By Michael Ham

Thank you Ed Slott for your tireless work in educating us on IRAs, their benefits and their near misses. But for the agents and reps who don’t want to spend three days and several thousand dollars in a workshop, here is the key to making you an invaluable IRA resource for your clients and prospects. Share the stories of unaware families who thought their parent’s or spouse’s IRA would automatically pass tax free to their IRA, because they don’t.

My most recent experience with a new client is just another nightmare whereby the wife figured her deceased husband and their estate attorney had all the details worked out in their IRAs. And I suppose their plan was copacetic back in 1999 when it was drafted. But news flash! The custodian (aka banks and brokerages) have gone through tumultuous times and there have been untold numbers of mergers and sales of banks, insurers and firms over the past few years, often unintentionally negating prior estate planning.

In this case, the firm that was once the custodian of my new client’s IRA was acquired. And even though their IRAs held by the acquired firm named the spouses as each other’s beneficiaries, the firm’s custodian was the owner “for the benefit of” (FBO) the clients.

OK, still no problem except that the beneficiary of the annuities owned “inside” the IRAs was named (per the custodian’s requirements) as “Same as Owner.” Is that a big deal, you may ask? Heck, yes! When the prior firm was sold, the annuity contracts’ ownership was transferred back to the clients. Thus the beneficiary wasn’t changed and still named the owner, not the spouse nor any other contingent beneficiaries. The result? The deceased husband’s estate became the beneficiary, which nullified any opportunity for the wife to “inherit” or simply roll over his IRA into hers. And income taxes were due now on a very large IRA that could have and would have been deferred for at least 10 years.

Having to pay income taxes on her spouse’s IRA now and being unable to inherit it into her IRA reduced the principal of the account by 33 percent. Her lifetime annual income was also cut from $30,000 to $20,000. This is so easily avoided by simply naming both a real human being primary beneficiary along with multiple human contingent beneficiaries. Sharing these types of real life stories with your clients and prospects will increase your value and your odds of uncovering assets held under management with inept competitors.

You’ll be shocked to learn how many IRAs held at banks and other firms name the beneficiary as “per stirpes,” or often a revocable trust. Without actually naming beneficiaries “with a heartbeat,” the IRA is forced back through the probate process and becomes part of the deceased estate. This costs money in legal fees and negates the ironclad protection against predators and creditors afforded to IRAs and their beneficiaries. Your call to action as a skilled professional is to offer all your clients and prospects the information and ability to review their IRA beneficiaries. Hey, I wonder if I can get my own PBS show?

How to Be in the Top 5% of Your Industry

My friend, and consummate networker, Joe Polish, is about to show you the one thing you need to do in order to avoid being one of the 80% of new businesses that fail each year.

But more importantly, you’ll also discover the one simple piece of advice you need to follow in the top 5% of your marketplace.

Craig Ballantyne

Why 80% Of Businesses Fail… And How You Can Be Sure You Beat The Odds

By Joe Polish
You’ve probably seen that bleak statistic before…. “50% of businesses fail within the first 5 years and 80% within the first 10 years.” A Google search will bring up reports hovering anywhere from 60%-90% fail rate in the first 5-10 years. Whatever the case…there are a lot of businesses that fail. Period. So let’s just make sure you aren’t one of them.

Some people want to blame the poor economy, increased competition, and/or inflation for their failures. But there are plenty of people who have proven that success is possible in spite of these challenges. As I see it, there are three main reasons so many businesses meet with failure…

1. Lack of a good product or service.
2. Lack of good marketing.
3. Lack of buyers.

Your job is to simply not be “lacking” in those three areas and you can beat the odds and be successful… But in reality that’s easier said than done or we wouldn’t be looking at an 80% failure rate would we?

Offer A Good…No A Great…Product Or Service.

Pioneering business leader, Peter Drucker gave the simplest definition, and what he called the primary purpose of business… “To create (and keep) customers.”

One of the major roles of being a successful business owner is to actually learn how to fulfill the needs and wants of your marketplace. Offer a product or service…whether it’s something you conceive or represent…and deliver it so that your customers are so happy with the experience that they buy again and again.

Your job as a business owner is to exceed the expectations that clients have because every customer has expectations. And when you exceed those expectations they will do business with you over and over and over again. That’s how you “keep” those customers.

Marketing…The Producer Of Your Success (Or Failure)

Peter Drucker nailed it again with this quote, “Marketing and innovation produce results, all other business functions are cost.”

But I’m not just talking about throwing money at expensive advertising in hopes that you see a return on your investment or building an “image” or a “brand”. No. I’m talking about effective direct response style marketing. This is the kind of marketing that provides results you can track. If more businesses learned and practiced effective, proven marketing techniques the 80% fail rate would dramatically flip to success.

You rarely see someone go out of business because their prices were too high or because they had too many customers. It’s usually because they don’t have enough customers and they’re pricing themselves too low. Low prices squeeze margins and can render a business incapable of delivering a service or a product that meets or exceeds expectations. A lack of customers and competing by low price are the results of ineffective, uneducated marketing.

Buyers…Finding (And Keeping) Your Place In The Market.

What happens if your marketplace gets too competitive or “dries up?” When people get into the “trap” of major competition or find people no longer buying what it is they’re selling, they need to change their approach and what they offer to fit what the marketplace actually wants. That means keeping your finger on the pulse of your market so that your business and marketing can evolve and you can innovate.

Remember These Four “M’s”…

As a successful, high priced marketer for almost 20 years now, I’ve learned that there’s four things you need in business to be successful. I call them “The Four M’s”…Marketing…Margins…Management…and Model.

Model…Take A Look At The “Blueprint” Of Your Business…

What is your plan for generating revenues? This plan is your “model” or the “skeleton of your success”. Your model is the foundation that holds all of the other working parts. A solid model can lead to the success of your business likewise a weak model may lead to its demise.

Margins…. “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better”

Don’t forget that you are in a numbers game. Most business owners make that mistake. Do you know your numbers? How much do you actually make on what it is you sell? If you don’t know your margins, you might not be around (in business) long enough to find out.

Marketing…Yes Again…From Packaging To Profits

How do you effectively position, offer and uniquely package your products or services? I already touched on marketing but it’s really so important to the success of a business that it deserves extra attention. Your marketing ultimately determines your paycheck. Get your marketing “dialed in” and you’re already two steps ahead of your competition.

Management…I’m not Talking About People

The word “management” often conjures up ideas of managing a staff, but it doesn’t necessarily mean managing people. Management is simply your ability to keep track of stuff. It can mean your ability to manage your staff, your products, your services, your marketing, your margins, and your profits. When you own a business you are managing everything that relates to making you money every day.

Your Weakest Link…

These four M’s feed into each other and some of them are more critical to the formula of success than others. For example, I have never considered myself a great manager but learned such effective marketing that I was able to make high enough margins and develop a business model where based on those alone, I could do really well.

Prioritize your skills. After all, you could be the best manager in the world but if you have a weak model, poor margins, and your marketing isn’t good, you are still not going to make enough money to survive in business.

Never forget what it is you’re really doing when you have your own business…

Solving Problems For A Profit.

That’s it. There is a lot of “problems” in the world. If you can solve them, you can make a lot of profits. If you don’t know what “problems” you can solve, then find out what people are interested in buying and learn how to deliver them a solution in a confident, profitable manner.

If you do “solve people’s problems” just a little bit better than all of the other competitors out there, not only will you beat the 80% failure rate, but you will most likely be one of the top 5% of your marketplace.

Simply because you are reading this article right now, you are probably already in that category….or very close. After all, I think the reason up to 80% of businesses fail (and this is my opinion) is because most people don’t take the time to learn how to make their business succeed. (So congratulations on being one of those people that do.)

Remember as long as you aren’t “lacking” in the three crucial areas of business, (product/service, marketing and marketplace) and as long as you have a good model, healthy margins, effective marketing, and capable management, you can go out there and “beat the odds”. You can succeed.

[Ed. Note: Joe Polish has been a long-time business success thanks to his study of direct marketing. He's also been a consultant to some of the biggest names in the nutrition supplement and information industries. If you want to learn how to become a master at effective marketing then listen to Joe Polish's free "I Love Marketing" Podcast at www.ilovemarketing.com]

By Dan Sullivan
As you progress through life and your business grows, it’s natural that some messes will accumulate in your life. We define a “mess” as an obligation you’re not committed to. You can remember this as “M = O – C,” or “Mess equals Obligation minus Commitment.”

Common messes entrepreneurs experience are legal issues, financial concerns, and problems that arise out of the complexity of running an evolving business. As messes build up over the years, they can start to block your progress and bog you down in minutiae.

When you leave a situation in a mess, a part of your brain stays with it. That bit of mental energy isn’t able to contribute to solving other problems or creating new opportunities. With each clean-up you do, a portion of your brain is set free again.

The clean-up two-step.

The process for cleaning up a mess involves two steps. The first is to face it. Until you’ve looked at the messes in your life head-on, acknowledging and identifying what they are, you can’t begin to clean them up.

The second step is to deal with it. Messes are often the result of guilt, justification, and avoidance, so a little action goes a long way toward dealing with them. Complexity and negative emotion then turn into a new sense of simplicity and confidence.

The Monday morning invasion.

Your office can be a constant source of messes. For instance, you might not even use your desk drawers anymore. Many people’s drawers turn into time capsules and their closets become museums, while the bulk of their work sits on their desk. If you have piles of paper to get past just to reach your chair, Monday morning might feel more like storming the beaches.

A mess in your physical space goes beyond mere untidiness. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a cluttered or haphazard workspace (no matter what a compulsive organizer might say!). What really matters is whether your space contributes to your ability to think, communicate, and act, or if it gets in the way.

There are many solutions for getting your space set up so it helps you do your best work. One strategy I recommend to my clients is “The No-Office Solution”: Instead of having a space where “stuff” can pile up, work off-site or use a temporary space in the office. When you’re finished, a team member takes your stuff away, so there’s nowhere for more of it to accumulate while you’re out of the office.

At first, many people think they couldn’t possibly do this. Those who try it, though, find that it provides a huge boost in confidence. Being faced each day with stacks of stuff can keep you from recognizing the progress you’ve made. The No-Office Solution™ focuses your attention on active tasks and projects that you can deal with one by one.

Doing deals with the world.

Many people get into messes when they work outside their area of expertise. When there’s something you know you have to do, but you don’t enjoy doing it and don’t do it well, it’s easy to put it off until it becomes a problem. While it’s up to you to say what needs to be cleaned up in your life, you’re not necessarily the person to have to do the clean-up. You can get anything accomplished in the world as long as you’re not always the person who has to do it!

Delegation is a key strategy for cleaning up a situation and preventing it from becoming an issue again. The power of delegation lies in the way it extends your abilities. By surrendering a task to someone with a talent and passion in that area, you make sure it’ll be handled now and into the future, and you also open up the opportunity to have it handled well.

Wondering what to delegate?

There are a few key things in life you do really well and that give you energy. Then there’s everything else. Some of these other activities are things you’re simply not good at. These “incompetent activities” can be very frustrating, and are dangerously easy to ignore because you dislike them so much. There are other activities you’re competent at, but you don’t add anything special to the way you do them; anyone could get the same result as you. Then there are things you do exceptionally well, but aren’t passionate about. You might enjoy the attention or the results these excellent activities get you, but they don’t really ignite your passion.

These three types of activities–incompetent, competent, or excellent–are good candidates for delegation, starting with incompetent activities. In these areas, you might find that your energy drops after the novelty wears off, and you have trouble finding the motivation to complete projects. Someone else, however, might have the energy to finish the job, or to add a new element that makes it interesting for you again. They might enjoy tasks that you don’t, and have a different perspective or abilities to bring to them.

The trick is to draw a circle around those few activities you’re great at, then make deals with the world to take care of everything outside that circle. In doing this, you multiply your abilities and preserve your energy for those activities that distinguish you from everyone else.

Releasing potential energy.

The initial thought of doing clean-ups may not excite you–after all, aren’t these things you were avoiding in the first place? But think of how good you’ll feel once they’re done. With every mess you clean up, you’ll transform a source of guilt, frustration, and suffering into a source of confidence, energy, and progress. This releases an enormous amount of energy, freeing you up to shift your attention from dealing with little problems to the much more rewarding business of creating the future you want to see.

[Ed. Note. Dan Sullivan is the president and co-founder of Strategic Coach®, a global organization that has helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs grow their businesses exponentially while enjoying an exceptional quality of life. He is the author of more than 30 publications on the subject of entrepreneurship.]

Many years ago, I took over a business with mammoth collection problems:  almost all of its customers had open accounts and paid their bills ten to sixty days late (except those who didn’t pay at all).  We quickly instituted a number of corrective measures, including tighter credit controls and policies, interests charges, a sequence of past-due notices, and collection calls.  However, we also instituted a positive strategy.  We started sending hand-signed thank you notes for prompt payment to anybody who did pay on time…those who were almost on time…and even late payers who responded to a past-due notice.   Guess what happened? Those customers who received thank you notes became better paying customers.

I know a Doctor who started a procedure of giving fresh, long-stemmed red roses to his women patients who showed up for their appointment on time, or paid their bills on time, or referred another patient.  “Funny thing,” he told me.  “We no longer have patients missing appointments. Our collections have improved.  Referrals are up.  And, some guys are asking how they can get roses, too!

Here are a few specific ideas you might adopt, as ways of saying thank you:

• Keep customers’ birthdays on file and send cards and/or mail gifts.
• Send Thanksgiving cards or letters.
• Make it a habit to drop a personal thank-you note in the mail each day, to at least one customer.
• Send a gift certificate or discount certificate to a customer who makes an unusually large purchase.
• Host a “Customer Appreciation Event” – a Christmas party, a backyard bar-b que.
• Have an occasional closed-to-the-public, preferred customer sale.
• Drop in personally on your best customers, with a surprise gift.

I figured it up just the other day; last year, personally and for my various businesses combined, I signed checks for well over one million dollars, in payment for goods and services to all sorts of people and companies.  And I don’t care what anybody says – a million bucks is a lot of money.  Yet, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of the recipients of all that money who have expressed any gratitude in any formal kind of way.  Only one of them found out and recognized my birthday.

Just saying “thanks” is a big step ahead of the competition today.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world. https://gkic.infusionsoft.com/go/newmifge/mhiggins

One of the things I’ve always been committed to is giving my clients the best service and experience that I possibly can.

My thought is this:

If I can let people have a “WOW Experience”, it will endear them to me. But beyond that, it will compel them to tell other people about the experience.

And if you deliver this “WOW Experience” in spades, it will have a HUGE impact on your business.

The good news is that very few of your competitors concentrate on delivering this kind of experience for their customers.

Instead, they focus the majority of their efforts trying to get more new business.

Yet once they’ve secured that new business, they spend little time or effort in giving that new customer a positive experience that they’ll remember.

Here’s a perfect example.

I recently went on a business trip to Phoenix. Since my wife Lisa is originally from that area, she and the kids sometimes go with me when my travels take me to Arizona.

When traveling by myself, I never rent a car, because it’s easier (and faster) for me to simply catch a ride from the airport.

But, when Lisa and the kids are along for the trip, I always rent a car, so that while I’m in meetings, they can get around town to visit family and friends.

We usually rent from Enterprise, but for whatever reason, on this trip, we decided to rent from a different company, who’s name I won’t reveal (in order to protect the guilty).

I’d reserved the care for 2pm, thinking that would be plenty of time for us to get from the airport, over to the car rental center, and do all the necessary paperwork.

But… once we arrived at the rental counter, due to inept employees, I stood in line (along with Lisa and the kids) for almost an hour.

Meanwhile, the folks at the competitor’s counter right next door are being shuttled through at lightning speed.

The car we reserved wasn’t available, but they said they had one due back in at any moment.

To make matters worse, they insisted that I be added as a driver on the car (even though I wouldn’t drive it at all) because I was the one paying for the rental.

This added an extra $48.00 to our 6-day rental fee.

The $48.00 wasn’t really a big deal to me, but for crying out loud, when you don’t have the rental car ready at the available time, you shouldn’t come back and say, “Hey, we messed up, and to top things off, we’re going to charge you more money too”.

Instead, they should have been making some kind of concessions for us, in order to make up for the error.

After finally getting the paperwork handled, they sent us out to the parking garage to wait for our car.

As the clock approached 3pm, and the kids became increasingly cranky due to the heat, I asked the garage attendant how much longer we’d have to wait.

Her response, and I quote, “I’m sorry Mr. Thompson, but sometimes stuff happens. Your car should be here soon”.

I was shocked by her response. But she was right, the car showed up a few minutes later, and the bad experience finally came to an end.

Needless to say, we won’t be renting from that company again… EVER.

Now, that experience was a far cry from the online experience I recently had while trying to purchase a shelf for our refrigerator, because my 3-year old son Brock accidentally broke the original one.

As soon as I got on the website and started my search for the shelf I needed, a live chat window popped up, and an employee named Jeremy was asking me if he can help.

Notice how he turns up at EXACTLY the right time, within seconds of me starting my search.

And let me tell you, I sure am glad he showed up, because in the back of my head, I’m thinking to myself, “I sure do hope I order the right part”.

My guess is that most people have this same concern, and the people who run this website know that.

That’s why they’ve got Jeremy… to make sure you get the right part.

Jeremy was quite adept at helping people like me find the exact part we need. Once I told him the model number, he provided me a link to the model of my fridge.

At first I thought this was the wrong schematic, but Jeremy politely set me straight.

Then, once we confirmed the part I needed, he sent me a convenient link so I could make the purchase.

Talk about an incredible experience!

I actually ordered this door shelf the evening before we left for Phoenix (in the first experience I shared with you), and when I arrived home, the part was waiting on us.

I don’t know about you, but in our household, we use every bit of the space in our refrigerator. So missing a door shelf would certainly be an inconvenience.

But, because Jeremy helped me out, it took only a few minutes of my time (who knows how long it would’ve taken if I’d been left to my own), and we were barely inconvenienced at all.

And now, here I am raving to everyone about the experience I had at ApplianceZone.com.

The truth is, it’s not hard to give your clients and customers a “WOW Experience”.

It’s almost as easy to WOW them, as it is to irritate them, yet the benefits of WOWing them can be huge.

Always think of ways to exceed the expectations of people who do business with you, and you’ll never go wrong.

[Ed. Note: Kevin Thompson's mission is to introduce one million entrepreneurs to the concept of having their own lifestyle-business... so they can get paid more than they ever imagined... for doing what they love... while having a business that fits in with, and funds the kind of lifestyle they truly want to have. Get more of his unique insight and advice here http://www.AutomaticIncomeCoach.com]

Recently, two business partners came to visit me, looking for magical help with their host of terrible problems.  Without dragging you through all the details, the bottom line: they have no terrible problems.  They have a few minor problems.  But, overall, they’re in pretty good shape.  Theirs is a business that peaked at about 2.5 million, dipped to 1.6, but is now back up to 1.8, may break 2 this year “as is”, has lost some markets but gained different opportunities, and is satisfactorily if not excitingly profitable as compared to industry norms.  But to hear these two, you’d think the sky was falling.

The blunt truth: they need a therapist, not a marketing consultant.  Actually, they need to start with a very simple but important strategy….

One of the Eternal Truths that I quote in one of my books is: when you are up to your ass in alligators, it’s difficult to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp.  It’s easy to get so caught up in managing all the problem parts of a business that you never do anything else.  And that’s a sure path to where these two partners are now:  burn out.  I could give ‘em the all-time killer sales letter, the best marketing campaign ever devised, and it wouldn’t do them much good…when they go to the office each day wishing they weren’t there, fatigued from first thing on, going through the motions, viewing their activities as drudgery…and end the day without any sense of measurable progress toward meaningful goals…their ‘walking dead’ aura pervades ever nook and cranny, every employee, every customer, every aspect of their business.  It’s the psychic equal of trying to attract a lot of customers to a restaurant that smells like rotting, burning flesh.

Prescription: each and every day, keep a pre-set, inviolate appointment with yourself or with one or two key people, out of sight and hearing of the alligator pit, no matter how many alligators there are or how hungry they are, to do nothing but focus and work on positive, productive plans and strategies that look to the future, that are linked to goals and progress, that you can be excited and optimistic about.  Simplistically, this is a means of maintaining perspective.  Even better, add taking one action, getting one thing done every day, no matter what, that you know moves you forward, toward positive goals.  Go home if you must knowing you spent 7 hours and 58 minutes in the alligator pit, but at least you found 2 minutes to put something in motion that will improve things.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world. https://gkic.infusionsoft.com/go/newmifge/mhiggins

The association of state securities regulators, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), earlier this week issued a release listing the five most common deficiencies regulators find at Registered Investment Advisers. They can serve as a guide to advisors to minimize the risk of regulatory violations.

NASAA’s list was developed after a review of the results of coordinated examinations of 825 investment advisors by 45 different state and Canadian provincial securities examiners revealed a pattern in problem areas–compliance hot spots.  (Download the report.)

NASAA’s report should serves as a roadmap to the areas you can expect examiners to focus on. Advisers  should take time  to review the NASAA report to prepare for a regulatory exam.

According to NASAA, the top five categories with the greatest number of deficiencies involved registration; books and records; unethical business practices; supervision; and advertising. More specifically, the examinations indicated certain very specific problem areas, including:

Registration Issues:

• Inconsistencies between parts I and 2 of firms’ Form ADV
• Failing to amend Form ADV in a timely manner

Books and Records Issues:

• Not maintaining client suitability information
• Failing to safeguard client records and data
• Not backing up computerized data properly

Unethical Business Practice Issues:

• Client contracts missing from files
• No contract executed by the client
• Altered documentation
• Clients signing blank documents

Supervision Issues:

• Inadequate or absent supervisory/compliance procedures
• Incomplete supervision of personal trading by IARs
• Improper remote location supervision

Advertising Issues:

• Improper advertising on firm websites
• Misleading statements in correspondence
• Misleading credentials and statements on business cards
• Misuse of the RIA designation when not warranted

Based on the results of the 2011 coordinated exams, NASAA has issued a “Best Practices” guide to assist advisers to develop compliance practices and procedures. These include:

• Review and revise Form ADV and disclosure brochure annually to reflect current and accurate information.
• Review and update all contracts.
• Prepare and maintain all required records, including financial records.
• Back-up electronic data and protect records.
• Document all forwarded checks.
• Prepare and maintain client profiles.
• Prepare a written compliance and supervisory procedures manual relevant to the type of business to include business continuity plan.
• Prepare and distribute a privacy policy initially and annually.
• Keep accurate financials. File timely with the jurisdiction.
• Maintain surety bond if required.
• Calculate and document fees correctly in accordance with contracts and ADV.
• Review all advertisements, including website and performance advertising, for accuracy.
• Implement appropriate custody safeguards, if applicable.
• Review solicitor agreements, disclosure, and delivery procedures.

Consider where your own recordkeeping and practices may not be up to par, and develop a coordinated plan to address them quickly.

Having been given the answers to your next “quiz,” there is no excuse not to pass.

Government does not work because it is more about royalty remaining royalty than it is about results, so the only time it gets anything of real importance accomplished is in moments of severe crisis, when all the royals are equally threatened. Business works – when it works – because of an opposite operating system. Small business works better than big business, because its leaders have little fear of being deposed; they are the owners, a status actually higher than royals (which is why royals despise business owners), so they can act without political considerations. For that reason, they are often proactive instead of only reactive. Because they deal in real rather than fictitious numbers, have a limit on debt they can get their hands on, and eat profit, they often make intelligent and rational decisions. Many work at defusing problems at their tiniest, in their infancy, rather than postponing doing so as long as possible, until the monster has grown big enough to eat them. If you stand back and observe all this, you can see what works and what doesn’t work quite clearly, and make your personal behavioral and business practices choices accordingly. If you will.

Felix Dennis is a Renegade Millionaire – actually worth about $500-million, which he manufactured for himself, entirely on his own, from scratch. He is one of Britain’s richest citizens. In his newest book, The Narrow Road, he tells more blunt truth about what works in the making of money, more succinctly than any other credible person I’ve ever read on the subject. I am more simpatico with his conclusions than I am with anyone else’s. Like me but more so, Dennis is offensive to many and frightening to many more. Truth is rarely pleasing or reassuring, except to the very tiny number of people who prefer it to being pleased or reassured. I suggest getting and reading this little book, but in a well-lit room, not in gloom inhabited by scary shadows.

Unlike most authors of most success genre content, he makes no attempt to deliver ideas that will be popular with a large audience. This mirrors my own approach as an author, spanning, now 32 years and more than 20 published books. (www.NoBSBooks.com), My scariest is No B.S. Ruthless Management of People and Profits.

One very big difference between the path most are on versus The Renegade Millionaire Way is mixed agendas vs. laser-focused dedication to what works. The Renegade Millionaire Way is simple: find what works and use it. (That’s what being part of a great mastermind group is all about. Why coaching is important.)  Others’ way is far more complicated. It is cluttered with: what will people think of me? am I permitted to do this? but we’ve never done it this way. we should do get more consensus. my peers are all rushing off to do the new thing and I don’t want to be left behind. will this make me popular? liked? or gossiped about? what if it sparks criticism about me on Google?  Ordinary business owners are trying to run fast through a dense forest of all these concerns, thus bumping into trees at every turn, spending a lot of time lost and confused. Renegade Millionaires have left that forest and are running on a clear, paved path.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world. https://gkic.infusionsoft.com/go/newmifge/mhiggins

It’s a big challenge for advisors to help clients pick the right jurisdiction for trusts, and picking the right one can be complicated.

Indeed, there are many factors that go into this determination. The task usually involves evaluating how a jurisdiction has formulated its trust laws. Consider, for example, a state’s rule against perpetuities (RAP), which essentially makes sure an interest in a trust vests in a certain time and doesn’t go on indefinitely.

Other important factors to consider include: state and local tax laws; modern trust laws providing future flexibility; asset protection laws; and how trust migration may reduce a beneficiary’s distribution interest when compared to other beneficiaries.

A good start, to be sure, but how to rank the states is another question entirely. Each jurisdiction has its nuances and weeding through the legal-ease can be difficult.

Luckily, Registered Rep. sister publication Trusts& Estates, has already done a lot of the legwork. Last year, the magazine published a detailed ranking of the states, based on the above criteria and more. The winners of the survey are, in alphabetical order: Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, and South Dakota. New Hampshire and Wyoming got honorable mentions for sharing many, but not all, of the characteristics that made the other states winners. Most of the remaining trust jurisdictions have lagged with respect to modern trust and asset protection laws.

Read on for some more information about why each of the top four makes the list.

Alaska

• One of the only perpetual or nearly perpetual jurisdictions with no state income tax.
• Has a trust protector statute, which provides greater flexibility for future generations.
• One of the few states that permits special-purpose entities, which are intended to limit the liability of trust protectors, trust advisors, investment and distribution committees as well as other individuals and professional entities that serve in advisory and investment roles on behalf of a directed trustee.
• Has virtual representative statutes to facilitate the administration and court supervision of those trusts in which there are contingent, unborn or unascertainable beneficiaries.
• Has top-notch self-settled trust legislation.
• Has additional asset protection features that make it more difficult for a creditor to indirectly reach partnership assets or have access to books and records.

Delaware

• Has state income tax for residents but exempts non-resident grantors and beneficiaries of perpetual trusts.
• Has a trust protector statute, which provides greater flexibility for future generations.
• One of the few states that permits special-purpose entities.
• Has limited version of virtual representation.
• One of the lead jurisdictions to address the issue of discretionary trust protection.
• Has legislation that seeks to prevent dominion and control arguments.
• Has top-notch self-settled trust legislation.
• Has additional asset protection features that make it more difficult for a creditor to indirectly reach partnership assets or have access to books and records.

Nevada

• Uses favorable “terms of years” approach to trusts.
• Keeps trust laws current.
• One of the only perpetual or nearly perpetual jurisdictions with no state income tax.
• Has a trust protector statute, which provides greater flexibility for future generations.
• One of the few states that permits special-purpose entities.
• Has virtual representative statutes to facilitate the administration and court supervision of those trusts in which there are contingent, unborn or unascertainable beneficiaries.
• Allows private family trust companies
• One of the lead jurisdictions to address the issue of discretionary trust protection.
• Has legislation that seeks to prevent dominion and control arguments.
• Has top-notch self-settled trust legislation.

South Dakota

• One of the first states to adopt a perpetual trust jurisdiction.
• One of the only perpetual or nearly perpetual jurisdictions with no state income tax.
• Has a trust protector statute, which provides greater flexibility for future generations.
• Has more flexible rules for remodeling trusts.
• One of the few states that permits special-purpose entities.
• Has virtual representative statutes to facilitate the administration and court supervision of those trusts in which there are contingent, unborn or unascertainable beneficiaries.
• Allows private family trust companies.
• One of the lead jurisdictions to address the issue of discretionary trust protection.
• Has legislation that seeks to prevent dominion and control arguments.
• Has top-notch self-settled trust legislation.
• Has additional asset protection features that make it more difficult for a creditor to indirectly reach partnership assets or have access to books and records.

So there you have it: Reasons why these states are considered the top trust jurisdictions. Of course, the best jurisdiction always depends on a particular client’s needs, so your homework shouldn’t stop here. Nonetheless, it’s a good starting point in the analysis to determine precisely which jurisdiction might be right for your clients.

Keep in mind also that working with an estate planning attorney before establishing a trust in one of these jurisdictions is required. A client can live in one state and have a trust domiciled in another, but it is important to understand what the requirements are for doing so. That’s why it’s so important to work with an attorney who understands general trust-related issues and is also familiar with laws pertaining to the particular jurisdiction in which the trust will be domiciled.

Source: Trust & Estates Magazine

Each year, the Chick-Fil-A restaurant chain, famous for its tongue-in-cheek ads featuring cows urging folks to “eat more chicken”, has a Cow Appreciation Day. Customers who come in dressed up as cows eat and drink for free. Anybody wearing anything with a cow pattern – hat, cap, shirt – gets a sandwich free. Last year, 400,000 people came in dressed up as cows. The guy who started this chain was a bona-fide Renegade Millionaire. Even though many of their shops are in malls, they’re all closed on Sundays nationwide, because he believes in rest and time with family on the Sabbath. If a mall won’t let them close, they don’t go in the mall at all. Hasn’t hurt them. In 2011, at mid-year, they were up system-wide by about 12% in same store sales vs. prior year, the chain is growing, the company profitable. I believe it’s the founder’s son running the show now. I saw him on Fox-Financial, cheerfully and goofily dressed up as a cow, pitching Cow Appreciation Day.

A lot of people let ego, often undeserved ego, stand in the way of achievement. They envy others their wealth, but aren’t willing to totally put themselves out there to get it for themselves. On the other hand, a lot of people operate without underlying principles and a strong navigational system, so they are easily blown off course. The folks running this particular company have clear, firm values. One is that customers have fun. That’s something missing from too many businesses: nobody’s having any fun. The experience of being a customer is, at best, ordinary; at worst, terrible.

I like to ask business owners what their business is about. What they’re doing. Small-thinking shopkeepers always answer in terms of core deliverables. We clean carpets, we cut hair, we sell insurance. Slightly more sophisticated students of marketing tend to give boilerplate marketing message answers: we help people protect their financial futures. Executives at big dumb companies usually quote the vaguest of mission statements. But there’s little juice in any of that. At one point, Trump set out to change the skyline of New York City. Well, that’s something. When you tell people that’s what we’re all about here, you can capture their imagination. That has juice. I set out in 1975 to introduce more people to ‘success education’ than any other person or company ever had, and I believe I’ve done that, although I’m not quitting just yet. That has juice. And it’s navigational; you can ask about everything you might do, is it fulfilling that purpose? It’s good to be about something significant and inspirational. Then, when somebody asks you what you do, and you tell them, they get that you’re about something interesting and will want to know more about it, may be interested in helping you, or being a part of it somehow, if only as a customer. One of the essential ingredients of the Magnetic Marketing® that I’ve taught is creating something that is magnetic. Most businesspeople are thinking too much about how to sell their stuff – not enough about to make it and themselves magnetically attractive, so the selling of stuff occurs naturally.

DAN S. KENNEDY is a serial, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; highly paid and sought after marketing and business strategist; advisor to countless first-generation, from-scratch multi-millionaire and 7-figure income entrepreneurs and professionals; and, in his personal practice, one of the very highest paid direct-response copywriters in America. As a speaker, he has delivered over 2,000 compensated presentations, appearing repeatedly on programs with the likes of Donald Trump, Gene Simmons (KISS), Debbi Fields (Mrs. Fields Cookies), and many other celebrity-entrepreneurs, for former U.S. Presidents and other world leaders, and other leading business speakers like Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins, often addressing audiences of 1,000 to 10,000 and up.  His popular books have been favorably recognized by Forbes, Business Week, Inc. and Entrepreneur Magazine. His NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, one of the business newsletters published for Members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, is the largest paid subscription newsletter in its genre in the world. https://gkic.infusionsoft.com/go/newmifge/mhiggins