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, What to Expect, As We Transition From Recession to New Economy, (which is excerpted from his new book, No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy,) he provides some great insight into fears and the impact on wealth.  According to Mr. Kennedy, “you should be prudent about money. You can’t afford to be fearful about money.”

He talked about the effect the Great Depression had on many people who lived through it.  They started to hoard food and money and became adverse to debt.  They would rather “fix it” than “replace it.”  There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with being cautious with money; problems start to arise when a genuine fear or paranoia develops.

Most people can stand to be a little more prudent with their money, but money fears should never dictate the choices that are made.  It is not healthy and it will keep you from pursuing opportunities that will build wealth.

If you want to thrive in the “New Economy,” don’t let fear govern you. Instead, “combine the never-changing principles and forces governing the movement of money with rational thought, reasoned optimism, creative vision, sound and timely strategy, and aggressive opportunism.”

Don’t sit back and watch other people build their wealth. Put your fears aside and search for new opportunities.

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.

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.

It’s instructive to look at the language she used. Sorry, but its the language that 80% of the population uses. We call them “average” or worse.

• After four years of college I expected my life would magically come together– Comment: like in The Secret, where just by thinking of something it happens? Nope, that’s not the way it works. You provide something that someone else determines is of value to them. They trade you dollars for what you are providing. There is no magic out there there that says oh, a graduate…lets pay her.

• As a philosophy major, I thought that the critical thinking and analytical skills I acquired would be more desirable to prospective employers–Comment: they are if you can show an employer how they will profit by your skills. But smart thinking people are a dime a dozen and you are competing with folks just like you from around the world. It’s got to be something more–what makes you different?

• I have heard that there are stimulus jobs and I have applied for probably a dozen jobs with the federal government alone. Comment: You and millions others…The government’s job is to protect your right to use your gifts and talents to provide value for others, not provide you a job. One of the major flaws in the whole stimulus economy is that it encourages people to sit back and wait…thus becoming even more dependent on the other (this time the government) for survival.

• I fell as if I am being enterprising in my search, using Craigslist, Indeed, CareerBuilder and The Post: Comment: Enterprising would be tracking down the the CEO of a company you want to work with and sending her a shock and awe package that markets yourself, causes her to pay attention to you and makes her say I’d be an idiot to not at least interview Meredith.

• I went to college with the dreams of working on government policy, writing for a newspaper or serving a on a bioethics committee. Who knew that the economy would go into crisis when I was in college. Comment: sure, its tougher out there than it was a few years ago but there are lots of kids graduating from college who did get good jobs. Probably better to figure out what they are doing and model that.

• After sending what seems to be my millionth resume and cover letter, I am realizing that I might need to go back to school sooner than expected: Comment: first, every employer is getting resumes and cover letters. How are you making yours stand out? Why would you expect that an employer would choose you over the others or over the choice of doing nothing at all? Second, why in the world do you think that more school and more debt is going to fix your problem? That sounds like running away. Frankly, spending some time hanging out with winners/entrepreneurs in order that you can see first hand what successful people were doing would be far more valuable. I know lots of people who have no college degree, let alone any advanced degree, who are enormously successful.

• GWU’s online jobs site used to be a great place to look for paid positions but with the economic situation, jobs have been scarce: Comment–don’t blame the economy.. that just gives you an excuse. Take full responsibility for your success or failure. Winners don’t blame others or the economy or the government or anything…they figure out how to get things done.

• I’ve been checking my email, hoping for a job offer….I thought once college ended, all my dreams would come through. Comment: the four years you just spent are just the beginning. But no one promised that all your dreams would come true just by hanging out GWU’s writing center for four years. Life is not about hoping– its about planning out what, exactly, its going to take to be successful…setting goals….never leaving it up to the other.

Let me make a few book recommendations for you:

Think and Grow Rich–Napoleon Hill– a little hard to read the first time. Many, many successful people read this book once a year for its timeless principles of success

The Millionaire Next Door– what to the financially successful people in America really do…not just theory, but survey results…how do they think and act?? Who do they hang out with.

No B.S. Wealth Attraction: Dan Kennedy…more timeless advice about how really successful people really act and think.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel…you only need to look around at what made others successful and model that.

Get started.

Dan argues that we should just let the car companies that are failures die a natural death. (Just how many cars do you have to sell to repay $20 billion?)