Do You Need Capital for Your Small Business, Without Incurring Debt?

In the next few days, I want to help more than 40,000 small business owners position themselves to generate more than $100,000 in capital each, and up to $250,000 in stock value or more later this year.

That's not all!

I also want to position these 40,000 small business owners on the world's largest e-commerce urban mall, and the newest national television shopping channel.

Consider the facts of this amazing opportunity.

E-commerce has expanded rapidly and consistently over the past 10 years. For an interesting overview of the growth of e-commerce, consider several facts and statistics from an article by John B. Horrigan, associate director , Pew Internet & American Life Project. The following data is taken from a report published in 2008. Therefore, please understand that the numbers have improved markedly since then.

Two-thirds (66%) of online Americans say they have purchased a product online, such as a book, toy, music, or clothing. Attitudes and perceptions play a key role in whether online users choose to purchase products online.

• 78% of internet users either agree (53%) or agree strongly (25%) with the proposition that shopping online is convenient for them.
• 68% of internet users either agree (47%) or agree strongly (21%) that online shopping saves them time.

While the number of people using the internet to do research about products or to conduct transactions online has grown since 2000, revenues for online sales have increased at a much faster rate.

• Some 22% of Americans said they had ever bought a product online in 2000, a number that grew to 49% in September 2007.
• 35% of Americans said they had used the internet to do some product-related research online in 2000, a number that grew to 60% in September 2007.

At the same time, according to the Census Bureau, revenues for online purchasing have grown by nearly fivefold in this time period -- from $7.4 billion in the third quarter of 2000 to $34.7 billion in the third quarter of 2007.

The big picture: Shopping on the internet has become commonplace among internet users for a number of different activities connected to researching and doing transactions online.

Almost all internet users (93%) have at one time or another done something related to e-commerce. That is, they have used the internet to research products and services, made purchases, such as book travel, trade stocks, or participate in auctions. On any given day, more than a quarter of internet users (26%) are doing something online related to e-commerce.

• 81% of internet users have used the internet to do research about a product they are thinking about buying, with 20% doing this on the typical day.
• 66% of online users have purchased a product online, such as books, music, or clothing, with 6% saying they do this on the typical day.
• 64% have bought or made a travel reservation online, such as an airline ticket, hotel room, or rental car, with 4% doing so on the average day.
• 26% have participated in an online auction, with 3% doing this on the average day.
• 17% have paid to access or download digital content, such as a newscast, sporting event, or radio show; some 4% do this on the typical day.
• 11% have bought or sold stocks online, and just 1% do this on the average day.

Those numbers should tweak your interest. As exciting as the picture painted by those statistics appears to be, the scenario continuously improves. Imagine this:

What if just 10 visionaries decided to accept the challenge to each generate more than $100,000 in business capital efficiently and effectively? Now suppose that those 10 visionaries located 10 others who made the same decision. Then those 100 visionaries repeated the process, bringing the network of vision-leaders to 1,000 small business owners generating the capital they need to launch and operate successful business ventures.

I will not take the time here to explain the details about this amazing opportunity. I will, however, include a resource with this article that provides those details. Here, though, I want to discuss the concepts that build barriers that often keep us locked into failure.

For example, what if Chattanooga, TN attorneys Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead had asked you on June 30, 1899 to invest $369 to help them establish a bottling company in their home town? What if they assured you that this bottling company, under contract with an established fountain drink manufacturer, would eventually become a multi-billion dollar, internationally franchised corporation, and your $369 investment would make you a multi-millionaire in a very short time? Would you have believed them, particularly if you did not know them personally? Would you have accepted the opportunity?

No? Well, as Drew Pearson used to say, now you shall [read] the rest of the story. The following is quoted from the Tennessee Enclyclopedia of History and Culture:

"On July 21, 1899, Chattanooga attorneys Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead signed an agreement with Asa Candler, president of the Coca-Cola Company, to receive exclusive rights to bottle the soft drink throughout most of the United States. Fellow Chattanooga attorney John T. Lupton soon became the third partner to help finance the first bottling plant in Chattanooga. By September 1899 the plant had opened at 17 Market Street, and the first advertisement appeared offering the soft drink in bottles. The venture took "Coke" from the southern drugstore counter and made it a national and international drink."

Within months, it had become apparent to the partners that they needed a franchise system to expand as rapidly as the contract with Candler required. They decided to split the territory between them. Thomas received control of most of the eastern United States, from Chattanooga north, plus California, Oregon, and Washington. Whitehead and Lupton shared control of the rest of the country, primarily in the South and West. Each partner established "parent" bottlers who granted franchises to local bottlers in their territory. Thomas's company, rechartered in 1900 as Coca-Cola Bottling Company, kept its headquarters in Chattanooga."

In 1902 Thomas sold the Chattanooga bottling plant in order to concentrate on franchise development. This, the first franchised Coca-Cola bottler in the world, still operates as the Chattanooga Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Hereafter, the parent bottling companies did not actually bottle anything but acted as middlemen, buying syrup from the Atlanta Coca-Cola Company and selling it to the franchise bottlers in their territory. By the 1950s there were some eleven hundred franchises descended from the parent bottlers. Beginning in the 1920s, the Coca-Cola Company began a long and expensive process of buying back all the bottling franchise rights Candler had sold in 1899 for one dollar. The corporation repurchased Coca-Cola Bottling Company (Thomas) in 1974 and the Lupton interests in 1986. "

In 1954, what if a man named Ray Kroc, another person you did not know previously, had asked you to invest $369 in the idea of franchising a chain of restaurants where customers had no choices about what they ordered from the menu, and walked up to a window to place and receive their orders? Would you have invested?

Maybe not! Well, click the first link in the resources box accompanying this article and read the rest of the story.

Consider just one more example.

What if a Texan named Kenny Troutt, who had recently lost a fortune when the Texas oil well bonanza went bust, told you that in 1988 he would be forming a telecommunications company to take advantage of the governmental de-regulation of telephone services and that in eight years this company would become a billion dollar public corporation, the youngest firm at the time on the New York Stock Exchange. You needed $369 to get started. Would you have bought in? No? Well, read the rest of the story, quoted from an article on the Internet site--Answers:

"EXCEL went public in May 1996, selling ten million shares, or approximately nine percent of the company's stock, on the New York Stock Exchange. Founder and CEO Kenneth Troutt holds approximately 65 percent of the company. With shares trading in late 1996 at around $20 per share (after reaching a high of $47 per share in June 1996) Troutt's worth was estimated at $1.4 billion. "

EXCEL has managed to avoid the expensive marketing costs of its competitors; in fact, EXCEL actually makes money from its marketing activities. Rather than pursue the expensive television advertisements, print campaigns, or direct mail efforts of its competitors, EXCEL markets its services solely through a vast network of independent representatives, each of whom receives commissions based on a percentage of the calls made by the subscribers they sign up, as well as on the number of new independent representatives they recruit into the company. Called "multilevel marketing," this technique has been successfully used by companies such as Amway, Mary Kay Cosmetics, and Herbalife to sell products ranging from beauty supplies to vitamins and beyond. In 1996, there were more than one million independent EXCEL representatives. Approximately 25 percent of the company's revenues are generated by signing up new independent representatives, at a rate of about 250,000 per month. "

EXCEL was founded by CEO Kenneth Troutt in 1988 and began operations in 1989. But in his youth, Troutt, who was 48 years old in 1996, probably seemed unlikely to become one of Texas's, and the United States', wealthiest men. Troutt was born in Mount Vernon, a small town in the south of Illinois. According to Troutt, his father was a bartender and alcoholic who went through a succession of jobs. About his father, Troutt told the Dallas Morning News, "We didn't get along." Instead, Troutt and his siblings were raised by his mother, growing up in a Mount Vernon housing project. "

Yet, from his earliest years, Troutt, fueled by seeing other children with things his mother could not afford to buy for her family, dreamed of wealth. In fourth grade, when a teacher asked his class what they planned to be when they grew up, Troutt replied, as he told the Dallas Morning News: "I want to be rich." Not yet a teenager, Troutt set up a lawn mowing business, hiring his brothers and cousins to do the work. Later, Troutt became quarterback for his high school football team, which in turn led to a partial scholarship at Southern Illinois University. "

Initially, Troutt planned to attend law school. But Troutt's ability as a salesman began to show while he was still in college. Working part-time as a life insurance salesman, Troutt became the insurance company's top seller by his senior year. He gave up the idea of law school, telling Forbes simply, "[I] found out I was good in sales." From college, Troutt moved to Nebraska, where he started up a real estate and construction business. The business ran into trouble, however, during the recession of the early 1980s. By 1983, with interest rates reaching 20 percent, Troutt dissolved his construction company. His next stop was Dallas, where he started an oil brokerage business. But the Texas oil industry collapsed shortly after, and Troutt once again found himself out of work. "

With these experiences behind him, Troutt set out in search of his vision of the perfect business: A product that everyone needs; that requires no inventory and has a distribution structure already in place; that is consumable, thereby creating continual demand; that has relatively low start-up costs and remains, unlike oil, somewhat stable in price; and, last, a product that continues to generate income after the initial sale. Troutt's brother, an accountant, suggested the recently deregulated telecommunications industry. "

Troutt soon found inspiration for his future company from telecommunications upstart Sprint. In the mid-1980s, Sprint was running its own direct marketing venture, called Network 2000, which allowed that company to join AT&T and MCI at the top of the industry. As Troutt told Success, one of his former oil company employees brought the idea to him, suggesting, "We could hire these college girls to stand out in front of Safeway and hire college guys to walk up and down residential areas and pay them $2 per application. Then we'd get the commission from Network 2000." But Troutt, reasoning that he would not make his fortune through Sprint, developed a different plan."

You missed each of those three amazing opportunities. You missed Coca Cola because you were not born. That's a valid reason. You missed McDonald's because you either were not born, or were too young to have the money to invest, even if you had recognized the opportunity. Both of those are valid reasons.

You missed Excel either because you were not born--if you're between 18-20-years-old now , or you were too young, if you were born during the late 1980s or the early 1990s. Again, those are valid reasons to have missed an opportunity.

Now if you were old enough to recognize the Excel Opportunity, maybe even heard about it, or was approached with it, and had the money to invest, why did you miss it?

Napoleon Hill provides several answers to that question in his classic work--Think and Grow Rich.

Consider this answer: "One of the main weaknesses of mankind is the average man's familiarity with the word 'impossible.' He knows all the rules which will NOT work. He knows all things which CANNOT be done . . .A great many years ago I purchased a fine dictionary. The first thing I did with it was to turn to the word 'impossible' and neatly clip it out of the book. That would not be an unwise thing for you to do. Success comes to those who become SUCCESS CONSCIOUS. Failure comes to those who indifferently allow themselves to become FAILURE CONSCIOUS."

Consider another answer.

"Another weakness found in altogether too many people is the habit of measuring everything, and everyone by their own impressions and beliefts. Some who will read this will believe that no one can THINK AND GROW RICH. They cannot think in terms of riches because their thought habits have been steeped in poverty, want, misery, failure and defeat . . .We refuse to believe that which we do not understand."

Those reasons, all invalid excuses, explain why most people who read this article will not believe that I want to help 40,000 individuals earn more than $100,000 in the next few days, along with more than $250,000 in stock value some time later this year.

But for those few who believe, allow me to share with you what Napoleon wrote in his book as a specific strategy to get wealth. Consider this: "Every human being, who reaches the age of understanding of the purpose of money, wishes for it. Wishing will not bring riches. But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize failure, will bring riches."

"The method by which DESIRE for riches can be transmuted into its financial equivalent consists of six definite, partical steps:

First step--Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. It is not sufficient merely to say, 'I want plenty of money.'; Be definite as to the amount. (There is a psychological reason for definiteness which will be described in a subsequent chapter).

Second step--Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. (There is no such reality as 'something for nothing.)"

Third step--Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.

Fourth step--Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire, and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.

Fifth step--Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.

Sixth step--Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night, and once after arising in the morning. AS YOU READ--SEE AND FEEL AND BELIEVE YOURSELF ALREADY IN POSSESSION OF THE MONEY."

I have the written plan, the amount you can achieve, the amount you must invest, the time it takes, and when you need to get started. Click on the second link in the resources box and study the details at my Greater Power Community Services website.

See you at the top!