Wouldn’t it be great to have great Investing Success without any risk, I certainly think so, although the simple reality with investing is that there is a risk. However with a plan, knowledge and in time experience this risk can be minimised and the overall outcome is a very effective means of achieving your financial goals. The type of plan to adopt is really dependent on what suits you best, you may like to have an aggressive strategy with possible greater returns and more risk, or maybe a less aggressive strategy with lesser returns and lower risk, or even anywhere in between. Also you may like to have investments that mostly look after themselves and only require attention every now and again, or you may prefer to be more involved in your investments and know exactly what your money is doing all the time. There is no real perfect plan or any real secret to investing however these simple tips may assist in your investing success.

Tip 1: Set Motivating Goals

Goal setting is a very effective when investing, it provides the means to set a target for yourself, gives you direction and is helpful in motivating you to do the things to achieve your desired result. Setting motivating goals is completely dependent on personal preference, you may be motivated by the goal of returning enough money from your investments to buy a luxury yacht or you may be motivated by the goal of having 20 investment properties in your portfolio. There is no right or wrong goal as long as it gives you direction, gives you something to aim for and motivates you, then you’re on the right track.

Tip 2: Do your Homework

With the potential risk involved with any type of investment, doing your homework is an essential process. You wouldn’t go to a car yard with no particular car in mind and purchase the first one you see, you would do your homework first wouldn’t you. For example you would have some criteria set out and you may be looking for a car that is reliable, performs well, appeals to you, basically a car that just ticks all the right boxes. The same goes with investing, you would most likely not get the best result by investing in the first shares you come across or the first property that you inspect. For the stock market, doing your homework may involve searching news articles or press releases for a particular company you have an interest in and checking the history of the stock price. While for a property you may do a check on the surrounding suburb, find out the previous sale price, get building and pests inspections done on it. There are countless things you can do to ensure that you are making a wise investment decision, make sure you do your homework and you’ll do better than most.

Tip 3: Invest Regularly

Investing is not a get rich quick scheme to be truly successful at investing you need to do it regularly. The best chance to acquire measurable wealth lies in developing the habit of adding to your investments regularly and putting the money where it can do the most for you. You can put $10,000 into a share account returning an average of 20% per year, and if you take all of that return out every year in ten years time you may have earned $2,000 every year but you’ll still have only $10,000 in that account minus account keeping fees and the loss in inflation, tax etc., giving a total net worth of $30,000. However if you reinvested that $2,000 every year, in ten years time you’ll have a total net worth of about $62,000. That’s $62,000 in your share account now with the potential to earn you $12,400/year at 20%, as opposed to the $2,000 you would still be earning with the other scenario. Now this may not included potential losses in either case, but the idea is to highlight to you the benefit of regularly fuelling your investments?

Tip 4: Keep an Investment Diary

Keeping a record of your investments can be a great learning tool to determine the strategies which work best for you and can be an insight into why an investment worked so well or why it didn’t work so well. Having the right information which you can always look back on will lead to wiser investments in the future, therefore minimising risks, increasing the potential returns and thus greater investing success. Information that may be helpful to keep a record of includes:

The research done to find the investment
The investments you turned away and why you turned them away
Why you chose the particular investment
The plan you had in place prior to making the investment
In the case of an investment property you may take note of the agents used, renovations done and renovation contractors used.
In the case of a share market investment you may take note of the stop loss margin, profit margin and stop profit loss margin used and whether they can be adjusted to reduce risk and increase potential profit.
Tip 5: Diversify
Diversity is in old old wooden ship, joking (Anchorman reference for those that haven’t seen it), diversifying your investments in an effective means of managing your risk and increasing returns. The type of diversification strategy should be dependent upon your age, income and investment goals. For example, if you were young and just beginning you investments you have the opportunity to have more increased risk and may benefit from putting your assets into stocks that have long-term potential, and stocks with greater risk and potential returns. While if you were approaching retirement you may benefit more from shifting your assets into income producing investments such as bonds or utility stocks. Your diversification strategy could involve setting up a portfolio consisting of equal parts of different investment vehicles such as, bonds, local stocks, foreign stocks, and real estate. Once a year, you could then adjust each vehicle to maintain the same asset distribution by taking the gains in your winning investments and spreading them amongst your losing investments.

Tip 6: Have a Plan and Stick to it

The journey to investing success can have many distractions and obstacles that can lead you off course, the way in which to overcome these and maintain the right path is to have a plan and stick to it. Whether it starts off being extremely basic with just basic goals, milestones, strategies etc. the idea is to know where you’re going and work out what is required to get there, once you get more involved you will be adjust and fine tune your plan to be more effective. For example your goal may be to own 5 investment properties in 5 years time, you may work out that in order to achieve your goal you need to work an extra 5 hrs of overtime a week, cut back on some expenses and get training or obtain the knowledge to learn how to go about it effectively, this would be your plan. Your milestones may be to ensure you have at least one investment property every year. Now if it so happens that you miss one of your milestones it’s not the end. You just simply need to go through your records work out why you didn’t achieve your milestone and re-adjust your plan accordingly. If you do achieve your milestone this doesn’t mean there is no room for improvement, although you should reward yourself, let yourself know that you’re doing well and rewards are a great motivator as well.

Tip 7: Manage your Risk

You can effectively manage your risk by following the above mentioned tips such as doing your homework, having a plan and sticking to it, and diversifying. Additionally risk can be managed by first identifying what your risk are, the most common risk with investing is obviously losing your money. What is it however that causes you to loose your money? Just for example with stock market investing there is a risk of a stock doing the opposite of what you indeed it to do or you selling to early and losing potential profit, with property investing the risk are that the value of the property won’t increase as intended or you may not be able to rent it out. Once you’ve identified what are the potential factors that can cause you to lose money in a given investment you can begin to work out a plan to manage the identified risk. Strategies to manage your risk could be to avoid the risk altogether and look for something else, try and reduce the risk or simply accept the risk. Whatever your plan may be just ensure that the risk is monitored and constantly look for ways in which to minimise the risk.

Conclusion

In summary investing success may be obtained by using a combination of the above mentioned tips, however don’t limit yourself to these, it is a constant learning process, no investor out there knows everything there is to know about investing. Find what best works for you then just get out their have a go and achieve your investing success.

So why they don’t tell you everything up front? That’s a really good question isn’t it? Below are the two main reasons why they don’t tell you everything!First…. they fear that if you know the real deal that you’ll make the decision not to join them. Ok…well that makes no sense whatsoever because if you think about it once you find out what the real deal is on everything and it doesn’t sit with you… are you hangin around to build the business anyway? I don’t think so! Most people experience feelings of betrayal and really feel like they’ve been scammed because key information was withheld from them. Is that anyway to start off a business relationship? People eventually get frustrated and quit because no matter what they do they know they won’t be successful.Second…. they want to use you in some way shape or form before you figure out what the real deal really is. If the business happens to sit well with you then you’ll hang around and become successful. If it doesn’t sit well with you and you leave then they still benefit because they used you in some way to further their business on some level. The golden rule applies here! You wouldn’t want to be used so don’t use other people.I know that you probably can identify with both of the above because that’s what most MLM / Network marketing / home based business people do. They will tell you just enough to get you to come into the business. Hey after all what do they care they get their bonus for bringing you in and then they push you in a certain direction for very specific reasons. In other words they will use you to their benefit and if you quit the business then so what…they got what they wanted. These types of people unfortunately run rampant all over the internet and actually expect a large percentage of folks to not last more than 30-45 days!Yes… its sad but very true and it’s these “knuckle heads” as I like to call them that give an excellent industry in my view a very bad name. People can really make a decent lifestyle for themselves with the home based business model provided they have a solid business plan. It’s important to understand the plan and exactly what it’s going to take to be successful.Little hint for you… all these so called internet businesses that promise or advertise thousands of dollars without doing anything or very little are in most cases out to take your money so my best advice is simply avoid them. You’ll have a better chance of succeeding playing the state lottery! Don’t fall into the trap of promises of easy money with any business. If quick money is what you’re after go play the lottery. It’s cheaper on your pocket book and you’ll win more if in fact you ever do actually win.All the brick -n- mortar businesses in existence have written strategic business plans. All home based businesses should have one as well. I know you’ve probably heard this saying before ” If you fail to plan then you plan to fail” and that is the honest truth.Imagine trying to drive to a destination that you’ve never been to before and you don’t have any directions on how to get there? Pretty silly thing to do right? Of course it is and like wise it’s also pretty silly to be engaged in any business home based or other wise without a map to guide you to your end destination. Its imperative that you know where you’re going and exactly how you’re going to get there. You need a plan to follow or you’ll plan to fail. It’s as simple as that.

Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump, President Clinton, President Obama and many others understand the dilemma that our country faces. With the way the job market is and people losing their homes and struggling to get by they are all looking for alternative ways to supplement their incomes. What a lot of people are seeking is a legitimate home based business. Many people just want an extra $500-$1000 per month and others want to make big money $10,000 – $20,000 per month. The key question is how do you filter through all the many companies and find what is right for you?When you do find a legitimate home based business, yes you can live a very prosperous life and fulfill all your dreams through network marketing. However, because of the horror stories about people losing their shirts, the industry has been falsely labeled (Scam, Rip-Off, Pyramid). The truth is network marketing does work, however if you are seeking to get involved in one, it is up to you to do your due diligence and research the companies prior to investing your hard earned money. I personally believe that there are far to many companies that are in pre-launch which basically means that the companies are new and they haven’t done anything yet.Being new isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but then again are you playing the stock market or are you trying to build a business that you can call your own and build financial security and freedom for you and your family that will last for years to come. In order to find that legitimate home based business that maybe just right for you: Choose a business that has a product that you believe in, pick something that you would use yourself. Actually most legit companies want you to be a product of the product. After all how can you tell others about something that you have never tried or used yourself.A strong belief in what you do, will carry you a long way in this industry. If you do your homework and choose wisely you will give yourself and opportunity to live the lifestyle that you may have only dreamed of. Imagine being able to travel the world, having a huge beautiful home, nice cars, your children attending the best schools and having your bills paid and money never ever being an issue again.By becoming an entrepreneur and legitimate home based business owner, you give yourself a legit chance for all these things and much more. No-one once to risk their hard earned money on what could possibly be a scam or a rip off. There are however thousands of companies for you to filter through before making your decision. Here are a few signs to look for before you sign up for a new business:1. If the company doesn’t have a physical address, that’s a red flag!2. If the owners of the company have been with 3 different companies in 4 years, that’s a flag too!3. Companies that don’t really offer any product or service, don’t do it!4. Compensation plans that require a Master’s Degree, to understand. Not necessarily a red flag however this can be more trouble than it’s worth when it’s time for you to get paid.5. Companies that offer no training or support, a big no no! Don’t put your money into a new business and then not have a clue how to run it or make money from it.I mean this list can go on and on, I’m not going to tell you that any business will be easy because it’s not. If running a business and making a lot of money was easy everyone would be doing it. You can do it and succeed if you choose carefully and put in the work needed to succeed. You can make your Plan B a reality and have a legitimate home based business of your own, simply put in the work.