A carpenter uses a set of house plans to build a house. If he didn’t the bathroom might get overlooked altogether. Rocket Scientists would never begin construction on a new booster rocket without a detailed set of design specifications. Yet most of us go blindly out into the world without an inkling of an idea about finances and without any plan at all. Not very smart of us, is it? A money plan is called a budget and it is crucial to get us to our desired financial goals. Without a plan we will drift without direction and end up marooned on a distant financial reef. If you have a spouse or a significant other, you should make this budget together. Sit down and figure out what your joint financial goals are…long term and short term. Then plan your route to get to those goals. Every journey begins with one step and the first step to attaining your goals is to make a realistic budget that both of you can live with. A budget should never be a financial starvation diet. That won’t work for the long haul. Make reasonable allocations for food, clothing, shelter, utilities and insurance and set aside a reasonable amount for entertainment and the occasional luxury item. Savings should always come first before any spending. Even a small amount saved will help you reach your long term and short term financial goals. You can find many budget forms on the internet. Just use any search engine you choose and type in “free budget forms”. You’ll get lots of hits. Print one out and work on it with your spouse or significant other. Both of you will need to be happy with the final result and feel like it’s something you can stick to. Connor Mathews

Do you have plans of releasing a relatively expensive product or package? Then study this very vital statistic: at the average, around 80% of your sales will be made on the day of launch itself. Therefore, it is critical to implement that perfect product launch to guarantee that your first 24 hours will be a big success.

(Hope you enjoy ~ Connor http://www.small-business-credit.org

Here are some needed tricks that will help guarantee the best product launch possible:

1. Forget the concept of a big ticket product. It's always a big ticket PACKAGE. Boost up the perceived value of the primary product you are planning to offer by packaging it with high powered extras that your customers will love. Provide for them an item and it'll be difficult to convince them to make a purchase. Provide for them a package and they'll get excited to know what are inside of the same.

2. Create a joint venture, or JV, with well-known online businessmen. If they accept your invitation, they will be your JV partners. They will provide aid in selling your package. To repay their help, you have to provide for them a commission for every successful sale they will be able to lead to your sales page. JV partners often expect a commission rate of 50% of the selling price, per sale. Truly, JV partners are comparable to affiliates, only, with the comprehensive selection method you will require, you will be able to associate yourswlf with JV partners who will give you access to a bigger audience courtesy of their big mailing lists, more value for your package thanks to the extras they will provide which will be taken from their own inventory of products, and better promotional mileage because of the many JV partners who share your sales goals.

3. Generate pre-launch hype. All the biggest online marketing product launches in recent memory generated a high level of pre-launch buzz. Mike Filsaime's Butterfly Marketing intrigued a lot of people with the alleged leaked chapter of the main eBook product of the package. Frank Kern's Mass Control tried to win a phenomenal amount of attention by releasing several high impact, high value videos in the days towards the release of his baby project. These campaigns earned more than a million dollars on the first day of the release of their packages. Building pre-launch buzz will guarantee enough traffic come the day of launch, visitors who will already be excited to check out what your product is all about.

Note: Here is some good info I ran across when I tried to get a second mortgage several years back, and had a rude awakening. Hope someone finds it useful. Connor

There are many misconceptions about credit scores out there. There are customers
who believe that they don’t have a credit score and many customers who think that
their credit scores just don’t really matter. These sorts of misconceptions can hurt
your chances at some jobs, at good interest rates, and even your chances of getting some apartments.

The truth is, of you have a bank account and bills, then you have a credit score, and your credit score matters more than you might think. Your credit score may be
called many things, including a credit risk rating, a FICO score, a credit rating, a
FICO rating, or a credit risk score. All these terms refer to the same thing: the three digit number that lets lenders get an idea of how likely you are to repay your bills.

Every time you apply for credit, apply for a job that requires you to handle money, or even apply for some more exclusive types of apartment living, your credit score is checked.

In fact, your credit score can be checked by anyone with a legitimate business need
to do so. Your credit score is based on your past financial responsibilities and past
3 payments and credit, and it provides potential lenders with a quick snapshot of your current financial state and past repayment habits.

In other words, your credit score lets lenders know quickly how much of a credit risk
you are. Based on this credit score, lenders decide whether to trust you financially and give you better rates when you apply for a loan. Apartment managers can use
your credit score to decide whether you can be trusted to pay your rent on time.

Employers can use your credit score to decide whether you can be trusted in a high responsibility job that requires you to handle money.

The problem with credit scores is that there is quite a bit of misinformation
circulated about, especially through some less than scrupulous companies who claim they can help you with your credit report and credit score - for a cost, of course.

From advertisements and suspect claims, customers sometimes come away with the idea that in order to boost their credit score, they have to pay money to a company or leave credit repair in the hands of so-called “experts.” Nothing could be further from the truth. It is perfectly possible to pay down debts and boost your credit on your own, with no expensive help whatsoever. A good place to start your credit quest is to check your FICO score (www.myfico.com)Technorati Tags: credit, money, fico, finance