‘Live People’ at Money Gym Towers – whatever next?

by Nicola Cairncross

It’s been an exciting week at ‘Money Gym Towers’ starting with a Sunday lunchtime visit from Judith Morgan and Nicola King, the latter being dropped off in Hove to see a mate while Judith, Steve and I reviewed our accounts and planned our strategy for The Money Gym for 2007.

We rigged up the projector and beamed everything onto the wall in the living room and reviewed the website together too.   We decided it was a bit impersonal when you arrive, and so, while we want to keep The Money Gym branding, you will now see Judith and my photo’s back up on the masthead.  Steve’s was supposed to be there too, to add a male presence – what happened to that then Steve?  Then Nicola King arrived and, with Steve getting stuck in too, created a wonderful lunch for us.  We sat around the table for hours, telling stories and laughing a LOT.

The other new feature of The Money Gym website is the…

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Turnkey Business Opportunity – Some resources

Nicola says:

If you are looking for a turnkey business opportunity you could do worse than looking at a licensed or franchised business opportunity. 

Rather than doing what most entrepreneurs do (including myself for years) and trying to create something from scratch, including educating your customers that they need, want and will pay for your new product or service, why not just buy a turnkey business opportunity?

It will be something that has been proven to work, there will be a "How We Do It Here" manual and you won’t be reinventing the wheel.

My very own Money Gym business partner Judith Morgan has a licensed business opportunity:  www.TheCleaningBiz.com – a part time business opportunity that is already successfully rolling out around the South Coach and London.  Judith is looking for people in the Midlands and the North now to run successful licenses just following Judith’s proven system.

Ann Harrison, Retirement Coach, posted the following information on the private email discussion group for our Money Gym Club members:

Street Smart Franchisng by Joe Mathews, Don DeBolt, and Deb Percival
Want to know what it takes to succeed in franchising?  This book holds nothing back.  A must-read if you are serious about jumping in.

Update On Bookmarking – How Exciting!

Well, I was doing a search on Google to establish which was the best bookmarking software and I noticed there was a "Bookmarks" function on the Google Toolbar. 

So I hovered over it and clicked the "organise bookmark" link.  This took me to a page where I could also create a "customised home page" for Google – my heart nearly stopped with excitement at that point.  There are all sorts of things you can add (and you can also take stuff off again to make your page more like the cool and uncluttered Google homepage) from the sublime to the ridiculous.

So, I need to think about whether I need the Digg and De.licio.us buttons.

What On Earth Are Social Networks Bookmarks?

Nicola says:

I keep hearing about social network bookmarks, and as I’ve just got to grips with Social Network sites like Ecademy and My Space, I thought I would check out this bookmark mularky.

First I tried Google, but while some sites came up that organise your bookmarks for you, I didn’t immediately find out what it actually is.  So I turned to that other fount of all knowledge, the Ecademy blog space.

And there was an "Introductions to Social Network Bookmarking" article by Alex "Adwords" Cooper which summed it up very nicely.  I, of course, immediately saw the potential for …

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Burning Questions: Property

Nicola says: 

Lucinda Hercules asked us this burning question about property and as it was such a stunner, we passed it onto the property guru himself, Andy Shaw.

“I have just under £60,000 equity in my house.  I would like to use it to invest in the Passive Investment product BUT I do not know how to cover the repayments.  I watched your live webcast and I think the repayments will be approximately £300 a month.  I assume the repayments will be for the duration of the mortgage.  What’s the best way of tackling this problem – a second job perhaps?”  Lucinda

Andy’s Reply:

“Hi Nicola and Lucinda

This is an interesting question as the answer is simple but may appear scary if I don’t fully explain my reasoning. I will answer the how to ‘Cash Flow’ it question at the bottom, but first I want to explain how the portfolio itself actually pays for this and how you don’t!

Well the first part is correct, release equity, as this is then in effect a no-money down deal, well, none of your own money anyway. Not entirely true I know because there is the commitment of £3,600 / year for 6 years. So a total cost to acquire the 5 properties in the Passive portfolio is £21,600.

Then at the end of the term the purchasing fund will not be needed again, so £30,000 comes back…

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Does working from home mean more – or less time – with my kids?

Kathleen Skinner asked:

One of my (main) motivations to get wealthy is to have more time to be there for my kids-even just being able to pick them up from school most days. They are both pre-schoolers at the moment. My question is since Nicola started her journey is she finding more or less time time for her children? Is it possible to start on this journey but still make time for your pre school kids- I think Nicola’s are older but does she have advice?  Thanks for the ezine, the stories, the inspiration, the etc….Kathleen

Nicola says:

Mine are older (9 and 11) but I’ve worked from home since they were babies.  I was having this conversation with a (male) mentoring client yesterday who has a new baby and who was saying that he supposed that he would have to get used to working in quick half hour bursts, in between the baby’s needs as he’s trying to be supportive to his partner and help out as much as possible. 

Uh, no!  Working from home and working to fit in with the kids does not mean you can be unprofessional about it.  It’s just not realistic to expect to get anything done like that, especially when you need long periods of quite intense concentration as he will for his software project.

Either my husband looked after the kids during office hours (shortened though my office hours are – 9.30 to 2.30 in those days) or I got child care.  Even if the husband or childcare were in the house, I locked myself away in a different room and got on with what I called “income producing activities”. 

My sister Sarah will tell you, that my insistence on not being distracted by housework, stray callers popping in for tea, brothers in law asking for opinions on the new taps for the bathroom in the house we were all sharing and doing up, occasionally caused a bit of friction in our house…

My mantra is: 

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Financial Intelligence & Gold Sandals

by Nicola Cairncross

Anyone who knows me knows that I really prefer to talk about Financial Intelligence rather than Wealth Creation, but it’s just not good marketing.  Wealth Creation just sounds so much more sexy, doesn’t it?

In order for people to get excited enough to make the leap and join The Money Gym, we have to talk about becoming a millionaire and the millionaires we have helped create, because most people can’t often be bothered for anything less. 

Unless there are guaranteed results and they are big and compelling enough, people often don’t want to pick up a book, turn off the tv, go to workshops and learn anything new, certainly not for anything less than millions.  And they want it quick too! 

Really, Wealth Creation and Financial Intelligence are very similar animals, but Wealth Creation needs to be underpinned by Financial Intelligence, otherwise the wealth will go the way of the wealth of most lottery or competition winners – up the Swanee, spent on fast cars, big houses, champagne and very unsuitable companions!

Actually I just described my old age – if you add in long holidays in the caribbean, purple velour shell suits, with lurid hair to match, lots of bling and unfeasibly high gold sandals.

However, rather than my frittering away my kids inheritance, my old age will be funded from ever renewing wealth, because I will have finally graduated in Financial Intelligence 101 by then.

I’ll come back to the kids inheritance later.

So, how do you learn Financial Intelligence?  I like to think of Financial Intelligence as a platform on which you build your wealth.  And like any platform, it needs to have a sturdy support, which I think of as the following:

The Four Pillars of Financial Intelligence ©

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Doing Well With The Dogs

On 11/20/06, on The Money Gym Club private email discussion / support group

Stephanie Hale wrote:

If anyone’s interested in equities, but isn’t sure whether to dip their toe into the water… I’ve just tried Nicola’s ‘Dogs of the Dow’ strategy and it works!  I’ve made 50 per cent ROI after about half an hour’s  research – and noone can be more amazed than me! When I bought these shares, I hadn’t a clue what I was  doing, but just followed Nicola’s instructions in her "Money Gym"  book. And hey presto, it worked.  If you use your Maxi-ISA allowance, it’s also tax-free.  Nice bit of
magic! Best wishes, Stephanie

Oxford Literary Consultancy
www.oxfordwriters.com

Nicola says:

This IS interesting isn’t it?  As Andy would say, this nice little earner is hidden in plain sight, just like the great property and business deals.

Yes, we taught the Money Gym members how to do that one on the last StockMarket workshop – it’s returned over 20% per annum year on year since about the 1930’s !!

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Danny Rampling needs our help guys!

Nicola says:

Does anyone know Danny Rampling – one of the two biggest house and garage DJ’s on the planet – used to play on Radio One along with Pete Tong?  He had a brilliant show called "Love Groove Dance Party" on Saturday early evenings.

Well, I’ve been introduced to him (how exciting – one of my heros from my music biz days) by Carl from The Masterminding Alliance and he has asked for my help in a project he’s involved in.

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Who’s your client? What’s your passion?

by Nicola Cairncross

After reading some of Mike Filsaime’s report and following on from an intriguing couple of calls today with The Money Gym clients and the students of the Internet Marketing Home Study System.  We were pondering on how blocked you can feel if you don’t have a clear idea of who you are aiming your product or service at, and how much easier it all becomes when you can form a clear picture of who your ideal client is. 

Sarah, my sister, and the editor of the Wealth Strategy Secrets ezine, said that she had a breakthrough this week when she realised that, when she hears someone talk with passion about what they do, she gets all passionate about helping them!  So her passion was enabling other people’s passions. 

I was mulling this over while I read the part of Mike’s report that talks about how opportunity – and the mammoth numbers of opportunities that are offered to you via the internet particularly – can be the death of success. 

He calls opportunities “wolves in sheeps clothing” and talks about how important it is to have a clear and compelling vision for your business, so that you can evaluate these “wolves in sheeps clothing” and recognise them for what they are:

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