Income opportunities worth millions abound on today’s internet and within the business world. Now, more than ever, it is possible to launch your own business and actually be successful. You can even incorporate a brick and mortar storefront into an online market. Sell PLR, create your own information exchange, even earn passive income through programs such as affiliate programs and click-throughs.

You can sell directly to your customers and obtain instant feedback from them so that you can improve and grow your business even further. The opportunities are limitless. There are, however some pitfalls that you should avoid when building, nurturing, growing and maintaining your business. Any of these can cause all of your efforts at growth of your business to crumble. When pursuing those income opportunities worth millions, keep these then handy tips in mind.

1. Cheap or free web hosts make you look unprofessional and cheap. Consider your web site an investment. If you want income opportunities worth millions then your web site should have a million dollar appearance.

2. Unnecessary additions will drive away customers. Extensively graphical, sound, flash and other extras can make your page tough to load. Some browsers can’t handle your graphics or other extras unless the customer downloads a plug in. The will just go elsewhere.

3. Ignoring your customers is death to a company. When you do not ask for your customer’s feedback and ignore their inquiries, questions and comments, you are sending a message to the customer that they are not important to you.

4. Failure to manage your time. Time management is crucial to your productivity and success. Your time is money and spending your time on frivolous activities will cause you to lose valuable time that will cause you to lose those income opportunities worth millions.

5. Not paying attention to the quality of your emails that you send to prospects and customers. Your correspondence is a direct reflection of your business. At least spell check your work and make sure that your writing is grammatically correct. For income opportunities worth millions, present a million dollar image.

6. Not keeping in touch with your customers and prospects with opt in lists. Create an opt in list for your customers and prospects so that you can inform them about site updates, new products, sales, special deals and information.

7. Don’t ruin your business’s reputation with advertising that is inappropriate. For income opportunities worth millions, keep your reputation pristine by refraining from spam and other unwanted correspondence.

8. You can not achieve success without marketing. All income opportunities worth millions are based in marketing. You have to market in order to gain ground and be successful.

9. You won’t get rich overnight, just like any other kind of business; an online business must be nurtured and grown in steps. Building a business is work and you have to be committed just as you would with any income opportunities worth millions.

10. Not collecting email addresses, to market successfully online, you need people to market to. Take every opportunity to collect email addresses from your visitors to create a permissioned list to continue marketing to your target audience.

The conclusion is harness the power of internet. The internet can bring customers to you from all over the world. The internet can provide to you income opportunities worth millions and help you earn those millions.

Winson Lim is an Internet Home Business Expert who specialists in Online Businesses. He is with a team of enthusiastic online entrepreneurs who are experiences growth in their home business and recently made a sales of $10,045 in only 24hrs just by sending 5 emails without a list and a website. Find out how you can get into the action NOW at this web site http://www.success-online-secrets.com

It seems that almost everywhere I go on an outdoor excursion (especially when hunting for waterfalls), mosquitoes are around. It doesn’t matter whether I’m in the alpine meadows and forests of California’s Sierras, the moors of Northern Norway, the tropical jungles of the Pacific Islands, the billabongs of Northern Australia, or even the desert oases of Southern Utah. It seems that mosquitoes are everywhere looking to draw my blood. And the itchy welts they leave afterwards can be quite annoying.

So why are they everywhere? Is there any cause for concern about them? What can be done to cope with them? To answer these questions, I did a little research and found out that in Nature’s system of checks and balances there are things we ought to know about these pesky little buggers.

There are many reasons why mosquitoes are so widespread around the planet. Like almost all organisms, they rely on water to survive, but in this case, they tend to favor standing pools of water to lay eggs. Standing pools of water can be found at some moments during the year in nearly all climate zones except the arctic cold of the polar regions (though Global Warming is changing this). For example, melting snow in the alpine regions can saturate the ground in late spring and early summer to create marshy conditions full of standing water in meadows, valleys, and plateaus. This also explains why mosquitoes are found in the desert lining rivers, creeks, and springs as water is scarce and only concentrated in these areas on the surface. Moreover, the tropical regions are natural places to harbor standing pools of water as the humidity, frequent rainfall, and dense vegetation help maintain the conditions favorable to mosquitoes throughout the year. In fact, the tropical regions are where the species are most abundant, and unlike other climate zones, they do not have population variations where their numbers significantly reduce or grow depending on the seasons. So given all these factors, it’s no wonder why I constantly run into mosquitoes in my waterfall adventures as we standing water is an inevitable part of such ecosystems.

Fossil records have shown that mosquitoes have survived for over 30 million years, and related ancestral species have dated back to over 100 million years. This means that they have not only used this time to successfully spread their population throughout the world, but that they have evolved to become very good at what passing on their genes to their offspring to prolong their existence as a species. It’s surprising to note that for the most part, it’s only the female mosquitoes that bite. That’s because they need the proteins from the blood of birds and mammals (including humans) to properly nourish their eggs, which are laid in mostly standing water habitats. Their sensor-like design is perfectly adapted to detect chemicals, motion, and heat. For example, they can detect carbon dioxide and lactic acid emissions from our breathing and our sweat, they can sense when something contrasting with the background moves, and they can tell if something is giving off heat (especially from warm-blooded organisms). Take all of these factors into account and it’s no wonder why mosquitoes never seem to leave you alone as well as hone in on you like a heat-seeking missile.

The mechanism by which mosquitoes draw blood is through a multi-syringe-like mouth called the proboscis. It is through the proboscis that saliva (containing anticoagulants) is secreted to keep the blood from clotting and thus making it easier for the mosquito to draw blood - often times without you feeling anything due to an anesthetic-like substance. However, it’s also this saliva that tends to induce an allergic reaction that often swells and becomes itchy. That’s usually when we finally realize that we’ve been bitten. Usually their bites are merely annoyances, but mosquitoes can also pick up viruses and bacteria from one organism and transmit them to others - thus making them disease vectors. It is this fact alone that has perhaps made mosquitoes one of the biggest killers (at least to humans) on the planet. It has been said that more people have died from mosquito-borne illnesses such as Yellow Fever, Malaria, Encephalitis (including West Nile), Dengue Fever, etc. than has all the wars throughout human history combined! Mosquito-born diseases are transmitted to 69 million people with 5.3 million of them dying every year. This explains why certain regions of the world seem to be very prone to such diseases (e.g. the presence of malaria in Malaysia). With the advent of Global Warming, the population of mosquitoes and the consequent spread of diseases will increase as more parts of the planet will have climates favorable to their existence.

There are some measures we can take in order to prevent or minimize the adverse impacts of mosquitoes on us while participating in nature-based activities. One approach is to wear enough clothing to minimize the amount of exposed skin. The problem with this is that mosquitoes are usually located in warm and humid areas so this can make you unbearably hot while losing more water through sweat to keep the body cool. A second approach is to apply bug repellant containing DEET, which seems to be quite effective in confusing the mosquitoes’ chemical sensors. Unfortunately, there are certain health risks associated with this chemical (it has been known to burn plastic) so it ultimately comes down to a trade-off between your assessment of the risk of disease versus the unintended effects of DEET. There are other types of repellant out there, but they don’t seem as effective (e.g. in my experience, Avon’s Skin So Soft hardly works even though it’s not as toxic as DEET-based repellants). Finally, you can do the best you can to keep moving since mosquitoes can only fly so fast and for so long. Usually a combination of the above measures gives you the least chance getting bit by a mosquito while being out in nature because each of these measures has drawbacks.

In conclusion, the relationship between mosquitoes and humans are all part of the checks and balances of Nature and natural selection. In other words, we are part of the food chain and the cycle of life. And it is for this reason that they play a key role in supplying food for other insects and more complex organisms feeding on them. So we ought to respect the mosquitoes as survivors as well as role players in the overall scheme of things. Even though most of us don’t like them, they’re here to stay so we mind as well cope with living with them.

Johnny T. Cheng is author of the award-winning A Guide to New Zealand Waterfalls (Story Nature Press).

Find out more about his book at http://www.storynature.com or visit his waterfalls blog at http://www.world-of-waterfalls.com.

Sitting around the garden, relaxing by the side of a beautiful pond, listening to the soothing sounds of bubbling, tumbling water whilst watching some amazing coloured Koi Carp swimming lazily around it’s edges is the dream of most avid koi keepers.

Nishikigoi are wonderful fish coming in a variety of colours and patterns unlike any other type of pond or coldwater fish. When swimming in clear, dark water (the best type) their shear size give them a regal, battleship type of appearance.

Creating a koi pond can be an expensive, time consuming experience, especially for the rookie pond keeper. It will also mean giving up a large section of your garden over to our fishy friends and their new home.

Good filtration and water quality are essential to the wellbeing of Koi Carp if they are to remain healthy all year round. Modern filtration units and pond equipment were not available ten to fifteen years ago, with improvements to pond filtration units meaning a saving in space along with a significant increase in quality and reliability. With continuing advancement, we believe that, the fascinating hobby of koi keeping will flourish and prosper for a very long time to come.

Koi Carp grow to a considerable size even in parts of the hemisphere where the growing season (summertime) is relatively short. Koi can grow to a size of around 20 inches in as little as three to four years. the end result being that not only do the fish look beautiful by virtue of it’s colour and shape, but also rather majestic in size. This type of rapid growth must be planned in advance of the installation of your Koi pond.

To minimize potential health risks from over stocking of the koi pond it is in our opinion that investment should be made by the Koi enthusiast in more sophisticated pond equipment, including a dedicated quarantine unit for medical supervision and treatment. it is vital to maintain a high quality environment at all times that can cope with increasing loads of new fish and the growth of existing koi stocks.

David ‘Goldie’ Edwards is managing director of Garden, Aquarium & Pond Supplies Ltd. based in the UK. His Pond Supplies website gives clients the opportunity to further enhance their Aquatic knowledge and fish keeping skills.

Don Imus used rapper and comic talk to describe a group of black basketball players. The words he used were defamatory and down right rude. Nobody would have noticed if he said those same words on the Daily Show or Comedy Central where filth abounds. Don Imus used the words to describe the young women of the Rutgers University Basketball team that played for the national championship.

Although the words were said in Don’s usual drown, they were picked up by the media and microphone-grabbing black activist. Indignation roared!

Imus quickly apologized, After all, he was talking on cable where nothing is regulated and everything goes. On cable, vulgarity, jibes, and insults should not be taken seriously. In other words, he didn’t really mean what he said.

The media quickly picked up on the story. Although the young ladies, to their credit, were more tolerant to Imus than most blacks, the media furry cost Imus his job. Now he is out in the cold-where he probably belongs. He has a history of racial intolerance-as most everyone does- but his intolerance is a public record.

When I was a boy, I brought a young friend home of Mexican decent. My mother, who was raised in a Utah mining town and who’s father had been stabbed (she didn’t say by whom), was startled by the presence of my friend. She said that I shouldn’t associate with a Mexican boy.

The fact of the matter was that I had been associating with my friend, Don Lopez, since we were in kindergarten. I broke out laughing at my mother. I said, “Mother, I didn’t think you had a racial bone in your body.” I did not change my relationship with my friend and when our National Guard unit was activate during the Korean War we stayed together until I left for Korea.

There were not many black people in the city where I was born but I knew that those who were there were not treated fairly by everyone. They worked shining shoes or cleaning the public restrooms under Main Street on the Temple Block. Kids would say evil things to black people on the street. One day, when I was very young, I repeated such a saying. I was then so embarrassed and humiliated that I spent the rest of my young life treating the man as a man, not a black man.

One black man in Salt Lake City had his own business. He had a pickup truck that he kept just like new. When I was going to the University of Utah and working in my uncle’s service station on weekends, this man would come in and we would shoot the bull together. He had gained a lot of respect in the community by owning his own business.

In Korea, the black men in our company fought and died like the rest of us. There was some prejudice in our infantry company against blacks and the blacks knew it and told us about it. Most of us treated each other as human beings.

As for the Mormon Church, we were taught racial tolerance, not only tolerance but that a black man in a “fine carriage” was as good as any other man. Joseph Smith, who founded Mormonism, made the “carriage” reference and it was often quoted. In the early days of the Church, a few black men received the priesthood.

Church policy changed with time. A reference in the Pearl of Great Price, a Mormon scripture, said that certain Egyptian men had been denied the priesthood. Church policy became to deny black men the priesthood and not to proselyte to black people. It was common knowledge in the Church that one drop of black blood could keep you out of the Mormon Temple.

Mormon missionaries were told to take courtesy leave if a black person opened a door to them. However, things changed. Blacks were joining the church in droves in Africa. One man had come up on the Book of Mormon and converted his friends. He wrote to the Church and action were taken to service the new congregations.

I was serving as the bishop of a Pennsylvania congregation. We had several mixed families in our ward. There were black adopted children. In our church it is important the children be sealed to their parents, but church policy was that blacks could not be sealed in the temple.

To tell you the truth, I prayed about it. I asked the Lord why the church could not make it possible for these families to be sealed in the Temple. I was surprised by the answer that I got in a very firm voice, It was: They must hold the priesthood.

I was sure of how to interpret that answer, but I knew the Lord was thinking about the problem. A short time later the Stake President called me and said, “John, I have wonderful news for you!” Then he read me the announcement from Salt Lake City that all worthy men, regardless of race, would now receive the priesthood.

To this day, I don’t know how the Stake President would know that would be wonderful news to me. I had never discussed the problem with him. Also, I didn’t know that I would have five black and four brown adopted grandchildren.

The news that all races would receive the priesthood was not accepted with joy throughout the church. Some probably left the church because it no longer was lily white. Missionaries started to proselyte any person who came to the door, not just white people and Asians.

The fact of the matter is that racial prejudice is not a white phenomenon. All races have some reservations about each other. A black father may not want his daughter living with a white man. A Chinese mother may not want a black or white man invited to dinner. In some cases, it is not hatred but a requirement of separation. “Stay on your own side of the street!”

Putting Don Imus out of business will not solve the problem but it has brewed a whirlwind that may change the way we treat women and each other. My father worshiped my mother because his mother taught him that women are to be worshiped. We should teach our children that all races are the same just as all dogs are the same. We are of the same species but different races. We would not look down on a dog because of his color. We don’t hate brown pigeons or gray rabbits.

The origins of racial wariness probably originated back in the darkness of time when the interaction of racial groups meant war. The American Indians discriminated against each other and war parties from one tribe would seek out and kill warriors from other tribes. Perhaps in the deep jungles of South America, this is still going on.

Adolph Hitler was the supreme racist of our time. Millions died because of the Nazi hatred of other peoples. If we don’t teach our children to ignore race, we may create a new Hitler.

We need to do what the Mormons did, eliminate race as an eternal principle.

copyright2007©John Taylor Jones, Ph.D. (Taylor Jones the hack writer)

John T. Jones, Ph.D. (tjbooks@hotmail.com, a retired VP of R&D for Lenox China, is author of detective & western novels, nonfiction (business, scientific, engineering, humor), poetry, etc. Former editor of Ceramic Industry Magazine. He is Executive Representative of IWS sellers of Tyler Hicks wealth-success books and kits. He also sells TopFlight flagpoles. He calls himself “Taylor Jones, the hack writer.”

More info: http://www.tjbooks.com

Business web site: http://www.internetbusinesstoolcenter.com

I’m ready to come clean. I’ve been feeling guilty for quite a while, but I’m ready to tell the world. I work from home. And I am a mom. But I am not a work-from-home-mom. My son goes to daycare while I work. There. I said it.

In this world of accessibility, a trend has developed of mothers working from home so that they can spend time with their children. It may work for some, but not for me. My son is two, which means that he is the center of his world, and doesn’t let me get anything done if he is at home with me. It’s hard to run a marketing firm when Elmo and Dora are my biggest (non-paying) clients. So I send him to school. We’re both happier for it. He’s learning three languages and developing social skills I couldn’t provide him, and I am able to focus 100% on growing my business. The perk comes when I am able to quit work at 3 and pick him up for a fun afternoon, or attend his school parties. I don’t have to ask off work when he has unidentified bumps all over his body for a week.

But I don’t keep him at home, which is a common misconception to people I meet. When I say I run a marketing firm out of my home, the inevitable response is, “Oh, that’s great! So you get to stay home with your son?” And this question has made me feel guilty every time. Until now. I am certain there are other mothers out there, for whom being a parent and running a business are mutually exclusive. It’s time to be proud of your situation and stop cowering from mothers who choose to work and keep their children at home. Your situation is unique, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. If you are able to devote all of your energy to one project at a time, everyone will be happier.

Find the situation that works for you. If you have an infant, you will probably find it easier to get work done, as they tend to be in immobile mode most of the time. If you have a toddler as I do, don’t feel guilty if you send them off to school. They will learn more than you can teach them there, and you can make your schedule fit around their activities so that you can be more involved. My situation works for me, and yours should work for you. Be at peace with the decision you make, and know that your child is happy too.

Susan Payton is Managing Partner of Egg Marketing & Public Relations. She assists small businesses with marketing strategy and corporate communications. She is also the author of 101 Entrepreneur Tips, a handy guide that helps entrepreneurs make repeat customers, close the sale, and delegate work. For more information on Susan and Egg Marketing, visit http://www.eggmarketingpr.com or email her at smpayton@eggmarketingpr.com.

Texas Hold’em poker has become a craze. Thousands of players compete in tournaments with the winner receiving a million dollars or more. Just like in the stock market, though, it’s the professional players that win the game and profit from the inexperience of the amateurs. Investors can learn much from these professional card sharks.

I admit to having pre-conceived notions about poker and gambling in general. I assumed that winning was just a matter of luck and chance. It seemed to me that gamblers played the game fast and loose, making decisions by the seat of their pants. Many investors have the same pre-conceived notions about the stock market.

Yet, professional poker players don’t rely on luck to win. Quite the opposite. Poker is all about probabilities and they’ve spent countless hours learning and memorizing them. Armed with that knowledge, they estimate what cards are held by another player, what cards are needed to win the hand and, based on the cards they currently have, their probability of winning. Professional investors do the same thing. A professional investor looks for opportunities where the odds are in his/her favor.

Great poker players are students of the game. They know the rules inside and out, and how to use those rules to their advantage. Likewise, successful investors need to have a basic understanding of how the markets work, what causes stocks to go up and down and the various strategies that can be used to find opportunities for profit.

Poker is a psychological game. The professionals have trained themselves to keep their emotions in check. They go to great lengths to keep their opponent from knowing the quality of their hand. They wear hats, jackets or sunglasses to hide these ‘tells’. At the same time, they want to put psychological pressure on their opponent in hopes of getting them to make a mistake.

Investing is also a psychological game. You can’t trust your emotional reactions. You can’t make decisions based on fear or greed. Both will end up causing you to lose money and leave the game defeated.

Poker players know it’s a numbers game. In each hand they play, they calculate their odds of winning and only proceed when the odds are in their favor. They don’t expect to win every hand. They train themselves to not let a loss of one hand affect how they play the next hand. They’re willing to endure short-term losses so they can win the tournament in the long run.

Successful investing is a numbers game, too. Professionals don’t overreact every time the market has a few bad days and they lose money, nor do they get overconfident when they have some great days and make money. They do their research and put their money where they know the odds are in their favor. They don’t blindly chase the latest fad or hot tip. They don’t invest based on gut feelings.

Successful investors manage their investments. They don’t just ‘let’em ride’. Great poker players know when to cut their losses. They don’t get suckered into throwing good money after bad. As the hand progresses and the subsequent cards aren’t in their favor, they’ll quickly fold, even if they have thousands of dollars in the pot. Successful investors do the same.

Successful investors also know to lock in their profits. When they see an investment increase in value significantly, they take some money off the table. They don’t ride an investment up just to ride it all the way back down again. They take action to minimize their loss on the one hand, and then take action to lock in their profit on the other.

If you don’t have the time or desire to learn the investing game then consider letting a professional manage your money. Don’t think, though, that just because someone is a broker, has a fancy office or lots of clients that they are a successful investor. Many times they’re just a successful salesperson!

When you know the rules and play the odds, stock market investments can be a great way to grow your wealth. When you don’t know what you’re doing, though, it can be more like a roll of the dice.

Nationally-syndicated financial columnist and Certified Financial Planner® Jeffrey Voudrie provides personal, in-depth money management services and advice to select private clients throughout the USA. He’ll answer your financial question - FREE at http://www.guardingyourwealth.com

Have a financial question? I’ll personally answer it. Go to www.guardingyourwealth.com and click on ‘Ask Jeff’.

In addition to being a nationally syndicated columnist and Certified Financial Planning Practitioner, Mr. Voudrie provides personal, private money management services to clients nationwide.

So we know what Anxius is, but how does it benefit us - really?

Before I wrote this I wondered if it was necessary to do so. I thought “it’s obvious what the benefits are. If the claims, word of mouth and testimonials stand up”. But then I thought “do it anyway” because often when we are depressed no matter what anyone says, it can be rejected. Otherwise we wouldn’t be depressed for too long if it was a matter of listening to words of wisdom.

It is so easy to forget that depression and anxiety and many associated illnesses are, in the main, due to chemical imbalances. The outside world sees the face and body moving normally, hears the common courtesies and conversations but they don’t see inside our head!

So, maybe if you are feeling low whilst reading this, and this is the 50th time you have had someone telling you how you can feel better, maybe you will “feel” it. Maybe a small part of you will awake, be prompted into realizing you can BE better.

Sometimes we can forget the impact of one small, yet significant change, in our lives. If taking a herbal based antidepressent can change how we wake in the morning, then there is a whole day of more potential change in thought process and action.

If you are feeling depressed whilst reading this and the benefits don’t create a sparkle in you, that’s Ok.

If you have the energy to be reading this then you have the energy to try something ( ie: go to the shops, the internet wherever and try a herbal remedy) even though you may not actually feel like changing. You only have to agree with the logic that if your mood was different you wouldn’t be feeling what you are now. The best part about this is that with herbal formulas like Anxius there are no side effects so there is nothing to lose.

As mentioned previously, no one can see or feel what you do, so whatever your course of action or inaction just be mindful that you will always have another chance.

To your - Mind Health

Dane

Dane Tannahill is a father of 5 and husband of 1 (Mary).

His inquiry into www.anxius-nomore.com will help fellow sufferers make a decision about whether to include it in their lives.

Turning your passion into a paycheck is the ultimate dream right? Who would not like to spend most of their time doing something they absolutely love and get paid for it?

Even just reading about people who are following their passion, as I just did in a great article I read in Outside Magazine this weekend, gets me fired up.

There are so many possibilities out there for work and one of the greatest things I do all day is help people to open up their minds to all of the possibilities out there for them. So often people are trapped by old ways of thinking and by the expectations of other people and society that they fail to see how great they could really have it.

So, the next time you wake up on a Monday morning dreading the week ahead, start thinking about how you would really like your career to be and what you are willing to do to achieve it. How do you want to feel when you think about going to work and what are the gaps between how you feel now and how you would like to feel? What are some simple changes you can make, if you are not quite ready to take on the challenge of a complete career change, that would make you feel better about what you are doing? Do not allow things such as age, education, or your perception of what is obligatory and necessary get in the way of your dreams.

Do you know how many people have made successful career changes at 40, 50 and even 60 years old. Life is going to continue whether you choose to spend it doing something you enjoy or hate - when you think of it like that, isn’t the answer obvious. It is never too late to have what you want. You get one life - why waste it doing something you don’t enjoy?

Are you looking for the career that fits with who you are once and for all? Then my latest e-book How to Find the Career that Will Make You Dread Retirement is perfect for you. And, I am offering it free to the first 20 who ask for it. Got to http://coachmelani.typepad.com for details.

The vast majority of the financial services industry does not have your best interests at heart. It is more concerned about the money it makes, not the returns investors receive. Read on to hear what an agent himself has to say-it may shock you.

When you work in the brokerage, financial planning and insurance industries, it is all about sales. The training, the incentives and the pay structure are all designed to motivate the advisor to SELL. Their success in the industry is not based on how well their clients do, but on how much commission is generated.

I’m not against people making money. The workman is worthy of his wages. The problem is that it’s the individual investor who turns to the industry for help that ends up paying the price. Investors need to be skeptical and cynical when dealing with an advisor-especially one that is paid on commission. Reading actual quotes from an advisor’s email I received will give you an insider’s look into the industry.

The financial industry attracts those that are good at selling and want to make a lot of money. This advisor who emailed me calls himself “very aggressive” and a “grey haired 34-year old hustler.” “I’m a natural sales whiz and have found this biz very easy to succeed in. I’ve never made less than $200,000 in commissions [per year] since entering the biz 4 years ago.” Believe it or not, he was saying these things trying to impress me!

Here are his comments about Equity-Indexed Annuities (EIAs)-an investment that I have been warning investors about for over a year. “I have only been selling EIAs because I am not full of [investment] options.” In other words, it is one of the only ‘investments’ he can offer.

“I am more than happy to get $50,000 [invested by a client] all day long at 10% commission.” The agent makes $5,000 a pop. What’s the client make? Who cares! He goes on, “I realize there is a better way for …my clients.”

“Have I thought EIAs may not be as great as other alternatives? YES. [his emphasis] Obviously, if I get 12% commission it comes from somewhere and it’s not the carrier.”
The clients of this ‘advisor’ don’t realize his true motivation. They expect him to be knowledgeable and have access to a broad range of products, but he isn’t and he doesn’t.

How does this affect you? This could be the advisor that you are talking to! This could be the advisor that was such a great speaker at that free seminar you attended. This could be someone you thought was a financial genius when in reality all that he/she has done is learned a good sales pitch!

Most advisors aren’t as open about their motivations as this one was. Some advisors sincerely believe that equity-indexed annuities are a great investment. Only God knows how much their opinion stems from the outlandish commissions they’ll receive.

Not all advisors are like this. There are some that are willing to take a stand and do what is in the client’s best interest even when it means the advisor will make less money. They realize they can’t accomplish this working within a commission-based compensation structure.

They’ve left the big brokerage firms and work for themselves. This gives them freedom and control over the recommendations they make because their job security isn’t based on meeting sales production requirements. These advisors are paid a fee for their services instead of a commission.

By the way, it takes a fee-based advisor 7-10 years to make what the commission-based advisor makes off an investor in 10 minutes. The only way the fee-based advisor can do that is by keeping YOU satisfied. If you aren’t then you won’t continue to use his/her services. If commission-based brokers’ compensation was tied to their performance most of them would go hungry!

In the next article I will share an email I received from another advisor. You’ll be surprised at what he did to satisfy his conscience! I’ll also provide a list of questions that you should ask any advisor you are working with that will decrease your chances of being an easy ‘mark’ for a financial salesperson.

Nationally-syndicated financial columnist and Certified Financial Planner® Jeffrey Voudrie provides personal, in-depth money management services and advice to select private clients throughout the USA. He’ll answer your financial question - FREE at http://www.guardingyourwealth.com

Have a financial question? I’ll personally answer it. Go to www.guardingyourwealth.com and click on ‘Ask Jeff’.

In addition to being a nationally syndicated columnist and Certified Financial Planning Practitioner, Mr. Voudrie provides personal, private money management services to clients nationwide.

Gone are the days of waiting until Saturday morning to get a bus into your local town to go to the record shop to buy the latest recording from your favourite artist.

Today there are many new and exciting services provided via the Internet to make this task a whole lot easier and much more immediate.

With a click of your mouse, your favourite music can be downloaded and in an instant loaded to your favourite iPod or whatever is your MP3 player of choice.

The ability to download music and material is a dream come true for most music lovers. The simple fact that you can now access and download your favourite tracks and music onto your MP3 singly as opposed to the old days of having to buy the entire album. The satisfaction of now being able to enjoy your music without having to endure the always ever present dodgy tracks usually reserved for midway through side two of any album or Cassette.

Happy days indeed.

There are practically hundreds of services that are now on offer and the choice of material available has never been wider. Because of the nature of the medium involved and the benefits of economies of scale, services are now available that would not have been commercially viable even as recently as a few years back.

If you were to ask most people about Music service online then probably the two most used phrases in any reply would contain the words iPod and Amazon but in reality these are only the tip of the iceberg.

There are hundreds of other stores where you can purchase and download music just as easily. There are now in place distribution services that are connected directly to the major record labels themselves.

An example of this is Connect, which is the in-house pay-per-track service for Sony Music. It also handles music from other record labels as well. One of the downsides recently with the whole business of purchasing and downloading music from online sources has been the restrictive software used up until recently by the major labels to prevent the unauthorised copying and distribution of material. In a word an attempt to avoid Piracy.

This short sided approach has now been changed with the landmark decision reached recently between EMI Music and iPod whereby you can now transfer music from one source to another.

However there are few things that you need to take into consideration when getting involved in all of this. Firstly the pricing, expensive prices does not necessarily relate to good quality. Secondly the quality of the music provided, it is not always as good all-round, you would be surprised so check first. Lastly what format do you require your music to be in to ensure compatibility with whatever music player you are using?

Sounded so easy at the start did it not? It still is, all that you have to do is check the basics first.

Stephen Morgan writes about a number of Internet based issues such as Recreation
and Music. A passionate music lover he champions the cause of the rise of
online music sources. Check
out Song Lyrics a useful
source for online lyrics.