Nov
16
A Brief Historical Note
I’m old enough to remember when the norm in the America was to work 40 years for a corporation and retire at age 65 with Social Security benefits and a company pension. I grew up with such an expectation.
Technology and economics reshaped the workplace during the last part of the 20th century, and nowadays people will necessarily change jobs a number of times during their careers and receive little or no employer help along the way meeting their long term financial objectives.
Employment relationships are severed with little reluctance by either party. Employees have become a commodity. Both job security and employee loyalty are very much relics of the past.
It is certainly difficult to assert that business is risky but that jobs are risk free, especially during troubled financial times like these. People in all sectors of the economy are losing their jobs, and unemployment will get much worse before it gets any better.
Robert Kiyosaki Revisited
Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Cashflow Quadrant, compares four different ways to generate income:
- Job - You work for an employer. You earn income by selling your limited time. You’re overtaxed by the government. You may however acquire valuable skills and receive access to affordable health insurance.
- Self-Employment - You own your job and must work very hard. You receive tax breaks but still earn your income by selling your limited time. You pay in full for your health insurance. You have some autonomy but must nevertheless satisfy your clients’ demands.
- Business - You own a system, and you leverage other people’s time and various resources at your disposal such as the Internet. You work hard, but you essentially earn your income by selling other people’s time. Since you’re not selling your limited time, your income potential is unlimited. Many types of business are very risky, but there are others that are not very risky at all. Businesses have many tax advantages.
- Investing - You own assets that are called investments. You earn income from these investments. Knowledgeable investors use insurance such as stock options to manage and eliminate the risk of investing. They also achieve the most favorable tax treatment for their income.
Where Theory and Practice Intersect
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that business and investing income are much superior to job and self-employment income — all other things being equal — and having a business and investing mindset is a wonderful personal asset.
Yet there’s a catch.
Most people are not in a position initially to rely either on business or investing to provide the income that they need for life’s basics. Some people may not have the wherewithal now or ever to make a business or investing work for them.
Jobs or self-employment provide immediate income for food, clothing and shelter. In that sense they can be a good thing.
If you have a job and the right mindset, you can use the base of income afforded by your job as a springboard to future business and investing. You’ll seek ways to develop new business, and you’ll use part of your paycheck and business proceeds to buy income producing assets.
Your progress might be slow at first, but it will accelerate over time as your results are compounded.
My Change of Heart
I used to put down jobs saying that J.O.B. stood for “just over broke”. While there’s much truth in that, I believe today that I was stuck in all-or-nothing thinking.
So don’t you think job or business. Think job and business, or whatever makes sense.
Your comments and input are invited.
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Nov
9
How Do You Maintain Focus?
Filed Under Blogging, Laws and Rules of Thumb, Personal Development and Success | 10 Comments
On my Critical Thinking Outside the Box social networking site, Stacey Chadwell posed the question, How do you maintain focus?
On this first anniversary of my Online Social Networking blog, Stacey’s question caused me to think and take stock.
I imagine that many blogs launched last year have long since been abandoned. How is it that I maintained my focus over the past year while many other new bloggers did not?
It has been suggested that FOCUS stands for “follow one course until successful”.
While this representation is simplistic, it is nevertheless more true than not. To accomplish something substantial, some degree of obsession and narrow focus is a prerequisite for success.
Revisiting the Ultimate Success Secret
As I indicated in Critical Success Factors, I take my cue from The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want by Mike Hernacki in which he wrote:
“In order to accomplish something, you must know what you want and be willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish it.”
In other words, focus arises from intention and is maintained through commitment.
This principle is the key to sustaining focus and achieving eventual success.
To demonstrate my commitment, I was willing to:
- blog for months before seeing tangible results
- ignore doubts expressed by friends and family
- read books about blogging and search engine optimization
- mastermind with other bloggers to get their opinions
- experiment, learn from my mistakes and backtrack as needed
- put some of my other objectives on hold
Today I have more than 100 regular readers and receive thousands of visitors to my blog each month. My articles have been featured on top news sites.
I have a Google PageRank of 3 and high search engine rankings for lots of keywords that I researched and targeted.
I was willing to do what many others were not and was able to maintain my focus throughout the year.
Planning the Next Year
During the next twelve months I would like to take my blog to the next level, for sure.
However, I plan to apply the same kind of commitment and narrow focus to new projects such as developing my new Ning social networking site and mastering the intricacies of web analytics.
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Nov
2
My New Ning Social Networking Site
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 9 Comments
Yet Another Ning Site?
In Ning Social Networking Sites Update I wrote about recent changes on Ning social sites and how to cope with them. One suggestion I made was that you could “start your own Ning social network“.
I knew that sooner or later I would build my own Ning social networking site. After all, the ability for anybody to create their own social networking sites is the most noteworthy feature of Ning.
I had already laid the groundwork to launch my own social network. I had many contacts who were involved in social networking whom I could invite to join. I had also received much encouragement from other site owners.
So on Wednesday, October 29, I set up my new site, and as of this writing there are 86 members from 11 countries.
Critical Thinking Outside the Box
My new Ning social network, Critical Thinking Outside the Box, “Larry Brauner’s Business and Social Network for Thinking People”, is intended as a companion site to my Online Social Networking blog.
It’s a networking site where you and I can brand ourselves. The site is of course strongly branded to me. The best way to brand yourself there is for you to start and participate in discussions on the forum.
If you participate and also bring a bunch of new members, I’ll feature you on the site.
You’re Officially Invited
Please join on Critical Thinking Outside the Box, add me as a friend, and leave a comment on my profile mentioning that you came through my blog.
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Oct
26
Google Bounce Rate Misleads Bloggers
Filed Under Blogging, Search Engines, Web Analytics | 14 Comments
Defining Bounce Rate
Web metrics help bloggers and other website owners to analyze and track their site visitors. One of the most popular web metrics is bounce rate.
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors viewing only a single page before leaving your site or closing their browser window.
Bounce is thought to be bad and to indicate low interest on the part of your visitors.
According to Google, “a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors.”
Using Bounce Rate
Bounce rate can measure a site’s relevance, the desire of your visitors to place an order or to obtain additional information.
If you buy Pay Per Click advertising, your bounce rate may be one of the factors that determines the position of your ad relative to other ads.
Bloggers Baffled
Common wisdom dictates that bounce rate should be no more than 40 to 60 percent. Most blogs miss this range.
70 to 85 percent is typical, and bloggers are baffled.
Experts would probably agree that either the blog or the traffic was too unfocused. You will probably not be surprised to learn that I do not concur with the experts.
Blogs Are Different
Blog posts aren’t merely landing pages. Each and every one is a main attraction.
The following examples demonstrate that bounce rate cannot effectively measure your blog’s relevance to visitors.
Consider first your blog’s most loyal subscribers. They come and read your every post.
Let’s suppose that:
- 10% leave a comment
- A different 10% click through to a related post
This appears quite healthy to me, yet your bounce rate is 80%.
Now consider your blog’s best search engine visitors. They land on your post and read it with interest.
Let’s suppose that:
- 5% leave a comment
- A different 5% subscribe
- A completely different 10% visit a related post
This seems quite good to me, yet your bounce rate is again 80%.
Visiting a single page, i.e. your post, reading it and moving on is reasonable behavior for a blog visitor. How can we expect the bounce rate to be much lower?
Bounce rate is clearly not as useful a metric for blogs as it is for landing pages.
Gauging Blog Readership
If we cannot adequately assess our readership using bounce rate, what are alternative metrics?
We might instead look at our trend in:
- Quantity of good comments
- Size of our subscriber base
- Amount of direct traffic
- Number of quality backlinks
- Google PageRank
- Yes, even our bounce rate (smile)
Incidentally, the Google Analytics metric “Avg. Time on Site” is equally problematic, since it doesn’t factor into the average visitors who view only a single page.
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Oct
19
Ning Social Networking Sites Update
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 20 Comments
Coping with Recent Ning Site Changes
The Online Social Networking world will never stand still. You can count on that. Social networking sites and the culture surrounding them will always be in a state of flux.
When I wrote Ning Social Networking Sites, I anticipated that before long Ning would add features enabling business networking sites to protect members’ privacy and reduce spam.
Now that these changes are a reality, you as a Ning user may need to adjust.
New Privacy Feature
A new optional Ning feature permits individual sites to hide their members’ affiliations with other Ning sites.
You can still manage your friends on each site. In fact, it is now much simpler to do so than before. However you can no longer manage your friends across Ning sites, nor can you view the other Ning sites to which your friends belong.
Unfortunately I do not have a work around for this. It looks like Ning has plugged the holes, but if I find something, I’ll let you know.
If you want to see all the Ning sites to which you belong, that you can do. Log on to Ning and click on “My Social Networks”.
New Anti-Spam Feature
Another new Ning feature permits individual sites to limit bulk mailing to friends. You can mail to 100 of your friends at a time. If you have many more than 100 friends, this mailing restriction will be somewhat of a nuisance.
You have several options:
- Live with the restriction, as annoying as that might be.
- Participate at sites that have not implemented this restriction — if you can find any. Ning may have plugged this hole too. You can invite friends from one Ning site to join you at another Ning site using the “Invite Your Ning Friends” option.
- Start your own Ning social network. As the site administrator will be able to mail all of your members.
A strategy worth considering is joining many Ning sites and limiting yourself to 100 friends on each. When you exceed the 100 limit, prune away inactive friends and refine your targeting too as you go.
Is Ning Shooting Itself in the Foot?
You must have the ability to mail all your friends if your online social networking strategy is similar to My Online Social Networking Strategy.
I hope Ning isn’t shooting itself in the foot by eliminating group mailing and other features that are useful for serious business networking.
Like MySpace, Ning may learn the hard way that business networkers are a very fickle crowd.
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Oct
12
How to Get Featured on Top News Sites
Filed Under Blogging, News | 27 Comments
When I set up my Online Social Networking blog in November 2007, I had essentially neither blogging nor search engine optimization experience.
I did have excellent reasons for starting a blog, and I was very determined to succeed. I was ready to learn and prepared to overcome any obstacles that might come my way.
Not wanting to write without readers, I reached out to my e-mail list and to my friends at social networking sites promoting my blog.
As time went on, the quality of my articles improved, I found new ways to connect with potential readers, and I received more and more visitors from search engines.
I must admit to you I’m not a natural writer. Each post to my blog takes hours of writing and editing. Nevertheless, I reached a point this summer when I felt ready to go in a new direction.
Syndicated by BlogBurst
I submitted my blog to BlogBurst and they accepted it for national syndication once they confirmed that it conformed to their editorial standards. The whole application process was really very simple.
BlogBurst refers member articles to top news agencies including Reuters and to a variety of other online publications.
When BlogBurst accepted me for membership they advised me to post at least one well written and carefully edited article of medium-length per week, something that I was already doing as part of my blogging strategy.
Picked Up by Reuters
Reuters has picked up two of my articles so far:
I encourage you to read them on the Reuters site and then to click through to my blog in order to view the original posts and their comments. You can also subscribe to my RSS Feed or e-mail blogcast if you haven’t already done so.
I’m hoping that my recent post, Google Reverses Recent PageRank Update, will also make its way onto Reuters.
Also Featured by Chicago Sun Times
The Chicago Sun Times has picked up two of my articles so far:
Strategic Implication
What I’m looking for more than anything else through syndication is third party validation of my work. This validation enhances my credibility with my readers, i.e. you.
Since the Internet, especially the blogosphere, is cluttered with conflicting information and advice, you need to decide for yourself what you want to believe. Hence I appreciate this opportunity to enhance my credibility with you.
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Oct
7
Google Reverses Recent PageRank Update
Filed Under News, Search Engines | 15 Comments
To the surprise of many, a Google PageRank update occurred late September, a month earlier than expected. I saw the page rank of many of my blog posts move up, and I also saw the page rank of a friend’s site move down.
A Google PageRank update hadn’t been expected until October. The previous re-evaluation took place in July according to an apparent every three months pattern. Needless to say Google’s action raised many eyebrows.
On Saturday night the 4th of October I installed the Google XML Sitemap Plugin on a client’s Wordpress blog. While in the installing mood, I also installed the Google Toolbar on my Firefox browser. That’s when I noticed that something was up.
I looked at the page rank of a bunch of my blog posts and at the ranking of my friend’s site. It appeared that Google had rolled back pagerank to July’s numbers, an action would raise even more eyebrows.
Detailed investigation revealed that Google substantially revised but did not completely reverse their September page rank update.
What is Google PageRank?
In case you’re unfamiliar with page rank and wondering why so many people are obsessed with it, I’ll try to explain.
Website owners want their web pages listed at the top of the major search engines. They want lots of targeted visitors landing on their sites, and search engines are a great way to attract them.
Keyword research and optimization are important, but the use of keywords isn’t the only determining success factor. A web page’s authority is just as important, especially with Google.
Authority is determined by the quantity and quality of backlinks, links from other pages on your site or other sites. Backlink quality depends on the authority and the relevance of the linking web page.
Google’s rating of authority is called PageRank after Larry Page, Google’s founder. Google PageRank, or PR for short, is a number between 0 and 10. A PageRank of 10 is the best, but even a PR 5 isn’t easy to obtain.
Since Google PageRank is a key component of search engine optimization, and since page rank depends on receiving favorable outside attention, website owners and SEO professionals put enormous effort into cultivating relationships with relevant and authoritative sites that can link to them.
Back on the Link Farm
A note of caution: Buying links and link exchange strategies can backfire. Search engines are on the lookout for sneaky SEO strategies.
As with keyword stuffing discussed in Keywords Demystified, link farms and other linking schemes can also incur harsh penalties including search engine delisting.
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Oct
5
Keywords Demystified
Filed Under Laws and Rules of Thumb, Search Engines | 12 Comments
Needle in a Haystack?
There are millions of websites and billions of words of information on the Internet. You would think that finding anything would be like looking for a needle in a proverbial haystack.
Fortunately some of the savviest entrepreneurs have hired some of the smartest geeks to write some of the coolest computer programs ever written that allow us to find just about anything out there on the World Wide Web. These programs I refer to are what you and I call search engines.
The most popular search engines today are Google, MSN Live, Yahoo! and AOL. While Google is the most popular, each of the others has plenty of loyal users too.
The search engines travel throughout the Web reading web pages and saving information about these pages for future reference, a process called indexing. When a page has been visited and stored away, we say that the web page has been indexed.
What are Keywords?
When we want to find something online, we bring up our favorite search engine and type some words into its search box. These words which closely relate to the information we want are called search terms or keywords.
We enter keywords, and the search engine responds with pages of results called search engine result pages – SERPs for short – that it retrieves from its index files.
If we are happy with the results, fine. Otherwise we try entering a different keyword combination, or we change the order of the search terms and try again.
Every Search Engine Must Do This
A good search engine is one that consistently finds us the web pages that are the most relevant to our search based on our chosen keywords.
The top priority of a search engine must be to retrieve and return to us the most relevant and helpful web pages. If it doesn’t, then we’ll look to a competitor’s search engine instead.
Search engines always focus on satisfying users, not website owners and not even paying advertisers.
Crime and Punishment
Website owners sometimes try to deceive search engines by stuffing keywords into their web pages completely out of context. They hope thereby to drive their pages up to the top of the search results.
This tactic, a form of spam called spamdexing because it spams the indexing process, once fooled search engines, but that is no longer the case.
Spamdexing can be spotted by sophisticated search engine algorithms and punished appropriately. A site might even be delisted altogether.
Once this happens it could be a long time before the site re-establishes its credibility and regains its standing.
Golden Rule of Web Design
Create your web site content with your visitors in mind. Your visitors and search engines will react favorably, and everybody will win in the long run.
With keyword research you can find the optimal keywords to use in your web pages, words or phrases that many people are searching for, but not so many that the competition for those keywords will be too fierce.
There are keywords that people use when they are doing research and there are ones that they use when they’re ready to buy.
Keyword selection is both an art and a science. There’s much room for creativity.
However, whatever keywords you select to use in your web page, keep this in mind:
Somebody will read what you write, so always be sure that what you write is worth reading.
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Sep
28
According to Wikipedia, the 80/20 Rule or Pareto principle “states that, for many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes”.
The 80 and the 20 are not exact. The 80/20 Rule is what’s commonly known as a rule of thumb.
The 80 20 Rule is an abstract concept, but it’s important to understand it, so let me provide you with some concrete examples that I believe will help.
The 80/20 Rule and You
Approximately 80% of all income is paid to 20% of all people.
The highest paid people earn substantially more than the lowest paid ones. This is a phenomenon of which nearly all of us are acutely aware, and it often seems unfair.
However, 80% of all productivity comes from the efforts of 20% of all people. These 20% of people are the ones who:
- have a good measure of internal motivation
- have a high level of personal productivity
- consistently invest in personal development
- commit to their goals and focus their efforts
- leverage their money and their time
Needless to say 80% of all people follow the 20% of all people who lead them.
While 80% of people spend their disposable income on what Robert Kiyosaki points to as worthless items which they think are assets, the 20% live frugally and spend as much as possible on income producing investments that pay them over and over again.
While 80% of people trade their time for money, the 20% use their time to develop businesses that leverage the time of the 80% – employees — and also outsource and sub-contract to other businesses in order to gain even more leverage.
The 80% of people tend to take it easy or look for get rich schemes and shortcuts to success. They follow the path of least resistance, and they settle for much less than they really want.
Are you in the 80% or the 20%?
If you’re in the 80%, ask yourself what shift in thinking could transform you into one of the 20%.
The 80/20 Rule and Other People
If you’re in the 20%, then you need to apply the 80-20 Rule to the people around you:
- 80% of your work is done by 20% or your workers. Spend 80% of your time developing your most productive workers.
- So too in a direct or networking sales business: 80% of your results will come from 20% of your team. Spend 80% of your time developing your most productive team members.
- 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients or customers. Your time should be spent conducting business with your best clients. There are some business experts who would go as far as firing the 80% of unprofitable clients. That may not always be feasible. In many industries such as health care or telecom firing costly customers could result in a public relations nightmare.
The 80/20 Rule and Social Marketing
Here are some Internet and social media applications of the 80-20 principle:
- 80% of all blogging is done by 20% of all bloggers
- 80% of all blog comments are made by 20% of all blog readers
- 80% of all online social networking is done by 20% of all online networkers
- 80% of all networkers flock to 20% of all social networking sites
- 80% of all traffic goes to 20% of all websites
- 80% of all spam is generated by 20% of all spammers
You can add to the list when you comment on this post — assuming of course that you’re one of the 20% of all readers. 
You Can’t Know Everything
Expertise is a valuable asset when it comes to personal branding. As an expert you can teach and mentor others and differentiate yourself from your competition.
To become a top expert in any field requires years of dedication. You still won’t know everything there is to know.
You can generally acquire more knowledge than 80% of all people with 20% of the effort it takes to become a top expert. This feat often takes much less than a year. To overtake and pass the remaining 20% of all people might take many years or even a lifetime.
I like to call this particular aspect of the Pareto principle The Law of Diminishing Returns. Beyond a certain point each successive increment of result will require more effort than the previous increment. It becomes harder and harder to justify additional time investments.
In this era of specialization you can read a few books on a subject and know more about a subject than nearly everybody else. That’s the kind of expertise I’m recommending — coupled of course with some practical hands-on experience.
Invest your time to acquire knowledge that your prospective clients or customers will appreciate.
When I was a teen I worked and struggled obsessively to become a top chess player, and I succeeded.
Nowadays I prefer to grasp multiple subjects and to seek synergies among them: many types of data analysis, search engine optimization, marketing, social networking, blogging, etc.
My broad base of knowledge — fused with solid logic, trusted intuition and other abilities and skills — fuels my overall critical thinking outside the box strategy.
You Can’t Do Everything
Like it or not we can’t follow up on every idea or opportunity that presents itself. The Law of Diminishing Returns guarantees that. Therefore we must make value judgments and set priorities every day.
Fortunately the 80/20 Rule is on our side.
80% of all benefit accrues to us by accomplishing 20% of everything on our plate. Each day we ought to focus on a half dozen high priority agenda items that will move our businesses and our lives forward.
If only we did that consistently each and every day our lives would be filled with accomplishments and satisfaction.
Nobody however is perfect. We all have bad days. Yet, the 20% group prioritizes and moves forward with much greater focus and consistency than the 80% group.
Please don’t underestimate the power of the 80/20 Rule and the enormous potential of a modest 20 percent.
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Sep
22
How Do You Like Your SPAM?
Filed Under Communication, Networking and Marketing Strategy | 20 Comments
What is Spam?
Wikipedia defines spam as “the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages”.
While most people think of spam as junk e-mail, Wikipedia points out that the term applies equally to the abuse of other electronic media:
- Instant messaging
- Usenet newsgroups
- Search engines - This includes creating spam websites, keyword stuffing and social media abuse.
- Blogs - Besides the computer generated spam a blog receives every day, there are people who believe that a blog’s comment space is some kind of billboard. The same people like to advertise on social networking sites in their and other people’s comment spaces.
- Wikis - Wikipedia itself is a target of spam content.
- Online classified ads
- Mobile phone messaging
- Internet forums - This is a first cousin of blog and social networking comment spam.
- Fax transmissions
Spam is Offline Too
It is easy to extend the definition to include non-electronic media and communication:
- Three foot rule - Anybody unfortunate enough to be standing next to the spammer gets an earful.
- Car windows - This includes flyers on the windshield and sizzle cards between the rubber and the glass of the driver’s window.
- Telemarketing and automated dialers - They really sound pretty much the same. It’s hard to tell which is real.
- Rest room graffiti - Okay, maybe I am taking this a bit too far. However, I couldn’t resist. I’m sure by now you get the general idea.
Spam is Bad Business
Spam is anti-social, alienating and unprofitable, unless as Diane Hochman says, you’re going to do it right and set up an offshore server to blast spam messages to millions of inboxes.
Spam is highly inefficient and ineffective. Nearly everyone is turned off by spam or chooses to ignore it. Some forms of spam are illegal in many jurisdictions.
Forty-four years later, spam is a perfect example of Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message”. The spammer’s methodology becomes the focus of attention rather than the message’s intended content.
Why Do People Spam?
Spammers mistakenly believe that spam is marketing. Spam seems like a good simple marketing shortcut.
Spammers are taught to play the numbers game. Somebody out there is going to fall for it. When spammers fail, they rarely consider that their spam “strategy” was flawed.
The Law of Attraction
Learning to market correctly takes time and effort, but it’s worth the investment. You will attract success. Spam only attracts failure.
Read my articles on online social networking, blogging and personal branding, and come join me to learn more at My Private Classroom.
Real marketing and personal branding shall prevail.
Please share your spam stories. Post a comment. But please, no you know what.
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Sep
16
Moving the Free Line
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy | 15 Comments
Diane Hochman spoke recently in My Private Classroom about moving the free line, a concept that every marketer engaged in list building these days ought to understand.
Internet marketing expert Brad Fallon explains the “free line” concept in this YouTube video:
Widen your sales funnel at the top to let more people in, but don’t widen it so much that you have nothing left to sell. You have to find the right balance.
You can give away free information, training or product samples, even free trials of services. However, choose carefully where to move the free line, and once you’ve made that choice, stick with it.
Don’t let the customer move the free line. You do have a right to get paid.
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Sep
11
Home Based Businesses Don’t Work
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Personal Development and Success | 19 Comments
Home Business Survival Crash Course
People launch all types of businesses every day.
Despite enormous investment and months or years of preparation most new businesses fail. Their once well lit storefronts and offices are now dark, and their employees are searching for new jobs.
I don’t have precise statistics for a home based business. I estimate that perhaps 98% of new home businesses never earn a dime. If my estimate is too high, it can’t be too high by much. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
My first home business with Excel Communications lost money for five years before finally turning a profit. I have since embarked on other ventures. Some have worked out well, and others not.
Let’s discuss why home based businesses usually fail and what you might be able to do to succeed. First I’ll share my thoughts about this, and then you’ll have a turn to express your point of view.
Reasons for Failure
The following list of causes for failure is arranged with readability in mind, rather than the relative importance of the contributing factors:
- YOURSELF - You have an uphill battle if you lack internal motivation, commitment, relevant skills (such as organization, communication, sales, marketing, online social networking or prospecting), proper training, posture, preparation, productivity, or some combination of these.
- Others - Other people can lack all of the above. Sadly, they can also lack integrity. I believe that people not doing as they say they will is very disappointing and the greatest business obstacle. Read the story of Orovo and Network Success Builders for a good example of this.
- Hype - Exaggeration and misrepresentation of products, services and business opportunities are all too common today as people try desperately to differentiate themselves from their competition in an over-crowded marketplace.