SFI now in its 19th year!

November 26, 2016 by csi4admin

We are now officially in our 19th year!  From but a small acorn 19 years ago, SFI has grown into a tall and mighty oak tree, with strong and deep roots.  But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet…because we planted an entire FOREST…and it’s spreading across every country in the world.

Happy anniversary to SFI and all its thousands of awesome affiliates across the globe!

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SFI President & Founder Gery Carson remembers the day SFI was born:

“As an entrepreneur, there have been very few holidays where I haven’t worked at least a few hours, and this day in 1998 was no different.  I went into my home office that morning planning to spend a few casual hours–on nothing in particular.  It was a holiday after all, and no one else on my staff at the time was working. So it was just going to be a relaxing day where I’d let my mind have a break from the typical daily grind.

I remember at the time that affiliate programs were becoming a big deal, thanks to the Internet, which made it very easy to track sales using affiliate links.  Numerous big-name companies were now employing affiliate programs as a part of their marketing strategy.  And I thought…why not us, too?!  

I remember being particularly impressed with Amazon.com’s affiliate program.  The word was, they had 60,000 affiliates.  60,000!  At the time, that number seemed enormous to me, a nearly impossible number.  But I couldn’t have been more wrong of course because, in just a couple years, we would be experiencing days where we’d sign up over 60,000 affiliates in a single day!  

But on this morning, I was simply sketching out a few basics on how our affiliate program would work.  At the time, we were publishing our magazine, Six Figure Income, which featured exclusive interviews with home-based entrepreneurs who were earning at least $100,000 USD annually from their business.  This magazine was essentially our one and only product.  By the way, it’s from the magazine’s name that the SFI Marketing Group name came to be (a few years later we changed the initials to stand for Strong Future International to better align with our vision for the program).

Six Figure Income magazine’s premier issue was the March/April 1998 issue.  Prior to this, and stretching all the way back to 1986, we had published other newsletters and magazines devoted primarily to mail order entrepreneurs, including Mail Dealer Newsletter, Mail Profits Magazine, and Profits Magazine.  During those years, marketing by mail was the “Internet” for many entrepreneurs.  All the marketing we do today on the Web; in those years, at least for entrepreneurs like myself, was all mail-based (with a little bit of help from phone, fax, and conference calls).

Six Figure Income magazine was published just four times per year, and a one-year subscription was $49, so we had a healthy margin…enough margin to pay a handsome commission to anyone who wished to be an affiliate of ours and sell subscriptions.

Within days of deciding to create our affiliate program, I had published information on how to sign up online (supplemented, if I recall correctly, with a small direct mail campaign ironically).  To my pleasant surprise, sign-ups starting coming in almost immediately.  Not a lot, maybe a dozen or two a week, but that number rapidly accelerated.  Soon it was hundreds of sign-ups a day, then thousands, then tens of thousands!

Driving this now hyper-growth was our decision to expand the program and compensation plan–many of the details of which were hammered out during a weekend at SFI affiliate Steven Sashen’s Boulder, Colorado, home with affiliates Gump Wallen and the late, great Richard Strayer (we miss you, Rich!).  By January 2001, we had exceeded one MILLION affiliates.  By the way, with our most recently assigned ID number, over 16 million others have joined SFI since, more than 17 million in total!

Yet, like many great accomplishments, it all started with a simple idea, a simple inspiration.  Today, SFI is the online home for millions of entrepreneurs from every country in the world.  Indeed, SFI today is very possibly the largest and most successful affiliate program in the world.  Aim high and dream big indeed!”

4 Factors that Influence the Price Your Customers Will Pay

by Joseph Lizio Most customers follow a four-phase buying pattern when choosing where to make their purchase. Use your knowledge of these patterns to determine the best pricing for your products or services.

Image source: BigStockPhoto.com

There are many schools of thought regarding how businesses should set their pricing and just as many ways of analyzing your business’ pricing models. From basing prices in relation to competition, ensuring that prices cover all costs to include a component for profit to a purely market based school of thought where prices are set on what your market and customers are willing to bear.

Regardless of your school of thought, I want to add another wrinkle to the pricing dilemma. Clayton M. Christensen and others like him have poured countless hours of research and analysis into the buying decisions of customers. Regardless of where your prices fall, the bottom line is to entice customers to part with their hard earned money, thus understanding their buying behaviors.
Based on a buying hierarchy model first outlined by Windermere Associates, most customers follow a four phase buying pattern, with only the last phase being based on price.
These phases are as follows:

1. Functionality – Where a product or service meets a certain need or does a certain thing that cannot be accomplished in any other manner.
2. Reliability – When two or more competitors offer similar products that have the same functionality, consumers turn to the competitor whose product offers the better reliability.
3. Convenience – When competitors have products or services that offer the same functionality and the same relative reliability, consumers turn to convenience – those products that are the most convenient to use and the companies that are the most convenient to work with.
4. Lastly, price – When competitors all have similar products or services that offer all the attributes above in very similar manners, then, the product or service essentially becomes a commodity and at that point must compete on price (following the schools of thought outlined above).

Thus, the first question that any entrepreneur should consider when setting prices for their offerings is: "Is this product or service already a commodity?"
If it is not, then the business should be able to compete on one of the four phases listed above, without much regard to price.
A great example of this is Apple’s iPhone. When this smart phone device first entered the cell phone market, it was extremely unique in its functionality and thus its price was set astoundingly high. When it was first introduced, following the phases of the buying hierarchy, this phone was marketed based on its functionality.
As other phone manufacturers began duplicating the iPhone’s functions with their own devices, the marketing focus shifted to reliability – not just based on the smart device itself, but also the reliability of the network on which it would be employed. Just think about the Verizon Wireless commercials.
As time passed again marketing efforts shifted once more, this time to both the convenience of the device (easier to use, easier to type on, easier to text or surf, running multiple apps, etc.) and the convenience of the network – customers not having to switch networks (and incur the fess of doing so) to get a compatible device with the service they already know and use.
Bottom line: know where your products or services fit within this buying hierarchy.  Doing so many save you, the entrepreneur, countless hours of worry about prices – especially if you and your business do not yet have to compete on price alone. The idea here is not to purely focus just on pricing but to how your business can market its offering using the four phases of the buying hierarchy and actual customer buying behavior.

5 Common Small Business Money Mistakes

by Janet Attard Staying on top of your business's finances is just as important as finding new customers and serving existing ones. But, if you're like most small business owners, bookkeeping and managing money is probably not your strong suit. You can stay ahead of the game if you avoid making these five common small business money mistakes.

Image source: Photospin.com

Of all the roles a small business owner takes on, often the most challenging is managing the business's finances. The reasons are many, but most small business owners don't have a background in business finance, and at least at the start, are more focused on bringing in business and serving the customers than they are on record keeping and financial planning for their business. As a result, many work long and hard at their businesses with only mediocre success to show for their efforts. Others fail completely.

You can improve your chances for success - and your profitability -- by being aware of and steering clear of these common small business money mistakes.

Insufficient Cash

Insufficient cash is one of the leading causes of business failure. Startups often overestimate how quickly they'll start making money, and underestimate all the expenses they'll incur. But startups aren't the only businesses prone to failure due to insufficient cash. Once you have a steady flow of business you can run into cash problems in a couple of ways. One is a failure to realize the difference between cash flow and sales. You can have plenty of sales on record, but unless you get paid in advance for those sales, you'll have expenses to pay before you collect from your customers. If one or more of your big customers pays late, or doesn't pay at all, you may not have the cash to pay your bills on time.
Growing businesses can have a similar problem. You ramp up to be able to serve bigger customers or a wider areas, and before you start earning income from the growth, you need cash to pay your growing staff, growing payroll taxes, and other growing overhead expenses.
Still another problem for an existing business: existing cash flow may make the business owner miss or ignore falling profits and growing debt. To avoid cash flow problems take pains to accurately estimate all your costs and allow for the time it can take you to get paid. Get invoices out on time, stay on top of collectibles, and reassess your cash position at least quarterly, if not more often.

Waiting Too Long to Seek Credit

The worst time to look for a business loan or line of credit is when you most need it. If your business is paying its bills late and is on the brink of failing, finding funding will be difficult or impossible. The time to seek funding is when your business looks solid enough to convince a lender you will be able to repay what you borrow. 

The type of credit to seek will depend on the type of business you run, the purpose of the funds, and the size of the loan. Depending what you need, funding sources include traditional banks, online lenders, credit card cash advances or purchases, and specialty lenders. (For major projects, check with your local economic development agencies for suggestions on funding.) Interest rates and terms vary widely, so give yourself time to find the best funding source for your needs. And don't get discouraged if local banks turn you down. Check with the major online lenders to see if they'll work with you and how their rates and terms may compare with other options.

Mixing Business and Personal Funds

Whether you are starting a new business, or you're running an established business, mixing personal and business funds is a recipe for disaster. Assuming you are the sole owner and you buy business supplies with your personal credit card or use a business check to pay for a personal purchase, you're going to have difficulty keeping track of how much money the business actually is making or losing throughout the year.
You'll also have a big headache at tax time trying to separate out the business and personal purchases to determine what's deductible on your business tax form, and what your profit or loss is for the year. The headache will get a lot worse if you get audited and the IRS believes you have purchased goods or services for personal use and deducted them as business expenses. If you have business partners or investors and mix business and personal expenditures, you'll have even more problems on your hands.
Finally, if you don't clearly separate business and personal expenses (using separate banking accounts and credit cards for each), you'll find it difficult or impossible to get a business loan if you ever need one.
Even if your business is only a part-time operation with few profits, you should have a separate checking account and separate credit card for the business. You may need to take out the credit card in your own name when you're starting out, and that's ok, as long as it's used exclusively for business purchases.
If there are times when you have to use personal funds for your business - or vice versa - the correct way to handle the situation is to make a formal transaction and document it. If you have business partners, get them to sign off on the transaction, too.

Not Staying on Top of Recordkeeping

Let's face it. Recordkeeping is a big pain in the neck. As a business owner your focus is usually on winning business and making sure the customers get it in a timely fashion. Along the way there are so many things to do that it's easy to let recordkeeping fall by the wayside. Receipts for inventory or other purchases get shoved in a folder, envelope, drawer, or the proverbial shoebox, until such time as you "get around" to recording them. Invoices for items you've purchased on credit maybe wind up in your inbox - with dozens of other pieces of paper. Mileage records for business travel may wind up on the back of a receipt or napkin, or stuck in a note on your smart phone. Check stubs from people who still pay you that way wind up in the same folder or drawer, and credit card payments show up in your bank account based on the credit card used to make the purchase, with no convenient way of matching any one day's credit card receipts to specific purchases made.
As a result, whenever you get around to actually putting the expenses and income records in an accounting program or spreadsheet, you'll waste a lot of time trying to remember what each thing was for. You may also have misplaced some of the records. Worse, if you haven't been keeping all your accounting up-to-date, you may find out months down the road that you're losing money because the cost of your supplies went up and the number of hours your employees worked went up, but you never raised your prices.
The only way to avoid these kinds of recordkeeping disasters is to do you recordkeeping weekly or more frequently. Either you have to take the time yourself to enter all the data into an accounting program or spreadsheet or you need to delegate the job to someone else. If you have someone else manage all your financial records, you need to review their work weekly, looking to be sure income and expenditures are properly documented and be sure that nothing looks strange. Employee theft is a big problem for small businesses, and often the thief turns out to be a trusted, long-time employee.

Under Pricing

Determining the right price to charge for products or services is seldom an easy decision. Charge too much, and you could lose sales to a competitor. Charge too little, and you won't make much profit - or worse, you'll lose money.
Small businesses - particularly those just starting out - often charge too little. Sometimes they rationalize that the low price is a way of "getting their foot in the door." Sometimes the price is low because a new business owner isn't taking into account the cost of his or her own labor, or hasn't accurately determined all of the costs that have to be considered in setting prices.
A fencing company, for instance, has to figure in not only their costs for the fencing, but also the costs of labor, advertising, office expense, vehicle maintenance and repair, and other overhead costs when deciding what to charge customers. An independent consultant may have fewer overhead or labor costs to consider, but has to pay close attention to what her target annual income is, how many clients she'll actually land and be able to serve during the year, and how many hours of work time will be billable vs unbillable and what her advertising, networking and other promotional expenses will be.
Established small businesses sometimes underprice their goods and services because they're afraid to raise their rates. They worry if they increase their prices their customers will go elsewhere.
If you're just starting out, remember to account for all your costs in figuring out what to charge, and check to see what competitors are charging for what you sell. Don't try to be the lowest price vendor out there. Once you're up and running, reassess your pricing structure at least annually. And whether you're just starting out or have been in business for a while, take a few minutes to read some of the information we have available here on pricing strategies for small business.

The power of ONE, Simple math behind $2500/mo income!

I just did a simple calculation which I feel like I should share with everyone.

Let's say you are serious about this business, so in average you enroll 1 new PSA per day. That should not be a hard task, if you use training materials provided by SFI you would learn how to do that. Or just go for S-builder / PSA To Go / some ECA store or outsource any other way you find suitable for you.

People share with others some statistics like % of new PSA who are active. Some say their are just 1%, others claim they manage to activate 10%. I personally saw with my own eyes ( in my Gen report ) a person who was a TOP Enroller and managed to activate more than 50% !!! ( I agree - that's really AMAZING! ). I will take, for a purpose to explain my point, that it is just 3.3% ( 1/30 ).

In other words, you sponsor 1 new PSA per day, 30 new people every month, and you manage to activate just 1 of that 30. So you would end your first month with a *team* of 2 people: you and your 1 new active PSA

What will happen next month if you 2, you and your new active PSA, stick with your team building efforts the same way? You would keep sponsoring 1 new PSA every day. For the whole month that is 30 new people enrolled by you. As we said, if 29 drop out, and just 1 stay active, sharing the same vision with you, you will personally get just 1 more NEW active PSA in your second month.

 In Total, at the end of the second month, you have just 2 active PSA ( and 58 inactive ). You trained / helped your active PSA from the previous month to do the same. He agreed to enroll 1 new PSA per day, just like you. He will finish the second month with his 30 new PSA, 29 inactive, and just 1 active. So, at the end of the second month you have a team of 4 active people ( and 87 inactive ): you, your 1 active PSA from a previous month, your 1 new active PSA, and "1 new active PSA of your PSA" your GEN2

If you extend this, you will finish the third month with a team of 8 active people ( and 172 inactive )
In the beginning it looks like you are going very slow, all of you invest a lot of time/money w/o getting back too much. But let us extend this further:

Month 1 – You sponsor 1 person – Total active people in your business – 2 ( you and your 1 active PSA )
Month 2 – Everyone sponsors – Total active People in your business: 4
Month 3 – Everyone sponsors – Total active People: 8
Month 4 – Everyone sponsors – Total active People: 16
Month 5 – Everyone sponsors – Total active: 32
Month 6 – Everyone sponsors – Total active: 64
Now here is the awesome part and where exponential growth starts to kick in. If you were to keep up that same pace of sponsoring just 1 person a month, teaching everyone in your organization to do the same, over the course of a year you would have grown an team of over 4000 active people. Here’s what the numbers would like on that:
Month 7 – Total 128
Month 8 – Total 256 Month 9– 512 Month 10 – 1024 Month 11 – 2048 Month 12 – 4096

Some will become Team Leaders, while others will keep EA rank, and 1500 VP/mo minimum.
Let us take the minimum and convert this number into commissions! 1500 Matching VP have a variable money value, but we can take that it is $0.60 ( 60 cents ).
Here is your income just from Matching Shares:

Month 1 – 2 X $0.60 = $1.20 - are you disappointed? Wait until the end!
Month 2 – 4 X $0.60 = $2.40
Month 3 – 8 X $0.60 = $4.80 - still disappointed? Read further!

Month 4 – 16 X $0.60 = $9.60
Month 5 – 32 X $0.60 = $19.20
Month 6 – 64 X $0.60 = $38.40 - this will finally cover your SO of 125 TCredits
Month 7 – 128 X $0.60 = $76.80
Month 8 – 256 X $0.60 = $153.60
Month 9– 512 X $0.60 = $307.20 - not bad, not bad, keep rocking!

Month 10 – 1024 X $0.60 = $614.40
Month 11 – 2048 X $0.60 = $1228.80
Month 12 – 4096 X $0.60 = $2457.60 - I think now you have nothing to complain on.

Do you know what is the best part? The best part is this: there is also month 13, month 14 , month 15 ... That is exactly the reason why this kind of business is a better choice than to have a 9-5 J*O*B, there your income is called "salary" and is limited for a 40 years with a very small rise, leaving you with 1/2 or lower after you *retire*

If this is true, why not everyone doing that? There are many reasons for that!
Main reason is: they don't see that that way - you should tell them! School, television, newspapers, your parents, friends, neighbors... they mainly talk about "finding a descent J*O*B" because they are VICTIMS of that SCAMS who limit people's minds thus limiting their potential income, and joy in life.

Everyone has ability to follow this simple plan. Even w/o much money to do paid advertising, you can advertise on so many FREE ways. Time consuming, but it will not take you 40 years to retire on 1/2 of your usual income.

It might take you more than 1 year, maybe 2, 3 or even 4, but once you *retire*as a Diamond Team Leader, you will earn so much more than before!

The Power of ONE can give you everything you wish if you understand it, stick with it, and explain to others how it works

10 Attributes of Self-Made Billionaires

Alex Charfen

July 26, 2016

It’s easy to think self-made billionaires just got lucky.
Maybe they were in the right place at the right time. Or maybe they stumbled across a discovery that made them a ton of money overnight.
But I’ve had the incredible fortune of being around and personally consulting to a number of self-made billionaires—even some as they ascended to billionaire-status—and I can tell you all of that is unequivocally false. Not even close.
Every self-made billionaire I’ve ever met or studied has something in common. It has nothing to do with luck or being in the right place at the right time. They all bring a unique set of attributes to each and every opportunity they come across. And when these attributes are developed and not suppressed, they transform into compelling strengths and abilities, but also severe (and sometimes very public) challenges.
You’ve seen them recently in the likes of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey, and historically in Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller. But here’s the interesting part… you might have seen these in yourself, too.
So do you have it in you to become one of those seemingly magical people who can see the future and make it come to pass, all while making a pile of money in the process? Find out as I take you through the positives (and negatives) of the 10 attributes found within every self-made billionaire:

Related: 16 Rich Habits

1. High Sensitivity and Awareness

Beyond perceived eccentricities

for things like timing, color, food, fragrance or texture, a self-made billionaire’s sensitivities can be heightened to the point of distraction, isolation or even debilitation. On the positive side, I’ve found they each have their own unique sensitivities and heightened awareness that can seem extrasensory: everything from design functionality and perfect pitch, obsessions over air and water quality, knowing—with certainty—when someone else is dealing with a crisis. However, what’s special about the self-made billionaire is how they find ways to leverage their sensitivities and awareness to increase performance.

2. Futur

e Focused

The future-focused attribute often goes by another term: visionary. This label has become a badge of honor for entrepreneurs of every stripe, self-made billionaires included. Earlier in their lifetimes, however, they often got a different label: hopeless dreamer. The real differentiator between the two is how much protection and support they were able to surround themselves with, helping to make their dreams a reality.

3. High Processing Capacity

Self-made billionaires have unusually high processing capacities, being able to consume and retain information faster and in greater quantities than other people. This attribute drives them to seek out and collect large amounts of data, regardless of their physical or cognitive limitations, such as dyslexia. It can even make them seem like machines, automatons or obsessive individuals. They have simply found ways to process and analyze the information they collect in order to cast a clear vision, take action and make constructive decisions over time.

4. Persistent Adaptability

Though self-made billionaires maintain a persistent adaptability to take on new tasks, initiatives, businesses or even careers (think Bill Gates’ new focus on philanthropy or Donald Trump’s transition to politics), they are not chameleons. Most actually had difficulty adapting to certain situations, such as structured school or social environments, earlier in their lives. Yet they developed a persistent adaptability to new tasks and careers, and this attribute enabled them to achieve their vision or desired outcome.

5. Intense Focus on Results or a Single Outcome

We have all heard the stories: Steve Jobs’ dogmatic drive to perfect the Macintosh or Bill Gates’ near workaholic tendencies. There are many examples of self-made billionaires being viewed as super- or sub-human in order to make their mark on the world. Oftentimes, they pulled back and isolated themselves in order to get things done. Although this can make them appear obsessive, compulsive, combative or antisocial, the key is that these hyper-successful individuals directed this attribute toward very clear results or outcomes.

Related: 4 Steps to Mastering the Art of Focus

6. Bias for Improvement

As future-focused individuals, self-made billionaires see the world as it should be, not what it is today. They see what should be modified, improved or evolved. Given the choice between keeping things as they are or changing them for the better, they will almost always choose the latter. But the desire for improvement without an underlying structure can devolve into “improvement paralysis,” where products or ideas are endlessly refined without really moving forward. But the self-made billionaire maintains focus on their intended outcome to set proper priorities on the improvements that actually move them and their business forward.

7. Experimental or Experiential Learning

Yes, self-made billionaires learn through books, but they truly seek the application of their learning, the experiences and experiments; otherwise, they don’t feel momentum. As children, this attribute often made the traditional classroom and educational structures challenging. Experiences and experiments give these individuals confidence to push further, validate what they’ve learned and strengthen belief in their visions of the future.

8. Perceive Unique Connections

When the majority of people are united in one belief, it takes a certain type of person to offer contradictions or alternatives. Self-made billionaires have an enormous capacity to perceive unique connections in the world through their experiences, experiments, focus on the future and high sensitivities. They are able to see situations, problems, solutions and processes from different angles in order to leverage new resources or move in new directions. This can also be alienating and cause massive friction with their leadership teams.

9. Drive for Gained Advantage

This is a very visible attribute. The self-made billionaire constantly asks themselves, How do I get ahead? This consistently drives them to find an advantage or the means to get ahead. Sometimes this attribute can make individuals seem cutthroat, cold or heartless. However, the drive for gained advantage is a competitive attribute that has enabled the self-made billionaire to seek out new and unique solutions to shared challenges, and increase the contribution they can make to their teams.

10. Innate Motivation

Typically, the self-made billionaires I’ve met and worked with have no idea where their “fire” comes from. And although some view this attribute as mere ambition, intrinsic motivation isn’t the desire to climb corporate ladders or collect awards and recognition. This is an engine with no off switch, a constant drive to achieve goals and contribute to the world. Naturally, intrinsic motivation can also make these individuals restless, impatient and combative, especially around people who either lack the same kind of motivation or become obstacles to their momentum.
Looking at every self-made billionaire throughout history, you will find these 10 attributes. But while reading them, you might notice something interesting…. You can see some or all of them in yourself.
These attributes are not limited to the self-made billionaires, but found in an overlooked and misunderstood subpopulation of our society, the Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT). What I’ve found in both working with these individuals and researching them, is that the only difference between them and other EPTs is their ability to recognize their unique attributes, and find the protection and support necessary to turn them into incredible strengths.

Related: 5 Learnable Mindsets of Highly Successful People

Get the MOST from TripleClicks PSAs To Go and auction-won PSAs!

July 21, 2016 by lrobison0967

Maximize the value of your TripleClicks PSAs To Go or from PSAs you’ve won in a Pricebenders Auction: run them through your Co-op Manager!

Your participating affiliates will benefit with guaranteed PSAs added to their downline. YOU will benefit from motivated affiliates with expanding teams of new PSAs, whose activities could add long-term profits to your bottom line!

To funnel your PSAs To Go or Pricebenders Auction PSAs through the Co-op Manager, just go to the  Start A New Co-op page at the SFI Affiliate Center and choose “Your Gateway Site” as the co-op source. Be SURE to enter 1104 in the keycode field. Click the Create A New Co-op button at the bottom when you’re done.

IMPORTANT! After purchasing your PSAs To Go or winning the PSAs auction, you’ve got a day or two before your new PSAs begin rolling in. Once they begin to arrive, it will be too late to run them through a new co-op. Therefore, be sure not to wait too long after winning your auction to set up your co-op!

For help and information about creating co-ops and using the Co-op Manager, see Co-op Manager FAQs at the SFI Support Desk. You can also check out Gery’s SFI Co-op Manager & The Magic Of Co-oping article for more tips and hints.

Why Silver?

Should You Invest in Silver Now? 'Rich Dad' Thinks So

Jan.25.09 | About: iShares Silver (SLV)

David Morgan

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What most investors hear time and time again is that "timing is everything." This is an important factor for any investor and especially those who aspire to become truly financially independent. And, no one knows how to time the market like Robert Kiyosaki – author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Kiyosaki knows that there is a time to sow and a time to reap. He has reaped fortunes that helped him retire at the early age of 47. And, he sowed when real estate was not the preferred investment class and he cautioned real estate investors against risky strategies such as "flipping," and relying solely on the appreciation of properties with low or no "cash flow."

So, what does this famous investor like now?

He is looking at the commodity markets, specifically the precious metals: gold and silver. Yet gold and silver are investments that are still out of favor with most of the investing public.

Why You Should Be Investing in Silver Just Like Robert Kiyosaki

1. For the average investor, silver can be an effective means of diversifying investment assets and preserving wealth against the ravages of inflation. Although the value of silver may vary, it has an intrinsic value that is immutable and permanent. Accordingly, many experts suggest that investors should include it among their investment assets.

2. The commodity markets, specifically the silver market, have outperformed both the stock and bond markets recently and, I believe, will continue to do so. Since 2000 if you would have invested your currency into gold you would have seen a 190% return on your money. If you would have invested your money into silver you would have seen a 240% return on your money. This is an important shift to recognize, yet very few individual investors are aware that this fundamental change in the marketplace has taken.<

3. One of the most incredible truths about silver is that up until now, demand has outstripped supply for fifteen straight years. Annual silver supply deficits have run as high as 200 million ounces in boom years, and as low as 70 million ounces in years of recession like we are in now. It is important to realize that even in years of decreased silver demand the mining supply on an annual basis did NOT meet demand. There is nothing more bullish for a commodity than such a deficit condition.