Find real estate stocks and do short selling. Well managed this can be an effective strategy.

If real estate values continue to climb you still own your property and continue to accumulate capital gains.

If real estate values begin to fall you sell short selected stocks and profit from decline, which balances loss in value of your real estate. You protect your real estate gain... and maybe even come out ahead on strategy.

An ETF is an Exchange Traded Fund. That's a basket of stocks that trade under one symbol just like a stock. You can quickly buy, sell or short an ETF through an online broker in seconds. You have instant liquidly... something you don't have with real estate.

Two ETF's that you could be ready to short sell would be:

IYR - A basket of real estate stocks

IYF - A basket of financial stocks.

Lots of areas would be hard hit by a down turn in real estate including: banks, mortgage lenders, utility companies, materials suppliers and especially home builders.

The stocks of leading home builders that would suffer during a real estate bust include:

Brookfield Homes - BHS Beazer Homse - BZH Centex Corp - CTX D R Horton - DHI K B Home - KBH

Yes, short selling is a radical strategy for smaller investor, but aren't you one who needs gain protection most?

You may find a local stock broker that would give you some help, but you should understand some basics about stock market and trend following.

You can easily learn that here... http://digbig.com/4dxys

The sharper your arrow point is more likely it will strike bull's eye. Know who your target audience is and design your advertising to reach them.

4. Not asking your customers what they think of your product or service.

If you don't survey your customers to find out what they love or hate about your product or service then you may be losing them without even realizing it. Customers appreciate when you value their opinions enough to ask for it. In this way you can find out how to improve your products to better suit your market. The more satisfied your customers are more you'll get with less effort.

5. Ignoring your present customer base.

You know saying, "A bird in hand is worth two in bushes". This could be said about customers as well, but this time try five in bushes. Yes, it can take 5 times as much money and effort to win a new customer as it takes to keep an old one.

Rather than just concentrating on building your customer base you should spend a greater amount of your marketing resources to keep those that you have already happy. If you don't do this then you'll just be trying to fill up a leaking barrel. You'll continue to lose customers as fast as you gain them-a great way to waste your marketing resources.

6. Not having a 'back end' product to sell to your existing customers.

After your customer has made an initial sale, you should have another complimentary product to sell to that customer. You have already won their confidence to do business with you so second sale should be easier to make.

Even if you don't sell such a product or service then you should form a joint venture with another business owner and split profit. Ignoring wealth that is in your present customer base is a grave mistake. Yet many businesses do this year after year.

7. Not 'spying' out competition.

Even if you are #1 in your niche you should be still keeping an eye on what your competition is doing. You may learn some valuable lessons and it may help you to see weaknesses that you have in your own company.

No general will want to go to war without knowing what type of armor enemy has and how well they use them. The same for a business as well; you must know what your competition uses and how you can translate successful strategies to your own business.