11.11.11 (November 11, 2011) – no, this is not about our wedding but Mang Inasal‘s promo dubbed as “The More the Many-er!” that will be revealed on this date.

I am beginning to become intrigued with this promo. What will happen in Mang Inasal on November 11, 2011? Will there be an eat-all-you-can event? Or Chicken-all-you-can? What do you think?

If you have any idea about this promo of Mang Inasal, please share it using the comment system below.

A couple of weeks ago or more, we discussed the first part of this article – How to Increase Your Savings and I shared to you the formula that we need to follow for us to be able to save:

INCOME – SAVINGS = EXPENSES

Savings first before anything else. Set aside a portion of your income first before you spend.

But the question is: how much of my income should I spend?

I have read a number of articles which say that 10% of income should go into savings. So we could say that this is the common rule of thumb.

And I know how would you react on this. You may say that 10 percent is a lot. With the current economic condition, the said rate is impractical and impossible.

But this is something that will surely raise your eyebrow: based on recently published research, the average savings rate really should be 16 to 20 percent of household income… not 10 percent.

If 10 percent was so difficult that most of us didn’t even try, how much more taking a fifth of your income for savings.

Let’s take this advise from John D. Buerger, a Certified Financial Planner, on how to be able to succeed on 20 percent savings:

Step 1: Trim the Fat

Pay attention to expense details. You can do this by recording every peso or dollar that you spend. The more you record your expenses, the more you see what expenses should be avoided next time.

Step 2: Understand Value

Consider what is important to your life. Think of these things. If I would ask you to enumerate the things that you value, I would probably hear relationships, family and special experiences. Spend on things that have long-lasting effect and cannot be forgotten.

Step 3: Pay for Value

Every time you are faced with a spending decision, take a short pause to ask yourself, “Is having this really important to me? How important is it?”

Compare your answers to how important having something different that you would really treasure would be in your life. Understand that every dollar you spend on one thing is a dollar that cannot be spent on something else that you might value more.

Step 4: Shift Your Framework

The last trick is to change the perspective with which you view each purchase decision. Our tendency is to view expenses in comparison to our annual personal income: “I make $40,000 a year. This is a $20 purchase. Twenty bucks is nothing compared to $40,000, so the cost is insignificant.” Or, “The cost is zero and I want it.”

When your brain does the cost-benefit analysis – you end up making the purchase.

But what if you compared that $20 purchase decision to the money you REALLY have control over. For most people that “control income” ends up being $100-150 per week for everything including food, clothing expenses and entertainment – truly discretionary expenses. The rest of the money you spend each week is to pay taxes or fulfill previous obligations like rent or mortgage, utilities, loan payments and gas for your car.

Now that the $20 decision IS significant (compared to $100 you have to spend all week), you might be tempted to think twice about dropping the cash.

What do you think of this? Can you give it a try?

How do you save? Do you have savings in banks or in any investment channels? Or are you having a hard time setting aside a portion of your income and deposit it to your savings bank account?

Maybe we should accept the fact that our economic condition prevents us from doing this “savings” thing. It’s really hard to save nowadays. It really seems impossible.

Let’s discuss about this issue and let me share to you what I’ve got about savings. Is there really a way for you to be able to save? My answer is, YES.

Question: What is your formula on savings? Are you aware that you are using a certain formula or equation when it comes to savings? Are you using this formula: Income minus Expenses equals Savings (I – E = S). Yes?

Did you get what I mean? From the above equation, the amount that you are saving is dependent on the result of how you spend your income. And most of the time, let’s accept this truth, nothing’s left from your income after you spend. So the result is: ZERO SAVINGS!

I suggest now for you to be able increase your savings or somehow start with saving, CHANGE YOUR SAVING EQUATION. For me, this is the very first thing that we need to learn. And the new equation that we need to learn is:

INCOME – SAVINGS = EXPENSES

But if you are a tither, your savings equation should be: INCOME – TITHE – SAVINGS = EXPENSES.

What does this formula entails? Very simple. You just have to change your priority. Put savings as your priority before you spend your hard-earned income. So next time you get your paycheck, set aside the amount you are to save. You can start with 5% of your total income and then add another 5% when you become used of it.

There are few more things that I want to discuss with you but I decided to make this topic a 2-part so watch out for more ideas and tips on how to save.

This one is fresh from Forbes. Barely three months after it released the list of World’s Billionaires for 2011, Forbes just released the richest men here in the Philippines for this year.

Here is the list of Philippines’ 40 Richest:

I wanna be a billionaire, so freakin’ bad. How about you?

Here I am once more to discuss online business, the undying topic of doing business in the cloud, a.k.a. internet or online.

I am just amazed at how successful online entrepreneur reached their present status. I just can’t name them here, sorry. But if you would try to search for them in Google or Yahoo, you can read a lot articles regarding their earning status. One online entrepreneur I know is earning $100,000 a year. It’s a big money! Honestly, I want to be like them. (Sssshhh, it’s a secret).

In this post, I would like to share few steps on how to become successful in your online business. When you say success, you may associate it with the name John Partilla. He is one of the directors of Lighthouse International (www.lighthouse.org/about/board/bios/). If you could see his profile, you may be able to prove that he is an epitome of the word success. Before joining Lighthouse, john partilla held different positions from various multi-national companies.

Here are the steps on how to become successful on your online business:

1. Go for something you know and are passionate about. But it doesn’t stop there. However, you should know if what you know and passionate about will turn out into money or profit. Find a profitable niche like health, fitness, business opportunities
2. Start a blog. Blog is the cheapest way to bring in traffic and new leads, customers and build a solid brand. Through you blog, you can do email marketing.
3. Establish your online brand. Don’t focus only on website development. Let the people know who you are and what you represent. Build the trust of other people towards you.
4. Build relationships. First, you need to create list and from your list, you may send emails to them so can establish yourself with them. Teach them. Give them insights.
5. Create your product. It could be your skill or your own product, or other company’s product.
6. Launch product internally. Do a test drive before selling it out.
7. Official launching of the product.

The higher the risk, the higher the return.

It’s one of too many popular sayings about business and investments. And it is true. If you don’t risk your hard-earned money to put up a business, it will not grow that much.

Let me explain my introduction further by giving you an illustration. When you save your money in a bank, let us say, in a savings account, you earn interest, don’t you? Yes! But how much? One to three percent per annum only. Not that big. Why? Because you invested your money in an activity with a much lesser risk. The risk of losing your money in a bank is not high because your bank deposits are secured by the government and so the result: lower income. Low risk, low income.

On the other hand, investing your money in a business, it includes online business, entails big risk. The boundary between winning and losing in running a business is very thin. The risk is there. You don’t know what will really happen tomorrow. But if you have managed well your business, even though the high risk is there, greater income is on its way towards you.

But if you’re not a type of person who are into managing your own business, you may invest your money into stocks, bonds, mutual funds or any investment activities which Equity Direct Funding explains through its website. Just like running your own business, investing on these stuff is uncertain because you cannot tell what can happen in stock or bond market in the next few days.

Equity direct provides different articles on investments and loans, so I suggest visit it once in a while so you can gain additional knowledge on investment.

What have we learned so far? The higher the risk, the higher the return. So better start investing now! You may start your own business or invest in a stock or bond market. I remember what Robert Kiyosaki mentioned in his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It goes like this (not exact wording): Don’t work for your money; instead, let your money work for you.

Here’s another points that I want to share regarding becoming successful in online business like that of craig morganson business. For those who doesn’t know, Craig Morganson is a successful businessman, athlete and musician.

Let us go back to our original topic. I want to share to you 3 factors on becoming successful in an online business endeavor. This 3 key points are the basic business model that the top marketers follow.

Perhaps you may be thinking that earning money from an online business is very hard. Not really. You can earn from online business if you only know how to do it. Actually, it’s not simply copying as-is another website or an affiliate link. Those things are not enough to start an online business. Let’s learn from here how top online businessmen do it.

Here are the 3 important points on how to become successful in your online business:

1. Establish your list. The most important thing that you need to do if you want to become successful in your online business. The list should be built by you and not copied or taken from others. Building your own list is just like building your greatest asset for your online business. If you own the list, you don’t need to fear sending them marketing stuff tens or hundreds of times. That’s the reason having your own list is powerful.
2. Establish relationship with your list. Business is all about relationships. So once you have established your list, you need to establish relationship with them. You need to build their trust in the product or products you are selling. Make constant communication with them.
3. Market to your list. So after you won the trust and respect from your list, it’s time to market to them. What does it mean? Give solutions to your list. Give what your list wants. This can be done through affiliate programs or your business opportunity. By providing solutions to your list, you are not only helping them get what they want but you are also placing yourself as the leader and expert that they are looking for.

Hope you learn from the discussion above.

Recently, I’ve been sharing different articles about online business. Online business does not really require high capitalization. Domain registration, hosting fee, web design and SEO outsourcing are some expenses that you need to defray on the initial set-up of your online business. And I would tell you, they don’t require very high capitalization. A simple blog like this can be a start of your online business. Yes, you can earn through blogging. You can sell your products or services here in blog.

Just like any businesses that make themselves presentable to their customers, your website, too, should be pleasant to look at. We all know that first impression lasts.

One product that you can sell to the billion internet users in the world is your SKILL. If you feel that you are good on a certain skill, then you can start selling your product online. Many consultants nowadays are opening their website to be used as their marketing tool.

Daniel Frishberg is an example. He has a wide knowledge on investing so that credibility of his becomes his asset in his online business. Actually, he has created one of the fastest growing sources of information on investing and trading securities. His program is regularly picked up on major web portals like Market Wire, Forbes, Dow Jones, and Yahoo Finance.

See? The credibility and skill of Daniel Frishberg are his valuable asset.

If you’re a teacher, you can be a successful online tutor. If you’re an accountant, you can be a successful consultant giving advises not only to your clients but to the reader of your website. If you’re a lawyer, you can share articles with legal aspects. Those are only few. Each one of us has their own unique skills that can be used in an online business.

So I suggest, you better start thinking and assessing now so you can start on your online business in the near future.

Now you have established your website, your niche and target market for your online business, what’s next? Just like the “offline business”, you need to attract customers who will buy your products, goods or services. Since you are just starting up on your business, you may need a consultant or adviser. Grant Atkins can be a good choice should you wish to get a service of a consultant.

Who is Grant Atkins? He is a businessman and management consultant that specializes in new enterprise development and business start ups for both public and private corporations. Mr. Atkins graduated from Commerce at the University of British Columbia in 1986 specializing in urban land economics and finance. With over 30 years of hands on business experience, he utilizes his formal training and a practical approach to help companies mature from inception through all stages of private and public growth.

Going back to growing and grooming your online business. How can you get more customers to your online business?

Here are my few tips:

1. Review your google analytics account regularly. If you haven’t register your website to google analytics, better start it now. Analytics is a very good tool where you can evaluate the performance of your website. You can see from there the words that are still working or find other keywords that will bring more traffic.
2. Use a program that can show you what keywords are popular, how competitive they are, how much they are worth in advertising dollars and more.
3. Expand what you offer and learn methods of online marketing and start learning search engine optimization.
4. If you’re not confident about learning SEO, you may outsource it. Sometimes SEO job can consume most of your time, so better outsource it and set aside your time doing research on expanding your business.

Getting customers for your online business requires dedication and time. So use your time properly and wisely.

Ever wondered if we can integrate the work of attorneys or law firms with computer technology and internet? I even wonder if attorneys require an in-depth knowledge about computers and internet or cloud computing. Because most of the attorneys I know are workaholic and I didn’t see them held a PC or surf the internet that much. I also think if they can still manage to do administrative job, especially for those who are freelancer.

Those question kept on playing in my mind until I found Morgan Drexen Inc. and its CEO, Walter Ledda. Morgan Drexen Inc. provides support to attorneys and law firms, from computer systems to administrative tasks. They’re forte is on providing legal services to near-bankrupt and bankrupt debtors.

Morgan Drexen provides attorneys and law firms computer technology, marketing support, call centers, predictive business logic, artificial intelligence, outsourced outsourced litigation support, proprietary know-how and databases, and work-product retrieval systems, with cloud computing, facilitated by the Company’s outsourced Legal Specialists (paralegals, paraprofessionals, administrators, legal information engineers, and software and user interface designers).

So with the services they provide, attorneys and law firms can now leave the administrative and legal work to Morgan Drexen and they can focus much time on growing their business or working on their clients’ strict or non-strict requirements.

Since Morgan Drexen provides services with the integration of cloud computing, doing business online by the law firms becomes more efficient and effective. I can’t imagine how the attorney’s assistant while inside the courtroom will be able to make a research and open files that were left in the office but saved in online storage provided by Morgan Drexen Inc.

Morgan Drexen Inc.’s service is an outsourcing business. And nowadays, most of the outsourced functions are being done online. Just like me, I do provide accounting services to my clients abroad and that’s online business.

You can keep yourself updated about Morgan Drexen by following walter ledda twitter account. I just followed him now.