Each of us resides in at least one of the four Quadrants of the CASHFLOW Quadrant™.
Where we are is determined by where our main source of income comes from. Many of us rely on paychecks and are therefore employees, while others are
self-employed.
Employees and self-employed individuals reside on the left side of the CASHFLOW Quadrant™. The right side of the CASHFLOW Quadrant™ is for individuals who receive their cash from businesses or investments they own.
My Rich Dad told me a simple story when I was 12 years old that has guided me to great wealth and financial freedom. It was Rich Dad’s way of explaining the difference between the left side of the CASHFLOW Quadrant™, the ‘E’ and ‘S’ Quadrants™, from the right side of the ‘B’ and ‘I’ Quadrants™.
Once upon a time there was this quaint little village. It was a great place to live except for one problem. The village had no water unless it rained.
To solve this problem once and for all, the village elders decided to put out to bid the contract to have water delivered to the village on a daily basis.
Two people volunteered to take on the task and the elders awarded the contract to both of them. They felt that a little competition would keep prices low and ensure a backup supply of water.
Self-Employed Thinking
The first of the two people, Ed, immediately ran out, bought two galvanized steel buckets and began running back and forth along the trail to the lake which was a mile away.
He immediately began making money as he labored morning to dusk hauling water from the lake with his two buckets. He would empty them into the large concrete holding tank the village had built.
Each morning he had to get up before the rest of the village awoke to make sure there was enough water for the village when it wanted it. It was hard work, but he was very happy to be making money and for having one of the two exclusive contracts for this business.
The second winning contractor, Bill, disappeared for a while. He was not seen for months, which made Ed very happy since he had no competition. Ed was making all the money.
Instead of buying two buckets to compete with Ed, Bill had written a business plan, created a corporation, found four investors, employed a president to do the work, and returned six months later with a construction crew.
Within a year his team had built a large volume stainless steel pipeline, which connected the village to the lake.
At the grand opening celebration, Bill announced that his water was cleaner than Ed’s water. Bill knew that there had been complaints about dirt in Ed’s water.
Bill also announced that he could supply the village with water 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Ed could only deliver water on the weekdays. He did not work on weekends.
Then Bill announced that he would charge 75% less than Ed did for this higher quality and more reliable source of water. The village cheered and ran immediately for the faucet at the end of Bill’s pipeline.
In order to compete, Ed immediately lowered his rates by 75%, bought two more buckets, added covers to his buckets, and began hauling four buckets each trip. In order to provide better service, he hired his two sons to give him a hand for the night shift and on weekends.
When his boys went off to college, he said to them, “Hurry back because someday this business will belong to you.” For some reason, after college, his two sons never returned. Eventually Ed had employees and union problems. The union was demanding higher wages, better benefits, and wanted its members to only haul one bucket at a time.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Bill, on the other hand, realized that if this village needed water, then other villages must need water too. He rewrote his business plan and went off to sell his high speed, high volume, and low cost, clean water delivery system to villages throughout the world.
He only makes a penny per bucket of water delivered, but he delivers billions of buckets of water, and all that money pours into his bank account. Bill had developed a pipeline to deliver money to himself as well as water to the villages.
Bill lived happily ever after, and Ed worked hard for the rest of his life and had financial problems forever after. The end.
That story about Bill and Ed has guided me for years. It has assisted me in my life’s decision-making process. I often ask myself, “Am I building a pipeline or hauling buckets?” Am I working hard or am I working smart?”
And the answers to those questions have made me financially free.
The CASHFLOW Quadrant™ is about the four different types of people who make up the world of business, who they are, and what makes individuals in each Quadrant unique.
It will help you define where you are in the Quadrant today and help you chart a course for where you want to be in the future as you choose your own path to financial freedom.
While financial freedom can be found in all four of the Quadrants, the skills of a ‘B’ or ‘I’ will help you reach your financial goals more quickly. A successful ‘E’ should also become a successful ‘I’.
by Robert Kiyosaki
There seems to be a huge craze lately with everyone trying to blog and ping to get their websites indexed into the search engines. Although this can be a great tool, all marketers should first understand exactly what they’re getting themselves into before starting.
This article is to serve as a beginners guide to getting started with blogging and pinging.
1. What is a blog?
A “blog” is short for “web log.” A web log is an online diary or journal. The main aspect blog is that it is frequently updated - at least once a week, sometimes every day or even more.
Since blogs are regularly updated, they tend to carry more value than regular static HTML pages (in some cases).
2. What is a ping?
A ping is a program that sends out a brief request for a response from another computer or server. When you ping on the Internet, you send out a program to see if a remote server is responding.
3. How do bloggers use pings?
Two main reasons to use pings with blogs: First and foremost is to let the search engines know that you have updated your website so they can send their spiders.
Secondly, pings also update the websites on the internet who are using your blog on their site (through a feature called RSS feeds, they are displaying your messages on their site).
4. So what is the big deal about blogging and pinging?
Smart affiliate marketers use blogging and pinging to help get their sites crawled and indexed by the search engine spiders a lot quicker than they normally would.
They set up a blog either on their main site or on a sub-domain of their site. They then post links to their product pages on their blog and send out a ping to all the major servers on the Internet.
That ping says “This site has fresh content, time to go add it to your database!” It\’s a trigger that sends the search spiders looking for updated pages on your site. When they find the new pages, search engines tend to index them much faster.
Blogging and pinging will not get you into EVERY search engine overnight. As of this writing, it is most effective with getting into Yahoo. But often MSN, and even Google, will follow in short order.
Combine blogging and pinging with good link recruiting for the best indexing.
Also, blog and ping on a regular basis if you want to “stay” indexed in the search engines.
5. Is blogging and pinging a requirement to get indexed?
No. You can get indexed quickly by getting plenty of natural backlinks. But for backlinks to be most effective, they have to appear as if they were natural and this can take weeks if not months. Blogging and pinging does seem to drastically shorten the process.
6. Is there a downside to blogging and pinging?
Yes, some marketers are starting to abuse this strategy and the engines are getting wise to it! If you go over-board you risk getting your website completely banned and removed.
Also, many marketers are blogging and pinging for a few days and then forgetting about the website – your website will likely be de-indexed if you do not continue to naturally blog and ping.
The bottom line is that blogging and pinging is a great strategy right now to help you get your website indexed faster. However, the old natural way of getting incoming links is still the best and most assured way – not to mention the long-term benefits of having incoming links.
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Steven
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