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The Ultimate Wealth Building System

By: Sandra Simmons

Most people search for the ultimate wealth building system for most of their lives. It may surprise you to know that you own half of it the day you are born.

What half do you own? It?s your ability to make money. No matter what your education level or skill level, you have income earning power. Want to hear the good news about that and how it connects you to the ultimate wealth building system?

It?s not how much you make; it?s what you do with it that determines your financial condition.

The second half of the ultimate wealth building system is what you do with the money that you earn. There is a system to controlling the flow of money to create wealth. Very rich people know this system. It works whether you are an employee who works for someone else and you are using the system to control the flow of your personal income, or if you are a business owner using the system to control the flow of the company?s income. It is an amazingly simple system.

1) SPEND LESS THAN YOU MAKE - Cut your expenses back to operate within your income.

2) PUT 10% OF YOUR INCOME AWAY IN SAVINGS and don?t ever spend it. Set aside regular amounts of cash from your income for the future ? always pay yourself first and put the money in savings toward gaining financial freedom. The ultimate wealth building system requires a minimum of 10% of income into savings out of every dime you earn. Just sock it away and forget you even have it. As it builds up, move it to places that earn better interest than the bank savings accounts. This includes buying houses and commercial buildings you can rent out to make more money.

3) DO NOT BUY ON CREDIT ? pay cash instead. Debt is a disease that you should avoid contracting. Figure out what you want to buy and put money away towards the purchase every week until you have the cash. For large purchases like cars, furniture and equipment, buy used instead of brand new. Remember, those items lose value from the moment you buy them.

4) FIND WAYS TO MAKE MORE MONEY ? the personal cost of living goes up about 3.5% every year, so you need to make more money just to keep up. If you work for someone else, increase your value to the company by taking on more responsibility and learning to do more; then ask for a raise. Be willing to work a second job if you have to in order to get out of debt and start putting money away.

If you own a business, look over your line of products and services and figure out how to sell more of the profitable items. Be willing to discontinue items that are not bringing in enough profit for the time, effort and cost to sell them. The secret to making more money is pretty simple if you put your attention on it.

5) USE YOUR MONEY TO INCREASE YOUR INCOME ? After paying your ultimate wealth building system the 10% into savings and paying your bills, use any money left over in ways that increase your ability to produce more income.

Why is controlling the flow of money so important? It is the energy and life blood of a business or household. It is necessary to pump it through the income producing areas first to keep it running well. Everything runs smoother when cash is available.

Seems simple, right? And it is simple. The ultimate wealth building system is easily learned, and can be used to gain your financial freedom. It does, however, take personal discipline and commitment to achieve the goal of financial independence so you never have to worry about money again.

The really great news is that you have control over this system. Done correctly and consistently, the end result is always having lots of cash on hand, all bills paid, and plenty of money in reserves to finance what you really want to do with your money; not just pay bills. How well you control the flow of your money will determine how well your company or family will survive now and into the future. Correctly applying these five steps will make this wealth building system work for you.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/business_and_finance/article_8800.shtml

Give Yourself a Raise - Get an Assistant

By: Sandra Martini

Is your ?to do? list longer than your arm? Are you so busy taking care of the urgent that you never get to the important? Do you consider the thought of getting some help but then think ?I can?t afford it? or ?No one can do it as well as I can??

If so, you?ve got a lot in common with most other small business owners.

Owning your own business is a great achievement and requires you to wear a lot of hats: owner, marketer, finance manager, widget maker/service provider, etc. Wearing all these hats eventually leads to a state of burnout or overwhelm and the love, the passion for what made you start your own business in the first place drowns in all the details.

If you want to grow your business AND maintain your sanity, there are two things you need to accept:

1. It?s not just okay to delegate, it?s essential to your survival.

2. A virtual assistant or online business manager (whichever description you prefer) is an investment in your business ? not just an expense.

Consider the following scenario:

You own a small business as a marketing guru who makes $150/hour. Your website crashes and you spend the next five hours calling your webmaster, testing different links, doing what you can to get it back up and running. The five hours that you just spent fixing your website COST you $750.

If you had a virtual assistant whom you pay $50 an hour and she solved the problem in four hours (she would be 100% focused on this task and has likely encountered similar issues with other clients), the cost would be $200.

The word ?cost? is based on a simple premise. If you are fixing your website, you are not making money. You could otherwise be engaged in billable tasks or you could have completed the new client proposal that brings you a $10,000 client ? neither of which is possible if you are fixing the website.

Make sense?

Over the next week, keep a time log and track everything you do. Then sit down and make a list of all those tasks that you either shouldn?t be doing (not worth your time given the sacrifice) or hate doing. Here are a few things that immediately come to mind:

* Maintaining your website

* Bookkeeping ? both invoicing clients and paying bills, providing accountant with data, reconciling bank statements, preparing your expense reports, etc.

* Submitting articles to article sites

* Research competition

* Maintaining your mailing lists ? online and offline

* Coordinate vendor activities

* Reminding you about birthdays, arranging for cards and gifts to be sent

* Spending hours on the phone with any type of support vendor (Microsoft and Comcast pop into my head here)

* Create and distribute prospect letters

* Handling all your travel arrangements ? business and personal

* Scheduling meetings, conference calls, etc.

* Providing you with website and sales reports

* Designing presentations for client meetings (e.g., formatting in PowerPoint)

* Ordering office supplies, promotional items

* Placing advertising ? online and offline

* Managing client mailings ? promotional, holiday, sales, etc.

* The list goes on. . .

Each person?s list will be unique to him. You may love the clarity of mind you get stuffing envelopes but run at the thought of reconciling your checking account.

And don?t stop at the above. What are those personal things that you?re doing that you could contract out so you can focus on growing your business? A teenager would be great for any of the following:

* Grocery shopping

* Housekeeping

* Laundry assistance

* Mowing the lawn

Don?t think you can afford an assistant?

The first thing to remember is that virtual assistants charge you only for the time they are ACTUALLY WORKING on YOUR projects and you will most likely not need someone full time.

You would pay a traditional employee a salary, sick time, vacation time, holiday time, provide a desk and office space, pay for training, pay payroll taxes, provide software and equipment and do all this for someone who likely considers what you are offering as a J O B that he needs to go to every day.

With a virtual assistant, you are paying an independent contractor who owns her own business and charges only for time she works on your projects, has her own office and equipment, pays her own taxes, is already trained in multiple software applications and who loves what she does.

Virtual assistants are self-motivated and focused on getting things done FOR YOU. This will greatly free up your time to focus on marketing your business, attending to your larger clients and generally growing your business.

Given the above can you afford NOT to hire an assistant?

The key is to start at a level where you feel comfortable: both financially and delegation-wise. Anything that you can give to someone else will give you more time to do what you do best and grow your business!

Ready! Set! Start your Time Log!

Send an email with ?Time Log? in the subject line to info@online-biz-coach.com to receive your free Time Log.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/business_and_finance/article_8866.shtml