1. Ask them how long they’ve lived in the home. This gets the conversation going and starts the process of you gathering information from the homeowners. (“It seems like this is a nice area to live. How long have you lived here, in this house?”)
2. Ask them if they plan on living in the same area when they sell their home. The reason for this question is that it gets them to tell you what their future plans are. Knowing what their plans on are huge so you know what to focus on when it comes to negotiation time. They may answer that they may be going to another state, another country, moving back home with parents, or moving in with a spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend. There could be positive reasons or negative reasons associated to the area – for example, they may be divorcing and want to leave the area, which lets you know they are in a hurry to leave. (“I noticed a few shopping malls nearby, seems pretty convenient. Do you plan on living in this same area once you sell your home?”)
3. Ask them when they plan to get the house closed by. If they give you a specific date, then this tells you a lot about their situation, whether personal or financial. They may tell you they need to close on April 1st because they need to pay tax liens on the property. They may tell you there’s no real fixed date in mind to sell and they’re just looking to see what the market offers. The answer to this question gives you insight into how motivated they are to close by a certain date. (“Is there a time-frame in mind for when you’d like to get this closed by?”)
4. Ask them if they have a bottom-line price on the home. By getting an answer to this question you’ll gain insight quickly on what the seller has in mind in regard to price and whether you’re on the right track to getting a deal done. (“A lot of sellers I’ve seen recently, instead of doing the whole haggling-price thing, put a final and best price on the home and then put it on the market. This can often make the transaction process much more stress-free. Do you have a bottom-line price on this home?”)
5. Ask them how much they owe on the property. Not all owners will answer this, but if you can get an answer to this question it allows you to follow up by asking them that if you can offer them their price if they can let you assume payments on the house for a period of a year or 2.

When asking these questions, don’t just ask the sellers one question after another, rapid-fire style. You don’t want to be an impersonal robot, you want to connect with them on a personal level. You want to engage the property owner in polite conversation, gaining rapport and gaining their trust. You want them to be comfortable with you – this allows them to open up to you and answer your questions truthfully.

If you notice the questions I’ve written for you above as examples, you may see that none have easy “Yes or No” answers. You want to ask open-ended questions. You ask the questions and then stay silent – let them answer, don’t fill the silence with chit-chat! You ask the question and then wait. By asking these open-ended questions you’re leading the conversation, but they’re the ones talking. Generally, you’re looking for a 70%-30% conversation split, with them being 70% of the conversation. Why would you want to blabber on and on – what good does that serve you? A hiring manager for a company would never dominate the conversation of a hiring interview, they ask questions and then let the applicant speak. Always remember that your outcome in this initial process is to get information on the property and on them as homeowners.  You don’t want to blabber on and on about how great you think the tile is and it’s your dream home or other nonsense like this.

As a final note, always have your contracts and paperwork with you when you go to look at any property! You never know what can happen – you always need to be ready to take action if the opportunity arises.

Related Posts:

• Foreclosure: Questions and Answers
• How to Overcome Nervousness as a Beginning Real Estate Investor
• How To Find the Best Mortgage For Your Home
• Rule to Grow Rich By #1: The Best Home Renovation
• Why Using a Realtor to Purchase a Home is a Great Investment
• Condo-Hotels: Questions and Answers
• Nine Tips to Obtain the Best Mortgage Loan For Your Home Purchase
• Three Steps for Buying Your First Home

I’ll give you the run-down on Kenneth Cole’s rules of style. One of the big take-aways of style is that clothing is a form of self-expression. It’s usually the first thing people see before you even open your mouth. As first impressions are usually formed within the first five minutes of meeting someone, this means it’s essential for you to get your personal style together. You’ll get better results in your business life and your personal life with just a few tips.

1. Before you open your front door to go out into the world, take a few minutes to take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Think about what message you’re sending out with what you’re wearing. Is it exactly the message about yourself that you want others to receive? Or is there some inconsistency between your look and what you want to project? If there is, make a plan to fix it!
2. If you’re wearing cologne/perfume, make sure you arrive before it does and make sure that it doesn’t linger when you leave.
3. The truth is that most people don’t really dress up. The trick to look great without looking too “try-hard” is to mix a dressy look with a casual look or a rugged look with a refined look. For example, wear a blazer with your jeans or a casual top if you’re wearing dress slacks. Also, of the items you’re wearing, one item should be more tailored. If you’re going to be wearing a t-shirt, then wear cleaner jeans.
4. Your choice in footwear  is critical. Your shoes are the most important accessory in your wardrobe – they allow your entire outfit to come together and make a huge impact in your look.
5. Find your own “personal uniform”, then layer in something new in order to maintain the freshness of your look. For example, Kenneth Cole always wears jeans, a white shirt, and his boots. He then mixes up the rest. He may wear a white shirt, a pin-striped blazer and a V-neck sweater. Another day he may wear a graphic t-shirt, with a white shirt and a vest. However, you must always have a comfortable blazer and a white shirt in your wardrobe.
6. If nothing else works, wear black.
7. The accessory of the season are vests. You can use them as an element of sportswear or you can wear a vest with a suit – but make sure they’re not matching. Vests are best used to break up a suit and wear them as separates. Your suit jacket, either with or without the vest, can be worn with jeans. Your suit dress pants can be worn with sneakers, hooded sweaters, and t-shirts.
8. Patterns and stripes need to be very subtle. You don’t want to look like you’re wearing a matched wardrobe (or that you’re an escapee from the local prison). Think about putting on a jacket that doesn’t match your pants and wearing a shirt that doesn’t match either. You don’t even need to have your belt and shoes matching, as long as your whole look seems to work together.
9. You know you’ve put together a good look when people tell you, “You look great.” What you don’t want, is people asking you, “Where did you buy your jacket and how much were your shoes?” You want your look to help present you.
10. You should never look like it took you more than 10 minutes to get dressed, no matter how long it actually took you.

Related Posts:

• 25 Rules to Grow Rich By: Real Estate Edition

What makes budgeting boring for some people is that a lot of us don’t have the correct knowledge and experiences when it comes to budgeting. For example, if you went to a bowling alley and, because you had no idea how to bowl, every time you’d throw the bowling ball it would go in the gutter, then bowling would be pretty boring too right? It’s the same with budgeting. If you know the right way to do it, you gain positive experiences and budgeting can become fun. You see results (more money in your bank account) and this is definitely a fun thing!

What happens is that you start to feel accomplished in your new routine of living on a budget and the benefits that it entails. You may even look back at the “bad old days” when you used to spend your cash wildly and look back not too fondly! You take a look at those old bank statements and wonder where all the cash went.

What your new budget-conscious mindset will give you is new opportunities to do fun things in life without having to run over to the ATM machine every other day for a fresh infusion of cash into your wallet. Does frugal have to equal being bored? Not necessarily.

In order to get your new budget-conscious mindset right, I suggest you track your budget for the first few months. You can use either standard pen-and-paper or you can use any of the assortment of computer programs for this (Mint.com, Intuit Quicken, etc). After some time following your budget (again I recommend at least a couple of months writing everything down) you can think about dropping the written records and not having to write every expenditure down. The human mind takes a minimum of 30 days to get used to any new mental habit, so make sure you don’t give yourself any leeway during that first month or two to deviate from your planned budget! Once you get comfortable with your budget, you’ll be able to figure out how much you’re allowing yourself to spend on any particular category and how much you’ve already spent, all by heart. One of the big tips about fighting temptation during that first month is that whenever you feel an urge for something not budgeted (ex. new LCD television) remember what you’re saving for (ex. winter trip to Puerto Rico), imagine yourself doing that and walk away! Then replace that “urge” with something constructive (ex. watching the sports game at a friend’s house).

The bottom-line is that in order to budget effectively, you must have “budget-awareness”. This means you need to be aware of how commercial society influences people’s spending habits and you must fight these urges. A huge contributor to our materialistic culture is television – studies actually demonstrate that the more that a person watches television shows, usually the more that person will spend. Television constantly bombards the viewing public with messages of ultra-luxury beyond the grasp of the common middle-class, leaving the majority of people in debt trying to “catch up with the Joneses”. Even your friends and neighbors may affect your spending habits! Try to develop friendships with people also trying to build a debt-free frugal lifestyle in order to support your new ways. Remember that budgeting and frugal living doesn’t have to be forever – remember to reward yourself for your good work following your budget and reaching your goals!

Related Posts:

• Living on a Budget Means Awareness and Possibly Throwing Your TV Out The Window
• How to Reward Yourself While Living on a Budget
• Living on a Budget: Reasons and Motivations
• 8 Steps to Getting Your Finances in Order For a Mortgage

Questions in your mind might be, “What do I say to the seller? How do I act? Am I going to seem dumb if I ask a silly question? Should I come across as cool and experienced or should I play it “dumb”? When I should I mention price? When do I start negotiating?”

Newbie real estate investors and real estate professionals get jitters – I know this, because I’ve been there. We all get scared we might say the wrong thing and “our cover will get blown”. But it doesn’t have to be like this. You don’t need to have a “cover”. You can be yourself and still get the deal.

The good thing about real estate investing is that if you’re dealing with the typical home seller or real estate agent they’ll likely be clueless to real estate investing. Most people, even those inside the real estate profession, don’t bother to learn about real estate investing. But since you’re interested in real estate investing and you’re investing the time to read this article shows me you have the interest and passion to learn – this gives you a head-up over the average person out there. So let’s get into how to talk to sellers if you’re a real estate investor.

One of the first insights you get as a real estate investor is that a house is a house is a house. What I mean is that as you gain experience, you start to realize the usual issues that the typical property for sale has, how these issues can get fixed, and around how much it’s going to cost. This comes with experience but really isn’t very difficult to master. It’s a good idea if you’re a beginning real estate investor to bring along a friend that’s experienced in home improvement to give you some price estimates privately after you’ve viewed the property together. Remember that real estate is your business and since it’s your business you need to be constantly learning and improving your skills in all areas, including communication and negotiation.

So if the issues that investment properties have are pretty similar across the board, what makes the difference from one home to another? The difference is the unique characteristics of each seller. You need to be able to listen, learn when and how to negotiate, and learn rapport tactics that you can use in your dealings with sellers. Think of yourself as a being an interviewer of the seller on a television show. You need to be directing the conversation with your questions, not the other way around with the seller asking you questions. Remember that he who asks the questions leads the conversation. The secret is that you want to be asking your questions so that the seller is free to talk without feeling like it’s an interrogation session – the conversation should be fluid and relaxed.

Throughout the process of you talking with the seller, remember that the seller wants to talk to you. They have an issue (they want to sell their property) and they’re hoping you can be the person that can solve this issue. Many times people are selling their property due to issues in their personal lives (divorce, layoff from a job, etc). By being friendly and warm with the seller they will likely relax and reveal their “true issues” to you – almost like a real estate therapy session.  You want to be the solution provider, but to do this you need to know all the issues behind the sale.

One of the biggest tips to feeling at ease when meeting a seller for the first time is get there on time, about 5 minutes before the scheduled time, but not earlier than that and definitely not late. Aim to get into the neighborhood twenty minutes early. Once there and you have that extra time, take a drive around and look at other active listings in the area so you have an idea of how much active listings are selling for in that particular neighborhood.

You’re going to want to dress relaxed business casual for the meeting. Don’t dress up too much, but don’t underdress either. You want to come across as someone that has money but that isn’t showy about it. Something along the lines of a short-sleeve polo with beige khaki pants. If you feel the area is very working class, you may want to go for jeans, but usually that khaki/polo combo will work well for you.

I know some people are going to be more relaxed than others when meeting a seller. Of course, with time and experience, even the most skittish of real estate investors will get the hang of things and before they know it will be gaining quick rapport. My best advice is practice, practice, practice. If you need to, set up two visits in one day: the first one with a property you’re not really into and the second one with the property you’re really into. This helps you because after the first meeting you’ll feel much more relaxed because you’ve gone through that experience already so the meeting with the second seller will generally flow much smoother and you’ll be much more at ease.

Have you ever gotten nervous when meeting a seller? Let me know how you’ve gotten over your nervousness in the comments!

Related Posts:

• Making the Offer and Closing the Deal: Get the Edge as a Real Estate Investor
• How to Use Subject To in a Real Estate Investment
• How to Handle Hopeless Real Estate Negotiation Situations
• Real Estate Investing Startpoints: Negotiation, Legality, and Referrals
• Real Estate Investing Means Doing Wholesale Offers
• 5 Questions to Ask Homeowners When Looking at a Home to Buy
• Five Reasons Why Real Estate is the Ultimate Investment
• How Looks, Contracts, and Inspections Affect Real Estate Investments
• How To Recognize the Full Value of Your Real Estate Investment
• How to Buy Real Estate Using an IRA

Tim Ferriss’ Must-Read Books

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (Violate Them at Your Own Risk!) by Al Ries and Jack Trout
“I’ve re-read this before every product launch that I’ve done or even in the product development phases. Talks about things like creating a category versus trying to be the best in an existing category.”

Getting Real (The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application) by 37signals
“It does have a software focus but all of it can be applied to entrepreneurs in general. It’s really about creating a lean startup and testing assumptions that you may have. Is offering options, more options, always the best decision? The answer is no.”

Vagabonding (An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel) by Rolf Potts
“This is one of two books that I took with me in 2004 around the world. The other is Walden by [Henry D.] Thoreau. This is arguably, the most practical manual of life philosophy that I’ve found. It’s an outstanding book for those people who  feel trapped in any situation in their business or career or who simply want to experience more of life.”

Seneca (Letters from a Stoic) by Seneca
“Someone who’s able to help control an empire indirectly, but also amass wealth without being controlled by it. Seneca is an outstanding thinker and this is I think one of his most accessible books.”

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World (An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Childen) by John Wood
“[John Wood] is on track to be Dale Carnegie 2.0. If you’ve ever wondered what you can do to really change the world, outside of perhaps your business or using your business, maybe a change in direction to give a test by dipping your toes into the world of philanthropy or causes this is a book you need to read.”

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
“A lot of philosophy in that as well, but it’s about a detective with Tourette’s Syndrome.”

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman
“A collection of stories and adventures of the physicist Richard Feynman.”

NOTE: Tim also recommends in the comment section of his blog Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor . He also says that of his book choices, if he was forced to only choose one book to buy and the rest to read in a library, he would buy Seneca (Letters From a Stoic) or Vagabonding (An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel) and read the rest in a library.

Kevin Rose’s Must-Read Books

Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte
“The master when it comes to taking complicated data and turning it into beautiful charts and graphs that are easy to understand. If you’re into graphic design, print design, web design, you name it, you’re going to get some really good information and how tos out of these books. He has a whole series of these books.”

The Tipping Point (How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference) by Malcolm Gladwell
“Bunch of really good information in here on how to make ideas go viral. This could be good to apply to any kind of products or ideas you may have.”

8 Weeks to Optimum Health (A Proven Program for Taking Full Advantage of Your Body’s Natural Healing Power) by Andrew Weil
“He is a Harvard educated doctor and then also has Eastern medicine experience as well. Really great well rounded book. Love Dr. Weil and I read this probably every couple of years.”

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
“Isn’t a religious book, but more on self-realization, study on yourself, breathing exercises, relaxation and understanding human nature.”

The Intelligent Investor (The Definitive Book on Value Investing) by Benjamin Graham
“The foundation for investing. A lot of people have used this as their guide to getting into investment. Warren Buffett cites this as the book that got him into investing. How to evaluate different companies out there before you make an investment.

We’ve talked about the X-Factor in blogging, these strategies Yaro’s talked about that boost all areas of your blogging and traffic generation. Now we’ll be getting into how we can use the X-Factor to the maximum in order to really grab huge amounts of traffic to your blog and website.

X-Factor Strategy 1: Using Skype to Network

Skype is a free technology that let’s you connect to people around the world via text, audio, and video. You can download the free application at the Skype website. After you’ve downloaded the software, you’ll now be able to talk to anyone in the world absolutely free as long as they also have Skype installed in their computer. You also have the option of using SkypeOut which lets you call landlines and mobile phones for a relatively small fee. You can use Skype to shoot a quick instant message to a colleague, host a conference with multiple viewers and collaborators, and you can join chat rooms in order to connect with people in your desired area of focus.

X-Factor Strategy 2: Using the Group Function in Facebook

Create a free account in Facebook and then search for groups related to your area of interest. You can now interact with members of that Facebook group and discover what these groups of people are most interested in, giving you topics to blog about.

X-Factor Strategy 3: Using Google Reader to Subscribe to RSS Feeds

Once you’ve signed up for a free Google Reader account, click the Add Subscription button. You’ll see a popup with a search box labeled “Enter a search term to find feeds or paste a feed url.” In that box, type some general keywords related to your area of interest in order to find blogs that talk about that subject. Subscribe to those blogs and group these blogs into a folder (perhaps title this folder Research) using the Manage Subscriptions link. What you’re going to do with this folder is every day scan for any new blog posts in these blogs in order to get the general vibe of the hot topics in that field of interest and to get an insiders look of the industry. RSS feeds for blogs usually have the word feed in the URL, for example, the feed for this blog is MichaelEmilio.com/feed/.

X-Factor Strategy 4: Using Mahalo and Clusty Search Engines

Mahalo.com is a human based search engine giving you results filtered by other people looking for the same topics. This allows you to get an incredible range of related topics to the keywords you’re searching for. Clusty.com is a metasearch engine that combines search engine results from various search engines and categorizes the results to make them easier to research and read.

X-Factor Strategy 5: Using Seesmic to Get Feedback

Seesmic.com is a website that allows you to get instant feedback on whether your blog might generate interest or not, even before you actually create the blog. You’ll need a webcam and microphone for Seesmic and signup for the free account. Once there, make some friends and give your opinions on others’ videos. Ask for people opinion’s on your blog topics. You’ll immediately be getting fast video feedback from a worldwide audience.

X-Factor Strategy 6: Using Interviews with Experts in Your Niche

In Become a Blogger Roadmap, Yaro and Gideon recommend 3 pieces of software to conduct interviews with: Skype to call, Powergramo Skype Software to record the call and Audacity to edit the call. Once you’ve done the interview, use a service like Libsyn.com that hosts the podcast or if you have your own server then host them yourself. Podcasting is an excellent WordPress plugin for inserting podcasts in your blog posts.

X-Factor Strategy 7: Using BlogTalkRadio to Interview Experts

Instead of the above Skype/Powergramo/Audacity combo mentioned about, you can just use a service like BlogTalkRadio.com to assist you in interviewing people around the world and then publish it on your blog.

X-Factor Strategy 8: Using Video as a Tool

It’s simple to create video: get a computer with a webcam, microphone, video editing software and internet connection and you’re good to go. Once it’s done, upload the video to YouTube and embed the video whereever you’d like, including your own blog.

X-Factor Strategy 9: Using Twitter and 12seconds.tv

Twitter allows you to “tweet” 140 character microposts (Yaro calls Twitter micro-blogging in his Roadmap to Become a Blogger) that allow you to reach a separate audience from your blog readers. Take a look at my twitter account for an example of how I use twitter. One great way to set this up is by using a service that notifies twitter of recent posts on your blog and auto-tweets them. One great wordpress plugin for this is Twitter Tools by Alex King. Another nice twitter plugin for displaying your tweets in the sidebar is Twitter Widget Pro by Aaron D. Campbell – note that Twitter Tools allows tweets in sidebar, just with less options than Twitter Widget Pro. 12seconds.tv is sort of like twitter, only that instead of 140 characters max of text, you get 12 seconds max of video.

X-Factor Strategy 10: Using Tubemogul to Upload Your Videos

Another recommended strategy is to use a service like Tubemogul.com to upload your videos to all major video sharing websites with the click of one button. You make your video, use tubemogul to distribute your video and check your analytics for the new traffic. Heyspread.com is similar to Tubemogul, except that Heyspread is paid while Tubemogul is free and you may prefer the feature set of Heyspread. Another site like this is TrafficGeyser.com, considered top among video sharing sites by Yaro in his Become a Blogger Roadmap. It’s paid but there’s a 30 day trial to try it out.

X-Factor 11: Using Video Advertising to Make Money

Many of the top video sites have a profit sharing option, where they put ads in your videos in exchange for giving you a cut of the profits. Some of these sites using this business model include Youtube, Blip.tv, Metacafe.com, Revver.com. This could mean big bucks if your video goes “viral” and other people email your video to their friends and bloggers blog about your video.

X-Factor 12: Using Skype to Charge For Your Consulation

Skype now offers a service where you can charge someone by the minute for talking to you. You setup Skype Prime for this and the other person will pay you directly using PayPal. This is fantastic if you’re planning on offering consultation services – and yes this is free to set up.

X-Factor 13: Using Overlay.tv to Sell Affiliate Products

Tons of bloggers sell products using affiliate links and partnerships and make a living by doing so. One place to find items to promote on your blog is Clickbank, they sell tons of different digital products so you’re sure to find some that relate to your interests. Others include Commission Junction, ShareaSale, and LinkShare. However, you can take simple affiliate links a step further by using a service like Overlay.tv. You select a video of your choice from a video site like YouTube and then overlay your text and text links on top of the video. For example, if your blog is about laptops, you can grab a laptop video review from YouTube, overlay some affiliate links on that video, and then upload it to your blog. People click on your affiliate links, buy the laptop, and you get a percentage of the profits, your commission. Yaro makes a great point in his Roadmap to Become a Blogger when he says that by choosing very popular videos relating to the product you’re promoting means the videos are already market tested, you don’t have to do any work to test the video in terms of how it works to influence others to purchase the product. By overlaying your affiliate link on top of an informative video means you’re offering a non-threatening way for your blog readers to click your link and buy the product.

This concludes my overview and review of the Roadmap to Become a Blogger free report by Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick. Make sure to visit the Roadmap to Become a Blogger to download the free report and let me know what you think of the report and my review of the report in the comments below!

Related Posts:

• Roadmap to Become a Blogger: The Free Report Review (Part 1)
• Roadmap to Become a Blogger: Download the Free Report
• How To Get a Free Credit Report
• My Safe Florida Home Program Free Inspections to Resume

Yaro starts off the free report by talking about his history as a blogger. He’s been a professional blogger since 2000 yet he feels 2004 is when he made his biggest income leap. Before blogging he was earning $30,000-$50,000 a year in eBay selling, a proof-reading business for students and as a manager for a content website. In 2004 he started a blog and went on from that to start his membership sites, including Become a Blogger. He now earns $40,000 a MONTH, with his best month being more than $80,000 USD. His income allowed him to purchase a 3 bedroom townhome in Brisbane, Australia (which I have just found out he’s paid off) and a new car for $25,000 cash.

His online blogging lifestyle has allowed him to travel around the world and experience the freedom that comes with being financially independent. Blogging is a unique business because you can work anywhere around the world as long as you have a computer and an internet connection.

His blogging has allowed him to become known as an expert in his field, he’s networking with the top minds in the internet marketing industry and his reputation has helped him sell more products due to the trust his customers have for him.

Gideon Shalwick is his partner in Become a Blogger – they met when Gideon came up to Yaro at an internet marketing workshop and asked if Yaro would be in one of his interviews with an expert and asked him to come up to his bedroom to record with professional equipment, a green screen, pro microphones, etc. They kept in touch and after some time Yaro asked Gideon if he’d like to become involved in a project Yaro thought up called Become a Blogger – a series of free videos helping beginners start up their first blog.

After the 10 free Become a Blogger videos, they checked the response and the site has had more than 200-300 downloads of the videos per day. They dedided to take it a step further and release the Become a Blogger Roadmap report.

What Yaro realized was that most bloggers that try to start up blogs as a business fail at it. Yet, many blogs do succeed and there is a pattern and formula to those successes – it’s the X-Factor. The Become a Blogger videos, the Become a Blogger Roadmap, and the Become a Blogger Premium online course all comes together to teach X-Factor techniques to help any blog succeed.

Blogging is a powerful tool for profits, traffic, and attention – in its own right using blogging as a business model and for using blogging to help your pre-existing businesses reach a whole new audience and client base.

They discovered what they call milestones – these milestones are needed in order to become a successful blogger. The milestones are like steps up a ladder, you need to climb the first and then you’re able to climb the second. You might also think about these 5 milestones as The Roadmap to Become a Blogger. Let’s look at each one in detail…

Milestone 1: Discover Your Passion

All successful entrepreneurs are passionate about what they do – there’s a sparkle in their eyes. You need to have motivation springing up from inside of you in order to really excel at what you do. This is no different in blogging. You sometimes need to make unpopular choices, to stray from the rest of the crowd that may be content with the 9-5 grind. Yaro brings up an interesting stat which I’ve heard before that only 3% of the world’s population controls 90% of the world’s resources. You need to stand out from the crowd and you can do this through your passion. To find your passion ask yourself questions. What do you think are your natural talents? What things do you do that you just “flow” with? What things do other people tell you that you’re really good at naturally? What do you like reading about, learning about, and possibly writing about? Learning about yourself is an ongoing process so don’t feel too bad if you don’t a definite answer. At least get a general idea about your areas of interest.

Milestone 2: Discover The Need

In order to crack into your target market you need to know where you can give the most possible value in the area that most interests you – what you found out about in Milestone 1: Discover Your Passion. You find a problem that people have and then solve it for them, while asking for a fair fee in exchange for that product or service of value. Find a need or place of frustration in your area of interest that no one seems to be addressing adequately and fill that need. However, to make your efforts worthwhile, you need to find out if there’s enough people having this issue to make it worth your while. One way is just by immersing yourself in that area and finding out the needs that most people in that same area have and then make the solution to that need or want. A more modern way is to spend some time in internet discussion forums and take note when a lot of different people are complaining about something. Another way is by sending out online surveys to people in that area or getting involved in hobby groups or special interest groups related to that area and get a feel for what they say and complain about. The more complaints you hear the more opportunity available. Don’t get scared about launching into a topic that another blogger is writing about! As long as there’s a market there’s opportunity. Think about McDonalds & Burger King & Wendy’s or CVS & Walgreens or Walmart & K-Mart or Publix & Winn-Dixie.

Milestone 3: Test Your Market

In Become a Blogger Roadmap, Yaro suggests making 3 separate blogs for the 3 topics you’re most interested in. So that’s one blog each for these 3 topic areas – think of this as market testing. Once these 3 blogs are up, set up analytics software like Google Analytics or Mint and take notes as to which of these 3 blogs you’ve been devoting equal time to has been getting the most traffic. Make sure you’re posting something new to your blog every 2 days at least. Make sure to wait about 3 months to get an adequate view of the traffic going to each of your 3 blogs.

Milestone 4: Focus Your Efforts

Lack of focus is probably the biggest reason most bloggers fail – this has been said by Yaro, as well as Rich Schefren and Eben Pagan, among others in the internet marketing world. So, this step might be a bit painful but must be done. Get rid of the under-performing blogs and focus all of your energy on the 1 blog that seems to have the most potential. Now you can focus all of your energy on making great content, bringing traffic and getting loyal readers – done in that exact order. For example, Yaro focused for 6 full months just building great pillar content before he even began making strides in implementing a monetization strategy – however, this may be a quicker process with you if you have the right strategy. Once you’ve chosen the blog you’re going to be focusing on, set up an auto-responder on your blog, something like Aweber in order to build an email list. Maybe start up an email course or newsletter where you give away some top-notch content related to the topic of your blog. Maybe a .pdf like Become a Blogger Roadmap or a 7 series email course. Put the opt-in form from the auto-responder service like Aweber into a easily seen place in your blog, perhaps up on top in your sidebar. Your email list will then become the main method to talk to your subscribers about products and services hitting the market – perhaps even your own.

Milestone 5: Start Making Money

Now’s when the profit comes rolling in. You can sign up for services like Google Adsense, Pepperjam Network, Commission Junction, LinkShare, etc to help you serve ads on your site and fill up space for banners and text link ads. As you get more traffic, you may want to look into private blog advertising where advertisers pay you a fixed rate to have their banner ads, text ads, or sponsor reviews on your site. Make sure you’ve fully realized Milestone 4 before you focus too much time on Milestone 5. For now, just choose one monetization strategy, like Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher Network, then once you have that mastered move on to another monetization strategy.

The State of Blogging Today

The reality is that blogging isn’t a rare concept – about 2 new blogs are created every 3 seconds, this means about 7.4 million blogs have entered the internet in the last 120 days. This means the market for new bloggers is getting saturated. In this day and age, you cannot get away with writing substandard content for your blog and just banking on the fact there are no other real blog players in your niche. You need to do something more, something extra, something above and beyond what “the other guys” are doing. The good thing is that most bloggers don’t know what this “extra” is or how to use it maximally.

Multimedia and Social Media Distribution: The X-Factor to Blogging Profits

The key to modern blogging – the X-Factor – is multimedia blogging. By utilizing multimedia blogging, you’ll be augmenting your blog content and taking advantage of social media distribution in the marketplace today. Multimedia means things like audio podcasts, video podcasts through providers like YouTube, and images. Social media distribution means online based communication tools that share and discuss information through the web.

An example of social media is comments – something that’s already built into blogs based on the WordPress platform, which both I and Yaro in his Become a Blogger Roadmap recommend. RSS feeds are another method of using social media. RSS feeds allow a user to subscribe to your blog using products like Google Reader and can read your blog without even having to visit your site – giving you yet another way to reach people that may not visit your blog everyday but will check their Google Reader daily. Yes, you can add advertisements to your RSS reader! Twitter is another way to utilize social media to reach a larger audience, in fact, make sure to follow me on twitter while you’re at it to get more business and marketing thoughts and ideas straight to you. The power of twitter is that others follow you and whenever you write a twitter message of a few lines, all your followers will get instant notification of your tweet. You can use twitter to automatically inform followers that you have a new blog post up (I use this in my own twitter profile), recommend an affiliate product, or link to a video you’ve put up on YouTube. Speaking of YouTube and video, you can even use services like UStream where you can actually have a 100% live show on the internet, which is an amazing opportunity for you to forge intimate relationships with your readership and give you an edge over your rival bloggers. If you’re using audio, set it up so that readers can subscribe to your audio podcasts via iTunes so that your new podcasts hit their iTunes and get downloaded immediately to their computer and iPhone and iPod Touch. Readers can also subscribe to your videos on YouTube so make sure to remind them to do so when you make your videos!

The advantage of using images and video in your blog is that it really sets you apart from other bloggers that don’t do this and makes your blog become real, it makes your blog come alive. It supports interactivity with your site which generally creates a much larger amount of repeat loyal readers.

The advantage of social media distribution is that it allows you various ways for users to grab your content. They can follow you on twitter, subscribe to your RSS feed, subscribe to your YouTube channel, and subscribe to your audio podcast via iTunes.

The reason why multimedia plus social media distribution is such a powerful combo is that it allows you to cut into niches that may be saturated but since you’re going above and beyond what other bloggers are doing it allows you to stand out and grab attention and traffic.

This concludes Part 1 of my review of Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick’s Become a Blogger Roadmap. Make sure to download their free report and stay tuned to read Part 2 of my review of their report, including methods to implement the X-Factor to generate more profits!

Related Posts:

• Roadmap to Become a Blogger: Download the Free Report
• Roadmap to Become a Blogger: The Free Report Review (Part 2)
• How To Get a Free Credit Report

Whether you as a business owner is blogging yourself or you’ve hired someone to do it for you, blogging is a necessity in today’s Business 2.0 world.

Blogging is a key tool to get the attention of your potential customers and clients. It can become a focal point for building a community in your business… and building a community means bigger profits for you. The reason for this, is that if your company is blogging and doing a good job at this, this can set your company as a thought leader in your particular industry.

It wasn’t so long ago that blogging was an option – something done if you had some extra time on your hands. Nowadays, you need to be blogging if you want your business to grow on an exponential level, on a national level… on an international level.

I’ll be going more into this topic in future blog posts, but for now I want to tell you about a new report by my friend Yaro Starak called Become a Blogger Roadmap.

He just sent me an email about this powerful new report… and guess what, it’s completely free.

http://michaelemilio.com/go/becomeabloggerroadmap

If you want to start your own blog and grow your business, this just might be the .pdf file you’re looking for. Make sure to grab Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat if you don’t already have it installed so you can read the report.

This report has already been downloaded over 20,000 times – that has to say something about the quality of the report.

I just went to the link and downloaded the report so I’ll be doing an in-depth review of it, but as a quick overview, it’s a step-by-step guide that takes you from absolute beginner to blogging pro in 5 easy milestones.

And once you have it all set up, you’ll also learn some extremely powerful “X-Factor” strategies for driving truckloads of traffic to your blog using a range of multi-media tools and the latest social media tactics.

One of those things you realize as you get deeper into internet marketing is that traffic is the basic key to major profits. The more traffic you get, generally speaking, the more money you see in your bank account.

Check out this free Become a Blogger Roadmap report for yourself and let me know what you think!

Related Posts:

• Roadmap to Become a Blogger: The Free Report Review (Part 1)
• Roadmap to Become a Blogger: The Free Report Review (Part 2)
• How To Get a Free Credit Report

When the market is cold, it’s a great opportunity to take advantage of the large available inventory, sellers motivated to sell, and the low rates available for mortgages. Flipping may be dangerous in cold markets if you don’t have the capital to hold on to the property for a year or more if it doesn’t sell quickly though. However, if you’re looking for passive income, this is a great time to invest, since a lot of people can’t afford to own and thus are looking for rental properties – including yours!

One of the best ways to find hot new properties to invest in is by using the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) – contact a real estate agent to find out more. Short sales and REO properties are now searchable in the South Florida MLS system – this may be available in other areas as well. You might also want to Short sales may be a great opportunity to purchase a home at very low prices, fix it up, and then sell for a nice profit.

Opportunities available include new construction, foreclosures, and FSBOs (For Sale By Owner) properties whose owners are finding it difficult to sell. In order to get a property that you can sell quickly, generally try to find homes with about 3 or 4 bedrooms around the middle of your market’s price range. You’ll have a good available market when it comes time to sell since almost any type of family can live in a home that size.

Condos are an interesting concept in cold markets, some investors love to invest in them and others stay far way. On the negative side, condos may be problematic as they often are in competition with apartments for renters – making it more difficult for you to find tenants. On the positive side, you don’t have to worry about having to maintain the exterior of condos as that’s handled by the condo association.

If you’re an experienced investor, you may want to look at helping out investors looking to get out of the game – to your benefit of course. New investors, thinking that real estate investing is just running numbers in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, can burn out easily if they can’t handle tenant complaints, property management, and negotiation techniques. This is a great opportunity for you to swoop in, help someone get out of a property they want to get rid of, and get yourself something you want for your portfolio.

If you have a real estate license, this can be an excellent time for you to grow your real estate investment portfolio. One way to do this is by buying properties from sellers when a deal doesn’t go through – make sure you always adhere to your fiduciary duties though. Although some agents don’t take a commission if they buy a property from a client, you are in your legal right to still ask for the commission. If the property is actually on the market, and the owner is your client, first refer the listing to another real estate broker for a referral fee and then purchase the property. You want to do this in order to avoid any violations of the Realtor’s Code of Ethics. I also would suggest you always state that you a licensed real estate agent or broker up front when you’re purchasing a property, even if you have no agency role in the particular purchase. If you represent real estate investors, never bid against one of your clients – your clients’ welfare is your main concern! A solid tip is to offer the property you’re interested in first to your real estate investor clients for 48 hours; if none have expressed an interest in purchasing, then go ahead and purchase the property knowing you’ve kept your client’s welfare in mind. As long as you always abide with the Realtor’s Code of Ethics, you can rest assured that you can generate some incredible long-term wealth by investing in real estate in an ethical manner. There’s a reason why 41% of real estate professionals own investment real estate and that reason is that there’s money to be made in investing!

Even with all the temptation to rush out and start buying investment properties like mad, resist the rush and don’t buy more than you can handle! Even if all the properties you come across are “good deals”, don’t get greedy with your purchases. You don’t want to get in over your head – it may be very hard to get out if you’re in this situation if the markets gets colder. Many conservative investors only like purchasing 1 or 2 investment properties a year – of course they make sure these are great deals! Other investors purchase dozens of properties a year (or more)!

When picking your properties to invest in, you need to analyze them thoroughly. Many investors feel there are only good deals or bad deals and that there’s no such thing as good markets and bad markets. Of course, even so-called “bad markets” may net you great deals if you purchase wisely.

“I want positive cash flow” is a phrase I hear prospective real estate investors say often – with good reason too. Tax benefits, appreciation, and leverage are other benefits of holding investment real estate but making positive cash flow after taxes and mortgage payments (or at the least, breaking even and then selling five or more years down the line) is the goal for most.

When looking at annual cash-on-cash returns on investment properties, you generally want to look for returns of 3%-5% on single-family homes and condos and 7%-8% on triplexes and fourplexes.

When looking for prospective residential real estate investments, always keep in mind you’re generally looking for properties that have high demand. Buying homes in areas near shopping, job opportunities, and quality schools can do wonders for your ability to find tenants and buyers. Do some research as to which areas seem to be in the path of progress for economic growth and jobs. Don’t be afraid to go small as well because, depending on your area, single family homes with relatively smaller square footage area can often get higher rents per square foot than larger homes. If you sense a sense of pride of ownership in the neighborhood you’re considering to invest in, then that’s a great sign there will be demand by tenants to live there as well.

If you’re looking for quick appreciation, smaller properties and newish single-family homes can be a great place to look. Of course, if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, properties in need of some do-it-yourself handyman work can also be a nice source of investment properties for you.

In general, unless you really know the area extremely well, I would avoid purchasing investment properties in distressed neighborhoods, even if the price is great. Think about it this way, even if the numbers work well, what happens 5 or 6 years down the line when the local economy in that neighborhood withers to nothing?

Following that line of thinking, while purchasing luxury properties for investment can be a source of bragging rights among your buddies, I would suggest you focus more on middle-range properties more moderately priced. Average priced homes mean average priced rents, which can usually give a wide group of potential tenants that may be less likely than other income groups to move to a home higher up on the luxury scale. If following this strategy, look for areas where the average person in the area is a reliable working person who perhaps lacks this ability to quickly move up to buying a home.

As a general rule, when it comes to sell, single-family homes are the easiest to sell and multi-unit properties are generally more difficult. The reason for this is that multi-unit properties are judged according to NOI (Net Operating Income) while single-family homes, if sold to an owner-occupant, are often purchased for more emotional reasons. Having multi-unit properties so tied to NOI can be tough if rent prices don’t go up as quickly as interest rates do – this may cause that multi-unit property to decrease in value. However, if you know what you’re doing, multi-unit properties are the only way to go for experienced investors – they can give you huge amounts of passive rental income!

For a quick guide when you’re running the numbers, I would suggest using a 35% expense factor. The reason for this, even though some may think it’s too high of a number to use, is that it gives you a realistic gauge as to the profitability of the prospective property. In other words, if the property is still coming up as profitable when using this high expense factor, you may have just landed on an investment gold mine! What you do is take this 35% expense factor and then subtract it from the projected income. This will let you know if this property will be bringing in enough cash flow to cover your monthly payments.

Now that we’ve gotten ourselves acquainted with how to invest in real estate in a cold market, we’re now going to be talking about a topic that may be on your mind once you’ve gotten to this point… which is where to get the money to do all this! Although some real estate gurus might like to tell you otherwise, in most large markets, it’s extremely difficult to find no money down deals – even 20% soft second mortgage deals are rare. Prepare yourself to pay a down payment, it’d be extremely difficult to get a loan anyway if you’re only putting down 3%-4%.

If you’re investing in smaller properties, then you’ll likely be putting 20% down on conforming loans – this is because of the changes in mortgage insurance restrictions. Of course, do your best to raise your credit score – try companies like Lexington Law and Source One Credit Repair for some help in this area.

With all the mortgage law changes, loans may sometimes be hard to come by, but if you have 20% available to put for a down payment, verifiable income tax returns for the last 2 years, and verifiable assets, then you’ll stand an excellent chance of getting approved. Local lenders may be your best source of investment funding.

I really advise you to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in laws and regulations that apply to real estate – I cover the most I can in this real estate blog but you would be well advised to also read publications such as the New York Times and your local newspaper. What I can tell you right now is that the financial climate coming up in the near future may be more challenging, but by no means impossible. A new Freddie Mac regulation prohibits the agency from buying any mortgages that have been made to investors that own more than four 1-4 unit financed properties. Fannie Mae still has its loan limit for investment property ownership set at 4 – this number is expected to hold constant.

Moving forward, I see most real estate investors going for the 30-year fixed loan approach in order to finance their investments. Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARM), known as Variable-Rate Mortgages in other parts of the world, are too volatile in cold markets. 30-year fixed loans, in cold markets where buy-and-hold is generally the preferred strategy compared to fix-and-flip, may give you the best opportunity to get positive cash flow.

If you are going to be holding on to a property for only the next 3-5 years, then short term loans can make definite sense. I’ve touched on short term loans in two posts, Consumer Debt Worst Offenders: Banks, Advertisers, and Advisors and Rule to Grow Rich By #2: Refinancing Your Home, but the main factor you want to consider is whether the market will be strong when the rate eventually changes.

In order to be able to move quickly when you’ve made a purchase and need some quick cash for repairs, “impulse” purchases, and other miscellaneous items, establish a line of credit with your preferred bank. You can use this line of credit to make quick purchases and it gives you a leg up on getting hold of preforeclosure properties before a bank possesses. Keep in mind, if you plan on flipping, that there are new anti-flipping laws which make it mandatory for investors to hold onto a property for 6 months before it’s possible to sell or refinance for a higher value – confirm this with a local expert.

Yet another source of funding can be your retirement account, if you’ve been diligently funding it. If you have a Solo 401(k) or Solo Roth 401(k), you can utilize funds from these accounts for investing in real estate, as long as you return income from your investment properties to these accounts.

Worst case scenario, let’s say you’re reading this article, you’re excited about investing but there’s one big problem: You have no money and you have no way of getting any in the near future! Obviously right now is a perfect time to invest in properties, but even if you don’t have the capital to do so right now, you can still pick up some great properties a couple of years down the line when you’ve saved up enough cash or you’ve raised your income or credit score. There are always great deals out there, no matter the market, as long as you perform your due diligence by doing a financial analysis of all prospective properties. Always remember there is no greater investment than investing in yourself, so use your time wisely! Constantly read and feed your mind with reading material about real estate investing, subscribing to real estate blog RSS feeds, following real estate twitterers, listening to audiobooks, and subscribing to real estate podcasts.

Related Posts:

• Real Estate Investing: Alternate Methods
• How to Use Public Records for Real Estate Investing Success
• Real Estate Investing Means Doing Wholesale Offers
• Real Estate Investing in Manufactured Housing
• Making the Offer and Closing the Deal: Get the Edge as a Real Estate Investor
• Commercial Real Estate Investing Using Triple-Net Leases
• How to Wholesale Real Estate To Make Quick Cash
• Real Estate Investing Startpoints: Negotiation, Legality, and Referrals
• Five Reasons Why Real Estate is the Ultimate Investment
• How to Buy Real Estate Using an IRA

An important note to be aware of is that not only did a Democrat win the general presidential election but there were also major gains by Democrats in the United States House of Representatives and Senate races.

“We’re in a good place,” says National Association of Realtors (NAR) President Charles McMillan. “Realtors are excited by this historic election and stand ready to work with our new president and the new Congress on issues that are at the heart of the American dream of homeownership. There is no partisan divide when it comes to homeownership, strong communities, affordable health insurance, and strong commercial real estate markets. We see much opportunity as well as challenge in this new environment.”

It is clear that the National Association of Realtors had their preferred candidates, in fact more than 400 candidates were provided more than $4 million dollars in monetary support. Of these candidates, 90% won their respective elections. More than half of Realtors Political Action Committee (RPAC) funds went to Democrats. However, RPAC Chairman Larry Edwards was quick to point out that “ours is the most bipartisan PAC in the country.”

Apart from this $4 million to selected candidates, another several million went to 74 candidates with the NAR Opportunity Race Program and 6 candidates with the Independent Expenditure program – in all, totaling an estimated $16 million dollars in the two-year cycle ending with the November 4th elections. NAR President Charles McMillan commented on these elections that “thanks to the success of RPAC and the attraction of our issues in both parties, we are well positioned to ensure the best environment for real estate.”

If a candidate is supported by the NAR Opportunity Race Program then that candidate will have education and rock-the-vote type promotional materials sent out for them by snail mail  in their own district. If a candidate is supported via the Independent Expenditure program then this candidate will have radio, television, and direct mail advertisements sent to the general public in their district focusing on real estate issues relevant to the industry.

Some of the NAR supported winners include:

• Rep. Paul Kanjorski (Democrat – Pennsylvania) - Authored the Community Choice in Real Estate legislation and has been a supporter of NAR’s effort to take (and keep) banks out of real estate.
• Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (Republican – West Virginia) – Has assisted in the passing of FHA reform, expansion of homeownership opportunities for military veterans, and homebuyer tax credit. Member of the House Financial Services Committe that has been an advocate for small-business health insurance coverage backed by NAR.
• Rep. Jerry McNerney (Democrat – California) – Advocated FHA reform, expansion of homeownership opportunities for veterans, and played a role to increase conforming loan limits.

Analysts state that they believe that the Obama administration will focus on regulatory reform of the United States financial services industry. There’s going to be some major investigations going on as to what has to change in order to have proper regulation of mortgage and asset-backed securities. There’s going to be a major focus on exactly what changes need to be made to the two big government sponsored enterprises: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, also known as the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), respectively. Some of the options for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac include making them 100% private companies, folding them into the government or continuing with them but as public-private hybrids.

Another economic stimulus package is likely in the works under the Barack Obama administration and in the U.S. Congress. Beyond this, I know that NAR is pushing for permanent conforming high-cost loan limits of $729,750 as well as eliminating the repayment requirement in the first-time homebuyer tax credit. NAR is also pushing for increased consumer protection with a permanent ban on any national banks going into real estate brokerage and management. NAR also wants to make sure that Wall Street banks use at least part of that $700 billion in bail-out money to have mortgage financing available at a reasonable cost to consumers.

Congress will undoubtedly be pushing for infrastructure investment, increased environmental awareness, and health insurance reform.

What’s your opinion on these elections – will these changes improve or sink the real estate market?

Related Posts:

• 2007 Ambassador Cities Named For Their Efforts in Homeownership
• Realogy Purchases Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate
• The 2009 Real Estate Investing Market Predictions: Getting the Edge in the New Year
• The 3 Fastest Growing Demographic Groups in Real Estate
• Commercial Real Estate Market Growing at Record Pace
• The Current State of the Real Estate New Construction Market
• Condominium Association Elections and Florida Law
• Commercial Real Estate Market in South Florida Still Going Strong
• Omni Mall in Downtown Miami is Getting a Real Estate Facelift
• Reed Krakoff’s Palm Beach Florida Land Goes on Real Estate Market for $20 Million