Bartering is an amazing aspect of any business and any industry.

If I own a website development company (which I do) and I owe about $900 to my accountant (which I did), the logical thing for me to do would be to ask him if he needs a website (which I did happen to do). If our accountant says “I do need a website”, make the trade with him and there is your barter (which we did).

It is truly the best way of doing business (in my opinion) and why do I think that? For my business to trade about $900 in website development services for a $900 bill we owed saved is a bunch of money. Our actual cost is only for the man hours involved in making this website and the services being provided after it’s up and running (about $300-$400 in time). Doing business trades this way, saves ‘actual’ money for both parties involved (They didn’t have to pay us for a website, and we didn’t have to pay them for our bill).

Think about if we could barter for our lively hood, could we do it?

[Possible Example: I own a computer repair business and I know that I need basic essentials to survive. They are food, water, gas for my car and shelter (for the bare minimums). Is there any way possible that I can trade services with other business owners in those industries? I could probably offer my computer repair services to the local grocery store in return for $300 in groceries a month. I could offer them to the mom and pop gas station for $200 in gas a month. The list just keeps going.]

Somewhere along the way you would probably run into businesses that are to corporate, and to uptight to do something like that. Walmart probably wouldn’t trade out services with you unless you were doing something for them on a bigger scale.

Imagine the possibilities about how neat this would be. It would look as if you made very little taxable income (Note: I am not an accountant, I don’t know how bartering works on your income tax), less taxes to pay in. You would develop tons of personal and professional relationships in your town/city. ‘Paper Money’ wouldn’t matter anymore!

Come to think of it, this is no different than the old days. When someone wanted a wagon for their horse, they would give 3 sheep to get it. It is the same exact process! I think I will try to barter more on a personal level, I could always use more bridges to cross and less money to spend!

Thanks for reading and Have an Awesome Day!

~ Chais Meyer

Today, I had an interesting experience with a business manager at a local Sports Bar. I called her up to talk about our website services for Control Yours and how we want to help her better her business (create her a site so more people can find her, etc). She came off very snotty and literally said, "I don’t need a website. I don’t want a website. I have been offered prices from other companies and I am not interested. I Don’t Need A Website!"

I would assume that anyone in this similar situation would have no intelligent response, except for "OK?". Well, at least that was my response.

Immediately after I hung up the phone with her, I felt like that was a really weird conversation. I couldn’t put my finger on why it was so weird, but I was extremely uncomfortable. It could have been because she disregarded my feelings for wanting to honestly help her, or because she was the one that ended the conversation and not me, or because she felt like I was a telemarketer (I shouldn’t be trusted) and I don’t want that. I decided to pick the one that I could do something about, number 3 (the telemarketer reason).

What did I do? I called up Eileen’s Cookies (an amazing local cookie franchise) and asked them to make a 12" decorated chocolate chip cookie that said "I think we got off on the wrong foot" with a big cartoon foot on it. My intentions were to take this cookie to her business and present it to her clearing my name from all evil (shouldn’t it be that easy?).

I picked up the cookie in the afternoon and took it to her business. She wasn’t in, so I ran some errands for about an hour and came back. She still wasn’t in, so I decided to have a beer (boulevard wheat) and wait for her to get there (When in Rome…maybe it would be appropriate to say, When in a Sports Bar…).

Before she had shown up, one of the employees that knows my wife and asked me if I could help them with a computer problem (since I used to manage a computer store). I graciously said "Yes, I’d love to!", thinking to myself "if I am helping fix her computers she will have to befriend me".

About the time I start getting involved on one of the computers, miss manager walked in the store, talked to one of her employees (the employee explained that I was helping them for free and that I was a manager of a computer store), and then she came over to me and said "Don’t touch the computers". Ouch! Here I am (Mr. Nice guy) trying to make her store operate better not only on the web, but now in a physical way and she is still a #@&%$.

To give her the benefit of the doubt, I am some weird dude (and what I mean by that is extremely attractive) that she has never met before and I am goofing around on her computer systems. I went back to my table, drank on my beer, and called my wife for moral support (thank you Shawna!).

After about 15 minutes of letting miss manager figure out her computer problem with her IT guy, (when I knew she had simmered down mentally) I walked over to her with the 12" cookie and said, "Excuse me, my name is Chais Meyer. We talked this morning about your website and I’m fearful that sometimes I come across like too much of a salesman or a telemarketer and that is the last impression I want to leave with your business. I have an honest heartfelt desire to help businesses like yours be there best, and I know I can do that if I don’t come across in a negative way. Whether you decide to go with my business or not, I just want to make sure that you know I am here for you, and it’s not the other way around. So, to apologize, I had this cookie made for you. It is a ‘I think we got off on the wrong foot’ cookie…’

This whole thing went very well. She laughed and said that the cookie was hilarious! She said she would like to talk to me later in the week, and she was Very Pleasant to deal with after that! I am really glad that I went with my gut instinct and decided to talk to her personally. If she does get a new website with us later this week, that will mean that a $10 cookie, and $7 in beer will be well worth the expense.

I will keep you updated on what ends up happening. Until then, remember to love life, respect the people that are being nasty to you (we don’t know why their grumpy), and be sincere and honest until the end. It pays off with divedends!

Have a Great and Motivating Day!

~ Chais Meyer

This post title is kind of harsh. Last night, for the first time I thought of this and how real this is, let me explain:

I want to become a man that has a high financial IQ, and that is able to help people learn how to take control of their finances as well as their own businesses. For this to happen, people have to change the way they think before they can change the way they act. Poor People are poor because they have a poor mindset.

This is such a real thing, but the majority of people don’t stop to think about it. People don’t stop and say "It is my fault that I am broke, It is my fault that my money disappears every month because I spend it on useless stuff." I have even fallen into this category through the majority of my life. Do I believe that I am poor today? No, I am broke today working on gaining wealth.

What’s the difference between being poor and being broke? Poor is a lifestyle/mindset, broke is a temporary financial status.

I have struggled spending my money on liabilities (items that won’t put money in my pocket on a monthly basis and will just take it out), toys that I think will make me have a better and happier time. It is really hard not eating out every day, and not buying the latest techy gadget. I mean it’s my money, I deserve to have a lifestyle where I can spend my money on what I want and be happy. This is the thought of the majority of society today. We believe that ‘things’ make us happier, and make us who we are. This is why the poor people are poor.

Without poor mindsets, a lot of businesses would have a very hard time succeeding. Do you believe that if we lived in a world where everyone had a wealthy mindset, had the right spending habits, and knew how to run a business, the cash advance shops down the street would survive? If the majority of our population knew they couldn’t throw their money away on useless stuff in order to become really wealthy and have a secure future, what percentage of businesses would disappear because they would lose their customer base. Would your business die, if our society changed their way of thinking in order to gain personal wealth? If that is the case, it might be a good idea to switch to another business model.

Another way of saying this is, "do something worth doing". Don’t just make money because you can, if it doesn’t benefit someone in a positive way.

I would love for you to think to yourself, what type of businesses would die if people changed their negative habits? Make a list, and try not to be like those businesses. I would love to see the list that you come up with, I will start it out with #1 Cash Advance shops…

Keep Growing and Have a Great Day,

~ Chais Meyer

I am working with an investment property manager named Matt Meister. He sends a weekly report and email to everyone he is working with. Here is his last email, I liked it so much I thought I should share it.

"Hello Everyone,

Matt Meister"

Thanks for Reading and Have a Great Day!

~Chais

We have created a video for Control Yours that you are able to watch below. A higher quality video is located on our website www.controlyours.com , in the "Sites" tab.

Control Yours from David Lano on Vimeo .

We are really pumped about getting this video up finally, we think it will really help explain our product and our services. We are Tired!

Have an awesome day!

~Chais

Seth Godin writes about how we, as sales people, can bully customers into a sale. Even though we can bully people into a sale, that doesn’t mean we need to.

As we were going around the small towns in Wisconsin and cold calling on possible future customers, we realized that we weren’t doing things the right way (and we also looked like shoplifters or Mormons). I started reading a book about sales that my buddy JD Robinson recommended to me, “How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling, By: Frank Bettger“. I know, I know…this sounds like a stupid self help book that is not worth your money let alone your time. It is Absolutely Amazing! If you know and/or appreciate Dale Carnegie, it should say something to you that Dale Carnegie suggested to Frank Bettger that he should write this book. If you don’t know who Dale Carnegie is, well…you are just going to have to take my word for how great he is, or read this book by him.

Frank Bettger’s book showed me some things that I forgot about from my past. I used to manage the sales department of a computer store in Kearney, NE for 8 years (until I recently quite to start our own businesses). I learned a lot of things while I was there, things that had to be experienced not just taught to me. As an example, I was very good at selling Apple computers to a possible customer that was looking for a computer system. What made me able to sell to almost any customer, no matter how diverse they were? In the last couple of years working at the computer store, I had a close rate of 75% (3 out of every 4 people that came in looking for some sort of computer, left with an Apple computer).

I started thinking to myself, ‘what was making me so good at selling computers?’. I think a few of things were crucial. They were:

1) Don’t Talk, Just Listen! There is a saying that goes something like this, ‘you can’t listen your way out of a sale, but you can talk your way out of a sale.’ I asked questions and didn’t voice my opinion unless they asked for it. They ended up buying a computer from me, I did not sell them a computer (I guided them to the computer of their choice through a series of questions).

2) Complete Honesty! It is very hard to sell something that you don’t totally believe in. An easy answer to that problem is, Don’t! Why would you try to force someone to buy something that you think is crap? You are just going to piss them off later when it doesn’t work, and they won’t trust you with a possible future sale. That is why I sold Apple Computers, I believe they are the best!

3) Close The Sale! If I felt like a customer was feeling comfortable about the product or didn’t have any other questions, I would say “Would you like me to go and check to see if this is in stock?”. This approach worked well for me because It implies, while I’m away you can talk amongst your selves (I would usually check for a couple minutes), it is their decision if I went to check for it or not (hinting that they are very interested), and if it was in stock, I would bring it out with me (as if I knew they were going to want it that day). I never had a customer get mad at me for bringing a computer out before they have decided YES!

Why am I not doing this with the sales of our website signups? It is exactly the same thing: Ask questions, Be completely honest (push the positives), and close the sale. If a sale is worth having, there is no reason that waiting one day will change anything for the customer. Don’t be afraid to close!

This is my next test…I am actually pumped to get back out there and see how it goes. I’ll let you know soon.

Have an Awesome Day!

~Chais

David Lano, his wife Anne Brestin, my wifey and myself, spent 4 hours talking to possible future clients. We had multiple ‘first impression’ approaches when we met with the shop owners for the first time.

Some of them are as follows:

1) Hi, I am trying to help Fish Creek (this is a little town outside of Ephraim, WI) business use their websites to the fullest, is there any way I can help you out?

2) Hello, Do you have a website? (If Yes) I am helping local businesses update their website as easy as if they are sending an email, do you have time to talk about it?

3) Hi, Your Product looks amazing. Do you sell it online?

[A little back story: David, Anne, Shawna and I are in Ephraim Wisconsin for a vacation by lake Michigan. While we are going to be up here, we decided we would try to get some Control Yours customers.]

After trying a few different ways we still didn’t find out a great approach.

We didn’t have a very successful day. I am, however, on to something that I think will work…I’ll be back soon.

~Chais

Day one of the client search for Control Yours. Talking face to face with future clients can be scary and exhilarating at the same time. Here we go…I’ll tell you how it goes.

~Chais

I was at a local restaurant in Ephraim, Wisconsin yesterday afternoon. After we placed our order at this quaint dining establishment, we noticed a sign that is above the cash register. This sign was visible through an open door from the main dining area. (So I took a picture of it!)

This sign read:

“Any mistake that gets eaten GETS PAID FOR!!! If you’re not sure if it’s OK to eat something, ALWAYS ask me,…I Rarely Bite. You must ask a Manager Before you PLOW-DOWN!!! If you do not ask I will happily charge you double while I consider firing your well-fed, Insubordinate Ass!!!”

This sign brings a couple of questions to mind [Seth Godin , You've helped open my eyes] :

1) If a customer (like myself) would happen to see this sign, would he/she think this sign was inappropriate?

2) Is there a better way to “motivate” your employees not to eat the food?

3) Do the employees think this is funny?

4) Do they feel like they are daily being chastised in front of their customers?

5) Does this make the “well behaved” employees act better?

6) Does this motivate everyone in the business to do their best throughout the day?

7) Would the management allow this sign to be posted in a more visible location (If they think it’s OK to post in a somewhat visible location)?

What are your thoughts?

~Chais

We are staying at a scary motel tonight in Dubuque, Iowa! We checked in and after we got adjusted in our room, we recieved a phone call and no one was there! The end!

Just thought you should know where we are tonight, we’ll talk later.

Have a Great Day,

~Chais