Burak Bakay

Book Summary of The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco

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By questioning accepted financial knowledge, The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco provides a shortcut to wealth and early retirement. DeMarco offers three methods for building wealth: active production, hopeful accumulation, and insatiable consumption.

Each formula reflects your control over finances and time, and influences your income, spending habits, and strategy. This guide delves into each formula, explaining why the first two are unsuccessful and revealing how to leverage time for unlimited passive income with the third formula. It concludes with actionable advice to fast-track your path to wealth.

Formula #1: Insatiable Consumption

People who use the Insatiable Consumption formula to preserve an appearance of riches by spending more than they make, according to DeMarco, are on a route to poverty. These consumers prioritize luxury items and experiences to fulfill their desire for recognition and admiration, without the willingness to work for it. In essence, they are more motivated by the appearance of wealth than actual wealth.

Seeking Short-Term Gratification Risks Long-Term Security

DeMarco emphasizes that the Insatiable Consumption formula for wealth relies on credit and quick fixes, disregarding the effort needed to create actual wealth. Credit destroys your chances of financial freedom, limits your ability to save, and creates financial stress. Additionally, when you rely on credit, you lack control over your finances and are vulnerable to external factors that can bankrupt you.

Financial Outcome: Poverty

DeMarco asserts overspending without regard to financial security or lifestyle will hinder wealth accumulation, even with a high salary. Spending more than you earn inevitably leads to poverty.

Spending Mindfully Prevents Lifestyle Creep

High earners can fall into lifestyle creep by increasing spending on non-essential items as income rises. This can lead to overspending and financial instability. Experts suggest creating a budget and being mindful of spending habits. Alternatively, Ramit Sethi recommends allocating a portion of income to different areas to enjoy non-essential expenses without overspending.

Formula #2: Hopeful Accumulation

The employment plus market investments equals limited income and a dismal retirement, according to DeMarco’s formula for wealth accumulation. Hopeful accumulators adhere to conventional methods recommended by financial advisors for a comfortable retirement, such as obtaining an expensive education, working for decades, budgeting every penny, buying a home, and investing in pensions and safe accounts.

Sacrificing Time and Money Creates the Illusion of Control

DeMarco believes that the Hopeful Accumulation formula for wealth is flawed because it relies on factors beyond your control, such as the value of your education, the economy, and your health.

Uncontrollable Factor #1: The Value of Your Education

DeMarco argues that an expensive education can limit your freedom in two ways: Firstly, it forces you to work to pay off your debts, which can take more than 20 years to clear, despite your increased salary. Secondly, it restricts your career choices, as your education’s value depends on the opportunities in your field.

Uncontrollable Factor #2: The Time You Spend Working

DeMarco points out that relying solely on a fixed hourly wage or annual salary limits your earning potential because time is a finite resource – you can’t work more than 24 hours a day or beyond your life expectancy.

Uncontrollable Factor #3: The Economy

DeMarco warns that the economy’s unpredictability means that sudden downturns can greatly affect your ability to maintain a stable income. Losing your job or business can make it challenging to contribute regularly to your pension, investments, debts, or mortgage.

Uncontrollable Factor #4: The Markets

DeMarco explains that accumulating wealth through investments relies on time, regular contributions, and high returns. However, the reality is that the small sums of money allowed for investment, low rates of return, poor investment decisions, and inflation may not have a significant impact on your net worth.

Additionally, DeMarco argues that relying on home equity to increase your net worth is not reliable as real estate values may not always rise.

Uncontrollable Factor #5: Your Health and Well-Being

DeMarco cautions that sacrificing your health, relationships, and freedom by working long hours for a prosperous future may not guarantee a payoff. There is no assurance that you will be healthy enough to work until retirement or enjoy your money by the time you retire.

Financial Outcome: You Might Get Rich but You Won’t Be Able to Enjoy It

According to DeMarco, the usual approach of taking a job for life, deferring gratification, and waiting for interest rates to increase is not advised since it does not guarantee a pleasant retirement and depends on factors outside your control.

Sacrificing time, freedom, and pleasures for this plan is not worth it, as you may not be able to enjoy your wealth when you’re older and inflation could decrease its value.

Formula #3: Active Production

DeMarco’s Active Production formula for wealth is unrestricted profits + investments/assets = massive wealth and early retirement. Active producers aim to create and enjoy wealth through discipline and forfeiting short-term comfort.

This approach leads to extraordinary wealth in a short time and eliminates debt fears, unlike insatiable consumers who confuse “get rich quick” with “get rich easy.”

Using Time Generates Liberty and Passive Revenue

DeMarco suggests active producers can accumulate wealth quickly by creating passive income, which generates recurrent income without direct involvement. By investing in assets that appreciate over time, such as physical or intellectual property, it’s possible to expand income potential and grow net worth rapidly.

Financial Outcome: A Lifetime of Luxury and Freedom

DeMarco contends that directing funds towards passive income businesses and investments has a massive impact on earnings, health, relationships, and freedom. Although it requires an initial investment of time and effort, the rewards far surpass those of the other formulas.

The Active Producers’ Checklist

DeMarco believes that becoming an active producer and starting a business that generates passive income is the quickest way to build wealth, provided you’re not a highly-paid celebrity or athlete. To achieve this, you need to find businesses that offer value, have growth potential, and only require periodic support.

Passive income can come from selling low-priced products to millions of customers or high-priced products to a few customers, or even high-priced products to millions of customers, which has the potential to make you a billionaire. There are several business strategies that provide passive revenue, such as renting out real estate, developing internet systems, selling knowledge, and distributing goods.

DeMarco offers seven ways to generate business ideas and increase your income:

  1. Take action based on your knowledge to create opportunities.
  2. Switch your focus from consuming to producing to discover opportunities.
  3. Consider what value you can offer to others and solve their problems.
  4. Avoid the easy route and focus on unique and challenging opportunities.
  5. Control everything in your business to avoid vulnerability to external factors.
  6. Look for tax-saving opportunities by registering your business as a corporation.
  7. Think big and aim for creating a business that can generate millions in passive income.

 

Book Summary of Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

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Robert Kiyosaki grew up with two dads: his biological father, a financially illiterate PhD who valued job stability, and his best friend’s father, a high school dropout who built a business empire worth millions. Kiyosaki calls them Poor Dad and Rich Dad, respectively.

Poor Dad believed in the traditional view of work and money, which is to get a good education, a secure job, and buy a house without a clear long-term plan. In contrast, Rich Dad had a contrarian view of finances and life, focusing on achieving financial independence, having money generate more money, and taking calculated risks.

Kiyosaki argues that most people adopt the Poor Dad view and let money control their lives, leading them to get stuck in jobs they dislike for the sake of money, trapped in a cycle of working to make ends meet.

Lesson 1: The Rich Don’t Work For Money – Money Works for Them

To become wealthy, it’s not enough to just earn a high salary – owning income-generating assets is crucial. The rich buy assets that generate income and limit spending on expenses and liabilities. Those who are not wealthy either spend all of their money on spending or acquire non-income producing obligations. The objective is to amass enough assets that produce income so that you may stop working.

Lesson 2: Buy Assets, Not Liabilities

To build wealth, focus on buying income-generating assets, not liabilities that drain your money. Assets create more money for you, while expenses reduce it. However, beware of deceptive investments that look like assets but are liabilities in disguise, such as overpriced houses.

Real assets include businesses, stocks, bonds, income-generating real estate, and intellectual property. Treat each dollar as an employee working for you 24/7 to create more wealth. Remember, every dollar you spend today is a missed opportunity to generate future income.

Lesson 3: Reduce Taxes through Corporations

Kiyosaki suggests setting up corporations to deduct business expenses pre-tax instead of paying with post-tax dollars.

Lesson 4: Overcome Your Mental Obstacles

To achieve your Rich Dad goals, you need to overcome common mental obstacles:

  • Self-doubt: Success requires more than intelligence and grades. Guts, chutzpah, balls, and tenacity play a big role.
  • Fear: Courage is needed to pursue great opportunities, and failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. Don’t let fear of failure or others’ opinions hold you back.
  • Laziness: Busy people can be the laziest, using busyness as an excuse to avoid investing in their future.
  • Guilt for feeling greedy: Embrace your desire for wealth and the power it brings.
  • Arrogance: Be open to new ideas and don’t dismiss anything as beneath you. Even sales techniques can be valuable.

Lesson 5: Build Your Economic Intelligence. Continue To Learn

Understanding accounting, investment, markets, and legislation is a prerequisite for having financial intelligence, which entails applying that knowledge to problem-solve ingeniously. Incremental improvements in knowledge can have a significant impact over time, and the faster you can learn and apply your knowledge, the greater the rewards.

Book Summary of The Essays of Warren Buffett

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Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and once the richest person in the world, is renowned for both his business empire and teaching abilities. “The Essays of Warren Buffett” offer insights from his annual reports to shareholders, where he shares the inner workings of Berkshire, investment strategies, and fundamental principles for building wealth.

Buffett’s essays provide a unique perspective into the mind of a successful investor, with ideas that challenge the norm in high finance. This guide covers Buffett’s writings on investing practices, comparing his views to those of Wall Street firms, and examining other financial experts’ opinions. We’ll also place Buffett’s ideas in their historical context and explore their relevance in modern investment.

How to Invest

Buffett’s essays offer insights for all investors, emphasizing that owning a stock is owning a business. He advises on best practices, pitfalls to avoid, and suggests investing in well-run businesses at a discount and holding indefinitely. He believes in ignoring market emotions and avoiding short-term trading, which can drain finances through fees.

Best Practices

Buffett’s essays provide valuable advice not only for Berkshire Hathaway shareholders but also for individual investors. He emphasizes the importance of investing in industries you understand, recognizing market volatility, and using simple index funds to benefit from the market’s upward trend.

By owning a piece of a business, you should use any industry knowledge you have to your advantage and invest in well-managed companies with good future prospects. When investing, focus on the long-term gains as an owner, rather than short-term gains from trading.

Lastly, Buffett recommends avoiding industries that lack predictability and instead favors companies with essential products that are always in demand, such as food, clothing, insurance, and utilities.

The Upside of Volatility

Buffett believes market volatility provides buying opportunities for investors. Low stock prices benefit buyers, and he recommends investing in S&P index funds for those without resources for thorough research. Day trading and trying to outperform the market should be avoided due to trading fees.

Economic Nonsense

Buffett’s viewpoints may seem obvious, yet they are different from those of many financial experts. He specifically criticizes diversified portfolios, the Efficient Market Theory, and the alleged worth of financial advisors.

Efficient Market Theory

Efficient Market Theory (EMT) suggests that stock prices always reflect the true value of a company, rendering deeper analysis pointless. However, Buffett rejects this notion, arguing that researching a company reveals its true worth, and that stock fluctuations offer opportunities. He finds it frustrating that EMT is still taught in business schools despite being discredited.

Diversification

Buffett questions the idea that diversifying a portfolio reduces risk, preferring to invest in a few safe companies with strong management and excellent long-term economics.

He defines risk as the likelihood of suffering financial harm and ignores short-term stock fluctuations in favor of a long-term investment strategy. While Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings appear diversified, its majority shares reflect Buffett’s personal investment approach.

Financial Advisers

Buffett disapproves of the financial industry’s focus on creating and selling complex products, encouraging frequent trading, and obscuring market clarity. He believes brokers and advisers benefit the most and often exploit investors with unnecessary trades and products while bearing none of the risks. Instead, Buffett suggests investing in low-cost index funds instead of relying on financial professionals.

What to Avoid

Buffett prefers stocks and bonds and dislikes unproductive assets, junk bonds, financial derivatives, and using debt for acquisitions. Money market funds and bonds have low-interest rates, losing value over time. Investing in unproductive assets, such as jewelry or gold, is foolish, and junk bonds pose a high risk of default.

Financial Derivatives

Buffett warns against financial products like derivatives and borrowing to invest, both of which can lead to financial ruin. He strongly favors equities over other investments and suggests investing only with cash to stay safe in the market.

How to Run an Investment Business

Buffett offers investment advice and insights into Berkshire Hathaway’s operations, praising its transparency, rational investing, and shareholder commitment. He contrasts its values and culture with typical practices in corporate America.

This section compares Berkshire Hathaway to other large investment groups, exploring differences in corporate governance, accountability, acquisition principles, and shareholder interests.

The Wall Street Way

Buffett draws attention to the shortcomings of several investment organizations, such as CEO culture, dubious bookkeeping, expensive mergers and acquisitions and financial derivatives. He views a lack of genuine responsibility as the main issue, with directors having little to no accountability and CEOs being rewarded for incompetence.

Buffett is particularly critical of awarding stock options as CEO compensation, as they are often not tied to performance and carry none of the risk. He lobbied for a change in accounting rules, but lost.

Takeovers, Debt, and Danger

Buffett values companies bought for the right reasons but warns against buyouts that harm shareholders. Corporate growth without adding meaningful value often results in the issuance of new shares, reducing the value of existing shares. Leveraged buyouts, which put livelihoods at risk, create a dangerous concentration of risk that could lead to an economic collapse if defaults occur.

The Berkshire Way

Buffett praises Berkshire Hathaway for its unique business practices that prioritize increasing overall value per share by acquiring financially sound companies.

Shareholders receive transparent financial and managerial information and earnings are reinvested to maximize the corporation’s worth. Instead of dividends, Berkshire uses capital allocation to maximize shareholder value. Buffett views investors as partners and is accountable to a board of directors who hold at least $4 million in Berkshire stock.

Growing the Berkshire Family of Businesses

Buffett’s favorite part of his job is acquiring new businesses, but he’s no longer interested in mid-range businesses for cheap. Instead, he seeks high-quality companies at fair prices, without setting acquisition targets. Every opportunity is compared to other conservative investments to remove the pressure for growth that drives many CEOs to rush into acquisitions based on arbitrary goals.

Once Berkshire acquires a controlling share, Buffett lets new acquisitions conduct their business with minimal interference. Berkshire never sells off an acquisition as long as it can produce even a modest return on investment, recognizing the importance of these businesses for their employees and families.

Berkshire never leverages debt to buy new businesses, maintaining cash from subsidiaries for acquisitions or stock buybacks if trading below actual value. Buffett has carefully cultivated an owner-centric culture at Berkshire, which he believes will endure after he’s gone. Although he doubts that Berkshire’s gains in the next 50 years can match its first half-century, he has full confidence in the business he created to thrive and endure.

Book Summary of I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi

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Take small steps towards solid personal finance and free yourself from money worries. Ramit Sethi, author of “Will Teach You to Be Rich,” provides clear and actionable advice to help you navigate the confusing world of personal finance.

Learn how to use credit cards effectively, choose the right bank and investment accounts, plan your spending, and create a system that automates your financial growth. With Sethi’s guidance, you can achieve your vision of a “rich life” without being overwhelmed by technical jargon or conflicting advice.

Credit Cards

Using credit cards responsibly can benefit your credit history and future loan eligibility.

Follow these six essential rules: pay your bills on time and in full, avoid fees, negotiate a lower APR, keep accounts open and active for longer credit history, and use card perks like extended warranties and travel insurance.

One late payment can hurt your credit score, raise your APR, and incur fees. By making smart choices and utilizing card benefits, you can improve your financial standing and save money in the long run.

Paying Off Debt

Eliminating debt is a smart financial move that can boost your credit score and save you thousands of dollars.

Here are five steps to help you pay off your debt:

  • First, calculate the total amount of debt you owe.
  • Second, decide which card to focus on paying off first, either by starting with the highest APR or the lowest balance.
  • Third, negotiate a lower APR to reduce interest payments.
  • Fourth, review your expenses to find ways to increase your monthly payments.
  • Finally, get started with your plan, even if it’s not perfect. Don’t delay your progress by striving for perfection.

Choosing the Best Banks

Your credit cards and bank accounts are crucial to your financial system. To ensure a strong foundation, choose accounts with low fees. Banks profit from fees, so selecting a bank that charges minimal fees is a good indication that they aren’t trying to take advantage of you.

When searching for a new bank, consider three essential factors.

  • First, trust is critical. Ask your friends which banks they trust, then check the bank’s website for any red flags like high fees or misleading account descriptions.
  • Second, convenience is essential. If the bank’s services aren’t user-friendly, you’re unlikely to use them.
  • Lastly, make sure the bank offers important features like competitive interest rates, free transfers to external accounts, and free bill pay.

Choosing Your Accounts

To get started, you’ll need a checking and savings account. Here are Sethi’s recommended accounts:

  • Charles Schwab Bank offers Schwab Bank Investor Checking for usage.
  • Using Capital One 360 Savings, you may set up sub-accounts for particular objectives.
  • Once your bank accounts are set up, you can shift your attention to opening investment accounts.

The Power of Compounding

Investing beats saving because it offers a higher rate of return; the stock market averages about 8% annually, after accounting for inflation. This rate is crucial because of compound interest, where you earn interest on the interest earned in previous years. For example, a $100 investment earning 8% annually would become $108 after the first year and $116.64 after the second year.

The longer you leave your money in the market, the more you earn. Therefore, the earlier you start investing, the more money you’ll have at retirement.

Start by Opening Your 401(k)

A 401(k) is a retirement investment account that allows employers to automatically deduct a percentage of an employee’s paycheck. It offers several advantages:

  • Your contributions are made pre-tax, giving you a higher principal investment amount and potential compound growth of 25 to 40%.
  • Employers may match your contributions, providing you with free money.
  • Investing is automatic, without any additional effort.
  • The downside is that early withdrawal before age 59.5 will result in a 10% penalty and income tax. Therefore, 401(k) investments should be made for long-term financial planning.

Roth IRAs

A Roth IRA is a retirement account that doesn’t require an employer sponsor and is available to people with lower incomes. Unlike a 401(k), you can choose how to invest in a Roth IRA.

Also, the money you invest in a Roth IRA has already been taxed, which means you won’t pay taxes on the returns you earn. This gives you an advantage over a regular taxable investment account where you pay taxes on both your contributions and your returns.

Choosing a Brokerage Firm

Open a Roth IRA by signing up with an investment brokerage like Vanguard, Schwab, or Fidelity. Choose a discount brokerage that requires lower minimum investing fees than “full service” ones.

Spending Mindfully

To determine how much you can contribute to your savings and investment accounts each month, create a personalized budget that aligns with your goals, values, and lifestyle. This approach will enable you to be confident that you’re saving enough while also allowing you to spend any remaining money without feeling guilty.

Deciding How You’ll Spend Your Money

Sethi recommends dividing your take-home pay into four categories:

  • Fixed costs (50-60%): Your necessary monthly expenses, plus 15% for unexpected expenses.
  • Investments (10%): Contributions to your long-term investment accounts.
  • Savings goals (5-10%): For both short-term and long-term goals.
  • Guilt-free spending (20-35%): Any money left over after accounting for the other categories.

Automating Your Financial System

Automating finances means establishing automatic transfers between accounts to distribute funds each month without manual intervention. It avoids budgeting errors and saves mental energy. Spend a few hours setting up the transfers between checking, credit cards, bills, savings, and investment accounts. The checking account will be the central node and automatically transfer funds to other accounts according to the allocated percentages.

Getting Ready to Invest

After setting up automated transfers to your investment accounts, it’s important to actually invest that money instead of letting it sit idle.

Asset classes, such as stocks and bonds, are the building blocks of investing. Stocks are unpredictable as their value is determined by shareholders, while bonds are a more stable investment with a predetermined payback period.

Asset allocation is the division of assets in your portfolio and helps control the amount of risk you take on. As you age, your risk tolerance decreases, so your asset allocation should change accordingly.

Target Date Funds

Investing can be made easy with target date funds. These funds automatically adjust your asset allocation based on your retirement timeline, providing automatic diversification and eliminating the need for managing individual stocks and bonds.

As retirement approaches, the fund will reallocate your investments into safer options like bonds. Additionally, it’s important to plan for major financial milestones such as paying for a wedding. To save for a wedding, estimate the desired date and total cost, divide the cost by the number of months, and save accordingly.

Negotiating a Higher Salary

To negotiate a higher salary, take advantage of your leverage when you get hired. Follow these tips from Sethi:

  • Emphasize the value you’ll add to the company, not how much your salary will cost them.
  • Use other job offers to show you’re not afraid to walk away if the offer isn’t fair.
  • Negotiate total compensation, including vacation days and stock options.
  • Be friendly and aim for a win-win agreement.
  • Let them make the first offer and don’t reveal your salary.
  • Practice with friends playing the role of the hiring manager.

Big-Ticket Purchases

Young people often have two major financial milestones: buying a car or a house. To buy a car, the first step is to figure out your budget and include all the costs associated with owning a car. Look for a reliable car and be ready to invest in preventative maintenance to save money. To get a good deal, wait until the end of the month and ask for quotes from multiple dealerships to start a bidding war.

When it comes to buying a house, start by deciding on a budget and save up 20% of the price for a down payment. The total monthly cost of owning a house should be no more than 30% of your monthly income. Don’t forget to account for closing costs, insurance, property taxes, and any needed renovations. Owning a home is more expensive than renting, so be prepared for the extra costs.

Book Summary of The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

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Investing success comes from rational decision-making and emotional control, not exceptional intelligence. A stock represents ownership in a business with fundamental value beyond its price, and you should buy from pessimists and sell to optimists.

Keep a margin of safety to avoid overpaying and incurring losses during downturns. The book covers Graham’s concepts of Mr. Market and Margin of Safety, advising both defensive and aggressive investors on investment principles and market behavior.

Let’s start by defining investment.

Investors vs. Speculators

Investors, according to Graham, are those who analyze investments and prioritize safety of principal and adequate return. Speculators, on the other hand, trade on market movements and ignore fundamental value.

Investors buy when the market is down, while speculators follow popular opinion. Investors use a dependable system for decision-making and prioritize the fundamental value of the stock, while speculators are swayed by emotions and optimistic estimates.

Don’t Believe the Active Trading Hype

Beware of brokerages that push low fees and easy trading. They profit from trades, not your gains, and may lure you into risky speculation. Excessive trading can hurt your returns – a study shows that the busiest traders lagged the market by 6.4% annually, while the least active kept pace.

Defensive vs. Aggressive Investors

Graham classifies intelligent investors into defensive and aggressive types based on their approach to investing. Defensive investors prefer simplicity and aim for average market returns, while aggressive investors seek higher returns through in-depth research.

Both approaches can be successful if aligned with the investor’s temperament and goals, while maintaining emotional control.

The Defensive Investor

Graham advises defensive investors to allocate 50% to stocks and 50% to bonds, with a 75-25 imbalance limit. This balance helps to manage risks and exposure to market conditions. A 100% stock portfolio can be challenging due to high fluctuations.

Dollar-Cost Averaging

Graham advises against market timing and recommends dollar-cost averaging for investing lump sums. Splitting the sum into equal investments over time helps avoid emotional attachment to market fluctuations and the false belief in predicting the market.

Low-Cost Index Funds are the Default Option

Graham’s advice on selecting individual stocks and bonds is outdated. Nowadays, low-cost index funds like Vanguard offer easy diversification across assets. Graham eventually recommended index funds as the default choice for most investors, and even Warren Buffett agrees.

Choosing Individual Stocks

To choose your own stocks, Graham advises a defensive investor to look for high-quality companies at reasonable prices and use these seven criteria: size, strong financials, continuous dividends, positive earnings over 10 years, earnings growth of at least 33% in the past 10 years, a P/E ratio no more than 15 times past 3-year earnings, and a price-to-book value ratio no more than 150%.

However, many companies today have more intangible assets, so a higher price-to-book ratio may be acceptable. These criteria are strict and filter out most stocks, but this is intentional as most stocks are not suitable for the defensive investor. For most everyday investors, Graham recommended low-cost index funds.

The Aggressive Investor

Defensive investors seek low-effort results, while aggressive investors aim for high returns via research. But Graham warns against impulsivity, advising methodical valuation, patience, and calmness.

Expectations for the Aggressive Investor

Aggressive investors aim for better returns by methodically valuing potential investments and maintaining level-headedness. Graham advises that an additional 5% annual gain, before taxes, is necessary for the effort to be worthwhile.

However, beating the market is difficult and even most professional money managers cannot do so in the long term, after fees are deducted. Graham suggests aiming for modest and consistent returns instead of stratospheric ones.

Find Bargain Stocks

Graham’s strategy is to buy undervalued companies and purchase a dollar for less than its actual worth. This strategy works because of human psychology, which can cause irrational fluctuations in stock prices. When a company falls out of favor, its stock price drops below its actual value, making it a bargain.

A bargain stock is one that is priced below two-thirds of its value, which can happen when a large company faces a temporary setback or when an entire industry becomes unpopular.

Aggressive Investor Criteria

To filter stocks, start with statistical criteria like the defensive investor. But as an aggressive investor, you can be more flexible with your criteria, such as not requiring a minimum company size. To determine if a stock is a good investment, you must conduct your own analysis. Good and bad stocks don’t exist, only cheap and overpriced ones.

Market Fluctuations and Mr. Market

J.P. Morgan famously said that the market “will fluctuate.” While it’s impossible to predict when and how these fluctuations will occur, there are two important ways to respond to them.

First, prepare yourself mentally for potential declines and avoid emotional reactions. Second, watch patiently for opportunities that arise when the market overreacts to negative news about a company, which can lead to bargain buying opportunities.

Mr. Market

You don’t have to trade and sell with the market. Market prices should only serve as indicators for whether a stock is over- or under-priced. Graham’s Mr. Market concept shows that following the whims of other traders is irrational.

You should maintain your rationality and transact only when it’s in your favor, using market prices to your advantage. Don’t blindly follow Mr. Market, but also don’t ignore him entirely. You have no obligation to trade with him.

Margin of Safety

Graham believed in the importance of margin of safety when making investments. This refers to the amount that can go wrong before the investment goes bad. By choosing investments with a larger margin of safety, you increase your chances of success.

For example, Graham’s criteria for interest coverage ratio, price to book value, and asset to liabilities ratio all incorporate margin of safety. A larger margin of safety means you don’t need to predict market downturns or be overly clever to succeed. Warren Buffett summed up the idea of value investing as “if a business is worth a dollar and I can buy it for 40 cents, something good may happen to me.”

Book Summary of Unscripted by M. J. DeMarco

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In “Unscripted”, MJ DeMarco argues that an entrepreneurial mindset is the only way to achieve financial success, but most people are held back by unproductive beliefs about money. He offers practical solutions to remove these beliefs and cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset.

The guide is divided into two parts: the first explains the three financial mindsets and why an entrepreneurial mindset is the most effective for achieving financial goals, while the second covers eight beliefs that hinder an entrepreneurial mindset and how to overcome them. The guide also includes insights from financial advisors and successful entrepreneurs.

Part 1: Beliefs About Money Fall Into One of Three Mindsets

DeMarco believes that your money beliefs shape your wealth accumulation, as they impact your financial behavior. He categorizes these beliefs into three mindsets: consumer, employee, and entrepreneurial.

DeMarco identifies three mindsets regarding money.

  • First, the consumer mindset focuses on flaunting wealth rather than acquiring it, leading to debt and financial instability.
  • Second, the employee mindset prioritizes saving for the future and working for others, but this approach does not guarantee wealth.
  • Third, the entrepreneurial mindset involves taking accountability and creating unrestricted income streams, leading to short-term financial success and long-term wealth.

Part 2: Identify and Overcome Unproductive Beliefs About Money

DeMarco suggests that your financial mindset determines the state of your finances. Therefore, to achieve wealth, you must adopt beliefs that align with an entrepreneurial mindset. However, he emphasizes the importance of identifying and overcoming unproductive money beliefs before cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset.

DeMarco suggests that unproductive money beliefs hinder the cultivation of an entrepreneurial mindset, resulting in limited wealth.

He identifies eight such beliefs, including luck, innate capabilities, and shortcuts to wealth. However, DeMarco believes these beliefs can be overcome, and he provides practical advice on doing so throughout the guide.

Unproductive Belief #1: Only Lucky People Get Rich

DeMarco challenges the belief that luck is the sole determinant of wealth. This belief implies that you are not accountable for your financial success or failure, disregarding the role of your actions and choices.

According to DeMarco, this misunderstanding makes you feel helpless and discourages you from taking steps to better your financial situation. He highlights the importance of perseverance and learning from failures by citing his own experiences.

Build Your Own Chances to Develop an Entrepreneurial Frame of Mind:

Create prospects for riches by making decisions that might lead to good results in order to develop an entrepreneurial attitude.

DeMarco argues that financial “luck” is a result of the choices you make. By spending your free time constructively, such as developing business ideas or improving yourself, you increase your probability of achieving financial success by creating multiple opportunities to improve your finances.

Unproductive Belief #2: Your Innate Capabilities Determine Your Level of Wealth

Belief two, “Your innate capabilities determine your level of wealth,” suggests that your intrinsic skills dictate your earning potential. DeMarco argues this belief discourages financial success in two ways:

1) It convinces those who’ve had easy success that they don’t need to improve their skills and

2) It convinces those who’ve struggled that they lack the necessary talent.

Develop an entrepreneurial Outlook by Making Small Changes

DeMarco suggests developing an entrepreneurial attitude by constantly honing your talents. Even small progress can disprove the belief that your abilities are fixed and unimprovable, empowering you to achieve financial success.

For instance, if you struggle to come up with profitable business ideas, start small by reading business books for inspiration and aim to generate one new idea each week, gradually increasing to one daily.

Unproductive Belief #3: Frugality Creates Wealth

Frugality may not be enough to create wealth. This is because it can limit your focus to reducing expenses instead of increasing income.

According to DeMarco, simply saving every penny won’t magically turn into sizable wealth in the future. Additionally, inflation might lower the value of your investments. As a result, you should concentrate on raising your revenue rather than merely cutting costs if you want to develop an entrepreneurial attitude.

Develop an entrepreneurial Outlook by Using Time-Based Income Generation

To build wealth, DeMarco advises abandoning the belief that frugality alone is enough and instead focusing on creating passive income. He argues that relying solely on a wage or salary restricts your earning potential and savings.

Instead, investing time in creating a product or system that generates recurrent income expands your income potential and ability to accumulate wealth.

DeMarco recommends investing in assets that appreciate over time, such as physical or intellectual property that you can lease, sell, or distribute, as the best way to grow your net worth and earn millions.

Unproductive Belief #4: It’s Okay to Spend More Than You Earn

The belief “It’s okay to spend more than you earn” leads to a consumer mindset and reliance on credit to buy what you can’t afford.

DeMarco argues that this mentality hinders your ability to create wealth, as debts incurred from credit can destroy your chances of financial security by redirecting future income towards loan repayment instead of investments, savings, or a business.

Act Like an Entrepreneur to Develop an Entrepreneurial Frame of Mind

Develop an entrepreneurial attitude by taking the producer’s vantage point. Instead of thinking like a consumer, focus on the value and processes involved in creating a product or service. Ask yourself how the company generates profits.

DeMarco asserts that this shift in perspective will help you transition from a consumer to a producer mindset and identify profitable opportunities.

Unproductive Belief #5: You Can Make Money Without Creating Value

The belief that you can make money without creating value is flawed, as the amount of money you earn is directly proportional to the value you create.

Pursuing activities that offer no value only wastes time and offers no chance of generating wealth. Instead, focus on creating massive value to achieve massive wealth, rather than constantly switching jobs or trying get-rich-quick schemes.

Develop a Mindset of Entrepreneurship through Adding Value to Others

Develop an entrepreneurial attitude by focusing on delivering value rather than generating money. According to DeMarco, the amount of wealth you generate is directly linked to the amount of value you create for others.

To create value, evaluate your skills, knowledge, or assets and consider how they can benefit others. Identify problems or inconveniences you can resolve, and think of ways to improve upon products or services you already use. By doing so, you can align your abilities with valuable money-making opportunities.

Unproductive Belief #6: The Rich Prevent You From Acquiring Wealth

Debunk the belief that the rich obstruct your path to wealth and instead take responsibility for your own financial situation. Don’t waste your time blaming others for your financial struggles, but focus on taking action to improve your situation.

Develop an Entrepreneurial Mindset by Understanding the Value That Wealthy People Create

Instead of blaming the affluent, adopt an appreciation attitude and concentrate on how they have benefited society in order to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Blaming others for your financial situation creates a negative mindset that prevents you from generating constructive ideas.

Instead, recognize that the wealthy have made valuable contributions and appreciate their efforts. This positive mindset will empower you to develop your own profitable ideas and make a valuable contribution to society.

Unproductive Belief #7: There’s a Shortcut to Wealth

The belief that there’s a shortcut to wealth makes you underestimate the hard work and effort needed to create wealth, according to DeMarco. It also leads you to waste time and energy on get-rich-quick schemes instead of taking constructive actions to improve your finances.

Develop an Entrepreneurial Mindset and Put in the Work to Become Wealthy

DeMarco advises setting a quantifiable financial goal and committing to the work necessary to attain it in order to develop an entrepreneurial attitude and get rid of the misconception that there are quick ways to wealth.

He outlines three practical methods: setting a measurable goal, creating a daily routine, and identifying and removing distractions.

  • Setting a measurable goal provides a clear target to move toward and allows you to measure progress.
  • Creating a daily routine involves breaking the goal down into daily tasks.
  • Identifying and removing distractions means eliminating anything that might prevent you from working on your tasks.

Unproductive Belief #8: Relying Solely on Compound Interest Makes You Rich

The belief that “compound interest alone makes you rich” suggests that investing small amounts of money over time will result in significant wealth.

However, DeMarco argues that this belief can be risky since it relies on unpredictable market forces to generate wealth for you.

While investments may provide predictable returns in theory, the markets are unpredictable and rates are often too low to make a significant impact. Additionally, factors like poor financial management and inflation can lead to losses rather than gains.

Develop a Mindset of Entrepreneurship and Use Compound Interest to Increase Your Profits

To overcome the belief that compound interest alone can make you rich, DeMarco suggests using it to supplement profits instead. He advises developing a profitable business first and then investing the profits to generate passive income.

By investing more profits, the value of large investments will be dramatically increased over a shorter period, even with low rates of return.

Book Summary of Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

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Tim Ferriss’ book Tools of Titans describes the routines and convictions of 101 top achievers, including IT investors, business owners, athletes, and artists. You can succeed by adopting the behaviors and viewpoints of those who are successful in your preferred field.

Our summary focuses on the book’s major themes of habits, showcasing patterns in motivation, work and business success, happiness, and health across all 101 individuals.

Inspiration and Goals

Visualizing long-term goals is a common habit among titans, as it provides clarity and motivation for the hard work ahead. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, stresses the importance of having a clear vision of the end goal, as it helps endure the challenges and pain on the way. Knowing why you’re pushing hard makes the journey easier.

Be Courageous. Be Brazen

Feeling unprepared to tackle a big goal? You may be holding yourself back with artificial constraints. Titans advise pushing past these boundaries, whether self-imposed or societal. Remember, every admired titan faced formidable obstacles just like you. The difference is their courage to push through.

Tim Ferriss’s Fear Exercise

Overcoming fear can be achieved through Tim Ferriss’s fear exercise. Firstly, imagine the change you wish to make, then consider the absolute worst possible outcome in vivid detail. Ask yourself how bad and permanent the damage would be, and how likely it is to happen.

Next, envision the best and realistic outcomes and how they would improve your life. Through this exercise, you’ll realize that even the worst outcome isn’t permanently crippling, and you can recover even if you fail.

Work Habits and Career

After setting your goals, productivity strategies are essential to make progress in limited time. Titans advise on laser-focused prioritization of opportunities that align with your goals.

Instead of getting caught up in minor tasks, prioritize big rocks first, and evaluate opportunities based on the “hell, yes!” rule. Avoid the “culture of cortisol” by focusing on goals and cutting out unnecessary activities that cause unhappiness.

Deciding What to Work On

Advice for choosing a career path in a world of endless options:

  • Become a double/triple threat by being above average at two or more things and combining them.
  • Augment your career with useful skills like communication, management, sales, finance, and internationalization.
  • Make an impact by working in a field where you can’t be easily replaced.
  • Example: Tim Ferriss chose to focus on self-improvement instead of becoming a venture capitalist because he could make a greater impact on people’s lives.

Personal Habits

The book features highly disciplined and goal-oriented individuals, and offers advice on personal habits. Success comes from action, not just knowledge.

Start with small actions to build momentum towards your goals. Identify and confront your weaknesses, and imagine your future self giving advice to overcome them. Don’t make excuses for your weaknesses, visualize the real costs and work towards improvement.

Creativity and Ideas

To generate more good ideas, focus on quantity over quality. Don’t be afraid to generate bad or silly ideas, as they can lead to good ones. Challenge yourself to come up with a certain number of ideas each day, even if they’re not all business-related.

To think of ideas, ask dumb questions, question conventional wisdom, and put yourself in new environments. Remember, being imaginative is more important than being right. To do innovative work, you need to believe something that few others believe.

Testing Ideas

How to identify good ideas from a pool of many? It’s difficult to be objective about your own ideas, as you may not see the bigger picture or spot flaws. To ensure that an idea is worthwhile, seek feedback from others who can stress-test it.

Investor Marc Andreessen and co-founder Ben Horowitz, for instance, scrutinize every idea they bring up to each other. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman gauges his staff’s mettle by whether they push back on given strategies.

Meanwhile, the military employs “red teams” whose mission is to sabotage plans to challenge their efficacy. If an idea can withstand such critical evaluations, then it is likely a good one.

Business Strategies

Entrepreneurial titans shared their tips on starting and growing successful businesses. Rather than having millions of followers or being a global superstar, you only need 1,000 true fans who will buy anything you produce.

Authenticity is key, as people crave connection and realness. Don’t be afraid to differ from societal expectations to be yourself. When it comes to business tactics, think 10 times bigger rather than 10% bigger, avoid hyper-competitive areas, and charge for your product. Failure should be avoided, and quick execution is essential.

Happiness and Mindset

Success isn’t just about productivity and achieving goals; being happy and emotionally in control is important too. Titans practice gratitude and reflect on their lives, focusing on what worked and taking risks.

When dealing with negative emotions like anxiety, stress, and anger, it’s important to stay calm and acknowledge the emotion rather than suppressing it. Being cynical or jaded is like being dead; it’s important to keep an open mind and stay curious.

More Useful Questions to Ask

Redesign your life now, instead of waiting for $10 million. Tim Ferriss found that his desired lifestyle cost less than he thought, and the resource he lacked was time, not money. Try doing the opposite of what you normally do for 48 hours to find new successful ways of doing things. When you lose something like an investment or opportunity, don’t try to make it back the same way you lost it. Tim Ferriss sold his house instead of wasting time managing it, realizing that his time was a valuable asset that could be used to grow his brand and business.

Book Summary of Oversubscribed by Daniel Priestley

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“Oversubscribed” by Daniel Priestley is a business guide that advocates generating more demand than supply before selling, reducing risk and increasing profits. It is divided into two parts, with the first focusing on building demand and the second on marketing campaigns. The book also includes comparisons with other influential business books and actionable advice on creating remarkable products.

Create More Demand Than You Can Meet

This section focuses on the key lesson of Oversubscribed: To increase profits, attract more customers than you can serve. The benefits of word-of-mouth advertising are also discussed, along with strategies for getting people talking about your business. According to Priestley, this is the most effective way to create demand for your product.

The Core Message: Exploit the Law of Supply and Demand

Oversubscribed aims to increase profits by creating more demand than can be met. Priestley explains that the law of supply and demand affects pricing: high demand allows for high prices and significant profit. Additionally, popular and scarce products continue to generate demand. Therefore, continued advertising is crucial even after demand exceeds supply.

Build Demand Through Word-of-Mouth

Oversubscribed emphasizes the importance of attracting more customers than can be handled, with a significant portion of the book devoted to methods of achieving this goal. Priestley cautions against mass marketing strategies such as commercials and printed ads, which are less effective due to people’s general weariness of being advertised to.

Instead, he advocates for word-of-mouth marketing, which has become more effective than ever thanks to social media. People are more likely to buy products that their friends are using, and social media allows for easy and rapid sharing of information about companies and products.

Here are ways to make people talk about your company:

  1. Be remarkable and unique to stand out.
  2. Undercut competitors’ prices to gain a competitive edge. IKEA is an example.
  3. Offer a more convenient product or service. Streaming services replaced cable TV due to convenience.

Method 2: Advertise Your Company, Not Just Your Products

To build brand loyalty and withstand competition, create a market niche by designing your company’s image. Advertise company values, such as supporting a charity or offering good employee benefits. Additionally, prioritize good customer service and use surveys to improve it.

Drive Interest With Campaigns

To make your business profitable, Priestley advises being a campaign manager, not just a salesperson. Connect with large numbers of people through special events and mailing lists. Priestley’s method for a successful marketing campaign has five phases, which we’ve organized into five steps:

  1. Connect with potential customers through special events and mailing lists.
  2. Build interest with informative and engaging content.
  3. Offer a low-risk way for customers to try your product or service.
  4. Sell your product or service.
  5. Deliver and celebrate your success while continuously innovating.

Step 1: Determine Your Supply

To plan a successful campaign, Priestley recommends determining your business’s capacity in terms of how many customers you can serve and how often. This will vary depending on your business model, such as handmade clothing with limited orders versus a family restaurant serving many customers daily.

Step 2: Prime the Market

To sell successfully, you need to know your target audience and communicate with them clearly. Determine if your ideal customers want and can afford your product, then send regular newsletters to keep them interested. Priestley also suggests offering subscriptions for updates about specific products to maintain the relationship with your customers and gauge their interest.

Step 3: Reach Critical Mass

Priestley’s Oversubscribed emphasizes the importance of having more demand than you can fulfill. To determine the appropriate level of interest before launching your product, Priestley outlines three goals. If you meet at least one, you’re ready to sell:

  1. If there is strong interest, sell when engagement is five times the amount of product, which could be demonstrated through preorders and deposits.
  2. If there is moderate interest, sell when engagement is 10 times the amount of product, which could be shown by event attendance and mailing list signups.
  3. If there is mild interest, sell when engagement is 100 times the amount of product, which could be indicated by clicks, views, and downloads.

Step 4: Make the Sales

After generating enough interest in your product, the next step is to make sales. While this should be a straightforward process, many new companies struggle with it. They feel uneasy about asking for personal information and money, leading to wasted time and failed deals.

However, it’s important to remember that a sales conversation means the customer is already interested in your product, so there’s no need to feel uncomfortable. Simply collect the information and money you need to close the deal confidently.

Step 5: Keep People Talking

After making sales, Priestley suggests exceeding customer expectations to excite them and start the next marketing campaign. This could include free samples or small gifts. You can achieve this by setting customer expectations slightly lower at the start.

However, research suggests that making the most appealing promises you can live up to is the best approach, as exceeding promises doesn’t necessarily make customers happier. Lastly, when starting the next campaign, highlight your business’s success to create demand.

Book Summary of To Sell Is Human by Daniel H. Pink

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Discover the intrinsic human skill of selling and learn how to utilize it for achieving sales results and success in other areas of life through “To Sell Is Human”. Our guide simplifies and supports the ideas of renowned author Daniel Pink, making them easily applicable to your own life.

Everyone’s a Salesperson

Pink argues that the modern workplace has made sales skills essential for all workers, introducing the concept of non-sales selling or contemporary selling. This involves persuading others to exchange resources, not just money, and includes activities such as negotiating prices, job interviews, and even asking someone on a date.

The Traditional ABCs of Sales

Pink believes that sales was previously seen as deceptive and manipulative, but now there are two sales philosophies: the traditional “buyer beware” and the new “seller beware.” The former prioritizes the seller’s benefit and lacks integrity, while the latter emphasizes serving the buyer and requires integrity. Successful salespeople now operate from a place of integrity, rather than using it as a last resort.

Traditional Sales Philosophy

During the 1900s, when traditional sales dominated the stable and consumer-driven economy, the primary objective was profit, as exemplified by the “ABC” acronym (Always Be Closing). This profit-focused approach led salespeople to disregard the buyers’ needs, creating a negative perception of salespeople. For instance, a traditional car salesperson would misrepresent their vehicle’s quality and overcharge buyers to maximize profits, regardless of the buyers’ interests.

What Changed?

The decline of traditional sales was initiated by two factors. Firstly, economic disruption caused by the Great Recession forced workers to expand their skill sets, making sales a necessary skill for everyone.

Additionally, the rise of entrepreneurs also contributed to the need for flexible skill sets, including sales. Secondly, the technology boom disrupted the power imbalance between buyers and sellers, as the internet provided access to information previously monopolized by sellers. This shift forced sellers to prioritize the needs of buyers over their own profits.

The Modern ABCs of Sales

Pink argues that the economic and technological changes have led to the emergence of a new selling philosophy that replaces the old profit-oriented “ABC” approach. This new approach prioritizes meeting the buyer’s needs and is characterized by three strategies: connection, optimism, and focus.

Contemporary Selling Step 1: Connection

Pink views connection as the ability to synchronize and adjust to individuals, communities, and situations to meet their needs.

Pink proposes three methods for practicing connection.

  1. First, mimicking the buyer’s mannerisms to build trust and camaraderie.
  2. Second, adopting the buyer’s perspective to better understand their needs and offer personalized solutions.
  3. And third, power-shifting by treating the buyer as if they hold the power, creating a service-oriented dynamic.

For example, sitting at an equal level and asking, “What are you looking for, and how can I help?” demonstrates a willingness to serve the buyer’s needs.

Contemporary Selling Step 2: Optimism

Optimism is a key aspect of Pink’s modern sales method as it fosters resilience in the face of rejection. In sales, hearing “no” is more common than “yes,” and an optimistic outlook enables the seller to persist in their efforts or move on to the next customer. For instance, if a door-to-door salesman encounters a prospect who seems uninterested, they can remain positive and demonstrate their belief in their product/service. This mindset allows the seller to bounce back from potential setbacks and approach the next customer.

Prepare: Question Yourself

Pink recommends asking targeted, positive questions to prepare for a sales interaction. This helps focus on sales goals and boosts confidence and motivation, leading to better results over time. Examples of such questions include “How can I be of service to this buyer?” or “How can I demonstrate the value of this purchase?”

Maintain: Communicate Positivity

Pink emphasizes the importance of maintaining a positive environment during a sales interaction for both the buyer and seller. Studies show that a healthy ratio of positive to negative sensations increases receptiveness and likelihood of a positive outcome. Therefore, communicate positive information with a minimum 3 to 1 ratio, while still acknowledging a few negatives. Additionally, speak with conviction about your product and create a friendly atmosphere by smiling often and highlighting its positive aspects.

Evaluate: Reflect With Optimism

Pink suggests reflecting on a sales interaction by assuming that negative experiences are temporary, circumstantial, and not personal. This helps to frame the experience positively and influence how you feel about it.

Contemporary Selling Step 3: Focus

Pink’s modern sales model’s third component is creating focus, which involves identifying problems, bringing them to the customer’s attention, and providing solutions. As an example, imagine you’re a tutor and a life coach working with a 12-year-old boy who’s struggling academically due to a lack of self-discipline. By recognizing the issue and offering life coaching instead of tutoring, you provide an effective solution, resulting in significant academic improvements.

Pink offers four ways to create focus for customers:

  1. Problem Finding: Pink’s method is about helping buyers clarify their needs. By being thorough and asking good questions, you can use the information you discover to help your buyer focus on their needs and decide on a solution.
  2. Creating Contrast: Show buyers multiple potential paths they can compare, or use an unfavorable option to highlight the benefits of a more favorable one.If you’re trying to sell a vehicle, for instance, have several vehicles prepared to display to the customer, including one of inferior quality than the others that you may use to emphasize the advantages of the other vehicles.
  3. Selling Experience: Sell experiences rather than products. Framing a sale through the lens of experience focuses a buyer on how they will benefit and is more likely to get them emotionally invested in making a purchase.
  4. Providing a Path: Provide buyers with a clear path to solving their problem. Giving them clear steps and a clear time frame makes them more likely to commit to working with you.

The New Paradigm: Say Goodbye to Sales and Hello to Service

Pink believes that sales should ultimately be about providing a service to others and improving their lives. He suggests two steps for service-oriented sales.

  • Step #1 is to make it personal by showing your passion for the product and focusing on service rather than profit. This creates a connection with the customer and makes your pitch more credible.
  • Step #2 is to make it purposeful by connecting what you’re selling to a broader purpose and framing it that way to potential buyers. This taps into the innate desire to serve and can improve society as a whole.

For example, a teacher can remind themselves that they are not only improving the lives of their students, but also preparing them to improve the world.

Bonus Step: Enlarge Your Service Mindset

Pink distinguishes between upselling, which benefits the seller, and “up-serving,” which benefits the buyer. Upselling involves convincing customers to buy more expensive products or add-ons to benefit the seller. In contrast, up-serving means helping customers identify their unmet needs and finding the best solution for them. For instance, if you’re selling a phone to an elderly customer, up-serving means recommending a simple and reliable phone instead of a high-tech and expensive one to maximize profit.

Book Summary of How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp

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Sharp’s “How Brands Grow” challenges common marketing myths and proposes new empirical rules. He advocates for mass marketing to attract new customers and focuses on making brands memorable rather than unique. Sharp asserts that mass marketing is still the most effective way to grow.

Rule #1: Market to New Customers, Never to Existing Customers

Sharp challenges the common belief that retaining existing customers is cheaper than acquiring new ones. He argues that data suggests marketing to new customers can be more profitable than to existing ones.

Focus on Value Over Retention or Acquisition

Sharp’s view on customer retention versus acquisition is challenged by some who suggest that an effective marketing strategy should focus on retaining or acquiring the most valuable customers, identified by their customer lifetime value (CLV).

Tim Ferriss used this approach to increase profits by identifying and nurturing his top five most valuable clients, who generated 95% of his profits. By adopting a CLV-oriented approach, marketers can prioritize the retention and acquisition of the most valuable customers, regardless of the initial cost, as they have the potential to drive a significant portion of sales.

The Fixed Pattern of Brand Growth

Sharp argues that brand growth primarily comes from acquiring new customers, not from retaining existing ones or increasing their purchase frequency.

He discovered this through analyzing financial data from multiple brands, which showed a “fixed pattern of brand growth” where market penetration increases dramatically with market share, while customer retention and purchase frequency only increase slightly. Based on this data, Sharp suggests that brands should focus on acquiring new customers to achieve growth.

Marketing Strategies That Fail

Sharp advises against loyalty programs and promotional discounts for existing customers, which he believes are ineffective for brand growth.

However, existing customers still play a role in attracting new customers through word-of-mouth. Blanchard and Bowles offer tips on using customer service as an outreach tool to acquire new customers, such as collecting and acting on feedback, keeping employees happy, and setting realistic expectations.

Why Loyalty Programs Fail

Marketing to existing buyers is generally a waste of money as they tend to make purchases without intervention. Loyalty programs aim to incentivize existing customers to buy more often, but data shows that members don’t buy any more frequently than non-members.

This is because people generally only buy when they need something, and their purchase schedules are fixed. Sharp argues that marketing to new customers is more effective, as it waits for consumers to need a product and then influences them to choose your brand over competitors.

Why Promotional Discounts Fail

Sharp suggests that promotional discounts are not a profitable way to increase sales to existing customers. While discounts may seem like an effective way to encourage repeat purchases, they can ultimately decrease profit margins and reduce future sales.

Business brand scribbled on a notepad

Rule #2: Market to Everyone, Never to a Specific Demographic

In Rule #1, we learned that marketers profit more from getting new customers rather than focusing on customer loyalty. Rule #2 shows how marketers often fail to market to new customers effectively. Sharp believes that targeting a specific demographic may not increase sales, and instead recommends marketing to as many demographics as possible.

Most Market Divisions Don’t Exist

Sharp suggests that targeting specific demographics is often ineffective since markets are less segmented than believed. Competing brands often share similar customer bases, and consumers purchase a range of products depending on their mood.

Marketers who assume a narrow market risk missing out on potential customers and setting low sales goals. Therefore, marketers should aim for a broader audience to attract more customers.

Evidence That Most Market Divisions Don’t Exist

Sharp provides evidence to support his claim that most companies operate in mass markets. He suggests analyzing the overlap between the customer bases of two brands to determine their competition.

According to Sharp, specialized brands assumed to serve niche markets have the same percentage of buyers with their niche competitors as generic brands, indicating they are competing in the mass market. Therefore, most market niches do not exist.

Rule #3: Market to Be Memorable, Not Unique

How can marketers surpass their competitors when traditional marketing methods fail? By understanding consumer decision-making and using it to influence brand preference.

How Consumers Choose Which Brand to Buy

Consumers don’t prioritize branding in their purchasing decisions, making targeted marketing ineffective. Even if a brand is perceived as “trendy” or “wholesome,” opinions often change. Most consumers don’t compare brands and instead buy without much thought.

People have adapted to the brand-filled world by filtering out branded messaging. Crafting a compelling value proposition may not be enough to break through their mental filters.

Consumers Buy Whatever Brand Is Present

Sharp suggests that consumers don’t evaluate many options when deciding which brand to buy. Instead, they choose from a few immediate options, either physically or conceptually present.

Brand recognition and frequency of thinking about a brand matter more than consumer perception. If a customer recognizes a brand and briefly considers buying it, they’re more likely to purchase it over a competitor’s brand they don’t recognize.

Increase Your Presence With Memorable Branding

Sharp suggests that to market your brand effectively, you should increase the likelihood that consumers will think about it. This can be achieved by advertising regularly to create brand memories, using recognizable brand assets consistently, and expanding your brand’s reach to increase its visibility.

Strategy #1: Advertise Regularly

Sharp suggests that regular advertising can create brand memories, increasing the likelihood that consumers will consider your brand in the future.

Memorable ads that grab the audience’s attention and emotionally engage them work best, even if they’re not logically persuasive. However, the ad must prominently connect to the brand in a memorable way, or the audience may not remember the brand when it’s time to choose which one to buy.

Strategy #2: Create Recognizable Brand Assets and Keep Them Consistent

Sharp suggests creating recognizable brand assets such as a logo, color scheme, and memorable brand name. When potential customers recognize these assets, they’ll recall positive memories of your brand and be more likely to buy.

To maintain this connection, it’s crucial to keep these assets consistent throughout your brand’s lifespan. Changing them increases the likelihood of your audience ignoring your brand entirely, as the link to past experiences is removed.

Strategy #3: Expand Your Brand’s Reach

To increase brand visibility, Sharp suggests expanding through various channels and making it easier for consumers to notice your product. This includes using recognizable signs, appearing on search engines, and being readily available in stores. The more often consumers see your brand, the more likely they are to recall it and make a purchase.