A Unique Guide to Business L J Brown Copyright 2012 L J Brown Smashwords Edition Prologue Despite popular belief, people whom are referred to as Gold Diggers, among other names, are in reality some of the most brilliant individuals. They know what they want and they know how to get it. They have a keen marketing sense and understand the underlying principals of economics and business. This book is designed to help others understand and learn from these masters of industry so they too can one day own a deluxe apartment. Chapter 1: Plan for Tomorrow Today So you've decided to read this book. Well congratulations because today you are going to learn about the principles of business, economics and marketing from experts within the industry; I am not referring to Wall Street Gamblers (aka Stock Brokers), Day traders (aka loan sharks), or Investors (aka Inside traders). No my friends, today you will learn about the true geniuses. These individuals not only make millions of dollars but in most cases they are never accused of fraud or sent to jail. These are people who know the markets well and how to shop around. They are experts of research and developments, masters of craft and now since you are likely growing impatient over my obvious attempt to fill out this page, I will cut to the chase and present to you the even more obvious giveaway (since you've already read the title) Gold Diggers. Now before we can go any further it is important that you understand exactly what a Gold Digger is. The formal definition of a Gold Digger is “a person who seeks or digs for gold in a field” the informal definition is “a person that seeks another person solely for his/her wealth” and finally the urban definition is “A bitch trying to weasel you out of your cheddar.” Despite the definition that you most agree with I strongly disagree with all of the above. If you took the time to even skim those definitions you would realize that each one, except the first one, basically describes something or rather someone in a very negative way. When people hear the words Gold Digger they almost always think the very worst. They immediately stereotype an individual. These stereotypes include the belief that such people are lazy, thieving and good for nothing. However, this could be no further from the truth. The reason I came to this conclusion is not because I am infatuated with beautiful women, no my friends this goes much further and honestly has a more scientific and logical background than most would realize. It’s easy to label a person, but it becomes strikingly more difficult when you must list each of the characteristics of a labeled individual and then break down those characteristics from a non-biased perspective. While such a thing can be rather difficult it is not impossible and the only thing required is an open mind and a little common sense. Now with the basic definition of a Gold Digger out of the way we will now focus on the characteristics of a Gold Digger and how they relate to business. The very first characteristic that we will touch upon is motivation. To be successful in business one must first be motivated. For example: the guy that sells hot dogs (you know the one I'm talking about). He's usually middle aged, probably of European or Arabic decent and doesn't speak the best English. From the example I just provided any one with half a brain could now dissect the information and pull out some likely facts about this individual. First fact is that he's likely to be an immigrant (that was a complete giveaway). The next likely fact is that he's probably held a couple of jobs in his day considering his age. The final and most likely fact, that many would not be able to realize, is that this guy is motivated. At this point your might be questioning your purchase of this book, but it’s too late to return it so keep reading. You never know you might just learn something! Now getting back to the topic of the hot dog vendor. I just mentioned that he was likely motivated. You might be asking yourself what would motivate a person to get out there and sell hot dogs. This indicated that you are still not using your head. A hot dog vendor’s greatest weapon is location. His greatest advantage is convenience and his greatest tool is perseverance. A couple years ago when I had a respectable job (well actually any job) there was a hot dog vendor that parked his cart in front of our building. I never personally got to know the guy, since I was a prick. However others work mates did take the time to get to know him. It was due to this experience that I learned a couple of things about hot dogs. For example: the cost of a hot dog and a bun is something like 55 cents in total; this is in regards to the vendors cost. Now a vendor usually charges approximately$2.00 for a hot dog; but for the sake of you cheap skates I am going to use $1.50 just to appease you. The point is, if a vendor is only spending at maximum 50 cents for his product and is raking in at the very least three times his unit cost, then guess what? He is not only breaking even but he's definitely making a killing! The top companies in America could not even compete with this guy when it comes to how much he can inflate his prices. Now, when you consider the likelihood that it is common for vendors to actually serve dozens or even hundreds of people a day you suddenly realize that when adding up the amount he's making from hot dogs and include additional items, such as beverages, this guy is probably making around $200 on a bad day. The point that I am trying to illustrate with this example is Motivation. Most people would never think of taking the time to get out there and do something like this. Because it’s too cold or because they are too proud (please know when I say they I mean you). The point is, this guy was motivated enough to do something that others are too bashful to do. He continues to rake in the cash while many of you reading this don't even realize that just because your gross earnings per day equates to $75 does mean you won’t see anything close to that once it’s reduced to the net value. Chapter 2: It’s all in the Motivation I know we have gone a little off topic at this point; however this example was necessary so that you would understand just how important and powerful motivation truly is. Getting back to my favorite subject Gold Diggers are very motivated people. Motivation is a large step within the planning process and you can ask just about any successful Gold Digger just how important this was in the beginning. Before you can be big you must think big. People often say it takes time, patience and hard work to create anything successful. While I believe that this is indeed true, the kind of time these people are talking about often refers to a lifetime, which is something I don't plan on throwing away on a not-so-sure thing. Now, speaking of sure things. There is one thing that women can always be sure of and this is just how dumb men are when it comes to an attractive woman (well unless he's gay and even then it’s still a 50-50 wager). The thing that many women fail to realize however, is that while men might fall head over heels for an attractive woman it takes more than a pretty face and a nice milkshake to keep a guy ‘coming back to the yard’. The age old belief for guys is that why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free. This is often the reason women end up feeling misled when a guy suddenly refuses to commit to a relationship after 10 years of dating. For a man to commit to a woman he must estimate her value to be something worth owning rather than renting. Not too long ago when I was working on my degree a professor was talking about the concept of depreciation. He used a number of key examples to explain it. For anyone that doesn't know what depreciation is I will quickly explain it to you (I promise not use an incredibly long example this time). Depreciation is basically the loss of value for an item over time. The only asset that never legally depreciates is land (yeah you didn't need to know this but dammit your gonna learn it anyway). Getting back to my story, the professor told us about a woman who posted a personal ad on a popular listings website (yeah you know the one. Unfortunately for trademark and copyright reasons I can't mention it). The woman basically said that she was looking for a wealthy man to take care of her and in return for his money he would gain her beauty, which she apparently deemed as priceless. Ironically a Wall Street investor responded to the woman mentioned and explained that he could indeed put a price on her looks and when that is taken into consideration the value of her looks fall short because if he were to invest his money into her then his only return (being her looks) would depreciate over time. However, if he were to wisely invest his money into stocks or even mutual funds then he could watch his money grow over time. The investor ended by labeling her as a depreciating asset. Many that read the ad even commented that the woman's beauty could not even be compared to the value of a prized car because even though it would depreciate, after a certain amount of time it would become a classic and could begin to gradually regain value. However, as time passed the woman's looks and body would degrade and not only would she be a depreciating asset but as time passed she would stop being an asset and would undoubtedly become a liability. The truth is the woman in the example is not a true Gold Digger. A true Gold Digger would never label themselves as a Gold Digger or refer to themselves in that context. Just like an Accountant doesn't refer to themselves as a bean counter a Gold Digger will use a term like socialite to describe themselves. This is the same reason a car sales man that sells used cars calls them pre-owned, simply because it sounds better and the alternative makes him sound like a scumbag due to the stereotypes around the term “used car salesman”. When attempting to be successful at anything you never ever want to be your own enemy. You will have more than enough obstacles in front of you, so you should never end up creating your own or you will never get anywhere. Chapter 3: Executing the Plan Now so far we've talked about motivation, depreciation, assets and briefly liabilities. Now I will move into the next stage of this chapter which should be fairly obvious. Every motivated person needs a mission. What is it that you want to accomplish? The Gold Digger has a number of things that they would like to accomplish. The number one reason is often financial freedom however, it can often be more than that, such as political and social influence. I should quickly note that whenever there is a presidential election if you look at the companies that are sponsoring the candidates and then check the donations for both parties many would be shocked to see that Microsoft for example might have donated to both parties. You wonder why but the answer is simple. They are covering both bases, so that despite who wins office they still gain favor. A smart Gold Digger carefully analyzes their options. They take an environmental scan and determine the driving forces and major influences that might affect the decisions of the person they are targeting. Once influences are known, our Gold Digger will now establish their goals. These goals will be based on their analysis and alignment in relation to the overall mission. Now the stripper, oops I mean Gold Diggers (I have theories on strippers too but that will be saved for another book) will create strategies to establish their goals. I am going to take a quick moment to talk about this part of the planning process because it is of the utmost importance. When a Gold Digger is planning their strategies she (for the hell of practicality let’s just call them a she) must take into consideration various variables. Strategies are developed based on affordability, practicality and efficiency. Now what exactly does all this mean you ask? Well even though you don't want to know I am still going to tell you. Affordability means that a Gold Digger has to know what she can afford and this can determine the kinds of parties and events she might can attend, as well as the kinds of clothing she can wear to these events. Practicality refers to a Gold Diggers ability to foresee if a strategy is worth partaking with her current resources. Last but not least a Gold Digger must decide if it would be a waste of money and time to attend one upscale event, which may or may not be promising or two to three smaller events that may present fewer opportunities individually, but more overall. The principles just mentioned, affordability, practicality and efficiency are all principles that apply to business as well. Before a product can enter the production stage it has to undergo thorough planning and these planning stages are identical to those of a Gold Digger. The final goals sub-stage is establishing objectives along the way that will allow her to achieve these goals. Here objectives must be selected timely and must indicate a process towards the goals. Life is short, time is your enemy not your friend. For this reason the only way to deal with this obstacle is to organize one’s goals. A Gold Digger above all else is extremely organized. She knows where to be at the right time. She just doesn't happen to be there. An important step for all successful Gold Diggers is to associate time phases with each objective. Responsibilities are assigned for each segment of the plan and basically a Gold Digger will set deadlines for meeting each of her responsibilities. To organize her thoughts and strategies she might use a planner to keep track of important dates, times and other vital information such as people, phone numbers, places and addresses. It’s important to remember that a Gold Digger will never reach her goals if she can't even remember where she is going. Many of you reading this book likely believe by this point that I am giving these women way too much credit, however the truth is that you don't give them enough. Upon completion of the planning process it is important that the Gold Digger acknowledge the completion of the plan and celebrates the success. This stage is often over looked and can have major reputations. In business people often jump from one problem to the next, then often over look the fact that they have even reached the end of their planning stage and immediately move on. You cannot having a successful production run if you don't verify and certify that you have carefully considered all aspects of the plan. A Gold Digger cannot just go out and buy a dress before she is certain that it is the right one for the right occasion. If she chooses incorrectly and wears a white dress to a somber occasion the results may be hazardous which could lead to counter-productivity, which is something I have heavily stressed against. A better example is that a Gold Digger cannot focus their attention on someone whom simply has a net-worth of $2 Million. The reason for this is because a significant portion of that worth might be tied to debt, which is also the reason why some corporate big wigs go from billionaires to millionaires overnight. A Gold Digger must keep track of her planning and know when she has reached the final stages. Now that we have the basics of planning out of the way I would like to focus on some of the factors surrounding planning. It is vital to involve the right people in the planning process. If you want to be a millionaire you don't hang out with hobo's. The same concept goes with being a successful Gold Digger or business person. Find people that have experience within the field. For Gold Diggers this is often women who have successfully married into money and or influence. These people can help guide you in the right direction and can tell you if your plan needs adjusting, since no plan is ever 100 per cent perfect and unforeseen variables can easily offset ones plan. To quickly review Gold Diggers make sure to emphasize that their plans are specific. Meaning they know exactly what they are accomplishing, which falls in line with her mission. Gold Diggers measure the feasibility of their plan and decide if it’s even possible to accomplish. Gold Diggers accept their plans for what they are and understand that some things they simply can't change or at least not at that specific time. After considering the realistic nature of the plan and the timeframe Gold Diggers consider the rewards. Earlier I talked about the hot dog vendor that's ripping you off. Just like this vendor Gold Diggers must decide if the outcomes rewards are worth the effort. As I was writing this chapter I began reminiscing about my days as an undergraduate and exactly how much I hated them. One useful example that came to mind was this a quote that my former Business Law professor came up with. The quote basically sums up the key aspects of a Gold Diggers planning phase and it is as follow. “Prior Proper Prevents Piss Poor Performance”. If you want something you must plan ahead. Be it a wealthy significant other or an advantage in business. Bill Gates didn't become as rich as he is today without foresight, carefully planning ahead and committing a whole load of sins (however that's a separate topic). The right amount of planning can never be underestimated. There is no such thing as planning too much, despite what some may say. You can never plan ahead too much. A great example of this is the story of a socialite couple that go by the names Michaele and Tareq Salahi. This couple is known for their ability to infiltrate special events and celebrity gatherings. After years of careful experimentation and practice they were able to spend time with some of the biggest stars in the world, as well as attend some of the biggest events. This couple perfected their craft through planning in advance and then practicing on smaller stages before stepping onto larger ones. To date the largest event crashed by this couple was the state dinner held by President Barack Obama in November 2009. The couple successfully passed themselves off as invited guests and furthermore were even able to create documentation which partially supported their claims that they were invited guests. Despite the outcome and what many have and will speculate for years to come the fact stands that it was prior proper planning and practice that made their special night all the much more special. Gold Diggers build accountability for themselves and there is no difference in business. Despite my emphasis of the planning stage Gold Diggers still remember that it is OK to deviate from the plan. A plan is a set of principles and guidelines. They are not rules. The key is to notice the deviations and then to adjust the plan accordingly. Well I hope you've enjoyed the ride up to this point. Expect a full length extensive publication in the near future and many thanks for reading. ### . some may say. You can never plan ahead too much. A great example of this is the story of a socialite couple that go by the names Michaele and Tareq Salahi too can one day own a deluxe apartment. Chapter 1: Plan for Tomorrow Today So you've decided to read this book. Well congratulations because today