What was he referring to? Why you, of course. You’re #1!

In all areas of your life, the most important person will always be YOU.

It’s easy, often far too easy, to put other people and other people’s hopes and dreams ahead of your own, but you can’t do that and expect to have what you want in life.

As the old story goes, it’s hard to give if you’ve got nothing in your pockets!

Let’s look at your business. If it is indeed your business, the ONLY person who can determine how far and how big it ultimately becomes is you.

Yes, others can lend you some help, give you some advice, but in the end, it will be you and only you sitting at the controls and making the tough decisions that will ultimately determine the future of your enterprise.

Now back to taking care of #1.

In order to do the things you want to do, to be able to reach the goals you’ve set for yourself, and to be able to live life on your terms, you must put yourself first.

Yes, it sounds “selfish” and even ugly, but in truth if you’re not willing to put yourself first, I can promise you that nobody else will either. You see, we teach other people how to treat us by how we treat ourselves.

If you put yourself first, and make sure your own needs are taken care of, people around you will see you as being “important” and they will treat you very differently than if you put yourself last on the list and didn’t think of yourself as being worthy.

Why I tell you this is because it’s a shift that you can make right now that will prove beneficial to you for rest of your living days.

Not only will you see more success in your professional career, but you’ll see it at home, with your family members, friends, and even with those you meet when your out and about.

Back when I was just 16, I figured part of this out when I went to the local bank one day dressed as a typical teenager wearing jeans and a simple t-shirt. Wearing that outfit, I felt almost invisible as the tellers paid no attention to me until they really had to.

A few days later, I was dressed up in a shirt, tie, and wearing a jacket that I “had” to wear for school portraits that day. I went back to that same bank, the same branch, and even saw the same bank teller, but this time, I was “Mr. Imbriale” to them!

I never forgot that lesson, and when I opened my very first professional photo studio in Montreal just out of college, I always wore a shirt, tie, and jacket.

I made it my business to dress as if I were important, because in fact, I was! And I was treated as such no matter where I went.

I loved that so much that to this day, I still dress up, more than everybody else, and I do it because important people dress up. It’s funny when I fly and I’m wearing a shirt and tie and look around and pretty much I the only one dressed that way. I do get “special” treatment from the flight crew.

So what can you do that will send a message to the world that you matter, that you are important, that you are #1!

Dressing up is just one approach, but there are many more. You could block out the first hour of every day and make that time a time when you do what you want to do.

Maybe you love to read first thing in the morning, or maybe you prefer to write, as I do. Make it a priority instead of making it something you’ll do if you could only find the time. If you think it’s important, carve out the time and defend that time against all interruptions.

When you do, people will quickly get the message that you’re important, doing important work, and they will come to respect you for it.

But, remember, nobody will respect you until you do. You must learn to put yourself first, to take care of the most important things you need to do in your day ahead of taking care of other people’s challenges.

It’s easy to look the other way and jump in to help other people first, and it really does feel good. But what happens at the end of the day when you’ve done everything for other people at the expense of doing what you need to do for yourself?

I’m speaking from much experience here and I can tell you, that this is the best strategy for you to achieve professional burn- out instead of prosperity.

What I now know is that if can get the most important thing on my list done for me first, I’m much more able, willing, and excited about helping other people with their challenges.

Your job is to make the changes that will make all the difference in your life and that starts by making yourself the most important person in your life.

It may seem hard at first, but that’s very short-lived, and soon you’ll be in a position where you’ll look forward to each and every day in a new and exciting way!

And, over time, you’re going to see results in your life that you’re really going to love! Imagine going to a restaurant, saying noting out of the ordinary and being seated at the best table in the place.

Or going into a car dealership and being led to the sales manager who can really get you a great deal instead of the sales intern who isn’t sure how to fill in the sales order.

Or going to a seminar and being immediately surrounded by the top players instead of the wall-flowers.

Or walking into a party and having people come to you eager to meet you instead of being stuck in a corner hoping somebody notices you!

Your life changes when you change. This is your invitation to make the changes that make the biggest difference.

Be outstanding!
Robert Imbriale
‘The Motivational Marketer’

Listen to this episode now:

Most people I meet tend to be affected by the national news, which is never good news. Seriously, if you want to feel really bad, turn on the TV and watch the national news for an hour. Trust me, there is nothing inspirational or motivational in anything these organizations broadcast.

But how much of it really affects you directly? If you’re honest about it, very little of what you hear on the news has a direct or immediate impact on you and your career.

The strategy you should work to adopt is one of curiosity about the national news instead of taking what you see as truth.

Put your energy on who you are and what you are working to accomplish in your life, and stop worrying about what the rest of the world is up to.

I get asked all the time what it takes to become a successful person and my answer, at the core, always revolves around being responsible for your own destiny. In other words, put your attention on you and what you’re doing instead of being focused on what other people are doing around you.

Another way to look at this is to become more selfish. Take back your attention and put it where it can make a real difference. Since you can’t change the national news or even the person closest to you, stop trying!

Change you instead. Put your attention on you, what you’re doing, what you want, and what you need to do to get it.

Now this does not mean you ignore your loved ones, it just means that you make you the primary focus of your life.

When you do this a few things happen. First, you become more successful in your business and in your career. Second, you end up being better able to support those you care about most in more ways than you may have ever imagined possible.

Success does one other thing for you too. It makes you stronger not just financially, but as a person. It builds confidence and it even improves your health and well-being!

Here is a resource you MUST add to your library of tools for success:

http://www.ultimatewealthpublishing.com/master-the-art-of-staying-focused/

Listen to this edition of the Motivational Marketing Show and discover how to create your own marketing philosophy and how to live by it and create a business that you can be proud of for decades to come.

Did you know that every business that becomes something of a success got that way, not because of one person doing it all, but because one person inspired a team and together they created a successful business.

The question for most of us in business, is just how do you go about building your team?

How do you get people to help you build your business?

Why would somebody want to help you?

And how do you incentives them to step up to the plate and put some real effort into helping to build your business?

There are a few stages of business growth and at each stage, the formula for attracting the help you need is going to be different.

In the mid 1990′s when a little start up with an odd name called Amazon.com got underway, they knew they needed to reach out to a lot of people, but that they didn’t have the resources to do much about it.

Never to be deterred, the founder, Jeff Bezos, literally invented the affiliate program. By incentivizing their customers to refer others to their web site, they created what would become an industry leading company in just a few short years.

In the earliest phases of your business, you can and should borrow this model and find as many ways as possible to offer incentives to people, businesses, and list owners that are different from the everyday.

For instance, most people who write to me make essentially the same offer. They say in effect, “promote my widget to your list and I’ll share a small percentage of the sales you generate with you.”

Can you see why I’m simply not excited by this kind of offer? Not only are they common, they completely fail to take into account the fact that there is real work and real risk involved in sending anything to a list I’ve worked really hard to build.

If you were to think outside of the box, you might make a better offer and get much better results too. What if you could offer a list owner a full 100% of the sales they generate for you on a front-end offer, and then you could keep 100% of any and all back-end offers and upsells?

I would respond to that kind of offer and so would many other list owners too.

What if you made that offer to past customers of yours? I’ll bet many of them would jump at the chance to tell their friends, especially if they have had a great experience with your company.

The idea that I want you to take away from this is simply that if you want bigger success, you’ve got to do things that other people are either unwilling or unable to do.

Thinking up new an innovative ways to interest people in promoting your web site, your offers, your products is what separates those that struggle from those that get to live the good life.

A great question to start asking right now is, “What would it take in order for you, Mr. Listowner, to jump at the chance to tell your list about my products?”

If you don’t know the answer, start asking some list owners, business owners, friends, and business associates for some ideas. And always, always, always be on the lookout for offers that catch your attention so that you can borrow those ideas to use in your own business too.

Personally, I watch companies like Amazon.com because they always seem to be coming up with many new an innovative ways to get more people to their web site.

And, I have borrowed many of their ideas and used them with my own business and those of many of my clients as well.

Now, go ahead and come up with something that you feel confident you can do to build your business and feel free to share it with me, if you want some honest feedback.

I can tell you that it’s true, and not only that, it’s more important right now than ever before that you pay close attention to this powerful success strategy.

If you thought that things moved fast on the Internet, now you add the major, unprecidented shifts in our economy on top of that and what you have is a very chaotic situation that you’re going to need real help to navigate successfully.

So what can you do right now to start making your way back on track?

First, pay close attention to those few people in your circle who ARE making things happen right now, even in these turbulent times.

For instance, I’ve been looking for the marketing strategies that are really working great right now and I wanted to see real results and not just a blog post on how great a person thinks their new marketing strategy is.

To get a good feel for what’s working, I’ve been tuning into a LOT of webcasts recently. I’m looking to see how many people are showing up, what the presenters are sharing, and at the end of the webcast, what they are selling.

Remember, success leaves clues and to find those clues, you’ve got to tune in!

I’m alson joining more mailing lists again and reading a lot of e-mail from other marketers in this industry as well as several others where I have a business footprint.

All of this has lead to me to this conclusion; what worked up until last year is no longer working. And this is after decades of these things working like clockwork!

So what’s changed?

Everything has. Our customers are more diligent with their money. They have less of of as more and more of their income is getting eaten away by sky-rocketing healthcare costs, increased taxes, inflation, and even loss of income.

This, on top of the fact that most home owners in this country are sitting in homes that are worth 40% less then they were just 4 years ago. Many more are “upside down” on their mortgages meaning they owe more than their home is worth.

Now, from everything that I see coming in the near term, it’s going to get worse before we can even have hope that things will improve. If we re-elect our current President, I see things getting much, much worse.

While I’m not a huge fan of Mitt Romney, he may well be our best hope of starting to turn the tide in getting our economy back on track. You simply can’t spend your way to success and we’re seeing the weight of this flawed approach take us down even faster.

Our job right now, is not to avoid talking politics, it’s to bring up the conversation anytime, anywhere, with anybody.

I find that I’m doing that more and more with clerks in the stores I visit around town. You want to know what surprised me the most?

Every single one of them wants Romney to win in November!

You see, the business owners thrive or perish on the strength of the ecomony around them. When our customers button down their wallets and stop spending, we all suffer. And that includes the government too.

Wealth happens for everybody when money changes hands. That’s when taxes are generated, profits are made, and jobs are created.

So where is the success today, right now?

Business owners are literally giving their stuff away for much, much less than they would otherwise get in a better economy.

Their goal, as I see it, is to get people to join their mailing lists. Yes, they still need to make something from these folks, but it won’t happen just yet.

The strategy here is to use this time to build a large list so that when things do begin to turn around, they will have the most valuable asset any business could ever own: a large list to market to again and again.

I think this is a very smart strategy and that by sticking to it, living off the scant profits these efforts will bring for right now, but planning to really make an impact under a better economy.

So what should you be doing right now?

What about building a list?

Or creating products that you will be able to sell for years to come?

Or maybe it’s time for you to set up your first business and now is the perfect time for that.

The idea you want to embrace here is that now is not the best time to be selling, but it’s a great time to be building your foundation upon which you will erect your empire.

If you do this now, I promise you when things get better, and they will get better, you will be sitting pretty and will leap- frog out ahead of the rest of the pack.

Now go ahead and start laying your foundation because the time will never be better than right now for that.

Be OUTSTANDING!

Robert Imbriale
‘The Motivational Marketer’

To be free, you would have to be the type of person who can and will take control of your life. You would have to be responsible for how your life turns out, no matter what the outcome.

In return, you would indeed gain the freedom to do as you please, as often as you please.

The problem for most people is that they only want HALF of what freedom brings. They want to be able to do as they choose whenever they choose, but at the same time are typically unwilling to embrace the responsibility that comes with true freedom.

While many talk a good game, very few will ever get to the point where they can do as they please.

In order to get, you have to give. There is no getting without giving.

In the case of our current societal challenges, there is no such thing as free healthcare without giving up something in return. To get the healthcare, you have to be willing to give up your freedom of choice, you have to be willing to give up more of your income, and you have to be willing to give up your power to choose how you wish to deal with your personal health.

This is a unversal law, which has been in play since the beginning of time. If you want something, you have to give something to get it.

If you want to be wealthy, you have to give up your time and creativity in order to create wealth. You see how poorly it turns our for those who gain great wealth in an instant with a winning lottery ticket. Trust me, you would not want that to happen to you.

If you prefer that somebody else be responsible for your well- being, you’ll give up your freedom. You and I speak about this often in terms of making the choice to be an employee or a business owner.

As an employee you gain the security of a weekly payday, but give up your freedom. On the other hand, as a business owner, you have much more freedom and in exchange you often give up security.

In the end, the choice of which way you choose to live your life should be up to you and only you. Nobody should ever dictate to you which path you should follow because nobody knows what’s best for you better than you.

In a time when our freedoms are once again threatened by people who think they know what’s best for you, and will stop at nothing to force you to get in line and follow their dictates, it’s more important now than ever that you stand your ground.

Whether it’s a close friend or a distant government official, remember that you and only you are in charge of your life.

We live in a great country, one that has for generations left the decisions on how we lead our lives up to the individual.

Today, it’s time to celebrate your freedom as you continue along your path in life seeking even more freedom.

Have a Happy 4th of July!

Be outstanding!
Robert Imbriale

One reader, Patrick O., pointed this out and asked if I might share my thoughts on how things are different now.

Knowing how things have shifted and changed is an important tool in trying to figure out what’s coming next, so let’s get into this by looking back just a few short years ago, say just before Obama became President.

Was the economy roaring? No, in fact it had already begun its decline. Around that time, companies began to lay off workers. The numbers were not surprising, at least at this time.

For small business owners, things were starting to slow down, people were being a little more cautious about how they were spending their money, and hiring was sluggish at best.

From 2008 to the present day, things have gotten much, much worse. I have a bird’s eye view of small business since working with small business owners is my primary role in life and can tell you that not one, in any industry, has managed to escape the challenges of this dismal economy.

As with all things, there is a silver lining to all the bad news out there. With hardly any new jobs being created over the past couple of years, and more people being cast aside, what you want to pay attention to is what these people are doing once their unemployment checks stop coming.

From what I see now, there is a HUGE part of our population, I would guess it numbers well over 20% now, of people who have been unemployed and have been unsuccessful at finding another job.

No, I don’t at all believe the “official” unemployment numbers as they have clearly been “fixed” to make it look as though things are not as bad as they are. A simple look around all all the people you know will give you a much better idea of just how bad the situation is.

You have to ask, “what will happen with all these people?” When the government checks stop coming, they have a few options. First, they can claim disability. If you’ve paid attention to the numbers, you’ll note that this is popular route for many who have burned through an astounding 99 weeks of unemployment checks.

The second option, and one you’re seeing more and more people choose, is to start their own business. It’s this segment of the population that you want to pay attention to.

These are the people who will help guide us out of this economic mess and who will create the next generation of Apple, Microsoft, and HP.

Each one of these now major companies started during the worst of times in the 1970′s. Today, they are the cornerstones of our economy.

I am looking for these people, I’m looking to help them, to support them, to train them, and to help get them up and running because they are the ones that will make the biggest difference in our world.

Change comes, not from government, but from individuals with a dream. People who dare to follow their passions and who lead others by setting the example of what’s possible.

Government, by contrast, is reactive in nature, uninformed, inefficient, and absolutely not creative in any manner. So they have zero ability to affect positive change in our world and in fact, tend most often to deter and interrupt success.

You, as an individual can be creative, you can follow your passions and make your dreams a reality. You can create a business that will support you and your family for decades to come.

This is where the energy, the creativity, the joy, or what I like to call the life force really is.

Put your attention on those things that mean something. Look for people who dare step up and who are ready to take charge of their own lives and create a future they can be proud of.

These people will be your customers. They will be the ones that will create jobs, who will stimulate the economy, and who may in fact, change the world.

Today, you might think about companies like Facebook, or Instagram. You can literally sit at home, write an “app” and walk off with a billion dollar buyout a year or two later.

Things have indeed changed, and not all of it is for the worst. Information is the new “hot product” and that includes all the tools needed to both search and store it so that it’s there when you need it.

Think about the Kindle, the iPad, the Nook, and all the other tools being sold at a breakneck pace, all designed to help you consume more information.

You have some choices to make for yourself. You can decide to “stick it out” and “see what happens” or you can step up to the plate and make a play that could very define not only the rest of your life, but of many others whose lives you will touch along the way.

There is much to do, much to be gained, and now is the best time to get out there and get to work!

Be outstanding!
Robert Imbriale
‘The Motivational Marketer’
http://www.RobertImbriale.com

The best part is that this something that I advise every one of my clients to create, regardless of what their core business is.

You may laugh, but I’ve successfully advised doctors, dentists, chiropractors, a ski enthusiast, golfer, and even a FARMER to add this to their product mix with incredible results in every case!

With profit margins that are typically measured it hundreds of percentage points, ease of duplication, speed of creation, and many marketing channels available to you, it would be a massive mistake for you and your business.

But the one thing that really gets me excited is that I have yet meet a single person who can create these kinds of products!

I’ve even gotten my younger brother involved in creating these products and he’s now begun reaping the rewards of his efforts. By the way, he only puts in a very part-time effort on creating his products.

I would HIGHLY encourage you to have a look at this because it could be your ticket to thriving in the years ahead.

Go to http://www.ultimatewealthpublishing.com/1day

Now, if you follow my advice, I can promise you that the results you get will change the face of your business and may actually make you rethink how you’ll do business in the months and years ahead.

Go ahead, have a look here: http://www.ultimatewealthpublishing.com/1day

Be outstanding!
Robert Imbriale
‘The Motivational Marketer‘
http://www.ultimatewealthpublishing.com/1day

This silent killer has been responsible for the death of more businesses and business ideas than every other business challenge combined!

Personally, I’ve suffered from this disease for many years while I sat back and hoped and hoped that things would soon change. Things only got worse.

I didn’t recognize the symptoms, nor had I been informed to look out for this silent killer in my business, so I suffered for years under the effects of this disease before I finally started to unearth some real solutions.

Here’s what I did…. http://uwitv.com/80

If you’re suffering from this too, I wish you a speedy recovery and much more success in the weeks and years ahead!

Be outstanding!

Robert Imbriale
‘The Motivational Marketer’