I was surprised to get it for $200.  I had followed most 4 letter domain sales and they typically went for more.  Of course, there are no vowels, so it’s not “ebay” or “beer” or some other high dollar name.

A week ago I couldn’t figure out what to do next for a B-I project and now I’ve got more ideas than I know what to do with.  It’s funny how things just suddenly show up.   

Tomorrow I’ll post on my next project for B-I, specifically taking one of my TaxLoopholes assets and finding a brand new niche.  I’m excited about that one!

Oh, and if anyone has some suggestions for DKDB, I’d love to hear them!  

For me, I’m a 6-3-8-2, which means out of 10, I’m a mid-range fact finder, a low range follow through, an insistent quickstart and a pathetic implementor.    My husband is the oil on the troubled seas - mid range - 6-6-4-5.  David is 3-5-7-7.   The combination of Quickstart and Implementor indicates that you will be a model builder.  I’m an idea person, who backs it up with research.  (Which is why I love tax strategies so much.  What would you like the answer to be?  THEN we’ll go figure out how to do it)  And my husband is able to talk to anyone and just smooths out the rough edges.  For those of you who struggle with focus as well, it could very well be that you have a high Quickstart and low followthrough like I do.

The tax world is going through major changes.  There are tax law changes, new acts from Congress with unintended results and the IRS is on the attack.  I’ve been a real estate investor and real estate investment fan for years, but I’m not as convinced about it for a wealth-building strategy these days.  Can you make money at it?  Sure.  But I always watch the tax loopholes.  And the real estate investors are losing them right and left.  In fact, the best way to make money and KEEP IT these days is if you are a real estate dealer  In other words, you have a business and it just happens that your commodity is real estate.

It seems that the government continues to find ways to tax any venture that a middle-class W-2 employee could be involved in.  They largely took away all the investment expense deductions for the stock investors and now they’re taking away the real estate loopholes.  And it looks like personal income taxes are going to really jump up while corporate tax rates are going to really drop.  The secret is to have a business.

My other random topic is regarding my son David.  David is now 17 1/2.  We homeschooled him, largely because of his circumstances when we adopted him 3 1/2 years ago.  He had only had 2 1/2 years of school, English was his second language and we felt he needed to understand what a family was like as much as he could.  He was enrolled in an online high school and last month, took his final exams and graduated!  That’s actually a year earlier than if he had been in a traditional high school.  But, now what? One thing we knew about older adoptive kids when we got them is that they are very reluctant to leave home.  Our local paper had the story of a family that is challenging the Arizona adoption laws to allow them to adopt the girl who has been with them for 2 years.  She’s now 18, but she wants a family and they want her.  The part that struck me was that she said she was never leaving home.  David says the same thing.  

So, now he’s planning the next chapter in his life.  He is taking a software course (pretty technical video editing) and just got a sales job at a high end kitchen store.  They have 3 days of sales training starting next week.  Some of the other new hires were complaining that they have to attend the training and are not being paid for it.  I got a kick out of David. He came home and said he got to go to the 3 days of training and it wasn’t going to cost him a dime!  I’m sure he’s not going to work at this place forever.  But, I’m so proud that he understands that getting 3 days of sales training IS a gift.  And it’s cool that he doesn’t have to pay for it.  Forget being paid to be there.  The knowledge and training is something that will help him the rest of his life.  How much is that worth?

And just in general about life - I’ve never seen an economy like this.  Some told me it was a “Starbucks” slowdown.  We have record number of foreclosures and that is definitely impacting a lot of people.  Other than that, the biggest challenge is consumer confidence, or rather the lack of it.  Our economy is based on spending and people aren’t spending as much.  That’s rippling everywhere.  But the problem isn’t really tangible, it’s psychological.  

This is the time when leaders are born.  For me personally, I can’t let the negative forecasts get to me.  I want to be the person I want my son to become.  And that means stepping up everyday, taking responsibility and creating a vision of the future that is better than it is today. 

Launched www.LessTaxforDocs.com.  This is a landing page that comes from a blog I’m doing for a physician’s financial news site.  Initially, this was going well.  Now, I’ve submitted blog entries and they haven’t been posted (no new activity at the physician’s site) and haven’t gotten an answer.  In January, two financial magazines for Drs closed their doors.  So I worry a little that there might be some internal shake-up going at the other site.   This is the LAST magazine of its type.  I wonder if there is a big opportunity here….  Meanwhile, though, the leads have slowed up because the content that drives to LessTaxforDocs.com has dried up.

Launched www.TrustSandwich.com.  This one was almost TOO successful.  We had so many inquiries that we kind of reached that spot where you’re running around in complete overwhelm and nothing is getting done.  My husband has stepped in to sort through the leads and pull out the serious inquiries from the people who want free information or just want to debate.  A couple of funny calls, though - one guy said he’s being doing the TrustSandwich(tm) for years.  Considering I have the ™ on it and it has NEVER shown up in any written literature, I’m pretty sure he’s wrong.  When questioned, it was just like it except he used a different kind of trust (that isn’t allowed in all 50 states) and didn’t use an LLC and just used one trust, not two.  Otherwise, it was just like it….  

About the time when I was figuring out the next B-I project, I ran into a client who had his income go from about $100K/year to $50K/mo.  Boom!  It just went up like crazy.  The thing is, I’ve seen this kind of thing before.  In fact, I could almost have predicted it.  This is the phenomena that always (I mean ALWAYS) happens with someone who finds a networking marketing company and is diligent at working the program.  The first year or two you lose money, third year start to make some and then right at the 4th- 5th year it exploded.  But this client’s deal was different.  He made money right away AND it only took him 2 1/2 years to reach the tipping point.  So, I investigated.

Here are my own personal rules regarding network marketing:

(1)  It has to be something useful.  I am not interested in supporting a product that I first have to convince everyone to use.

(2)  It has to be cheaper than I can buy at the store.  I’m sorry for the people who have gone into new products, fought an uphill battle trying to educate the population on the benefits of it and then when they finally reach the point where people “get it”, Costco comes along and sells it for half the cost.  

(3) Network marketing company itself has to be legitimate.  The ideal company is one that is fairly new so you can get in on the “ground floor” but has enough years of experience that you know they can deliver.  The founders need to have integrity.  (You have to trust your gut on this one.)  And if I can’t meet one-on-one with the founder and key people back at headquarters, I pass.

(4)  It’s not just a selling opportunity, but actually direct selling of something people want/need.  In other words, if you never recruited another person into the program, you’d still make money.

I’ve spent the last 2 weeks investigating networking marketing opportunities.  I’ve never been directly involved before, so I want to go slowly.  And before you start worrying that this site is about to turn into some obnoxious MLM “opportunity” site.  I promise you, it won’t.  This has to be something that makes sense on its own and that makes sense for other people whether they sign up other people or not.  

One more stat - in economic downturns, home-based businesses increase by 300 -400%.  

This time, though, people seem just rooted in fear.  And rooted is a good term, it’s almost like being frozen.  I’ve long known that the way to prosper is to go opposite what everyone else is doing.  But, I have a confession to make.  I’m finding that even I (who has been accused of being a Pollyanna more than once in my life) find my faith tumbling occassionally.

I don’t understand why we have this overwhelming feeling of gloom going on.  Let’s look at reality.  If you live in the US, you already have a step up on just about everyone else in the world.  You live in a country where it’s easy to start a business.  (Voila!  Start a business.  You’re done) You can take a business opportunity and make it as big as you want to.  You have an infrastructure that protects the entrepreneur.  Compare that to a country where the government might suddenly decide to nationalize your industry or the banks and you lose everything.  Or worse yet, there are limited civil liberties and you can be arrested for saying something negative about someone.  

I’m blogging this right now at 4 am.  I’ve been up most of the night because someone my family cares about a lot is missing in Mexico.  He was the director of the orphanage David came from. He’s the man who discovered David at the “bad’ orphanage where he had been locked in a tiny room under the stairs for a year.  (no window, no light, no bathroom) 

Last Thursday, Mexican “police?” came to his home and told him they were taking him to a hearing.  He went with them.  (The hearing was regarding a girl at the orphanage)  Later DIF (like our CPS) called and asked why he never made it to the hearing.  He’s missing.  And in Mexico, that rarely turns out well.

In the US, we have certainty.  We know that we have certain rights and as much as we rail against changes like the Patriot Act, the fact that we can protest is evidence that we live in a much safer world.

So, how does this translate to building a business?  When times are scary, leaders are born.  

Being fearless is just being without fear.  Courage is acting when you feel fear.  

Heroes don’t come from single acts of amazing stunts.  Heroes are the people who get up every day, keep their head up and continue putting one foot in front of the other.  Stay present.  This is where you are.  Everything could change, for good or for bad, in an instant.  So, none of the guessing matters anyway.

So, I have three major goals for July:  (1) Increase traffic (and create clients) for TaxLoopholes and Diane Kennedy’s Tax Services (2) Get my own web page up (DianeKennedyCPA.com).  (3) Start a new B-I cashflow project.  

Actually (1) and (3) are related and I can’t wait to tell you about it.  Well, actually, yes, I do need to wait to tell you about it because I want to finish up my due diligence.  But, if this works like I think it will, it could be very huge.  :-)

Also on (1) I got a challenge on the TaxLoopholes forum that I might just do.  Yes, I have a seminar to do.  Yes, I have a trial to testify at in another state.  Yes, I want to take some time off in San Diego.  But, shh….don’t tell lucky star (from the TaxLoopholes forum) thatt I have an advantage.  The challenge is to write 30 articles for ezines in the month of July.  30 articles - 30 days and 1 extra day off for good behavior.  Here’s the advantage - I’ve been writing monthly articles for about 7 years now and at least weekly content based emails for 4 years.  I have lots and lots of material.  :-)  But like I said, don’t tell her.  I still have to figure out how to convert the ezine reads to sales to my various landing pages and sites.  

On (2) I need to get a rough draft to Jorge and then he’ll get the page done for me in no time.  There, now I’ve created an unrealistic expectation for everyone who works with Jorge!  (Jorge@LatAmConnect.com)

On (3), I’ll post early this next week on my new project.

So the house was really worth $300,000, but now had a $400,000 mortgage. Then the market went down.  And as happens, there are people who have life incidents so they can’t hang on to the properties.  So, the $300,000 house with the $400,000 mortgage is now selling for $200,000 - $250,000.  And I’ve even heard of some short sales that went for around $150,000.  Now we’re getting to the point where the price is ridiculously low.  AND that is hurting them even more.

(Great reference here is Robert Cialdini’s book “Influence”.  Prices can be too low to make a sale)

I was on the plane from San Diego to Phoenix a few weeks ago and sat next to newly minted college grad who was going to Phoenix for the first time for a new job.  She’d been in San Diego for training and had never set foot in Phoenix before.  She had a week to buy a car and find a house to rent.  She showed me the ads she’d circled to check out for houses.  I saw she’d crossed off all of the Queen’s Creek houses although they were geographically the best placed.  Her comment was that there must be something wrong.  There’s no way you could get a 3500 SF, beautifully landscaped, for less than $1000 per month.  I told her to check it out.  It was probably right!

This all leads though to something that Aaron Van Trojen (Morgan Financial) said to me. He said, “In 10 years, there will be millionaires who say they made their money all because they bought 10 houses in Queen’s Creek in 2008.”

I loved that quote and have used it myself.  But I was thinking about how it applies to the businesses we are starting now.  For many of us, the economic conditions are affecting our current models and so we’re having to think outside the box for new ways to build our companies and create cash flow.  Right now it might feel like basic survival, but the fact is the things we do now will likely still be around 10 years from now.  

Just like the house worth $300K that you got for half price or the monetized blog you started or the Internet affiliate program you began or the new niche you started for your business or the MLM that you got involved in for quick cash, if you really follow through, where will you be 10 years from now?

It’s quite possible that 2008 might be the year that changed everything for our financial lives.  It was the year when we examined what was most important to us and had the time away from the frantic busy-ness of over-the-top business to chart our course.  It was a blessing, a time for some reflection.  

What will you say 10 years from now?

That’s when it got a little crazy. Apparently I needed to talk to Fred Jones (name changed) and the connection was made between Mr. Jones’s assistant and my assistant. Somehow, Mr. Jones’s assistant got hold of my email address (I think it might have been as simple as Carolyn copying me on an email), but nonetheless, the assistant got it. We’ll call her Suzie. 

Suzie now feels comfortable to explain how busy Mr. Jones (always with “Mr”) is and what did I want anyway…the type of not-to-subtle brush-off. And what really got to me was that she immediately assumed first name basis with me, but continued to use the more formal “Mr” with her boss.

Last night it was the final straw, when she condescendingly told me that Mr. Jones was just too busy and I would have to work around his schedule, if it was going to work at all….Diane.

The timing couldn’t have been worse for me to get that email. Hey! They contacted ME for this deal. As far as I can see, it helps THEM more than it helps ME. Why am I getting the brush-off?

The innocent answer is that they just have an untrained and rude employee. The not-so-innocent answer is that they want me to quit asking questions they don’t want to get. I’m leaning toward the untrained & rude employee because she doesn’t seem smart enough to be subtle.

****

I posted this on another forum that I participate in and just left it there.  One of the comments I received had a different viewpoint.  He said either Suzie is new on the job (in which case she has a bad manager) or she has been told to be this way with everyone.  In that case, there is likely a systematic problem in the company.

There are lessons all over this encounter for me:

(1) Reaffirming how much damage a not good employee can cause.  I’ve made the mistake in the past of hanging on to people that I shouldn’t have.  I could have lost a lot of good deals because of that.  Never again!

(2) I’ve gotten involved with people that I shouldn’t have in the past and then gone back and looked for the warning signs.  I’ve got a warning sign here and I was just about to dismiss it.  I think I’ll give them another chance, through another channel, but I’ll be doubly diligent.  Do they do what they say they will?  Will everyone who tries to contact them get the same bad impression?  I need to think carefully about how I proceed.

(3) Actually my 3rd ah-ha is a variation of my 1st.  How many people will judge my company by their first impression?  My first line people have to be the best.  And, unfortunately, most people make their front line people their lowest paid. (Don’t get me started on telephone answering services…)

This past Saturday I spoke at Derek Jarr’s Live Free Seminar.  www.livefreeinvestmentgroup.com  He has a brilliant formula for bringing real estate agents, investors and deal makers together.  For everyone who has gone to a seminar and then said, “Now what?”, Derek’s seminar is the answer.  He has the team already in place to help you at the critical points where many people just can’t bridge the gap between learning and action.  

He also has a huge heart.  It show in his business, his business relationships and the integrity with which he runs his business.  That’s why I’m happy to talk at his seminars.  

I also blogged about how my son David spoke about his charity.  We adopted David 3 1/2 years ago from a Mexican orphanage. He knows what it means to feel unwanted and abandoned and have promises broken again and again.  That’s why it hurt me so badly when he recently had a promise to his charity broken.   As others have pointed out, that’s part of a life lesson for him.  But, I’m a a bit of a mama bear here - especially when I hear people bragging about what they’ve done and I know the truth.

BUT this is not about that.  This about someone I DO respect and who teaches about investing in real estate in a way that brings REAL results in an honorable way.  I had a lot of fun teaching about the brand new things about real estate taxes and then Derek brought my son up to talk about his charity and show the video he had made.

He then presented him with a check, a REALLY big check.  

One of the things people love or hate is MLMs or IBOs or Direct Selling or whatever it’s called.  There is almost a kneejerk reaction to them.  But, break it down- what is an MLM really?

At its purest sense, an MLM is a way of marketing by making use of the client base you have, or the friends and family you have or people you bring into your life. You sell to them, and others.  I don’t think anyone has a problem with selling something.  Buy low, sell high.  We all know that deal.

But the problem is that most MLMs sell a product that you have to create an interest for.  I have to first explain to you all the benefits of this juice or this cream or this energy bar.  THEN after I’ve sold you on why you need to have it, I have to hope no one else undercuts me on price or comes up with a better delivery system and then hope you not only buy, but continue buying.

In my opinion, that’s where most MLMs fail.  If you’re selling a product that isn’t in common usage or fills a need or want that is already in the customer’s mind, then you have to overcome a very big first time objection - Why do I want this?

Now add into it a complicated delivery system where a lot of people get their share and you have high selling costs that just get passed on to the consumer.

So you end up selling a product after FINALLY creating your market, that gets undercut by Costco.  

How do you make it up?  By recruiting others into the program!  And that’s where MLMs get a bad rap.  

I bet almost everyone you has a story of being invited to one thing (you think) and then finding out it’s sales meeting.  Or being told glorious promises and then not having them come true.  Or finding out the people that you work with are less than ethical.  (By the way, any of those things can happen just generally in life or business as well.  It’s just the MLM now has the added mystique of being something that most people agree on. They are bad.)

I purposely put an MLM thread on my FCL forum at www.TaxLoopholes.com.  I wanted people to post about their MLMs.  Most forums don’t want them and I think that’s a mistake.  People want to talk about what they’re doing.  The thing is you have to contain them.

And I did it for one more reason.  You see for all that it sounds above like I hate MLMs, I actually love them.  Again and again, I’ve seen people who started on an MLM and it’s hard in the beginning.  They get told it will never work and they try so hard to make maybe $1K their first year.  2nd year isn’t much better.  Third year starts to show some promise.  And then if they’ve been following the program and doing exactly what they’re supposed, at the 4th or 5th year, something magical happens.

They hit critical mass.  Suddenly income jumps from $50K per year (and feeling like a 2nd full time job) to $20K or more per month and you don’t even have to get out of bed.  I have seen it with Amyway, Usana, Nuskin - you name it.  It’s not the program so much as it is the diligence of just doing it, each and every day, and NOT QUITTING.

It does matter though which program you choose.  You have to be prepared to support it for years when you aren’t making any money.  Do you believe in it the product enough to keep going when everybody says you’re nuts and you can’t prove they’re wrong?  (at least not quite yet)

So, I started the MLM forum to see if any spoke to me.  Is there a program that has a product that doesn’t need to be sold to the customer (something they already need and want) and that has a delivery system that is easier and cheaper than what they’re already using?  That’s the program I want.

So - tell me your story.  Would you consider an MLM?  Why or why not?  

I agree, by the way.  But, it got me thinking about powerful people and companies in the educational, motivational, growth and wealth arenas.  Most, I think, have a brand based on them.

Stephen Covey - anybody know the name of his company (I don’t)

Deepak Chopra - same thing - his name is the brand

Robert Kiyosaki - Rich Dad -  What do you think?  Which is better known?  

As I’m going through all of the people in this field that I know, the only people that are better known for their books than their names are:

E-Myth  (Gerber)

4 Hour Work Week (still can’t remember his name without looking it up)

Chicken Soup for anything you can think of (MVH/Canfield)

Good to Great (Collins)

If the brand is bigger than the name, than the theory goes that the company is more stable and will endure.  So, my subconscious hesitation has always been to try to push “TaxLoopholes” not “Diane Kennedy”, but I think I’m fighting a trend here.  

And when does “Diane Kennedy” become a brand like “Charles Schwab”?  Or is that even possible in my little world of niched tax education and services?  (Oh, and making a million in 2 years or less!)