I’ve often advised people to remain focused on one activity
and not to multitask to be most productive.

While focusing is such an important aspect of being
successful and getting lots of work done, it can be a
double edged sword.

If you focus on an activity for a short period of time then
you may have not given that activity enough time to work.
If you work on an activity for too long then there’s a
chance you’re focusing your efforts on something that will
never work.

So how do you know where to focus?

I tend to only focus on one activity with all my efforts
and then let time take care of the rest.

I see a lot of people give up on something too quickly
before giving it a chance to work. I guess its
a habit that grows on people who work online. They want
instant gratification because they heard things
were supposed to be easy and quick online.

When compared to offline marketing, doing things online
does often time provide faster results but you
still have to give it time to work.

I’m referring to things that you may do on a regular basis
such as generating backlinks to a website or
waiting for your site to get indexed using a certain
method.

Back to the issue of focusing, I will try my hands at
different methods and then once I see some results, I will

focus my attention on which methods worked the best. You
should cast a wide net and then hone in on what works with
intense focus. Study what worked for that method and try to
improve on it.

You will never know for sure why something worked but if
you focus on it then you will get a better understanding of
the method.

This will get you a lot further than to randomly do one
thing here and one thing there with no way to actually
measure your success factors.

So the main point of this lesson is to try many things and
then focus on what works best. You can use other people’s
experience as a base for making your own discoveries.

Only once you focus on a single task will you be able to
analyze it and really know for sure how to make it work
best for you.

In the United States, there’s an event every year called Black Friday.
This is the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in which retailers offer
deep discounts on products in their stores to mark the beginning of
the holiday shopping season.

If people wanted to take advantage of these deep discounts, they have
to arrive at the store very earlier as quantities are limited and the demand
is sky high.

I remember one year when I was looking at the Black Friday ads for the
Best Buy Electronics retailer. I saw a nice and really cheap laptop for
under $400. I figured if I got there right at opening, I would be able
to pick up a super cheap laptop. To my surprise, when I got to the store
at opening, there was already a line wrapping around the inside of the store
with people waiting to pay for their items.

The computer that I wanted was already out of stock and they would
not offer any more at that price. Needless to say, I was very disappointed.

After I went home, I went online to research Black Friday and found out
that people had formed a line as early as 8:00 AM on Thanksgiving Day
to get into Best Buy. This was a common occurrence at most major retailers
on Black Friday.

It seems like a ridiculous idea when you initially learn about this fact but
if you think about it then it starts to make more sense.

Many people are willing to forego celebrating a treasured holiday and wait in
cold weather for 24-48 hours so that they can save hundreds of dollars on
their Christmas shopping. For them, that extra several hundred dollars is
equal to their weekly paycheck, a mortgage payment, or a car payment.

Knowing this fact, do you really think you could use Black Friday as a way
to buy products that you don’t need and sell them later for a steeper price?

You’re essentially taking away someone’s opportunity to save much needed
cash.

The holidays are about giving. It’s a bit ironic to think that after the
Thanksgiving holiday, you’re TAKING away someone’s chance to save
money on something that they need.

Although giving gift cards to someone for their favorite store may be a good idea in previous years, you may want to rethink your plans for this holiday season.

If you give a gift card to someone and then the store closes then the gift recipient will not be able to redeem their gift card and your gift is wasted.

I had a friend who was given a gift card to Sharper Image. You may know that Sharper Image filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year and thus ended up closing all their stores. Even before they closed their stores, my friend was not able to redeem his gift card. It’s a bit unfair since they already received the money but what can you do?

If you’re a die hard gift card giver then make sure the store you’re planning to buy from is not about to close any stores.

Here is a list of companies I got from Aol’s website which are facing some big financial troubles.

1.) Circuit City

Just filed for bankruptcy and closing 155 stores nationwide.

2.) RadioShack

Cash tight. Small player catering to low-end consumer base.

3.) Safeway

This large grocery chain operates on a very small profit margin.
Tight consumer spending could decrease that small margin to nothing.

4.) Tiffany and Company

Catering luxury consumers who are seeing layoffs in the financial sector.

5.) Apple

Imacs are expensive when compared to PCs. Most people have an iPod
already. Bad news!

6.) Tuesday Morning

Problems with inventory

Below is a list of stores which are closing. I found them on Craigslist so you
should do some fact checking on this list.

Ann Taylor closing 117 stores nationwide.
Eddie Bauer has already closed 27 shops
Cache closing 20 to 23 stores
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherine’s closing 150 stores
Talbots, J. Jill closing 22 underperforming stores
Gap Inc. closing 85 stores
Foot Locker to close 140 stores
Goodbye Levitz / BOMBAY - closed
Zale’s, Piercing Pagoda close 82 stores
Home Depot 15 store closings
CompUSA (CLOSED
Macy’s - 9 stores
Pep Boys - 33 stores
Ethan Allen Interiors close 12 stores
Wilsons, the Leather Experts - 158 stores
Sharper Image 94 store closings
KB Toys 356 stores that it is closing