Justin Bieber: named richest teen by People magazine. Photo: Penny Stephens

PINK DIAMOND BLACK CORAL PENDANT HERE

After riding the fast road to fame in 2009, Justin Bieber has topped a People magazine list of the richest teen stars, pulling in $US53 million ($50.74 million) last year.

Both the singer and his bank balance enjoyed stellar success in 2010 with ventures such as his 3-D concert movie Never Say Never, his perfume line and record sales.

The 17-year-old has been at work non-stop since he found fame at the age of 14, and recently told the Hollywood Reporter he wanted to take some time off from touring and performing to focus on his home life and “grow up”.

World’s richest teens www.pinkbits.net

US singer and actress Miley Cyrus. Photo: AP

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People’s richest teen list is based on 2010 earnings, and Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus was not far behind Bieber, with a pay cheque of $US48 million ($45.95 million) for the year thanks to her recent world tour.

Cyrus’ ex-boyfriend Nick Jonas pulled in $US12.5 million ($11.97 million), followed by Will Smith’s kids – Jaden and Willow – who both banked an estimated $US9 million ($8.62 million) each.

PINK DIAMOND BLACK CORAL PENDANT HERE

Also on the cash countdown are Taylor Lautner ($US8.5 million/$8.14 million) and Selena Gomez ($US5.5 million/$5.27 million).

Entrepreneurs

Meet The Fastest Growing Company

Ever

Andrew Mason figured out how to inject hysteria into the process of bargain hunting on the Web.

The result is an overnight success story called Groupon.

At least Mark Zuckerberg wrote a few lines of computer code at Harvard before he left to launch Facebook. Now Andrew Mason, a relaxed and lanky 29-year-old music major from Northwestern, has managed to build the fastest-growing company in Web history. Groupon represents what the dot-com boom was supposed to be all about: huge sales, easy profits and solid connection between bricks-and-mortar retailers and online consumers.

Groupon, a name that blends “group” and “coupon,” presents an online audience with deep discounts on a product or service. Act now, says the pitch: You have only so many hours before this offer expires. That’s a familiar come-on, but it’s coupled with a novel element: You get the deal only if a certain number of fellow citizens buy the same thing on the same day. It’s a cents-off coupon married to a Friday-after-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy.

What’s in it for the vendor–which might be a museum, a yoga studio or an ice cream shop? Exposure. Since the resulting revenue is not only discounted but shared (typically, 50/50) with Groupon, the vendor may scarcely break even on the incremental sales. But it now has customers who might never have thought of patronizing the business. Groupon gets its offers in front of eyeballs by buying ad space through Google ( GOOG – news – people ) and Facebook and via the word of mouth of its 13 million subscribers.

Video: Growing Groupon

Unlike so many dot-com rockets, Groupon is a real business. Occupying 85,000 square feet inside a rehabbed eight-story former Montgomery Ward warehouse in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, the company is on track to pass $500 million in revenue this year, according to a report Morgan Stanley ( MS – news – people ) put together to win some underwriting business. No technology stalwart–including Ebay, Amazon.com ( AMZN – news – people ), Yahoo ( YHOO – news – people ), AOL and Google–grew that big that fast. At just 17 months old this April Groupon boasted a $1.35 billion valuation when it raised $135 million, the biggest chunk of it from Digital Sky Technologies, the curious Moscow investment fund behind Facebook and Zynga. (Mason will not disclose his stake, which he says is less than 50%.) The only company to reach a $1 billion valuation faster was YouTube (now part of Google), founded in 2005 and still waiting to turn its first profit. Groupon broke into the black just seven months after inception.

Mason’s model is transforming the way companies–especially smaller ones with limited marketing budgets–snag sales. In May Groupon sold 6,561 tickets to a King Tut exhibit in New York’s Times Square for $18 apiece, little more than half the list price. The campaign brought in $120,000 at virtually no marginal cost to the exhibit; Groupon pocketed about 50% for a day’s effort. The most popular item so far: a $25 ticket for a Chicago architectural boat tour sold for $12. In May Groupon moved 19,822 tickets in eight hours and split the $238,000 with the tour operator.

Groupon has charged into 88 U.S. cities and 22 countries, including Turkey and Chile. Hundreds of rivals, some with deep pockets, are springing up. With turf wars brewing from New York to Brazil, Mason has armed himself with 250 salespeople and 70 writers, many plucked from the Chicago improv scene, to concoct witty pitches for deals. “We want to do for local e-commerce what Amazon did for normal consumer goods,” he boasts.

Sourced & published  by Henry Sapiecha

This is a great article I just received via a newsletter from Jon in Australia

He operates a property investment system.

Anybody wishing to seek further info just needs to email me at

admin@acbocallcentre.com

I have copied it for readers & visitors of the ACBO stable of sites

to enjoy,  learn and perhaps motivate.

HE QUOTES

‘ACCIDENTAL MILLIONAIRE’

I just got back from a massive weekend in Sydney.

No it’s not what you are thinking, my party days are over, I was at the Global Real Estate Investor seminar.

Some might call that “work”, however for me, and I often say this, my work is pleasure.

Yes I really mean that, I love what I do.

But that’s not why I’m writing to you today, I want to tell you about a person I met at the seminar on the weekend.

Let’s call him, “The Accidental Millionaire.”

That’s one thing I love about my business, I get the opportunity to meet incredibly interesting people at events.

Let me tell you about this chance meeting…

A young gentleman caught my attention as I was speaking to a group of people on one of the breaks.

He came up to me and just handed me a glass of water.

He didn’t say much, I think it was along the lines of, “Looks like you might need this…”

He didn’t stay to be part of the group, he just handed me the glass of water and moved on.

At the lunchtime break I saw him walking my way and I simply stopped him to say, “Thank you for the glass water.”

He passed it off as being a small act of “nothing special” but then went on to ask me whether I had 10 minutes to spend with him, he wanted to run something by me.

Now, I’ve learnt a long time ago to never pre-judge anybody. You might think it’s quite easy to do but I can assure you it is in fact very difficult, and in some cases almost impossible.

To paint a picture for you, this guy was casually dressed, however I noticed that his clothes were very Italian-designer orientated. In other words, they looked expensive.

First, he complimented me on the event and the content, and then went on to tell me that he was serious about investing in the US market – but did not want to buy one house at the time, he wanted t o buy 100-200 houses all at once. He referred to the speakers comments about how large investors would buy direct from the banks at wholesale for deep discounts and quickly turn them around for huge profits.

Of course this immediately caught my attention and I started wondering who this guy was… and what has he done to put himself in a position to simply pull out big figures like that.

I wanted to find out if he was serious or just big-noting himself.

I told him I was impressed with his ambition and ability to think big, as well as putting it out there straight away.

Anyway, he told me that his current business was going great-guns and turning over in excess of $30 million per annum with a significant and healthy profit.

This guy is what I call a player.

It was obvious to him from what he had heard at the seminar that the US market was a big opportunity to make some very big returns on his capital and he was not just going to dabble with this – he was going to be very serious and strategic.

He openly told me that he had millions to invest and he was ready to go right now. I was more curious than ever to find out a little bit about his background.

It turns out that this guy is a massive fan of personal development and self-improvement philosophy. He was able to recite concepts and ideas from some personal development greats such as David Schwartz, the author of The Magic of Thinking Big (the first book he ever read), Napoleon Hill of  Think and Grow Rich… Zig Ziglar….. Jim Rohn….. Anthony Robbins….. Winston Churchill…. etc, etc, etc.

All of these success greats had great impact upon his journey to significant wealth.

I wanted to dig deeper into his psychology and find out what made him so successful.

Now this guy is turning over $30 million and he says to me that he didn’t actually feel as though he was hugely successful, he was just taking advantage of the opportunities that were being presented to him.

I think that’s very instructive, anybody from the outside looking in would definitely see him as a success, however he just saw himself as a person of action and taking advantage of opportunity… Interesting.

I wanted more specifics, so I asked him for 3 reasons that he thought had made him achieve the results that he had achieved…

He said three things…

1. The ability to think big.
2. The burning desire.
3. Outcome driven.

I was curious about one thing… He didn’t mention his ability to take massive action. I quizzed him about this…

“Oh!” he said. “That comes naturally to me, I didn’t even think of that… But now that you mention it, I suppose that plays a big part in what I do.”

Now this is very instructive, and many millionaires such as this guy do this subconsciously… Meaning they don’t really know they’re doing it. That’s why it’s sometimes really difficult for a wealthy person to explain what makes them successful.

He has gotten himself to the stage where taking action is normal, natural and simply part of his process.

This is a big lesson for anyone who wants to be rich, wealthy and happy. Your actions have to become part of what you do daily, without thinking about it.

All this most likely developed for this guy during his time that he spent with the self-improvement greats – which obviously changed his psychology greatly.
There are big lessons here, let me summarise them for you…

• Never pre-judge… Be curious about the people that you interact with. You never know who you might be talking to.
• Add value… His gesture of giving me a glass of water was small in the scheme of things, but how often do people do that?
• Mindset… It’s amazing that most millionaires have similar stories of learning from the great masters of the past.
• The ability to think big… If you’re going to think, why not think big?
• Burning desire… This is what underpins the philosophy of “Failure is not an option… Just a learning experience.”
• Outcome driven… You’ll always find a way if you’re outcome-driven. You wont stop until you’ve reached your goal.
• Action-orientated… Turn the often difficult task of action into something that comes naturally, easily and effortlessly.

So there you have it, a chance meeting with a self-proclaimed accidental millionaire.

PS – Things happen for a reason.

HOW MANY OF YOU OUT THERE RELATE TO THIS STORY…??

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 11th Feb 2010