into a four-room Day Spa in the No. VA area. I spent my own money with not much wiggle room financially. I have seven ...
Views: 676 - ***Why a Poorly Run Business Can Be Your Wisest Buy - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVIf I told you that I know someone who bought a business nine years ago and just sold it for an 80% loss, you would probably think I was describing an individual who doesn’t have one iota of business sense. But you’d be wrong, because that is exactly what Mercedes-Benz did a few days ago when ...
Views: 945 - ***Don't Let Foreclosure Riches Pass You By - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVEvery day brings new data about the current foreclosure boom. Just yesterday, Foreclosure Bank released statistics indicating that property foreclosures across the 50 states are running at a rate 46% greater than last year at this time. And during the first quarter of 2007, foreclosures rose ...
Views: 718 - ***No-Fail Financing Strategies for Today's Market - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVWhen history books are written, the year 2007 will probably be called “The year of real estate upheaval.” First there was all the talk about the real estate bubble. Then came the subprime lending crisis, followed by a surge in the number of foreclosed properties hitting the market. Then just ...
Views: 890 - ***There's More Profit in Multi-Unit Properties - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVFor some great insights about why multi-unit properties offer great investment opportunities, I urge you to read last Friday’s post on this blog. But to invest safely, you also need to be aware of the risks. If you fail to ask these questions before going into a deal, you could be making a very ...
Views: 934 - ***Five Ways Entrepreneurs Can Increase Cash Flow - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVCash flow is the number one headache for entrepreneurs. If more money is flowing out of your company than is flowing in, you could take a loan to temporarily correct the problem. But since borrowing can dig your enterprise into a deep hole, I would urge you to apply the remedies listed below. ...
Views: 716 - ***Spend Your Marketing Dollars the Smart Way - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVGreat advertising doesn't have to be expensive. Consider these low-cost, highly effective marketing strategies that Prof. Don Sexton teaches in his Marketing Mastery Program at Trump University: Identify your competitors’ weaknesses and target them directly. Be the only car dealership dealer ...
Views: 542 - ***Essential Steps to Protect Your Business Assets - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVVital information from the new book Trump University Wealth Building 101: Your First 90 Days on the Path to Prosperity You spend years building a company and then one day a visitor falls in your parking lot, breaks her hip and sues you. Is it a problem you can settle out of court, a problem ...
Views: 554 - ***Don't Be the Missing Link - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVI had a conversation last month with the programming director of a radio station in Boston. He was complaining about how difficult it is to convince companies to advertise on his station. “Why is it so tough?” I asked. “Because we have no way to document how many people actually hear the ads ...
Views: 744 - ***Winning Real Estate Strategies for Uncertain Times - by Submitted on Apr 12, 2009 from John AOVHow do the smartest real estate investors minimize their risks in uncertain times? “Five Ways to Reduce Commercial Real Estate Risks” an article by Will Moore on Pacific Security Capital’s Website, offers some excellent ideas. Although the article is written from the perspective of a company ...
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