Weight-Loss Trick

By Craig Ballantyne
When it comes to losing weight, we often need to use every trick in the book. And according to researchers from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, one of those tricks might be having a little H2O before you eat.

Researchers had young (ages 21-35) and old (ages 60-80) subjects drink 1.5 to 2 cups of water 30 minutes before a meal. They were then allowed to eat as much food as they wanted. The researchers compared the results to the amount they ate during a meal without the water.

Drinking the water did not affect how much food the younger subjects ate, but it reduced the older subjects' food intake by about 10 percent. And it worked particularly well to curb the appetites of older men.

If you're over 35, grab a glass of water before you sit down to eat. It won't replace the need for a good diet and exercise. But it might help you control your appetite.

[Ed. Note: Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne is the creator of the Turbulence Training for Fat Loss system.]

4 Steps to Getting a Low-Cost, High-Profit Small Business Off the Ground

by Paul Lawrence

“He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.” – William James

Imagine that you invest $250 into creating a video… and it makes you a $20,000 profit within 30 days! That actually happened to me and my partners earlier this year.

And it wasn’t just a one-time thing. I’ve produced a number of videos – including an exercise program for men over 40, a back-stretching program, a ballroom dance instruction program, and several specialty sports videos – that have made a total of hundreds of thousands of dollars.You can make substantial profits quickly with this type of business. And it’s a fairly easy one to crack. Not only have I had a great deal of success with it, so have several people I know. You simply:

• Select a subject that would appeal to a number of people.
• Produce a good video with interesting and/or useful information.
• Market the video to your target audience.

Obviously, there’s more to it, but those are the basics.You can create an instructional video – with your own video camera – on almost any subject. But keep in mind that you have to sell a lot of videos to make a mass marketing campaign to a wide audience profitable. And it’s tough to come up with a subject that would appeal to that many people. It’s a lot easier (and cheaper) to sell one that appeals to a niche market. A niche is a narrow corner of a larger market. For example, the exercise video I mentioned above was aimed at middle-aged and senior men, a niche market in the larger market of male consumers. When you’re going after a niche market, you can reach your potential customers with highly targeted, inexpensive marketing efforts. This gives you a much better chance to reap quick profits.

To read more about how to select a subject, take a look at my article, "Make $250,000 a Year With Your Video Camera." But even before you make your video, you need to spend some time thinking about how you’re going to sell it.

Here’s what works for me:

1. Identify your niche market. You have to know exactly who you’re making your video for. For my instructional exercise video, I targeted men over 40 who have an interest in improving their health and fitness.

2. Identify several ways to reach your potential customers. Once you know the kind of people you’ll be marketing your video to, you’ll be able to make some educated guesses about how to reach them. For my exercise video, I decided to advertise in online and print health-oriented publications aimed at men over 40. Consider your online options first. Online advertising can be inexpensive, it’s highly targeted, and your results are quick. I recommend small ads in e-zines and pay-per-click (PPC) ads on a major search engine.To find e-zines with editorial content that would appeal to your target market, just do a few Web searches. In my case, I typed in keyword phrases that described my video (“exercise for senior males” and “exercises for men”), and came up with lots of possibilities. Ads in print media, such as magazines and newspapers, can work too. There are thousands of magazines with highly specialized readerships that can be very responsive. The downside to print (versus online) advertising is that it takes a lot longer to get your results. Sometimes months. Plus, anything other than classified advertising can be quite expensive. But many print magazines also have a Web presence. So if you find a magazine in a bookstore that would be a good fit for your ad, see if there’s an online version.

3. Set up a promotional website. To profit from online advertising, you need to create a website where prospects can learn more about your video… and buy it. There’s a limit to how much you can say in a small online ad. So, the idea is to link your e-zine ads and your PPC ads to a “landing page” on your site. Then, when interested people click on the link, you’ll have plenty of room to give them your full sales pitch – and turn them into paying customers.

4. Set up a system to capture and process your online orders. There are many online secure servers that cost very little to set up, and most of them work the same way. Your prospect clicks from your landing page to the secure server to place her order. Then you get an e-mail notification of the sale, and the money transfers into your bank account. Some people swear by PayPal, but I prefer to set up an actual merchant account. For most of my businesses, I use a company called Authorize.net. But check around. A Google search will turn up a slew of options. As your business grows and you start selling thousands of videos, you might consider outsourcing the fulfillment of them. But to get started, you can handle most of it yourself.

You can find many vendors in any city who will make a small number of copies for you for a reasonable price. Then, when the orders come in, you package them up and drop them off at the post office. The best part of the business of producing and selling videos is that you can make lots of cash in a short period of time. Offer a video aimed at a narrow niche that is not being served very well, and you will quickly establish a customer base. Continue to produce videos that would appeal to these same people, and you’ll soon have a growing business with a built-in market.

[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is a produced screenwriter, direct-mail copywriter, and business author.]

IKEA Takes Florida by Storm; Immediately Blows It

By Charlie Byrne

I'd heard about them on the net, from my kids, in the newspaper. They already had good "buzz"... a fan club of devout followers. (Think Apple or Volkswagen.)

And so Swedish furniture retailer IKEA finally arrived in South Florida to much fanfare. Thousands lining up for opening day. Tons of media coverage. The works.

But just a few days later, they lost at least one potential customer - me - with an advertisement that, worst case, was arrogant or, best case, just stupid.

I'm driving down I-95 with my wife Patti when I see the huge billboard:

"IKEA Is to South Florida as Sunburn Is to Tourists."

Hmm.

So I'm thinking, "Maybe my brain isn't working very fast today." I'm pondering what I just read and wondering why I can't figure out what the heck it means.

Is IKEA some kind of annoyance? A nasty surprise? Something that ruins your plans?

"Patti, did you see that sign? What does that mean?"

"You've got me."

Maybe I'm dense. but I still can't figure it out. And I'm not the only one. When I passed a draft of this article around the office, Alexis said, "I swear I had the same reaction to that ad. I think my last interpretation as we drove by was that it was inevitable. There is a second billboard that was even more confusing, but I can't even remember what that one said."

And here's the problem. An ad like that makes me wonder: If IKEA uses such poor judgment in their advertising, what other mistakes do they make? 

Don't try making your ads too clever. You just might "outsmart" your customers.

10 Little Things I'm Thankful For

by Wendy Montes de Oca

1. That I look younger than my age.

2. That ballet flats are in. I'm tall, and it's nice to wear stylish shoes that don't make me look like an Amazon.

3. That I speak Spanish and my family doesn't. On occasion, my husband and I speak privately in front of them... and they have no idea what we're talking about.

4. Mexican food. I can seriously eat it at least twice a week.

5. Spell-check.

6. That bangs made a comeback.

7. My accent. You can take the girl out of New York, but you can't take New York out of the girl.

8. Hair spray. Did I mention I'm from New York?

9. The color black. Little black dress. Black slacks. Black jacket. It's the staple color of my wardrobe.

10. Designer handbags. It's my one vice.

It's Fun to Know: The Presidential Turkey

Each year before Thanksgiving, the president ceremonially pardons a turkey. He thus saves the gobbler from the dinner table and bestows upon it the privilege to live out its life.

For many years, the lucky bird went to Kidwell Farm in Herndon, VA, a suburb of Washington, D.C. There, it became one of the star attractions of a petting zoo. For the past two years [before 2007], however, the pardoned turkey served as Grand Marshal of the Thanksgiving Day parade at Disneyland in California before being sent to a local ranch.

It's unclear where this tradition started. Most historians believe Harry Truman started it in 1947. Others claim that Abraham Lincoln issued the first pardon for his son Tad's pet turkey.

(Source: Infoplease)

Word to the Wise: Execrable

Something that's "execrable" (EK-sih-kruh-bul) is really bad. The word is derived from the Latin for "to curse."

Example (as used by Marilyn Stasio in a New York Times theater review): "Any theatergoer who has ever felt the urge to murder an actor for an execrable performance should get a kick out of two backstage mysteries that do the deed with a nice theatrical flourish."

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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2200, 11-15-07], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.