They’re at it again.

The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Money, Inc,. you name it and when it comes to small business they only tell one side of the story.

Case in point.

Yesterday’s New York Times there was an article about  a man who started a small business.

So far, so good. Small business people don’t get enough exposure in the news media.

But look at the deal…

He started his business in 2000, six years ago.

He went into hock for a combined total of $250,000 just to open the doors.

And he has yet to have a profitable year!

What business is he in?

He opened a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week laundromat (27 washing machines, 26 dryers) in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

(Friends tell me that neighborhood has improved a lot in recent years, but it’s still one of the toughest sections of New York.)

So what gives?

Why is it that every time the mass media writes a story about small business, they dredge up horror stories like this one?

Imagine: In business six years, no profit, in a neighborhood where you take your life into your hands daily – and $250,000 in debt.

It’s not my intention to diminish the efforts of this particular entrepreneur. He’s bringing a needed service to a neighborhood that needs it. God bless him.

But what a brutal way to be in business.

And yet, this is the standard when the mass media talks about small business.

Haven’t they ever heard of Internet marketing?

* Lloyd Irvin took his first System Seminar three years ago and he’s already broken $3 million in sales on one product in a business he runs part time.

* John Rinaldi started with us four years ago and last month he closed a SINGLE deal online for $2.5 million that will net him one million dollars in profit.

* Mr. Crow (we don’t use his real name to protect him from knock-off artists) used his System training to raise his daily sales from an average of $1 a day to over $1,000 – per day.  It took him only seven months to get there.

All without risking huge amounts of money…

Here’s the deal:

The purpose of business is to make profits so that you can accumulate capital.

After you’ve built up a lot of capital then it might make sense to start a business that requires a big up front investment (or loan) that takes years to pay off.

It might make sense.

But if you read the New York Times etc, you could easily get the very wrong idea that borrowing a ton of money and starting a new business without testing the idea inexpensively first is the way to go.

Friends don’t let friends go into business this way.

If you haven’t already taken advantage of it, I’m GIVING AWAY my personal notes from my
recent breakthrough seminar, System 2006.

If you’re wondering why I’m doing this, it’s simple:

I can’t stand to see another would be entrepreneur go down the torturous path of high cash investment/slow payback that the mass media sells as the only way open to small
business people.

There’s a proven alternative.

It’s called Internet marketing and the best place to learn it is at the System Seminar.

Go here to get immediate access to my personal notes from System 2006:

http://thesystemseminar.com/notes

Enjoy!

Ken

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With the recent explosion of audio and video on the Internet, the Internet has evolved from a medium to "media command central."

I’ve been talking about this shift for the past year, but it’s one of those things that’s so big, it can be hard to see at first.

Other mediums – newpapers, TV, radio etc. – stand alone. They can point to other mediums, but only the Internet can let you reach the entire media landscape from a single point.

This is huge folks. 

How ever important you thought the Internet was before, crank it up several notches because the Internet is rapidly evolving from one medium among many to THE medium.

The Internet is no longer just a media side show, or even a featured act. It’s becoming the main event. Great news for those of us who’ve invested in learning to master it. Our personal stock is rising fast. Use it.

The Online Publishers Association just released a report that sheds additional light on what’s happening. It’s called A Day in the Life.

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Scott McNealy, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, said that pre-Internet, programmers could count on at least 20% of their knowledge becoming obsolete every year.

In the Internet era, he said the rate increased to 20% per month.  At 20% knowledge loss per month,  your competetive edge becomes obsolete pretty fast. It’s pretty much all gone in less than a six months.

McNealy was talking about programmers, not business people or marketers, but those of us who don’t make our living in the competetive world of programming shouldn’t think we’re off the hook.

I don’t think a 20% per month loss applies to us, but 20% per year? Sure. In fact, I might even crank that up to 30% or even 50% per year.

That’s why it’s so important when you’re trying to learn Internet marketing that you make sure you’re learning from a source that’s up-to-date and that once you master the basics you plan for a program of continuing education.

Sounds like work, doesn’t it?

It’s not really so bad.

In fact, one of the great things about Internet marketing is that it is a challenge to keep up. Entrepreneurs who do are pretty rare which means simply by being involved in an ongoing program of continuing education, you can count on beating most, if not all of your competition.

Internet marketing is a game of skill and knowlegde. He who knows the most wins.

So pay attention to the 20% a year "info loss" phenomenon. Make it work for you, by keeping on top of changes, not against you while watching passively as your hard-earned knowledge slips gradually, but steadily down the drain.

Ken

P.S. If you want to make sure you’re up-to-date on what’s going on in Internet marketing right now, there’s a free and easy way to do that.

I’m giving away my notes from the highights of System 2006.  You can use these notes to quickly see who’s on the cutting edge – and who is isn’t.

Details:  Ken’s System 2006 notes

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For years, I’ve been telling my audiences that there are very few reliable places to go to get a marketing education. So if they’re having trouble with their marketing, it’s really not their fault.

On the one hand, you’ve got the "Scam of the Month" Gurus.

On the other hand, you have MBA programs.

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place!

I’ve guest lectured at the MBA programs of NYU, MIT and Columbia University, and when it comes to providing an education in marketing, I don’t know what’s more useless: the gurus or the MBA programs.

Some people say that while I might be right about the gurus, I couldn’t possibly be right about the MBA programs. After all, these are prestigious institutions with big names.

Well, here’s an article about the real-world value of Marketing MBAs from the March 21, 2006 issue of Ad Age by Jack Neff…

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You can’t be involved in Internet marketing education for very long without becoming dismayed at the lack of ethics of some of the prominent players:

Bogus resumes and made-up biographies, out-of-control plagiarism, and rampant fraud against consumers. It’s become an epidemic and many of the “big” names are involved…

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