Did you know that entrepreneurs running 8 figure businesses (over $10 million in revenues) actually work LESS than average entrepreneurs?

Crazy, but true…My friend Dave Lavinsky from Growthink has “cracked the code” on why some entrepreneurs reach 8 figure success.

Watch the 8 Figure Formula here >>

What do 8 figure entrepreneurs know that you don’t?

How do 8 figure entrepreneurs make tons more money while working less?

What tactics and strategies do 8 figure entrepreneurs use?

Watch the video here >>

Charlie

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

I recently received an email asking a question I get asked all the time. What does it take to be an entrepreneur?

Listing the qualities is easy, but describing how to get over the humps is the tough part. Problems like…getting more customers, outperforming customers, growing your business faster and motivating your employees are everyday issues for small business owners. So how can you get past them, to make this your most successful year ever?

Find out now >>

My friend Dave Lavinsky created a video that reveals the single biggest factor separating average entrepreneurs from the most successful ones. He shares some pretty valuable advice in this video and it’s only a few minutes long.

Watch it now >>

Charlie

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

If you’re a successful entrepreneur, congratulations.

I know how hard it can be to get a small business up and running.

But, if you’ve always dreamt of starting your own business, this…

message is for you.

My good friend Steve Little just finished putting together a program that teaches you step by step exactly how to quickly and easily find and build your perfect money-making business success.

Find your perfect business >>

If you’ve already been to his site, you know how valuable the information is and how committed Steve is to helping soon-to-be entrpreneurs you find the perfect business that will deliver the financial security and lifestyle that you truly want and deserve.

Everyone has a unique idea for a business…

But very few actually pursue it.

Do you know why?

Studies have shown that the reason most people haven’t started their own business is because they don’t know if it will work.

They don’t know if they can actually do it.

And they don’t want to take the risk and find out the hard way that their business idea was not a good one.

And quite frankly, I don’t blame them.

Steve has found a scientific way to eliminate all of the uncertainty and doubt to systematically determine what you’re perfect business is for you.

Find out how here >>

Go here and see for yourself – it’s truly amazing.

Be sure to let me know what you think.

Charlie

PS – Just a quick reminder. Even if you’re not ready for his turn-key guaranteed success system, if you haven’t enrolled for his video training, do it

right now.

Try it here >>

It’s incredibly revealing, it’s FREE, and you’ll get lots of other great success training too to become the entrepreneur you’ve always wanted to be.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Ever notice that when you turn on the news, listen to the radio or look at the television, all you see is doom and gloom?

What ever happened to ‘the dream’?

You know the one where you had the perfect…

life and built and ran the perfect business, had the perfect family, nice cars, and best vacation spots and never had to worry about a thing?

Does your life look like that?

Are you already a multimillionaire entrepreneur?

Do you have all of the things you dreamt about and more?

Maybe you’ve already reached that point…

Congratulations if you have because 99% of the world has never experienced such a dream life before and most never will.

Then again, it’s only a dream…Right?

WRONG!

What every aspiring entrepreneur should know

In this day and age, the only way to have the financial future you want is to become a small business entrepreneur. Period. 99% of the world won’t realize that dream because they’re too afraid to grab the opportunity and start their own business.

Start your business today >>

Sure, it’s easy to say you’ll start you’ll become a successful entrepreneur, but the problem I’ve noticed with most people is that they’re stuck answering this question… What’s the right business for you?

If you pick wrong, you’re doomed to fail.

But, if you pick right, it’s like “money in the bank”.

I’m not going to sit and tell you that I know what the perfect business if for you. I don’t know that.

But I DO know someone who can tell you how to find the right business for you – your Perfect Business.

He’s a good friend of mine, Steve Little, and he’s created a free video series that teaches you step-by-step exactly how to find YOUR perfect business.

I’ve never seen anything like it before.

Take a look here >>

It’s really that simple.

Go check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

Discover your perfect business >>

Charlie

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Today I’ve got another exciting message for you from my friend Brian Tracy.

Get a proven way to avoid serious small business mistakes you could be making right now >>

Plus, Brian and his co-author Mark Thompson give you quick and decisive answers on how to avoid crippling small business blunders you may not even be aware of.

But I’ll let Brian tell you in his own words…

After 4 decades of personal experience and close interaction with thousands of entrepreneurs and small business owners, in 54 countries— I know a thing or two about what makes a business succeed.

But better yet, I know what makes a small business fail. And I can help you avoid these fatal mistakes.

I’ll help you steer clear of headaches so you can reduce the failure factor in your own small business.

Click here to see what’s in store for you >>

Watch your inbox for more exciting tips on surviving in the new economy.

- Charlie

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

When I was 15 I knew I didn’t want to be a doctor like my Dad. I always thought he worked too hard – much less science wasn’t my main interest.

My Dad would go to work during the day and then he’d go back to the hospital in the evening and often on the weekends. Why did he spend so many hours at work, after all he worked at a teaching
hospital and was on salary?

My father loves the field of medicine. He enjoyed his work and couldn’t get enough of it. He found it intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying.

Now at age 89 he’s retired, but despite suffering from eyesight problems he still reads medical journals.

What’d I learn from my father?

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, a plumber, sell spicy sauce or a graphic designer – there is one precursor you need to start and run a highly profitable small business and I’ll go one step further – to be successful in life.

It’s the one that separates people who just bring in a paycheck from the self-employed and small business owners like you who can make on average twice as much and are worth five times as much as the average worker.

Can you guess what I’m taking about?

To be successful you need to be PASSIONATE about what you do.

Now passion alone won’t fill your bank account, but it’s one of the precursors to being successful whether you’re a doctor, like my father, or an entrepreneur or a small business owner.

I love marketing. Even after a full day of helping clients I often spend dinner discussing marketing ideas with my wife who shares my interests. I have a passion for what I do and enjoy helping others use the amazingly effective ideas I’ve discovered. Funny thing, I ended up just like my Dad, working long days too.

Maybe it’s that like attracts like, but I’ve found the most successful people I’ve worked with share a similar passion for their small businesses. I know I’ve got one on the line when they call and I can’t get them to stop talking about what they do.

I get calls every week from small business owners like:

Susan – who developed an effective way to eliminate pain and wants every home to have one of her machines.

Al – who is an owner of Country Bob’s and even though his company has national distribution of their all purpose sauces and he should be retiring, he still continues to search out new ways to attract more clients.

Bill – whose family has been in the concrete plant business for decades and helps people find the right equipment to build their successful concrete block or paver business.

Kevin – who helps audiologists grow their business by giving them the tools they need to educate their patients.

The small business owners who call me don’t lack passion. What they’re missing is an understanding of how to channel their passion into increased profits.

Want to discover how to channel your passion for your products and services into greater profits? Use this link >>

If just being passionate about something was the road to wealth, Bill Gates would have a lot more competition as one of the world’s wealthiest. I’d be a trillionaire based on my passion for skiing,
sailing, kayaking and biking.

But it takes more than passion to make a profit. It takes knowing how to position and market your product or services, something Microsoft excels at no matter what you say about their software.

Passion may be what keeps you in the game, but its marketing that brings in the money.

If you’re passionate about what you do – don’t let it get in the way. Find out how to use it to attract more clients and grow your business. If you don’t who will?  Use this link to get started >>

- Charlie

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Want a simple way to make money, one you can use to sell the most popular item on the planet?

Whatever your profession, background or experience, you possess valuable knowledge and just by sharing what you know or even what you just learned, you can get paid for it—as a consultant.

That’s how I created each of my businesses.

When I first started out, I had no idea how to get a top search engine ranking. So, I started reading and testing and discovered what worked. Pretty soon I had enough information for a book, and started selling my simple system as an ebook. From there my business grew into highly-profitable consulting.

And all I did was take an interest of mine, in this case how to get a top search engine ranking, and share what I’d learned to create a steady income stream.  It’s so simple that I’m amazed more people aren’t doing it, selling information – the fastest growing commodity in an otherwise treacherous economy.

Or course, I didn’t stop with search engine optimization, since then I’ve gone on to detail how to create a marketing message, everything you need to know about web marketing, closing sales and a host of other topics, generating millions of dollars in revenue from products I’ve created and from consulting with clients.

As a coach and a consultant you can make good money. At the low end, you might charge $100 an hour. But rates can escalate dramatically from there—and once you become well-known you can charge $500-$1200 an hour.

The term “consulting” may call to mind an image of a huge multinational firm, such as McKinsey, sending teams of dozens of its staffers into Fortune 500 corporations. But many consultants have solo practices. Anyone who can help others solve problems, avoid mistakes, or increase revenues qualifies for the title.

Consider the copywriter Don Hauptman. Don and I “met” recently via LinkedIn. For each consulting assignment, Don charged between $4,000 and $7,500. The consultation itself consisted of a day with the client—and sometimes even less than that—in person or by phone. Preparation was necessary, of course, and some minimal follow up – but wouldn’t you like to be making over $4,000 a day just by sharing what you know?

Well you can!

To help you get started as a coach and a consultant Don has written an e-book that reveals everything he knows. It’s called The Versatile Freelancer: How Writers and Other Creative Professionals Can Generate More Income by Seizing New Opportunities in Critiquing, Consulting, Training, and Presenting.

Maybe you think Don is a special case. Or you might say: “He’s a copywriter and I’m not.”

But almost anyone with expertise has opportunities to turn that knowledge into a lucrative consulting practice.

While researching The Versatile Freelancer, Don interviewed numerous professionals who became successful consultants: copywriters, authors, graphic designers, photographers, psychologists, and others. And even during a period of economic gloom, unemployment, bank failures, foreclosures, plunging stock indexes, and recession he found

The majority of those consultants interviewed reported that their businesses were unaffected and that they were doing as well as ever, or even better.

Why does consulting often work so well in a down economy? The answer is simple: During tough periods, companies trim their staffs or don’t hire as they normally would. An outside consultant, a one-time project, or a lower-priced service can be appealing options.
Can you become a successful consultant? Quite possibly, if you’re good at what you do, and have the ability and the enthusiasm to communicate your knowledge. Think about what sort of information and advice and intelligence you’re capable of offering, its value, what you could charge, how to identify prospective clients and persuade them to hire you.

How do you begin? Try this three-step procedure. For best results, do it in writing.

1. Take an inventory of your background, experience, skills, and achievements. Do you know how to increase revenues and profits, cut costs, solve problems, come up with innovative ideas? These are all “bottom-line” benefits that companies value, even—or especially—in tough times.
2. Determine who might pay you for that knowledge. Consider firms or organizations where you have contacts, or others you can research. Hidden opportunities lurk in the most surprising places. Think creatively.
3. Match your expertise to the market’s needs and approach your targets. Make a pitch or submit a proposal. If you know the appropriate executives, you have an edge. Cold calls are more challenging, but not impossible.

I’ve read Don’s book and I’m impressed. The Versatile Freelancer not only explains how to become a consultant or coach but also reveals opportunities in public speaking, critiquing, corporate training, and more.

The Versatile Freelancer tells you everything you need to know, step by step—from how to promote yourself and find clients and what to charge … to how to prepare and deliver a successful presentation, even if you’ve never spoken publicly and suffer from stage fright! It also includes Don’s own agreement letters and other useful documents and resources and self-marketing tools.

AWAI, the publisher, offers an unconditional money-back guarantee. You’ll also receive a free bonus report: “The World’s Easiest Way to Sell Yourself and Your Services.” To order without risk, go here. [YOUR AFFILIATE LINK]

Any doubts? Michael Cloud, a speechwriter, reports: “I just made an easy $9,500 in three days from one simple technique I learned while reading Chapter 2 of The Versatile Freelancer.”

Whatever your specialty, whatever knowledge you possess, someone probably needs or wants to learn it—and is willing to pay you for sharing it.

- Charlie

P.S. Don’t wait. Discover the perfect strategy for protecting yourself, your business, and your income in all types of economic climate. Order The Versatile Freelancer: How Writers and Other Creative Professionals Can Generate More Income by Seizing New Opportunities in Critiquing, Consulting, Training, and Presenting here >>

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

After not watching hockey on TV since I was fourteen when I played for the Yale Pee Wee hockey team, this past week I’ve been glued to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Why am I paying attention to a winter sport in the summer?

It could be looking at all that ice while it’s hitting 80 or higher outside has a cooling effect I enjoy but the biggest fun factor is the dazzling display of teamwork.

It’s true, on occasion one player has slammed off a shot on his own and scored, but it’s rare. More often, the goals have been the result of three to four even five players passing the puck back and forth, totally confusing the goalie in the process, to set up the final shot that scores.

Your business is the same. Just like a game of hockey, things change rapidly and it’s rare that any one person can keep it running by him or herself.

Yet, that’s the exact mistake I see the majority of entrepreneurs making. Their business is, “Me, Myself and I.” And they are trying to play all positions at once with the result they’re having a tough time increasing their scores, e.g. closing more and more sales each month.

In your business, just as on the ice for the Chicago Blackhawks and Philly Flyers, it’s the best team that wins.

This past year I had the pleasure of coaching two women, both who came to me and were struggling to focus their marketing and grow their businesses.  Each week I met with both with completely different results.

Ann wanted to grow her online business to supplement and eventually replace her offline business, an adult family home. And while she had a staff, she always seemed to be jumping in to cover all the bases, with the result that she was perpetually overwhelmed, and after six months her profits were the same.

In contrast, Molly immediately realized, as we talked about scaling her business, that she was going to need to expand her team. Within weeks of getting started, she’d hired on part-time help and within the same six months had doubled the size of her corporate communications business.

To build your business – you first need to build your team. Of course, just like any professional sports team, having a coach helps.

For years, I was a “Me, Myself, and I” kind of business. I kept trying to do everything on my own, and for years it kept holding me back. The biggest breakthrough for my business came as a result of building my team – the people who have made it possible for me to scale up my business, much less spend so much time hitting the ski slopes in the winter or out sailing in the summer.

As I write this, my virtual business team includes 11 people.  How about your business?

Ready to scale it, grow it by two to ten times?

Do you already have a viable business and want help ramping it up?

Contact me to talk further >>

- Charlie

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

What kind of help does your business need to attract more clients and be more profitable?

What kind of help do you need to get to that 7-figure income you’re aiming for?

The answer depends on what stage you’re at as an entrepreneur and a business owner.

Stage I: Start-up
You’ve got a great idea for a new business, a new product or a better way of delivering a service. You’re sure there’s a need out there for it. You’re knowledgeable enough in the field to be confident that this can support you and your family. At this stage, your biggest concern is turning your idea into a salable product or service.

Knowing that 50% of new businesses fail in the first four years, what do you need?

Focus.

Over the last 20 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs eager to launch new businesses. They’re smart, they’re committed to success and they’re willing to work hard. Really hard.

But a lot of the business owners coming to me for help have made the same mistake. They try to do too much. They try to be everything to everybody and their business is dying while they’re trying.

Every entrepreneur needs to identify their target market, clarify the problem they solve and understand the primary benefits of their products or services. Then they need to stay focused on those.

Figure out exactly what your business is, whom it helps and how it helps them. Then come up with a killer marketing message so your prospects understand the value of your product and services. Ignore these fundamental steps at your peril.

Here’s the simple formula to focus your business and your marketing >>

Stage II: Struggling Business

After months of working around the clock, you have a product or service ready to sell. You land a few customers and sales start to trickle in. This should be an exciting phase of growth for you, but it’s often when the frustration sets in.

You’ve worked hard to create top quality products and services but your business is still the best-kept secret going. Hardly anyone knows about it and too few are buying.

What should you do to get more than the occasional client and a trickle of sales?

At this stage, entrepreneurs like you who are experts in their industry niche, whether in accounting, web design, yoga, organic composting, or IT consulting, realize that they’re not experts in marketing.

What do you need?

Ideas!

Even the smartest entrepreneur needs marketing ideas so they can discover the simple secrets to attract clients, increase sales and generate a steady income.

Are you looking for low-cost, proven ways to skyrocket your business?

Here are two options:

Get 24/7 access to hundreds of proven marketing strategies from the top experts in the world >>

Use the ultimate marketing success formula >>

Stage III: Profitable Business

It happens even to smart entrepreneurs and business owners. You apply a solid marketing strategy, your business gathers momentum, and pretty soon you’re overwhelmed.

Now you’re trying to do everything, juggling administrative tasks, managing clients, developing new products — not to mention marketing, so you can avoid that whole feast or famine thing.

The problem is, of course, that because you did quite a few things right, your business now is a ball and chain around your life. You’re making good money, but you’re working way too hard and have yet to see the upper six or seven figure income you should be earning.

At this point, you don’t need more ideas. You probably have too many already. Now, the challenge is to figure out which of those ideas to use and how to use them.

What do you need help with?

Implementation.

This is the stage in your business when a mentor or coach can help you. You need to work with someone one-on-one to help you assess your business and your marketing, sift through your ideas, and help you plan which ones to use first, second and third to keep the sales rolling in.

Do you have a profitable business? Looking for ways to grow it?

Get one-on-one help growing your business >>

Stage IV: Successful Business

Sit back and enjoy your success? Not hardly.

Sales are rolling in at a steady clip and you keep coming up with even more ways to grow your business. Good thing, too, because the pressure is on. Local and global competition, a sour economy, rising costs and untold other challenges mean this is when things get really crazy. Some of my clients tell me that business at this stage feels like barely controlled chaos.

It’s at this point that many successful entrepreneurs let themselves get buried by their business. Busy with their success, they end up missing the big opportunity to not just double their business but grow it by a factor of ten.

I’m sure you known entrepreneurs like this. They’ve got a steady business and are taking home a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year, but then they stop short. They can’t grow anymore because they’ve become their business instead of running it.

What you need help with at this stage of running a successful business?

Expansion.

After all the hard work you’ve put into creating a profitable business, why not continue to grow it and help even more customers?

Almost any successful business has the potential to keep growing. It’s a matter of taking your products and services and multiplying the number of people you sell to. It can be as simple as lining up a few marketing partners. There are likely to be other key steps, such as making better use of your time, building your team and mastering the art of delegation.

The challenge at this stage is to move from doing all the work to leading your team and building your company. It’s not easy to make the shift while you’re in the thick of it. That’s why having a mentor to guide you — and hold your feet to the fire — is almost essential.

Ready to lead your business to the next stage?

Apply for one-on-one mentoring here >>

- Charlie

P.S. Hit ‘Comment’ and tell me which stage your business is at and what kind of help you need.

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

I’m going to tell you a secret, so do me a favor and don’t tell anyone.

I’m not perfect, yet. I have a fatal flaw that could have sabotaged the success of my business. Of the hundreds of clients I’ve coached over the years, many have been held back by the same flaw.

It’s also the thing that derailed my gardening career. My wife and I bought our first house in Old Greenwich 25 years ago and had a back yard for the first time. I thought it’d be fun to take a 15 square foot section and see how many vegetables I could grow during a season.

I pored over seed catalogues, mapped out the garden and figured out how to make the most of every inch to grow a succession of lettuces, peas, beans, melons, tomatoes, peppers, herbs and more.

At the first signs of spring, I prepared the soil and planted seeds and seedlings. My garden was thriving — but I quickly discovered something about myself. Happy as I was to thumb through catalogs, do all the planning and even the first planting, I had no interest in the weekly garden maintenance. Even my bountiful harvest of fresh veggies couldn’t make up for the horror of weeding.

Turns out that I’m happiest when I’m coming up with ideas and launching new projects. When it comes down to executing all the details, I get bored and distracted. I’m restless and not very effective doing routine tasks.

Most successful CEOs and entrepreneurs are the same way. They tend to be brilliant, creative, disorganized and impatient. If left on their own, they also tend to get overwhelmed and stuck spinning their wheels. Then nothing gets finished, and their business growth stalls.

Sound familiar?

Earlier, I said I had a fatal flaw, but it wasn’t really fatal. I just had to recognize where my strengths lie.

Every business, no matter its size, needs two types of people. It needs Starters; the people with the ideas, the vision and the plan, and Finishers; the people who execute the vision and get the daily work done. Finishers like weeding, or at least the business corollary to that. They get satisfaction from completing the tasks that keep the enterprise humming.

In my business, I’m the CEO and the Chief Starter. I come up with new product and marketing ideas. But to keep my business growing, I need a team of dedicated Finishers who will maintain my web site, post my blog content, organize my schedule, write my sales pages, work with my affiliates, manage inventory, etc, etc. — they manage a host of routine but essential tasks.

Without my team, I’d have a lot of good ideas and no way to implement them all. I certainly wouldn’t have become one of the top authorities on small business marketing.

Which are you – a Starter or a Finisher?

• Do you like finding and coming up with new ideas for your business?

• Do you start more projects than you can finish? (Be honest – how many projects have you got on your To Do list?)

• Do you get bored with routine tasks?

• Are you impatient?

• Once you’ve created a product or service, are you already thinking about the next project, or the next strategy to grow your business?

- or -
• Do you like to organize projects and see them through to completion?

• Do you get satisfaction from checking off items on your to do list?

• Do you like having a clear idea of what you need to do?

• Do you enjoy mastering routine tasks?

It doesn’t matter whether you are a serial Starter, like I am, or you’re best at follow through and a Finisher. Recognize your strengths — and your interests— and complement them to build a strong team that includes both starters and finishers.

That’s what I did, years ago, enabling my business to grow and getting my life back. I hired a Virtual Assistant, a webmaster, a web designer, an seo expert and a fulfillment house and off loaded all the tasks I didn’t have time or interest in getting done.

And when I did I discovered that not only was I enjoying my life more, even though I was paying a team, the business finally broke through and grew by leaps and bounds.

You can do the same.

- Charlie

P.S. Have a question about delegation or outsourcing? Hit reply and let me know. I’m in the midst of creating the next TeleSummit on, you guessed it, outsourcing.

P.P.S. Want help focusing your business to realize your profit potential? Currently I have one opening in my hands on marketing mentoring program. Get the details here >>

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..