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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Finding buyers for investment properties does not have to be a complex marketing battle. In fact, successful real estate investors often find buyers and tenants for their properties before the even purchase a piece of real estate. They do this by focusing on other real estate investors. Other real estate investors are always looking for properties to buy, so if you can supply them with properties, you will have a steady stream of potential clients at your beck and call.

Developing a list of investor clients willing to buy your properties is as simple as:

1) Developing a brand. In order to have investors remember you, you need to develop a brand or identity that stands out. This can be as simple as wearing a distinctive style of clothing, having a polished image, being approachable and personable, or having a specific niche or focus that is intriguing. Even a memorable business name or business card can go a long way towards ensuring that people remember you.

2) Looking for title records. Visit a title company or get to know a local real estate broker to find local title records. Good investors who are interested in buying and selling lots of properties show up on these records very regularly, so when a few names show up in the records again and again, you know that those are contacts you want to make.

3) Marketing. When you eventually have your list of investors, you will have to do less marketing work in order to sell your investment properties. However, at the beginning, especially, you will need to market in order to generate a list of potential investors interested in your homes. To do this, hand out brochures, business cards, and other marketing materials to everyone you know. Try targeting your ads to places where you know investors visit. For example, sign up for the local investors club or advertise in a local publication that investors tend to read.

4) Look for street signs. Any signs that say “We Buy Houses” are generally from investors, and you generally want to get to know the people who are pasting around the signs in your area. You want to contact these people when you have investment properties you want to sell, and you want these people to call you when they come across business opportunities that they don’t want but which you might find intriguing.

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Mastery in most areas of life includes learning to conserve extraneous movement and effort. When it is done right it looks simple and onlookers often say “Well, I could do that.” But the “wanna be” soon finds that it is not as easy as it seems. Trading can be frustrating and discouraging, but when the market seems to get you down and you feel like you will never get it, remember Sean Connery’s famous line, “Impossible, but doable.”

Too often, traders experience real highs and real lows. While the give and take is normal and expected, big swings are usually the result of changing stride or technique inappropriately. Finding your stride or niche can really make the trading life a lot more consistent and smooth and therefore, profitable. Getting to know a few terrific trading stocks rather than collecting all the potential candidates from recommendations and scans begins to overwhelm a trader and changes the rifle shot accuracy to a shotgun splatter.

So, a while back in a Trader Talk Live training a student wrote “- the past 7 days of trading have been absolutely fantastic. I have confirmed again the value of following just a few stocks and getting to learn (as much as possible) their behavior. PD is one of my all time favorites”. She was referring to a principle that is trained in the Trader’s Forge two day trading camp that I conduct once a month. I advise students to build a stable of good trading stocks and get to know them. Pick your favorite 6-10 and back trade them repeatedly. Learn to recognize the patterns of behavior. Does it behave in similar ways around earnings? Does it make clean or sloppy turns? Does it have a tendency to throw certain chart patterns? In doing so, you get a feel for the traders who influence the stock and improve your chances to repeatedly tap that stock for pattern trades.

The patterns we observe are the behavior of people. Key Traders are interacting with various levels of traders, brokers, fund managers and the public. This cast of players is unique in each stock or group of stocks, bonds, commodities etc. Hence, unique patterns develop and that is the key. Instead of flitting around like a butterfly from bush to bush looking for a new flower, you can find certain flowers that keep producing on a regular cycle. You develop a routine and learn the cycle so that you can just stick around and harvest over and over again.

I have a friend who taught me this principle in a dramatic way. He had a very narrow group of stocks that he got to know and not only did he learn the patterns, but he also studied the company’s behavior. He knew how they acted around earnings, what products they were releasing, and how their stock responded to economic news and events. One year alone, he made over $750,000 trading one company. It was interesting to note that others seeing his success always wanted to know, “What’s it going to do next?” Like the children’s story of the Little Red Hen, most fellow traders wanted to cash in on his valuable insight and very few asked him to teach them how to trade like he traded. It was folly to think that if he gave them the information, they would also gain the skill it took to glean the information. That, however, is human nature.

It is the nature of most folks to want to find the easiest way. Most want to find a secret or a magic strategy. A good deal of the GDP of this country is based on selling the sizzle, not the steak. We search for the fountain of youth, the short cut, and the edge so to speak, but in the end one universal constant remains. Working smart is better than working hard. And in the end, the magic is usually finding the key or core of the matter and developing some simple and specialized skills.

If you can find a piece of good ground that can be cultivated and harvested over and over again, you find one of the jewels of trading. The secret of most millionaires is finding a stream of residual income. Patterns are there because people are creatures of habit and the market is just people. With six to ten good pattern trading stocks in the price range you like, there will always be something ready to trade. When you run across a great stock, you can replace the weakest one in your stable and place it on the bench until it warrants taking a position on the starting lineup.

The problems come when a trader chases the latest hot stock or lets their field of vision widen too far. When you find an account size and a group of stocks and a few strategies that work, stick with it!!! And don’t mess with it and Dance with what ‘brung ya’.

I would love to have you spend a couple days with me in the Trader’s Forge. As a trading coach, that is where I can do the most good for you. I train folks in the Trader Talk Live mentoring workshops each week but that training is most beneficial to the folks who have been to the two day training of the Forge. Last week was a terrific training in Tampa. This month is Denver and then on to Detroit.

I hope to see you in the online web training classes held throughout the week and soon in a two day FORGE Trading workshop.

Ryan with Better Trade

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