Since an unfortunate vestige of mutual fund sales material is: you need to invest for the long-term. and That it is OK if your investments are going down because these are long-term investments. These phrases and beliefs destroy portfolios and compounded returns.

To me, investing is simply day-trading in slow motion. In my view, when people dont have an investing plan they use the excuse, Im investing for the long-term. But, I find that all the successful trading rules that apply to a professional currency trader with a leveraged $250 million position also apply to someone with $25 in a mutual fund. If the mutual fund owner calls it investing, he thinks he is immune from all the decision-making required of all ownership; ignoring the fact that every structure require maintenance.

Lets take a closer look at maintenance; look at a home everything but the dirt needs to be maintained. Time, weather, and events take their toll on the floors, appliances, roof, windows, landscaping, etc. The same rules apply to owning a rental home. And the same rules apply to owning a strip mall, or an airport or manufacturing plant. The same rules actually apply to every business; the building, the equipment, the employees, the vehicles, the marketing plan, the product design, and the websites. Now if investing or trading is a business (or you are trading or investing in businesses) what makes you think your portfolio doesnt need to be maintained just like everything else? I am here to tell you that it does need to be maintained. In spite of long-term investing theories and cautions from your stockbroker or magazine headlines, most of the time you spend on investing would be considered maintenance.

How I define maintenance is continued review, evaluation, and action in alignment with your investing goals. Now the maintenance that they need is continual review. Is it meeting your expectations? Maintenance means information review: changes to your market view, interest rates, inflation, recession, the industry, a new federal law, an inter-country trade dispute, etc. Maintenance also means portfolio review. For example, , if a run up in real estate has unbalanced your portfolio, you may want to sell off weaker real estate holdings or, instead, sell off the strongest real estate holdings if the market prices are starting to fall back. Maintenance is also the mechanics of setting up alerts if a stock has fallen too far and you want to place a stop-loss order to get out, or an alert for a profit target that is about to be reached. Maintenance could simply be a monthly review to evaluate whether the stock is still above its 200-day moving average price.

Whatever the manner you want to address investment and portfolio maintenance, you need to start building your own trading rules, checklists for what to do before you enter a trade, and what could possibly trigger your exit of a position. Keep a journal to see how your rules are growing your account to notice which of them needs to be changed, eliminated, or updated. All of this is the maintenance required for the $25 mutual fund investment so that it doesnt become a $0.25 investment from neglect.

To the axiom: A fool and his money are soon parted, I would add this corollary: An amateur investor and his long-term investments are soon parted. Amateur investors that are not willing to perform the ongoing duties required to grow their investments rarely perform well. While a professional trader who carefully analyzes and executes his trading rules can count on the continued successful growth of their portfolio.

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When you start your own business, you commit to investing your time, talent and resources in the business to make it succeed. You authorize a spending plan; you ask the bank, your credit card company, friends, family, employees, to endow the business to follow your business plan and implement your marketing plan. There’s more to it. You need to determine where you can differentiate your company from the competition, so where should you invest the most resources? To garner the most flexibility, I suggest your investment priorities should be: Brand Capital, then Human Capital, followed by Working Capital with Physical Capital at the bottom of the list.

Brand Capital: Invest the most in your market and marketing to them. Up front this could simply be focusing on a small group of prospects. Do the economics to make them well satisfied customers. So much so, that they provide the testimonials or become the spokespersons for your future sales. Remember, the high value transfer of using relationships.

Human Capital: This is your team and their track record coming on board. Only hire stars, no matter what. Only employ experts in the key roles of your company. For other positions, look for great talent you can mold to your vision, and move around to meet the company’s needs.

In addition, build a stellar Board of Advisors or Board of Directors. A Board of Advisors usually will help you for free, whereas a Board of Directors is paid. The key is to engage thought leaders in your niche who become early adopters of your product or service and advocate for you to their significant networks.

Working Capital: Invest minimally here because there’s no added value to the company or the product. Tying up cash instead of using credit may actually slow your time to market. This could be a critical timing mistake if your competition is racing you to market.

Physical Capital: Invest minimally here because bricks and mortar don’t sell product. Yes, you need a roof and windows that don’t leak (I’ve worked with many startups in the old mills where workstation layout was based on the leaks and drips.). You don’t need to be a miser. And you need the equipment, technologies and conveniences that will make everyone highly productive. Cost- effectiveness should be weighed here too.

Whenever you are investing in your business, recognize that you cannot manage everything, but you can manage the value equation of each investment. Be sure the value to your business is outstanding, so you can win business with every sale.

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ROI

Return On Investment, the ROI, refers to the amount of profit you earn on every dollar spent. Two businesses may sell product A for $100 each. Company A may have an ROI of $40. Company B has an ROI of $20.

Both of these companies sell the same product, for the same price, but company A is better organized, has fewer expenses, and sells more products for the same cost.

A low ROI can be the result of poor office management, or a poor sales record. There are several different factors that may lower the ROI. But, in short, the ROI is based on the number of sales you can generate on your yearly operating budget.

The more sales you generate, the higher your ROI.

There are several ways to increase your ROI. The first is to take a close look at the cost of operating your business. Many businesses operate under a lot of waste. They hire a full time secretary when outsourcing would be sufficient.

The second method is to tighten up the companys sales network. This may involve spending money on research. It may require and investment in time to learn what your consumers want, need, and what problems draw them to your product or service.

Two-Way Marketing

Most companies that have a low ROI also lack a two-way marketing plan. They may do market research, or run some surveys, but they also lack of two way communication between the company and the consumer.

Many high-profile companies believe that courses, convention weekends, and marketing surveys are good substitutes for two-way communication between the company and the consumer.

Unfortunately, all of these types of marketing are one way. They keep the company in control of the information control. The consumer has only two choices. They may respond to the company representative or agent, or they may remain quiet.

Two-way marketing allows customers the opportunity to voice their opinions, concerns, and write their own content. Then the company collects the information and uses it for marketing, even if it contradicts their current target marketing efforts.

Television companies do this. They consider that 1 response to a program is worth 1000 responses. So, a company that has 10 responses that suggest a new problem, or concern, can represent another 9000 or 90 000 people who did not take the time to respond.

This type of marketing is not an inconvenience to overlook. It is a powerful marketing tool that can be used to find secondary markets or products that might increase your ROI.

For example, lets say that you sell a how to start a business course. However, your course package offers a mentorship program that includes 1 hour a month with a certified Success coach. This not only sells a business to consumers, but it sells problem solving.

Profit

Increasing ROI will also increase the profit. There are a thousand methods of increasing an ROI. The easiest to understand, and cheapest, is to build two-way marketing between the consumer and the company.

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