Small Business Marketing Insight Tip: Keyword Article-writing tool - OpenOffice

Small Business Marketing Insight Tip:

Writing articles while keeping your keywords in mind just got easier.

Now, as you know from following this series of blog posts, I'm a big fan of using RankTracker to compile a spreadsheet of keywords - then mining that spreadsheet with a database.

Then you write your articles keeping those keywords in mind. And you can do this all from OpenOffice.

I used to keep a list of keywords to hand, and then started keeping a spreadsheet open on a second monitor while I wrote my articles on my main one. What I found out today is that you can search your database in the same window while you have your article open - saving desktop real estate. Look at this partial screen capture:

(image opens to larger version)

The database is opened up above your editing window, so you can see the keywords you've already culled from your RankTracker research. In this case, I'm working on a series of articles on telemarketing - and you can see the highlighted keyword "telemarketer training" right above the article with that keyword in it's title. Note that it's all in the same window.

Makes it easier to see what you're talking about. Now, if you have multiple databases, they'll show up there as well (right now, I only have the "refund02a" database registered, but more will be coming, rest assured). So you can switch easily from one to the other to find the cross-keywords you need, which helps you out with your Latent Semantic Indexing.

As you update your spreadsheet on a regular basis, that keeps your database current, so when you are writing articles, you can tweak them however your research sends you.

A probable sequence on this would be to

• set out your categories according to your research,
• pile all of these into one massive spreadsheet and then
• set up multiple queries so that OpenOffice Base can do your heavy lifting.
• Then, set your categories in your WordPress blog to align with your keywords.
• Once you have all this, then you simply set your publishing schedule to account for holiday cycles and start sending content to social media about the niche products you are offering and so take over top search engine positions.
  

Follow your publishing schedule and then it's downhill for your work, and uphill for your sales and bank account.

Just wanted to keep you up to date on the latest and greatest - make us both more efficient that way, eh?

Good Hunting!

PS. Coming soon: How to break into Google Analytics without breaking a sweat - a newbie's guide.

A simple (mostly) way to keep on track with smalll business marketing keywords

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphunden/)

Here's a simple way to keep on track with keywords
while doing your small business marketing.

But it's a little left-brained, so be warned.

If you've swallowed my efforts to teach you how to find really good keywords, and have fallen in love with the idea of spreadsheets - I've now figured out how to make it simpler to use the results.

The other caveat is that this is a bit tougher to set up originally- but when you do, it's easy to set up everything else.

Your goal is keywords with high KEI, good traffic, and low competition. And not spend forever extracting them. And you are really only using affordable (or free) tools to determine your natural SEO keywords.

The recipe:

1. Your raw ingredients are Google's Adword KeywordExternalTool, RankTracker, OpenOffice Suite (haven't tried this with the Word Suite), and Web1Marketing's Keyword Competition Estimator.
2. You research your keywords from Google, dump these into RankTracker to find their KEI and WordTracker associated terms, and then dump these results into an OpenOffice spreadsheet (as linked above). This new version means you don't have to do anything to them until after you have the spreadsheet - all big and raw and filled with stuff you don't need.
3. OpenOffice has a database (called Base, of all things) which you can use to do all your calculations. Simply set up queries with your parameters (I'll remind you what they need to be in a second - hang on there) and then set up reports which the queries produce.
   
4. The queries:
1. Sort by KEI: less than 2.0 - these keywords you won't be using, but need a list to check when you're copywriting.
2. Sort by Competition: greater than 4 million, KEI: greater than 2.0, and Length: less than 3 - these results give you likely major keywords.
   
3. Sort by KEI: greater than 2.0, Competition: less than 4mil, # of Searches (traffic): greater than 100 - these results are your likely niche keywords. This is what you will author content for.
4. Sort by KEI: greater than 2.0, Competition less that 4mil, # of Searches less than 100 and greater than 20 - this gives you your lower traffic sub-niche which you work on after you've filled the top niche keywords with content (or if that is all you get for this niche...)
5. Now, you can take the queries at this point and have fun. But, I'd suggest you garnish them with their actual competition:
1. Find your desired keywords by searching for them with "Find All" and then give their background a color. (It's a neat trick - once you've done it once, your hooked.) Remember, you're working from the good-KEI-but-too-much-competition words through your niche and sub-niche terms.
   
2. Take these one by one (sorry I haven't found a tool for this yet) and run them through Web1Marketing's tool to get their "QAT" value - in quotes, in anchor, and in text.
   
3. Then plug these in by the appropriate keyword you are looking for - all in their own column on the spreadsheet.
   
4. Repeat 2 and 3 until you have all your (colored) keywords done.
   
5. Update your queries and reports to include the QAT column.
6. Now you can print your reports and have fun. If you want, you can save the report in native OpenOffice Writer format and then highlight all those terms with QAT you've found - then print it off in color so you can find them easily.
   

With these reports, it's easy to simply work up your publishing schedule and also see what other keywords you can sprinkle into any content you have in order to get gains on those, too.

Now, I still prefer spreadsheets myself - at least at this point. But I'll probably move over to simply doing the database route, as I don't have to do all these queries manually every time I create a new spreadsheet.

The real advantage is that you can update your spreadsheet by simply running all the keywords through RankTracker any time you want to update their usefulness - and then just re-run your queries to get updated reports. The query automatically dates the report, so you're set - particularly if you run your results and print your reports the same day.

The point of all this left-brained exercise is to save you time and make your life less of a hassle.

And make it easier for you to work at getting these top keywords by grabbing their lower-end niches. Plus, be able to update your work quickly to see what you should be targeting this week.

Obviously, if you are doing this as an SEO consultant, for an Internet viral marketing campaign, then you have an incredibly valuable tool here.

(But since this blog has few subscribers right now, our little secret is safe...)

- - - -

Update (about 4 hours later):
Found out how to search for terms with wildcards (had to figure there was a way).

So now you can add to the above to look for certain phrases within your spreadsheet base.

Meaning, you take the top single- and double-term items to winnow out just the top keywords you want to rank for. Then put these as part of the search so you wind up with lists of only the ones you want.

What this is then great for is combining several searches and using the database to crunch the terms instead of RankTracker (which runs on Java and so is only as fast as the amount of memory and CPU size you have onboard.) In other words, basically - slow. OpenOffice Base is remarkably fast with it's queries.

Now, the idea is that you take a spreadsheet and find maybe four keywords which are appropriate to your product line. Then get all the similar words and related words which help you describe it. Get RankTracker to boil these down for you and then OpenOffice to distill them into a ready package. Update that basic database once a month or once a quarter and you're set to run your campaign and keep it accurate.

[Additional: Just to give you an idea of what I'm working with, my RankTracker output rolls up to 1280 keywords right now (soon to be expanded). Within literally seconds, I can sort these down to the 14 major keywords, 50 or so niche and sub-niche KW, plus the 8 pages of alphabetical listings for terms I don't want to use. Nice. The whole cycle takes probably an hour or two to do the first time, then updating maybe 1/2 hour once a month.

Sounds like I could really open up a paid service if I wanted to... Because all I have to do to take any other set of keywords from a spreadsheet is to set up another database and then copy the SQL formulas over. Sounds far more nerdy/geeky than it is.]

Great stuff, eh? Let the computers do your work for you, so you can simply concentrate on polishing your natural SEO content.

Cheers - and Good Hunting!

Moving On - Life after Small Business Online Marketing

(photo credit: mikebaird)

Even small business online marketing can come to an end.

So happy and sad now - it's time to move along.

That last post of mine really struck a cord with me. Like it did the first time.

"What would you be doing in life if you didn't really have to be doing something someone else wanted you to be doing?" is another phrase for it.

If you live life through thinking that you "owe" it to someone to do something or other, then the shoe is on the wrong foot. Sure, you do things always just to be helpful and make sure people are finding the best ways for themselves.

But if the help you're giving doesn't really ring your own gong - who are you doing it for?

Another one: What really winds up your own clock?

What have you always wanted to be, do, or accomplish, or achieve?

What activities do you work at which always cheer you up?

What activities do you do which always cheer others up around you - and keep them that way?

What are your own unique skill-sets which set you apart?

And - is there one reply which fits all of these above questions?

If there is - then how could you do this for the rest of your life? Would you find yourself completely happy doing it from here on out?

Now, if these above questions strike a chord - then refer to that earlier post on finding your own passion/purpose/lifestream and go right out and start taking the steps to do this.

That's what I'm going to do.

So this blog now will start dropping from my priorities - as I've really already said everything you need to get going with - if you just read these 169 posts, along with the 55 post of An Online Millionaire Plan - the blog and the few volumes of An Online Millionaire Plan - the book series.

I've laid out more there than anyone else has in one spot, believe me.

And here's the offer, if you find this stuff useful and want to use this stuff to create your own brand of marketing - contact me via robertworstell.com Things can be worked out. I've done everything I needed to on this and just want to turn it all over. Sure, I thought that I could help a lot of people out by laying out how this could be done and help them find new jobs and so on - but really, my own medicine tastes best.

What am I off to do?

Actually, besides farming, I'm going to draw cartoons and write childrens' stories. My idea of fun.

Sure, I've got a lot of studying to do now, but heck, that's nothing new. The bulk of my work (how people think, plus how to get them to buy your stuff) is behind me. Now it's really down hill.

Wish me luck - I've already done the same for you.

Small Business Marketing Mix: How to get your startup profitable

(photo credit: emdot)

Marketing Mix: How to get your startup small business (more) profitable.

I've covered before how to leverage your product income, as well as the real basics to economics. But unfortunately, I can't find these links for you.

Let's recap (quickly):
I. Economics consists of four inter-related functions, not just two as is taught -

1. Supply
2. Demand
3. Information
4. Service

Defined:

• Supply means having a valuable product, but also covers how much competition you have - if you are selling a commodity product (and so have to compete on price as well.)
• Demand - is anyone actually looking for your product and how much can they afford to pay for it.
• Information - are you actively promoting this product so people can find you?
• Service - are you delivering high quality, or schlock?

These inter-relate: More promotion will increase demand. Low-quality will decrease demand - and if you are selling tainted peanut butter, can decrease supply as well. Non- or slow-delivery will decrease demand for your product. Information: An incorrect price (too high or too low) can affect demand.

Lately, I found there are some other terms floating around, which also describe and actually combine economics and leverage - called Marketing Mix. While I have to do another post to actually define this in non-gobbledygook language, you can see that these four economic principles above are actually a very workable description of how to set up your own marketing mix.

II. Income Leverage - Most marketing is based on simple math - and is a numbers game. Some relevant facts:

• The bell curve predicts that most of your buying public will be only consumers (until you turn them into subscribing clients).
• Additionally, this predicts you will have a base conversion of 2-3% (if you make no hideous errors in your sales copy.)

Your profit (or any retailer) is dependent on a simple formula:

Leveraged Sales - Overhead
- or -

(Products x Sales x Outlets) - Overhead

Definitions:

• Products: Number of products you are offering.
• Sales: Number of sales you get per week or per day.
• Outlets: Do you only have one website?
• Overhead: Cost of doing business (payroll, webhosting, taxes).

Examples:

• When you are selling one product per week on one site, you have a leverage of 1.
• If you increase the volume of that products sales to 100 per week on that website, you have a leverage of 100.
• When you routinely sell 20 products 100 times per week - this increases to 2,000.
• If you get 100 affiliates selling your product, your leverage is now 200,000.

Now subtract your overhead and you'll see that a brick-and-mortar store selling one product per week will have to sell a very expensive product to cover it's costs. This would be a high-end luxury car, or an expensive dress or suit. If you are selling one product on the web, you only have to cover your item cost, shipping, plus your web host. Online is obviously cheaper.

Sell an info product which is instantly delivered and is created digitally when it is sold - and your overhead is mostly just your web host cost.

However, when you use affiliates to sell your stuff and give away 50% of your sales price as a commission, then you are trading half your profit on those sales - which you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. So if you sell 2,000 info products yourself at $20 each, that's $40,000 profit. If you get 100 affiliates to sell them at half price, you just increased your profit by $200,000. But you didn't have to do anything except set up your affiliate sales to pay their commission after you delivered the product. $160,000 increase in profit over doing it all yourself.

Now, here's the Marketing Mix.

That post on the bell curve above covers why you want to move over to subscribers. Your conversion rate goes up from an average 2-3% upwards to above 50% or more.

This means that every time you add a new product to your shopping cart (and promote it to your list), you aren't just increasing your leverage value by 1 or 1,000 - you are also increasing it by a percentage of the number of people on your list. So the new formula becomes:

([Products x Sales x Outlets] x Subscribed Clients) - Overhead = Profit

And guess what - your affiliate sales outlets also have lists. So if you tell them about your new product (and send them one so they can see how good it is), then this can take your profits into a completely new range.

Assuming 50% of the subscribers buy - and say cumulative you have about 100,000 subscribed clients between you and your affiliates - so take a new $20 product and figure that on release day, you'll have about $20 x 50,000 = $100,000+ profit in about 24-48 hours.

And now you see how Rich Sheflin, Jack Humphrey, and some of these big-name marketing guys can rake in the dough by simply releasing a new product 5 or 6 times per year. All info products and mostly sheer profit. The rest of the time, they sell their "velvet rope" subscriptions so people can have "exclusive" access to their new products (and almost guarantee they will buy them at a "discount" in advance of the sales date). Humphrey used to sell a subscription to over 3,000 people at around $90 per month. A clean $3.24M income - and he worked hard to make sure those people got good value for that money, plus was able to afford a small crew working to provide that value. (A couple of $50,000 yearly salaried programmers wouldn't take too much of a bite out, would it? Or give them a percentage of the profit instead - keeps them looking to see how they could improve things to increase monthly, quarterly, and annual profit...)

Do the numbers on that: $100,000 6 times a year = $600K. Add in the subscriber monthly fees - and you get nearly $4 million in gross income per year. Overhead might run a quarter of that or less, so you have about $3mil profit every year. Not that this happens overnight, but certainly it is possible - as outlined above.

Now, there are a lot more details to this. And I hope to go into these in later posts, time and inspiration permitting...

III. Putting this into use for yourself or your company:

For the small business owner, or someone considering a start up, this means a couple of things to increase your profits:

1. Keep adding quality products every week (that's 50 or so additional products per year!)
   
2. Continue promotions and add to these so more people can find your site.
3. Get all possible new and existing customers to sign up for your mailing list.
4. Get your new products up on affiliate sites as quickly as possible.

Good Hunting - and good profits!

Small Business Marketing Insight Tip #5 - How to get started at all.

(photocredit: kapungo)

Starting a Small Business Online:

You have to start by picking out a basket to put your eggs in.

Trite (but true) aphorisms:

• One always learns from his mistakes.
• And as well, hindsight is 20-20.
• Thirdly, what you don't take care of in the beginning can set you back to the beginning.

Or you'll seem to think that. But it's not time to get depressed about things. Take stock of your resources and you'll find that you've been learning all the time. And are now in a much better condition to get really going. This next time will be faster.

I recently found myself back at doing what I should have done to begin with. However, I didn't know it at the time. The reason my sales aren't taking off is that I never set up a proper back end (terminal), followed by a regular runway, and using a definite flight plan.

The steps are simply in this sequence:

1. A proper back end first consists of having something valuable to offer.
2. Next, you set up a way to exchange for this - either affiliate sales, or dropshipping, or ecommerce.
3. Then, you promote this all over the place. So people can find your valuable offer and take you up on it.
4. And all of this is before you quit your day job.
   

Nothing new, perhaps. But here is something - and take this to heart:

You settle on one valuable item and
get that really moving before
you expand to another.

Sure, if it doesn't work out, then fine - start researching and picking out another. Now that you know what reasearch you need to do, the second one will be easier.

Practically, pick out your basket - one basket - and then get some eggs into it. And watch those eggs real closely

But the basket comes before the eggs (figuring that the chicken is around there somewhere - but let's not go there...) Basket first.

A. What is something valuable that you can offer to people who will exchange something with you for them?

Now, go and find out all about that item and what people think about it. Find your keywords, find your delivery methods, find out the demographics who will buy or subscribe to it. Get all this nailed down.

B. Next, figure out your delivery system. If this is an info product, figure out how you can offer it online and deliver it at very low cost - usually, this is an ecommerce site of some sort. If someone else already has that product, maybe you promote and sell it as an affiliate. Or you sel it directly and they dropship it for you. Or you buy in bulk, warehouse, and ship it yourself.

C. Third is to figure out how to promote it. Nowadays, this is best done through social media - a blog, usually - and also posted to the winds through bookmarking sites, etc. Some people tell you to use PPC (not me) to get started. And I recently found an article where the author recommended it as a temporary jump-start to get things going. (I don't tell people starting out to advertise as you can lose your budget very quickly with no results - and the best advertisement is by getting word of mouth through excellent products and delivery.)

D. Now, once you have successfully sold and delivered goods which are making you money - then expand into another (niche) line of work, another (niche) product. You use what you learned from the first time and expand. You keep producing and delivering products from the first one, but now you have some more income and probably some more time to invest in ramping up another product. This can be an additional product in the same niche, or a new product line in a new niche area. (Preferably related to the first, either in main subject, or in delivery mode - so you can use the existing shopping cart and blogs to start promoting these new products.)

Make the second line as or more successful than the first, and then start up a third. Research first, always.

As you continue to do this, life becomes simpler and more profitable.

But again: basket first, then eggs - and then to market.

- - - -

Here's the special news for all those stalwart readers who have made it this far:

I'm restarting the Online Millionaire Plan and reworking it from the bottom up. Meaning that I'm going to take all the many volumes of work I've already done so far and verifying the tests and results. And then re-release new versions with new materials. The emphasis will be on practical application for this new economic scene we just inherited. How to start or expand a small business online on a very small (tiny) budget. Step by step. I figure with all the mis-steps I've already taken, and the tons of data I've already poured through, this should be pretty valuable and useful. Emphasis will be on each step, tying it back into the overall.

And now I know how to really give value as we go, so I'll tell you the tips and secrets uncovered during this line of work.

Stay tuned to http://robertworstell.com - as this is where I'll give the core data - a lot of my peripheral blogs will be changing as I do. But I'll also tell you why and how to apply it on your own.

Good Hunting!!

Marketing Insight Tip #4 - Bell Curve for Small Business

(photo credit: J. Phil)

How to use the Bell Curve in your small business marketing

Hope the graphic above isn't too overwhelming. It just points out the wide variety of applications for the bell curve. It's that way because this oddball curvey line describes a natural phenomenon which all businesses encounter and only a few really know and use.

Recently, I was reminded of this by some huckster I was still getting email from. He said that "this guy" was the best in writing sales letters and articles. So I checked his "this guy" out. The claim to fame was that his sales letters and landing pages routinely had a 2% conversion rate.

What he was saying was that he could write an average page and get average results consistently. Any sales page is supposed to get that type of result, almost regardless of how it's written. 2% conversion is what spam is based on. Volume contact, volume conversion - but the same percentage.

Let me introduce some numbers here:
96% - general public who are in some other niche market and who somehow found your site.
80% / 20% - attributed to an economist named Pareto, this combination tells you where the bulk (80%) of your sales are coming from and what percentage of your subscribers (20%) are making these purchases. It also tells you that most of your problems in your marketing are coming from a small percentage of areas.
3-5% - the number of people you can expect to have the best results with any line of service - these are the "rave results" you hear about (unless the guy is selling internet marketing, and has a bunch of hypesters on his page giving testimonials).

If you center these numbers along a curve, you'll see the 96%/80% in the center, with the 20% split to both sides, the 3-5% on the extreme edges. That's the Bell Curve. Now, if you set these up all from right to left, you get an exponential drop, 96-80-20-5-3%. This is the curve used to explain the Long Tail. Same numbers, different graphic.

Applications for these are numerous.

Efficiency:
Narrow down to your top 20% of your products and put 80% your marketing emphasis on these. Don't discontinue the others, unless they fall into the category of causing 80% of your problems. Focus on your bread-winning efforts - what is really bringing home the bacon. Pay attention only to the essential core of your business. Clean up the rest as needful, but never spend more than 20% of your week at these. Set those others up on near-automatic and let them run. If your metrics show they suddenly become popular, then elevate them to your 80% area. If they are consistently causing you returns/refunds, ditch them without sorrow.

Big Box:
When you concentrate on a narrow area, you have better success than using a shotgun approach. This is the secret to Long Tail marketing, and the failure of corporate businesses who try to be everything for all customers. Wal-Mart knows this. They don't carry stuff which doesn't sell and sell well. You can't get products which are either high-end (which sell far fewer, but at a higher profit margin) or extremely cheap (no profit margin unless you are a bulk reseller.)

You'll find some representative (20%?) products for most (80%?) of what you want. Sam Walton figured out long ago that you could sell a lot more for slightly less and so improve your profit margins tremendously. If you want a particular type of screw or hinge, go to a hardware store - what Wal-Mart carries are general wood screws and common butt and strap hinges to repair average jobs around the average American house or garage. You won't find fine woodworking hinges here.

Niches:
Where the small business outperforms the big box stores is in the exact niche. By finding and marketing to a specific set of people who want a particular and exact types of products, you will then be able to service these more precisely and will be rewarded with their loyalty. Corporations often confuse this one when they get "big".

I used to work for Brookstone - in their warehouse. I'd see the catalog and note that they no longer had unique tools in it - stuff that you dreamed about getting for your own shop. They only had stuff which was in other catalogs: radio-electronics, special mattresses, massage chairs. When they replaced their CEO, I wrote him a note about this. His reply was that they could no longer compete with Big Boxes and so had themed their products around home improvement. Huh?

Look, they built their brand on having unique tools for guys. And this is why their Father Day sales were great. When they expanded, they decided to go into competition with Lowes, Home Depot, Sears, etc. In other words, they decided to go Big Box. Meanwhile Duluth and other catalogs started servicing their original customers with unique tools and products. Why are they having trouble in this economy? Because they aren't selling anything essential. And any guy can tell you, having the right tool at the right time is essential - and everyone appreciates a gift. Brookstone abandoned it's successful policy and is reaping the whirlwind.

Long Tail Niches: This is where small businesses shine. Gary Vaynerchuk took his family liquor store and expanded it to a dynasty of selling wine to people online. He did it through education - infotainment. Go to his site and you'll see how he does it. (And better yet, he'll tell you how he does it.) Simple concept, brilliantly executed. Lots of people can buy different types of wine if they know which one to get for what use. The trick is that people don't know - and so make some regular videos that inform people about this area and your sales increase.

By concentrating on just wine and education, he was able to expand his family liquor store to an international success. For any small business, this means that suddenly you're not nailed down to only having the local people near your store able to access your products - you can ship these anywhere in the world. For small businesses to sell to niche consumers everywhere on the planet - this is a no-brainer. The Internet is the great equalizer - if you know how to use it.

Conversions:
Back to where we started. Look, it's a statistical phenomenon, proved over and over. Out of 100 pitches, 2-3 people will buy. Spam and telemarketing took off because they were able to lower the overhead (cost of doing business) and increased the volume dramatically. So sales picked up - dramatically. Unless you are doing something really wrong (like links that don't work), then you are going to have this type of percentage.

What you are concerned with is not so much initial conversions, but repeat traffic. These are subscribers. People who know you and your brand and keep coming back for more. When you see people say they have a "7% conversion rate", know that they have some repeat business in there. When you see "17% conversion" you know they are missing some prime "velvet-rope" opportunities - where they should be selling exclusive access to part of their site just for repeat customers.

I know this route - from working for an international corporation which dealt in self-help books, tapes, and counseling. There's been an external analysis of their production (not paid for by that corporation or connected to them) which found that about 70-80% of their initial course completions left after the first service. (That's a 2-3 day course, given for a couple of hours a day when the person can fit it in after work or during the day. Cheap - about $50, plus course materials.) Now, another 10% left in the first year. By year three, they lost about 97% of the people who had walked in their door for one reason or another. But they made their weekly millions off the 3% which was left. Those generally spent between $50K and $100K over the next 5 years. Each. They were put into more and more exclusive areas and paid more and more. By the time they got to the top, they had each personally invested millions (literally) in services and materials to that corporation. All on a "velvet rope" subscriber basis.

That corporation didn't really need the bulk of their prospects that walked in the front door. They just became extremely efficient for the few who had the money that corporation needed. Now, I don't think they've really done this analysis themselves, or they'd see how their marketing (something along the lines of your money is going to saving this planet as we expand internationally) is really false. And they'd also see that they are throwing away more than they're making. But it keeps the few continuing to buy in. And to that corporation, perhaps, marketing (and their millions in weekly income) is all that counts.

How you can put this to use:
OK, I've gone on too long in this area for most readers. What I'm saying here is that

• the small guy can do whatever the big guy is doing, with the leverage of the Internet.
• Just make sure that you are getting a broad exposure (cast a wide net) while concentrating on a smallish niche which is profitable.
• And cherish your repeat clients.

Warren Buffet says (who is actually quoting Andrew Carnegie, who got it from someone else): "You can put all your eggs in one basket - you just have to watch that basket real closely."

Good luck - and good hunting!