In Dan Kennedy’s article, How To Liberate Your Wealth Magnetism, (which is excerpted from his new book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy,) he talks about how “most people’s world view of wealth is a zero-sum game.” Meaning, the amount of wealth that is available is limited and that each dollar you receive is at someone else’s expense.

You need to have the mindset that wealth is unlimited.  There is an unlimited number of opportunities at your fingertips.  It doesn’t matter if you are a small business owner or if you run a large corporation, you can reach a global audience of customers who are looking for your products and services.  We can thank the Internet for that.

Throw away your old way of thinking that you can only gain a certain percentage of the market.  Mr. Kennedy said it best in his article, “if you believe wealth is limited, if you view it as a zero-sum game, you are inhibited.  This inhibition affects all sorts of things you do or don’t do, such as what you’ll charge, for example, or who you’ll ask for money.”

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

In Dan Kennedy’s article, Think ‘Process’ and ‘Relationship’ Not ‘Sales Incident,’ (which is excerpted from his new book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy,) he refers to this type of scenario as “the start of work to be done, not an end result or outcome.”  Basically, his point is that if you celebrate the appointment, reservation or other event and misunderstand that this is just the beginning, you are missing the mark.  If you want to build wealth, you have to develop and cultivate relationships with your customers.

It doesn’t matter what type of business you might be in, there are always opportunities to increase your wealth.  Mr. Kennedy gives several examples in his article, including a restaurant owner who can go the extra step after someone makes a reservation, by sending that person a special voucher for a free bottle of wine if they bring a friend.  An oil change shop can even improve its process by selling a coupon book to a customer for pre-paid services or finding out about the other cars owned by family members.

When a customer steps foot in your store or office, you have to think about the long-term relationship. After all, your customers are your assets.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

When it comes to problems and mistakes, it isn’t so much how they occurred that is going to draw attention; it is how you handle them.  In Dan Kennedy’s article, “Pressure-Prosperity Link,” (which is excerpted from his new book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy,) he talks about how the “world watches and responds to the way you handle these situations.  If you blame others, blame circumstances, offer up excuses, you telegraph weakness.”

If you are going for immediate sympathy and pity, then go right ahead and give as many excuses as you want.  However, don’t anticipate that you will gain respect by doing so.  According to Mr. Kennedy, “wealth is never transferred based on pity.”

The way to garner respect is not through excuse making.  It comes from taking responsibility, even if there was nothing you could have done to prevent your problems.  Don’t be one of those business owners who blames the economy, government, competition and who knows what else, for his or her circumstances.  Take ownership.

Here’s what you need to do – “step up, accept responsibility, offer no excuses, and roll up your sleeves and work.” That is how you will draw strength and respect.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

In Dan Kennedy’s article (which is excerpted from his new book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy,) “When You Meet Money On Its Path, It Means You’re Walking in the Right Direction,” he talks about the “wealth attraction power of being somewhere.”

The article starts out talking about Donald Trump and how in his most difficult periods, he fought the urge to stay hidden at home.  He attended an important gala decked out in his tuxedo, even though he wanted to stay home.

To build your wealth, you need to be somewhere and be in motion.  That doesn’t mean that you have to be at an actual event, it could be that you decide to write a book or create an informative newsletter.  Being somewhere could be speaking at a local event or business group.

Mr. Kennedy ends the article by saying, “be everywhere that’s relevant, everywhere your ideal customer or clients are, and be omnipresent in those environments.”

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

Between my Great Legal Marketing conference for attorneys and the two and a half (extended by another half week due to the blizzards) weeks in China to adopt David and Leah I was out of the office for 31 days. I would have thought this to be impossible in years gone past. However with a little bit of technology, including Skype, and a great staff who understands not only what we do but why we do things and what language we usually talk to people the world kept running me.

We are working on an exciting new small-business owners Magazine for Northern Virginia and of course our Glazer Kennedy group which meets monthly continues to bring together some of the smartest entrepreneurs in Northern Virginia. We hope you will join us soon.

Kennedy then proceeded to absolutely destroy that argument by giving example after example of business who seemed to be deliberately avoiding “making a sale” by their gross ineptitude in their salesmanship. I mean I was howling as I listened to the story about the Cleveland car tire dealership where Dan’s wife was trying to buy $1,200 worth of tires and the sales person “downsold” her right from the start to the point where she got confused about what do to and Dan told her to come home.

No sale.

As Dan points out the executives of this car tire company will be blaming the recession or blaming the radio ads that actually got Dan’s wife to go to the store but it was really the crappy sales person at the front desk who is either untrained or unwilling to learn how to sell tires.

In another story that Dan wrote recently he told of going to a men’s clothing store and picking out about $600 worth of slacks. When he went to check out he told them he needed them hemmed and they told him “great” you can pick them up in 30 days!!!

As Dan puts it, he just dropped the pants on the counter and walked out…what’s really instructive is that as he walked out not one of the salespeople who were standing around tried to stop him, attempted to make sure the pants could get hemmed in a day or two or did anything to save a $600 sale. They’ll blame the recession, too.

If money isn’t’ coming to your business its not because of the recession. People are definitely spending money on something and if its not you you must figure out why.

Are you like the tire dealer or the men’s clothes store?

By the way…if you are reading this and you aren’t getting Dan’s No. B.S. Marketing newsletter and you are running a business you are making a huge mistake. You have a choice. Will your 2010 be “more of the same” or will you increase revenues and profits and makes your goals?

Do yourself a favor and at least watch the video I have for you here.

Here’s the issue:

President Obama is attacking the banks, encouraging them to “lend more.”  He says (to banks) “you are making too much money and “you guys caused the problems.”

In my discussions with small business owners, its not “bank lending” that is at the core of their issues but its

1. how can I get more customers in the door — I’d be fine if I could get that fixed; and

2. I’m not sure what the rules will be next year (i.e. will health care costs and/or increased taxes affect my bottom line)  so I’m not going to risk a bunch this year on increased marketing and/or hiring.

So I wonder….if you are a small business owner….which is it for you?

If its “none of the above,” then maybe you are having a break out year and will share what you have done.

About 10% of the wealthiest in America got that way through inheritance and that number is dwindling every year. It seems that oftentimes when wealth is passed from a generation of producers to a generation of non-producers, it vanishes. Imagine that.

Some of the young people profiled by the Post lack a fundamental understanding of both reality and economics. One had a startling lack of a moral compass.

One, Burke Stansbury, inherited $1 million from his grandfather who created the wealth through building businesses and investing in real estate. Stansbury expressed the view that he “resists” the privilege [of wealth] and denies it because of the inequalities that exist in society. He protested against Costco who wanted to build a store in the Mexican city. Apparently the store would involve cutting down trees and, as he put it, “displacing a sacred community.” At meetings, he vents about politics and what he views as an insulated upper-class and he supports increasing estate and capital gains taxes.

Stansbury probably should have stayed enrolled at Georgetown University and taken more classes. Probably should have read How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are the Best Answer in Today’s Economy or Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem

He assumes, incorrectly, that his wealth (or anyone else’s) makes someone else poor. That’s like saying that one’s health make someone else sick.

He also fails to realize that when Costco went to build a store in Mexico that store would’ve created jobs and wealth not only for the employees but for the producers of goods that would’ve been sold in the store. The store also would have raised the quality of life for its customers by providing a place where they could trade the dollars that they earned by work for products that they deemed valuable. Stopping a store for the sake of trees in a poverty-stricken area makes no sense on any level. Finally, he missed the lesson where they taught that nowhere in the history of the world has wealth been created or the plight of people been improved by increasing taxes.

I’ve got a better idea for Stansbury. Take that million dollars you have and create something. Start a business. Risk your capital. Employ people. Create a product or service that someone else values and then let them trade with you. The only formula for creating wealth and eradicating poverty and hunger in the world is to take your gifts and talents and produce something. Then teach others how to take their gifts and talents and produce something.

Then there’s Janelle Treibitz. This part-time waitress told the Post that “I definitely feel like I am at war between my desires instilled in me to eat out at nice restaurants and my better sense and principles” and yet, amazingly, she told the Post reporter that earlier this year she broke her finger and didn’t have insurance. She went to a hospital and got an x-ray and gave the hospital a fake name and walked out. She actually asked this question:

“is that okay that I’m doing that–taking resources because I am refusing to take money from my parents?”

Apparently her struggles with her “better sense and principles” don’t include her proclivity to engage in theft of medical services. (I have an idea for her “fancy restaurants” moral dilemma: pick one she really likes and that would satisfy her desires, make a reservation under a false name, and then skip out when the waiter isn’t looking. There, she can have her cake and steal it too.)

So I guess for Ms. Treibitz the options for dealing with others don’t include being honest, honoring your debts and working to repay them. I’ll make it even simpler: the answer to your question ma’am is that your hospital bill has nothing to do with your parents’ money.

No one should begrudge these individuals and their wealth. They got lucky by birth and their luck doesn’t make any of us unlucky or less wealthy ourselves. (I did notice that none of them had renounced their inheritance or immediately handed it all over to any other entity!) Their refusal to understand both reality and economics, in spite of their immense wealth and opportunity for great universities and private schools, is indeed startling.

He is preparing emergency legislation that would guarantee paid sick days for anyone diagnosed with the H1N1 virus. Guarantee, not by the government but by the business owner who is risking time and capital to run a business.

His exact quote: “families shouldn’t have to choose between staying healthy and making ends meet.”

Okay, so this is another tax on the small business owner. Someone gets sick and the owner loses productivity or hires a replacement for the day. The Senator’s proposed new government interference with small business would mandate that the employer pay the sick employee for the time it.

I wonder if he has ever run a business in his life or done anything to produce a dollar? This is purely a role for private agreement between the employer and employee. Some employers will gladly have the employee stay calm and will be more than happy to pay that employee to stay home. That’s their business. It is not the role of government to tell the small business owner how to run their business.

Gee, can we send the bill to the government? Look, the swine flu isn’t good for anyone. Having to stay home and not being able to be paid for the day obviously isn’t good for the employee but who made the rule that it’s the employer we are going to stick this bill with?

This is yet another example, if our government ascedes to the request, of the government taking by force, from the producers, money to selectively help one industry. You would think that they would have figured out by now that tripling the national deficit by bankrupting the future isn’t the way to grow the economy.

Here’s how you grow the economy: get the government out of the way. Reduce or eliminate mindless regulation that slows the growth of small businesses. Reduce the confiscatory tax system that says to “the producers” the better you do the more we take.

I recently spoke to a young lady whose husband is a small business entrepreneur who was trying to navigate the District of Columbia’s byzantine regulatory system just to be able to establish his business there in order that he could generate income for his family and higher others to work for him. She told me that she had spent a day and a half trying to figure out all of the things that needed to be done just to get this rather simple business “approved” by the government.

If the reduction in regulation and taxation of small businesses took place in each small business was unable to hire one additional person who would cure the unemployment problem. The answer certainly is not to fund GMAC and its ilk with my money.