"The product that will not sell without advertising will not sell profitably with advertising."

Albert Lasker

A Business Question You MUST Be Able to Answer

By Michael Masterson

Most would-be entrepreneurs are motivated by an idea - an idea for some great new product.

I get all sorts of questions from such people, but I almost never hear the most important one - the one you should always ask when you get an idea for a great new product: Is this the kind of product that I can actually sell? And if so, how should I do it?

Coming up with product ideas is not the hard part of entrepreneurship. Figuring out how to sell those products profitably - that’s where the genius comes in.

Take Mike Henry, for example, who wrote me recently with a question about a product he’d like to sell. Mike has an idea for a soup recipe. He calls it "Esther’s Health Soup" after his beloved late mother, who "concocted a delicious, chicken-based vegetable soup" just for Mike’s late father, who never ate vegetables.

"Both parents are gone now," wrote Mike, "and I have a strong desire to immortalize them with this soup."

Mike doesn’t know what to do next. He talked to someone at SCORE (an organization that offers free advice to entrepreneurs), and was told that his soup would take years (and lots of money) to gain FDA approval. So he has come up with some ideas about how to market his soup himself and wants to know whether they are good avenues to pursue.

"I’m a musician," says Mike. "I play at restaurants, catering halls, and country clubs. I am especially friendly with one caterer in my neighborhood. Would that be a good outlet? Should I approach a major company and sell my formula to them?" Mike also wonders whether he should try to contact the original owner of Whole Foods Market, a man who was a family friend.

What can I say? Mike seems like a nice man. He’s endowed with an active imagination. He makes his living as a member of a band and, when the music stops, dreams of selling recipes and inventing things.

He also loves his parents and wants to immortalize them by converting a vegetable soup his mother made into a product. After reading a few books, he is puzzled about what to do. So he takes the initiative to speak to someone at SCORE - presumably a retired executive - and he gets lectured on how difficult his idea will be to execute.

I love this anecdote about SCORE, because I have always had mixed feelings about that organization. I am sure many SCORE volunteers are formerly successful businesspeople (with a smattering of blowhards and ne’er-do-wells in the mix), but there is a fundamental problem with getting your advice from people who have been out of their industry for two or three years: They lose touch with the market. Add to that hardening arteries and aching joints, and you have a non-profit organization filled with grouchy old naysayers.

Mike deserves better than he got at SCORE, simply because it would be nice to imagine Esther’s Health Soup sitting on a supermarket shelf some day. But his ignorance of business is so profound, I can’t think of what to tell him. Right now, Mike doesn’t have any business goals. His goals are purely sentimental. And a sweet dream to honor his parents just isn’t the same as having a workable business idea.

Mike’s greatest resource is the connection with the original owner of Whole Foods Market, but this guy is likely to be long ago retired and working part-time as a counselor at SCORE, discouraging young people from doing what he did.

Mike’s best bet is to start selling the soup at a local flea market or giving it away on street corners. No doubt he would be violating various public health laws in doing so, but if he sells it while it’s fresh, he probably won’t get hauled off to prison. He could also look into getting a booth at a local weekend greenmarket that features produce but also has stands that sell all kinds of other stuff, including prepared food. Or he could approach a take-out place that features dozens of kinds of soup on their menu (they’re springing up all over lately, perhaps modeled after Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi) and see if they’ll take his "on spec."

The point is, before Mike makes an investment in marketing his product, he needs to find out for sure if it’s really as good as he thinks - and by "good," I mean sellable. He won’t find that out by serving it to his friends. What are they going to say? ("Mike, I never wanted to say this when she was living, but your mom was a lousy cook.")

There is only one way to find out if your product is good, and that is to start selling it. The sooner you start selling it, the faster you will know. Most products, it turns out, are not as good as the inventor (or her son) thinks they are.

If Esther’s Health Soup starts selling like hotcakes, Mike should write back to us… and then we’ll tell him what to do next.

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Make Your Points More Memorable With Stories

By Virginia Avery

Legend has it that a Persian king who had been betrayed by an unfaithful wife wed a virgin each night, and each morning had her beheaded. Three thousand unfortunate women lost their lives this way… until he met Scheherazade. On their wedding night, she told him a story that was so enthralling, he begged for another. She promised one for the following night … and on the following night, she promised one for the night after that. Her stories were so enchanting that this went on for 1001 nights. And then he made her his queen.

Unlike Scheherazade, your life may not depend on being able to tell a good story, but it is a powerful tool to use when giving presentations. Stories help build rapport with your listeners and make your presentations more engaging and memorable. They work whether you’re pitching a project to your boss, courting a new client, or giving a talk to an audience of hundreds.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Structure your story in three parts: the setting, the problem, and the solution.
2. Practice your story several times in front of friends and/or family members. Listen to their feedback, then refine the story until only the essential details remain.
3. Tell the story in a conversational way - as if you were talking one-on-one to someone you know. If you use dialog, change your voice for each character.
4. Remember to pause from time to time. Pausing heightens the expectation that something important is coming. It keeps your listeners’ attention.
5. At the end of the story, restate the point you’re making to be sure it’s understood.

By using stories as part of your presentations, you’ll engage your audiences, forge a connection with them, and make sure your points stick with them long after the presentation is over.

[Ed. Note: Virginia Avery is a communications specialist who has trained thousands of individuals to make more dynamic presentations.]

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The Most Important Supplement You Will Ever Take?

By Anthony Colpo

Magnesium could quite possibly be the most important nutritional supplement you will ever take. Without it, you can’t produce adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP), the substance that every cell in your body ultimately uses for energy.

Magnesium has a huge impact on healthy heart function. Deficiencies of this mineral have been implicated in hypertension, atherosclerosis, cardiac arrhythmia, and deadly heart attacks. Low magnesium intake has also been linked to diabetes, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, cramping, and exaggerated harmful responses to stress.

Clearly, magnesium is one nutrient you definitely do not want to skimp on - but that’s exactly what most people do. A survey by the Centers for Disease Control found that most American adults have a woefully inadequate magnesium intake. Per day, on average, Caucasian men get only 352 mg, African-American men get only 278 mg, Caucasian women get only 256 mg, and African-American women get only 202 mg. These amounts are well below the minimal recommended daily allowance of magnesium - 420 mg for men and 320 mg for women.

Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, halibut, tomato paste, spinach, artichokes, cashews, and almonds are some of the foods that are high in magnesium. But the best way to ensure optimal intake is with supplements. Avoid the oxide form of magnesium, as it is poorly absorbed by the body. Instead, use magnesium citrate, aspartate, chloride, or malate. My personal favorite is nigari, a Japanese seawater extract that is rich in magnesium chloride. Mix the nigari with water and drink it throughout the day.

Gradually increase your daily dose of magnesium until you notice a loosening of your stools. When this occurs, decrease the dosage slightly and maintain.

[Ed. Note: Anthony Colpo is an independent researcher, physical conditioning specialist, and author of the groundbreaking books The Fat Loss Bible and The Great Cholesterol Con.]

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It’s Good to Know: Online Archives

Thanks to the Internet, serious research is no longer limited to time-consuming and tedious searches through dusty library shelves and deteriorating microfilm. Below are a few online archives of historical documents that can help you, whether you’re researching geography, languages, or old news stories.

• davidrumsey.com - The David Rumsey Map Collection has more than 15,000 historical maps.
• rosettaproject.org - The Rosetta Project is an archive of all human languages.
• News.google.com/archivesearch - The Google News archive allows you to search through past copies of newspapers and magazines.
• Images.jsc.nasa.gov/index.html - This is a NASA-sponsored collection of more than 9,000 press release images (including astronaut portraits and action photos from their missions) spanning the entire manned space program.

(Source: Lifehacker)

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Word to the Wise: Derring-do

"Derring-do" (DER-ing DOO) - from the Middle English "dorrying don" (daring to do) - is brave, heroic, or reckless action.

Example (as used by Virginia Heffernan in a New York Times review of the PBS documentary "Orozco: Man of Fire"): "Mural painting requires derring-do, or at least permits and scaffolding, in contrast to oil painting or novel writing."

Michael Masterson
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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2161, 10-01-07], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.