All posts by Streetwise

Business Tips, Advice, & Ideas

Where Do Old Footballers Go?

In the days before footballers got paid £100,000+ a week, you always knew where you’d find an ex-player after retiring – behind the bar of his own pub. It was the career of choice for any player who hadn’t gambled away his wages. Did you ever wonder why?

I think it’s because people naturally gravitate towards businesses they enjoy patronising themselves. If you enjoy spending your leisure time in a pub, why not get paid for it instead? It’s the same thought process that has led people to open coffee shops, gyms, and myriad retail establishments. But does this make sense?

Well, yes and no. If you’re an enthusiastic consumer of something, you should have a good feel for what the market wants. That’s bound to be an advantage. But at the same time, it would be an extra-ordinary coincidence if the optimum business for you turned out to be the type of business you personally enjoy frequenting most as a consumer. And there’s always the chance that you will metaphorically ‘drink the profits.’

The lesson to take away from this is to thoroughly question your motives for following the business path you’ve chosen. If it’s nothing more than an extension of your consumption preferences, it could be worth a rethink.

Motivational Quote Of The Day

 “Most of the important things in the world have been achieved by people who have kept on trying   
 when there seemed to be  no hope at all.”                           

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Dale Carnegie

Alternative   
Quote Of The Day

“I’m in no condition to drive…..wait! I shouldn’t listen to myself, I’m drunk!”  

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Homer J Simpson 

Pin-Picking Advice

Let me ask you to choose a number between 1 and 50. Pick it at random. Okay? Now, if, like me, your choice was thirty seven, you are in potential trouble. You have what’s known as a ‘group mind’. Apparently, we all follow the herd.

That’s a problem when it comes to picking a PIN number or a password most of us are very predictable! For a PIN, we pick our date or year of birth. Common passwords are 123456, abc123, qwerty, computer, password and the name of the website we’ve accessed.

Other favourite passwords relate to the names of our partners, children and favourite football team. Bottom line? Stick with the random four-digit number sent to you by your bank or, if you prefer, choose a random one of your own. Likewise, passwords – one for each site etc – should be a random mix of letters and numbers, upper and lower case etc.

Today’s National Day   

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NATIONAL BEST FRIENDS DAY!  

         

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Forty-year Betting Veteran Makes Shocking Confession…

“I Still Don’t Have A Clue
  Which Horse Will Win!”

But By Analysing The Result Of Over
100,000Races, I’ve Discovered A Back Door
Route To a £20,000+ Guaranteed Year
Round Profit From Carefully Selected UK
Races…

Anyone Can Copy Me, It Takes Just
Ten Minutes A Day. And You Get To
Choose How Much You’ll Win…£10…
£20…Or Even £50 A Race!

For the full story visit;

www.streetwisenews.com/shotgun

Business Tips, Advice, & Ideas

The Power Of Curiosity

Bulletin reader Bob Gregory received this envelope from a restaurant he’d visited before. Rather than a straightforward discount voucher, this is a bit different. It demonstrates the power of one of the most important influencers on human behaviour – curiosity.  

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As you can see, the envelope offers money off  a meal at the restaurant, but here’s the  difference, you only find out how much of a discount after eating the meal and opening the envelope on receipt of the bill. It could be 25% or it could be 50%. It’s a surprise and you’re not allowed to find out beforehand.

Will it work? Well it certainly worked on Bob because he booked a meal, and I can see why. It’s something different to the ubiquitous discount voucher, and there’s an element of intrigue and excitement. Bob won’t know how much he’s saved until afterwards. 

Now he may suspect, as would many others, that the discount will be 25%,  but he doesn’t know for sure. Maybe it will be more. There’s only one way to find out.

Is this something you could use in your business? It seems to me there are many different ways this idea could be used. I’ll certainly be thinking about it.  

Motivational Quote Of The Day

“You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.”                 

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Charles Buxton

Alternative Quote Of The Day

“Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.”

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Steven Wright

You’re Never The Wrong Age

I never like to miss the chance to nail the “I’m too young/old excuse, and Nathan Clark has given me another chance. Eleven year old Nathan was doing his maths homework and needed to find a ruler. He looked down at his pencil and that’s when the inspiration hit – why not combine a ruler with a pencil? 

He went out and found a manufacturer, but their minimum order was 1,000 pencils. Not having the funds to proceed, Nathan made a video appeal and approached a fund raising company called Kickstart to raise the $350 he needed. Three days later over $2,500 had been pledged. 

 Will this make Nathan a millionaire? Probably not, but with the ambition and drive that he clearly has, Nathan will have a big success on his hands at some stage in the future.

Now consider this, if he can do all this at eleven, do you have any reason for not taking action with your own pals? 

Today’s National Day   

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NATIONAL FLUFFY SLIPPERS DAY!  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Forty-year Betting Veteran Makes Shocking Confession…

“I Still Don’t Have A Clue
  Which Horse Will Win!”

But By Analysing The Result Of Over
100,000Races, I’ve Discovered A Back Door
Route To a £20,000+ Guaranteed Year
Round Profit From Carefully Selected UK
Races…

Anyone Can Copy Me, It Takes Just
Ten Minutes A Day. And You Get To
Choose How Much You’ll Win…£10…
£20…Or Even £50 A Race!

For the full story visit;

www.streetwisenews.com/shotgun

John Harrison's Success Secrets

The World’s Most Successful Author Shock!

If I asked you to name the most successful author of the millennium so far, I think you might come up with writers like J K Rowling, Tom Clancy, Dan Brown and John Grisham, but I doubt you’d come up with the right answer. And yet he’s a man whose had more bestsellers over the past five years, than all those four – combined! 

His name is James Patterson, and it’s ‘own up to ignorance time’ for me, because I’d never even heard of him until yesterday. Which is a bit worrying because he sells over £60 million worth of books a year. I must pay more attention. 

Anyway, what’s interesting is how he does it, because it carries with it, some invaluable insight for anyone who wants to make a great deal of money – no matter what the field. 

Unlike most other authors, Patterson doesn’t stick to one genre. He creates books that he thinks people will buy, irrespective of the genre. So he starts with the market, and then creates products to fit. Very few authors do this, and not enough business people do it either. They fall in love with a product rather than a market. This is a big mistake. A so-so product put into the right market will always make more money than a fantastic one put into the wrong one. 

Patterson doesn’t write books he likes, or even ones he would want to read himself. He creates books that the maximum number of people will want to buy. 

Once he’s identified a ‘hot’ market, he knows that output is going to be critical to capitalising on the opportunity. So rather than operate like most authors who agonise over every word for years, he employs a team of co-writers who work to his brief and produce the first drafts. This enables him to work fast ~ getting up to six books a year out on the market. So he never has all his eggs in one basket at any one time – and he has plenty of baskets. 

That’s another valuable lesson no matter what business you’re in. If you insist on doing everything yourself, it’s very difficult to fully capitalise on an opportunity, or indeed to create multiple revenue streams. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day. 

James Patterson is an author, but he’s clearly very much an entrepreneur too. I’m not in a position to comment on his ability as a writer, but my guess is that there are many others out there of equal talent who are struggling to make a living – let alone raking in sales of over £60 million a year. The difference is that he finds out what the market wants, gives it to them in volume, milks it for all it’s worth ~ and then is adaptable enough to move on to the next ‘big thing’ when a new opportunity presents itself. 

When you take that approach, almost any idiot can make money… 

And I should know! 

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 John Harrison

Business Tips, Advice, & Ideas

Real Life Catches Up With Batman!

When I was a kid, my favourite TV show was Batman – not that modern serious nonsense, but the tongue-in-cheek 1960’s series starring Adam West.

One of my favourite scenes (which actually appeared in the feature film) is when Batman is lowered into the sea from a rope ladder attached to a helicopter. His legs disappear below the waves, and when he’s hauled back up, we see that the most unconvincing rubber shark has attached itself to his leg.

Batman is unfazed. He reaches into his utility belt (how I wanted one of those!) and pulls out an aerosol can. On the side are printed the words ‘Shark Repellent Spray.’ One squirt and the unfortunate fish is forced to loosen its grip and crashes back down in to the sea.

It was a bit of frivolous fun maybe, but there’s nothing funny about shark attacks. Recently there have been two high profile cases in which tourists have been killed by sharks while out swimming. I don’t think anyone has developed a repellent spray yet, but Joel Centeio may have come up with something even better.

It’s an electronic repelling device which a swimmer can attach to his arm or wrist by Velcro. In tests carried out by divers, the compact and watertight device drove sharks away. Apparently it works by emitting an electrical pulse which affects the gel in the sharks nose.

There’s no doubt that the perceived danger of shark attack is a lot higher than the actual danger, but that will only serve to boost that market for this device.

Even paranoid British surfers and swimmers could be a viable market!

Motivational Quote Of The Day

“It’s important to have a plan, a big picture. You can deviate from it or change it completely, but it gives you something to work for.”                    

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Shannon Miller

Alternative   
Quote Of The Day

“Ah, yes, divorce…from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals.”

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Robin Williams

Talk O Clock

I checked the calendar and it’s not April 1st. This is a genuine business, but it has to be one of the strangest we’ve seen this year.

So you need to get up at 6.00am tomorrow morning…. What do you do? Set your alarm clock? No that’s too simple. What you do instead is contact Talk O Clock, who for a fee will get a complete stranger to ring you up and wake you in whatever way they see fit. The company have a panel of ‘wakers’ who (for reasons I can’t imagine) feel that waking a complete stranger at the crack of dawn is an enjoyable use of their time. If the customer doesn’t answer, he is called again by a robot. Amazing.

The more I think about it though, maybe it’s not such a bad idea. You have someone who wants to be woken by a stranger, and someone else who wants to wake strangers. Maybe a pair of weirdo’s who are made for each other!

Today’s National Day   

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NATIONAL LEAVE THE OFFICE EARLY DAY!  

———————————————————————————–

IMPORTANT PUBLISHERS NOTICE…

Forty-year Betting Veteran Makes Shocking Confession…

“I Still Don’t Have A Clue
  Which Horse Will Win!”

But By Analysing The Result Of Over
100,000Races, I’ve Discovered A Back Door
Route To a £20,000+ Guaranteed Year
Round Profit From Carefully Selected UK
Races…

Anyone Can Copy Me, It Takes Just
Ten Minutes A Day. And You Get To
Choose How Much You’ll Win…£10…
£20…Or Even £50 A Race!

For the full story visit;

www.streetwisenews.com/shotgun

John Harrison's Success Secrets

Are You A Fish Out Of Water?

I watched a fascinating programme about longevity on BBC2 the other evening. It featured societies where people tend to live much longer than the average. There was a lot of interesting stuff to come out of it, but what the researchers have found in Japan, has wider implications than for health and longevity. 

In the Okinawa islands, the population routinely expect to live ~ and be healthy ~ well into their nineties. The reasons aren’t totally clear, but it’s thought to be something to do with the traditional soya protein-based diet, and the fact that the people there tend to eat very little by western standards. 

Now here’s what’s interesting… 

The fact that the people thrive on that diet and lifestyle is down to their heredity ~ what their ancestors have experienced and endured throughout the centuries. Their bodies have geared up, and adapted, to thrive on it. If you or I were to take up the same regime, we wouldn’t necessarily get the same results though. 

This is borne out by what happens when the young Okinawa leave the islands and live in the city. When they move to a more western-based lifestyle, not only do they lose all the benefits of their heredity, but they actually fare worse than their contemporaries, who have been brought up in that environment. Their life expectancy actually falls below the average. 

They have evolved to thrive in a completely different environment. Their heredity offers no benefits in the new environment, but massive ones in their natural one. 

I’m sure this is a phenomenon which stretches way beyond the health and longevity arena. We all have skills, attributes and predispositions, and if we’re not getting the results and outcomes we want, it could because we’re applying them in the wrong environment. 

A Formula One car is awe-inspiring on a track, but wouldn’t get you out of your own street in the real world. A 50cc scooter would be totally useless on a motorway, but would get you around the centre of London better than anything else. 

Average natural abilities, applied in the right environment are far better, and more effective, than outstanding abilities applied in the wrong one. 

So are you applying your innate and acquired strengths in the right environment, or are you the proverbial fish out of water…or the Okinawan living on fast food? 

If you’ve ever felt you’ve not achieved as much as you deserve, the answer could lay here. 

 John Harrison

IMPORTANT PUBLISHERS NOTICE:

How To Get Weekly Compensation From The “Get-Rich-Quick-Gurus”

I’m receiving £938 a week straight out of their pockets! To find out how YOU could do the same visit….

www.streetwisenews.com/fortune

Business Tips, Advice, & Ideas

Do You Really Need Investment?

It’s a bit of a knee-jerk reaction for many entrepreneurs to automatically think they need investment when they’re attempting to launch a new business, but it isn’t necessarily the case.

There are many ventures that don’t need outside funding at all, and to seek it out, can be expensive in either cash or equity loss. Having said that, there are circumstances where there is no alternative but to seek funding. For example

1.  If you need a prototype – where you have created something new. Having samples made, testing and modelling can be expensive.

2.  If you need specialist equipment – This will be particularly relevant in high-tech and engineering. Computer technology and bespoke tooling  doesn’t come cheap.

3. Where you have a run away success. This is something a lot of people don’t think about. Strong sales can create a problem if you don’t have the funds to finance production and distribution.

If none of the above apply, think very carefully about whether you really need outside funds. It’s always best if you can retain full control of your venture and aren’t weighed down by heavy interest repayments. 

Motivational Quote Of The Day

“A sense of humour is a major defence against minor troubles.”  

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Mignon McLaughlin

Alternative  Quote Of The Day

“A friend is the guy who will bail you out of prison, but your best friend is the guy sitting in jail with you.”                                              

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Joey Diaz

Tow And Go Service

It doesn’t take a great deal of ingenuity to set up as a taxi driver, but even with a simple service like this, it’s possible to add a twist and set yourself apart from the crowd.

Jackie Robinson Jr, a taxi driver from Kentucky, set up what he calls a ‘Tow and Go’ service….although strictly speaking, there’s no towing involved. The idea is quite simple. When you call for the service, Robinson takes along a colleague who will drive both you and your car to it’s destination. Needless to say, this is potentially life and livelihood saving for someone who’s had a few drinks more than intended and doesn’t wish to leave their car in a vulnerable place.

There are obviously insurance implications to a service like this, but it’s definitely something you could change a premium price for. I can see a high demand for this is any urban area – particularly at weekends.

Today’s National Day   

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NATIONAL SAY SOMETHING NICE DAY!  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Important Notice:

How To Get Weekly Compensation
From The “Get-Rich-Quick-Gurus”

I’m receiving £938 a week straight out of their pockets! To find out how YOU could do the same visit…

www.streetwisenews.com/fortune

Business Tips, Advice, & Ideas

The Pacemaker Secret

Wilson Greatbatch died in September this year, but there are many who owe their lives to him. He invented the heart pacemaker, and what’s particularly interesting is that he did it by accident.

In 1956, Greatbatch was building a heart rhythm recording device, when he mistakenly inserted a resistor that was the wrong size. He noted that the circuit it produced emitted intermittent electrical impulses which seemed to mirror those of a human heartbeat. This single observation led to the development of the modern pacemaker, half a million of which are implanted every year.

He was just lucky then? Well not quite. You see, when he ‘got lucky’ he was working hard and he was taking action with something. And then when he had the lucky break, he invested his own time, effort and $2,000 savings into converting the chance discovery into something useable and marketable. During the development phase, he was forced to feed his family from his vegetable garden.

You see, that’s the thing about luck-you’re more likely to stumble across a piece of it if you’re taking action (any action!) with something. And if you do, it will usually only benefit you if you take hold of it, and use it as a stepping stone to something tangible. The people you hear about getting rich through a lucky break were usually working hard when they got it, and then worked even harder to turn it into money and a better life. Luck, on its own, is rarely enough.

Motivational Quote Of The Day

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”     

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Scott Adams

Alternative Quote Of The Day

I won’t say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like ‘What I’m going to be if I grow up.”  

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Lenny Bruce

Another Invention By Accident

While working for Eastman Kodak in 1942, Harry Coover, attempted to create some material to make a transparent gun sight. It wasn’t a success. The resulting compound was simply too sticky. The same thing happened again when Kodak scientists were working on polymers for aeroplane canopies, and it was then that Coover – soon to be Sir Harry Coover – realised they might have discovered something useful after all.

Superglue went on sale for the first time in 1958. Aside from being responsible for more than its fair share of visits to hospital casualty departments, it’s made a big contribution to modern life. And it all came about by accident.

History is littered with examples of people who set out trying to do one thing and failed, but somehow managed to end up doing something better. What did they have in common? They were all trying to do something!

Today’s National Day   

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NATIONAL TELL A LIE DAY!  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

Important Notice:

How To Get Weekly Compensation
From The “Get-Rich-Quick-Gurus”

I’m receiving £938 a week straight out of their pockets! To find out how YOU could do the same visit…

www.streetwisenews.com/fortune

Business Tips, Advice, & Ideas

Do You Have Hidden Assets?

Just read something which, aside from being fascinating, may provide a ‘light bulb’ moment for someone.

BT’s network has 75 million miles of copper wire. At today’s price that’s worth around £50 Billion – which is more than three times the company’s market capitalisation of around £15 Billion! So the company is worth far more in scrap value than it is for it trading and profitability potential.

Now I know the company aren’t about to throw in the Telecom’s towel and go into the scrap metal business, but that got me thinking; How many individuals and companies are sitting on big assets which they don’t really think about?

And is there a way they could capitalise on these assets outside of their regular trading activity. Perhaps it’s worth thinking about your own hidden assets. They may be more modest than BT’s, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be life changing for you.

Motivational Quote Of The Day

“When I was young I thought money was the most important thing in life; now I’m old I know it is.”

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Oscar Wilde

Alternative   
Quote Of The Day

“Hate your job? There’s a support group for that. It’s called everybody and they meet at a bar.”        

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Drew Carey

3,000 Lunches A Day – And No Kitchen

A San Francisco company run by two Stanford business graduates provides lunches for over 3,000 office workers in the bay area each day, and they don’t cook or prepare a single one.

Eat Club’s secret is that they are middlemen – reaching deals with individual restaurants each day, negotiating discounts, and then delivering to their customers for a flat $7.50 a head. Nothing fancy- just three menu choices each day.

This seem like an excellent business model – let someone else invest in a restaurant, kitchens and everything else that’s needed, and then simply sell what they produce. If consumer tastes change, the company aren’t locked into one kind of food and can very quickly change supplier.

I can’t think of any reason why a business like this wouldn’t have a great chance of success in any major city – and with much lower risks and start up costs than a traditional catering operation.

Today’s National Day   

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NATIONAL I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY DAY! 

Important Publishers Notice:

How To Get Weekly Compensation
From The “Get-Rich-Quick-Gurus”

I’m receiving £938 a week straight out of their pockets! To find out how YOU could do the same visit…

www.streetwisenews.com/fortune

John Harrison's Success Secrets

Blaming Hell!

Tuesday 21st January 2020 

A bloke called Graham Calvert recently attempted to sue bookmakers William Hill’s for £2 million. He didn’t trip over in one of their shops. Nor did a ceiling fall on his head. Nothing like that. No, what happened is that he lost a fortune betting with them, and he thinks they should have stopped him doing it. 

Apparently they did try! 

He asked for his account to be closed and they duly obliged. But then he secretly opened up another one and lost even more money. So now he’s suing them to get it back. 

I think this is an excellent idea, and sets an interesting precedent… 

I shall be taking out actions against the sweetie shops that sold me indecent quantities of sherbet fountains and penny chews in the late 1960s and early 70s. I shall be seeking to recover the cost of all the resultant dental work. 

And when I’ve got that one under my belt, I shall be tackling all the pubs that have supplied me with too much alcohol over the past 30 years or so. I’m going for the lot with them ~ possible liver damage, pain and distress of hangovers, dry cleaning bills…everything. 

And then it’s those damned car dealers’ turn. They knew I was a mug punter for God’s sake, but they still pushed their expensive shiny cars on me, knowing full well they’d be worth about half as much in two years’ time. They should have stopped me doing it, shouldn’t they? 

Why the heck shouldn’t I jump on the bandwagon? It seems like everyone else is… 

Tripped over a paving stone when you weren’t looking where you were going? Sue the council. They should have shaved an extra three millimetres off that paving stone. Eaten too much and got fat? Don’t blame yourself…go after the fast food restaurants and junk food manufacturers whose crap you ate ~ even though you had a free choice. On the verge of bankruptcy? Take action against the credit card companies and banks that lent you the money you asked for, even lied on your application to get. They shouldn’t have given it to you. 

I’m not sure at what point we changed from taking responsibility for everything in our lives, to taking responsibility for virtually nothing, but it happened at some point in my lifetime. When I was a kid, only the certifiably insane would ever have been protected from the consequences of their own actions. Today, it seems like everything that ever happens to us is someone else’s fault. 

There are no accidents ~ just culpable parties to be sued. There are no personal errors of judgement…just companies who’ve tricked us or unfairly persuaded us to do something contrary to our interests. There are just things and people to blame for everything. 

Here’s why this is so important… 

Because it’s only a short step, from blaming someone else when we trip up, get fat or get into debt, to blaming someone else when our business doesn’t make the profits we feel it should. 

You see, the very first stage in securing the best chance of success with any project, goal or venture is to accept full responsibility for the outcome. To do otherwise is to give us an early exit strategy…an excuse for failure. It’s remarkably easy to give up when we convince ourselves it’s someone else’s fault. Not so easy when we accept that the blame lies fairly and squarely on our own shoulders. 

Adversity happens to everyone. It’s how we react to the adversity that really counts. And those who accept full responsibility for what’s happened to them, almost always react best. 

Postscript 

Following a version of this chapter appearing in my online newsletter, Mike Lee sent me an email about from something called the Stella Awards. Rather than explain, here’s the email:

STELLA AWARDS 

It’s time again for the annual ‘Stella Awards’! For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald’s in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?

That’s right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head-scratcher handy. 

Here are the Stellas for the past year:

7TH PLACE:
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son. 

6TH PLACE:
Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California, won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbour’s hubcaps. 

5TH PLACE:
Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. 

Worse, he couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count ’em, EIGHT days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner’s insurance company claiming undue mental anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.

4TH PLACE:
Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stellas when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next-door neighbour’s beagle ~ even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced yard.

Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

3RD PLACE:
Third place goes to Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. Whatever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?

2ND PLACE:
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a nightclub in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies’ room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the nightclub had to pay her $12,000….oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. 

1ST PLACE:
This year’s runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver’s seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn’t actually leave the driver’s seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her ~ are you sitting down? ~ $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

Alongside that lot, the bloke suing William Hill’s almost seems reasonable. I find it hard to comprehend the thought processes of people making decisions like these. 

There’s another interesting aspect to this though… 

Why are there so many cases like this in the United States? Simple. It’s because there are more lawyers in that country than the rest of the world combined. It’s important to get the causality right though…

There aren’t more lawyers because the US population is in particular ‘need’ of legal help. No, the US population is in particular ‘need’ of legal help because there is a proliferation of lawyers. 

Let me explain… 

For many years now, I’ve sold products and services linked to business opportunities. The one question I’ve been asked about every one of them ~ and more times than I care to remember is: 

“But won’t the market become saturated?” 

In almost every case the answer is no, because what happens is that the market is expanded and extended by the influx of newcomers, creating plenty of new business for everyone as a result. Markets aren’t of a fixed size. The size of any market can be increased: by bringing new customers into the market, by selling more of the product or service to existing users, or by selling ‘range extension’ products to both newcomers and existing customers. 

That’s what’s happened to the legal market in the United States, and is happening to a certain extent here too. 

All these qualified lawyers have to find work, and there simply isn’t enough of the traditional work to go around. So what they’ve had to do is to move into new, related areas ~ of which fleecing large corporations with seemingly ridiculous claims is just one. And they’re making a great deal of money at it. 

How have they done it? By marketing themselves and the services they now offer, as hard as they possibly can. 

Now if the market for services connected to the seemingly ‘cast in stone’ law isn’t fixed, it seems unlikely that the market you’re operating in is fixed either. 

The bottom line is that, although it makes sense to be riding a wave rather than swimming against the tide, there’s almost always room in any market for newcomers to move in and prosper on a massive scale.  

 John Harrison

Business Tips, Advice, & Ideas

Prepare For The Sipp Price War

Next year Vanguard, the world’s second-largest fund manager, is launching Britain’s cheapest private pension to date, throwing down the gauntlet to its competitors and fuelling expectations of a price war.

The self – invested personal pension (Sipp) will have an annual administration charge of 0.15%, capped at £375. That is far below the industry average of 0.35%. There will also be no additional costs for exit fees, valuation statements or transfers.

Vanguard says the Sipp will initially only be available to people who are building up their retirement savings, not those that have already started drawing on them. A pension drawdown service is expected to launch in the next year.

Someone putting the full £40,000 annual pension allowance into the Vanguard Sipp would pay £172 a year in charges. The same amount in a Vanguard fund held in the most expensive platform’s Sipp would cost up to £400 a year.

Compounded over decades of pension saving, these fees can add up. A 43-year-old investing £40,000 for the next 25 years would save almost £10,000 with Vanguards Target Retirement fund if invested Vanguard’s Sipp instead of a higher-cost platform.

Two years ago Vanguard introduced an Isa and investment platform credited with starting price war that has forced rivals to push down their costs. The Sipp, which promises to let savers sign up in just ten minutes, could shake up the market again by forcing another reduction in costs.

There’s more good news. Vanguard has some of the lowest fund fees in the industry. A typical Vanguard fund fees in the industry. A typical Vanguard fund comes with an average fee of 0.2%. Hargreaves Lansdown, the biggest investment platform, charges an average fund fee of 0.94%.

Note too that the account-fee cap applies across all the products you hold with Vanguard, whether that’s Sipp, Isa or a general account. The drawback to the Vanguard Sipp is the choice of funds. It only offers a limited own-brand selection.

Hargreaves Lansdown charges more – a 0.45% management fee plus fund fees and some dealing charges – but offers a full range of funds, investment trusts and UK and international shares.

Some investors will pay more in order to get access to a far wider choice of investments. But the success of Vanguard’s Isa shows that many will opt for a limited selection in return for low and clear charges.

Motivational Quote Of The Day

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”   

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Jack London

Alternative   
Quote Of The Day

“My neighbour asked if he could use my lawnmower and I told him of course he could, so long as he didn’t take it out of my garden.”   

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Eric Morecambe

Manify It!

There’s a particular type of shop which I hate, and which my wife seems to gravitate towards for some reason. They smell horrifically florid – hardly surprising since half the stock seems to comprise of dried flowers, pot pouri and scented candles.

I really can’t stand anything about the places – but particularly the smell – which is why I was interested to read of a business set up by 13 year old Hart Main from Ohio.

Hart didn’t like the smell of the ‘girly’ candles his sister bought, and decided to create something different. ManCan was born and led to the development of a whole range of ‘manly’ scents including coffee, campfire, fresh cut grass, bacon and dirt!

What a great idea – and from a 13 year old who started the business by saving his paper round money.

The business he created poses a wider question though – what other primarily single sex products could be modified or adapted so that they appeal to the opposite sex?

Today’s National Day   

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NATIONAL LAUGH AND GET RICH DAY!  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE

__________________________________________________

I Have Some Very Good News…

Financial trading can be very complicated, or it really
can be as simple as this: 

1. Load up a piece of bespoke software  
2. Set up some simple checks and balances
3. Let it loose on the markets
4. React to some
5. Collect your profit! 

…And Repeat

You can now get on the inside and start profiting from this straight away. To find out how visit:


www.streetwisenews.com/wizard