30 Days To Neverland (Cheque In The Post)

One of the biggest challenges facing smaller and start up businesses is the issue of when and how to ask for payment after the sale has been made.

And when and how to chase an invoice when it’s overdue is another awful dilemma to be faced with.  Most companies are started by entrepreneurs and they usually have more sales or techie skills than admin or finance chops.

Judith always says that an accountancy business was the worst for this; you do all the work, and present your invoice, which often arrives just after the bad news that the company is not doing as well as it could, or the tax bill is higher than expected or planned for.

One of my favourite bank managers once told me, when I asked him what one thing did he think I needed to know that possibly I didn’t know, that he had seen many highly profitable businesses fail due to bad cashflow management and defaulting creditors.  So I went on a hunt to find the best way to manage cashflow and that turned out to be a simple excel spreadsheet, given to me by Greg Ballard.

The Money Gym got around this issue in the very early days by making the decision to only accept customers if they pay up front (and offering an incentive for them to do so) and then we made that conversation very easy for us and our customers by putting all our payment conditions on our website – unusual for a coaching company in those days – and by only taking payment online.

But we know, from talking to our business orientated Money Gym Gold clients that sometimes that is so far outside the industry “norm” that it’s unfeasible.  Also, I’ve just been taken on by Pampers as their official wealth coach, and their PR company will not consider payment in advance of my fulfilling my new duties.  But you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be all over my invoices like a rash especially in the early days!  I value my time too much.

One option that is often recommended is to consider a factoring or invoicing discounting company, but this is often seen as a last resort, and is not ideal, as many organisations will now not deal with them.

A different approach was brought to my attention by the excellent ezine sent out by Mike Southon, The Beermat Entrepreneur, which mentioned Cashflow Protector from the Cashew Group. Marketing Director Alan Smith says that the problem is that most sole traders and small businesses do not have the patience or skill set to chase their unpaid invoices in an organised way.

Cashflow Protector offers a web-based service enabling you to register your unpaid invoices on-line, and then for a low monthly subscription rather than a percentage of the invoice value, they will chase your invoices for you. Smith claims a 97% success rate for their customers. Cashew Group also offers legal cover to protect against the very bad payers.

You can find out more at http://www.cashewgroup.com – this is not a recommendation as we haven’t had personal experience ourselves, but it looks like a great resource for business people.  Do come back and use the comments box on this blog posting to let us know what you think, if you use them.

Money Gym – our music radio show

Stephen Fry is either so cutting edge it’s painful or he has a GREAT internet marketing team around him. Today his twitter introduced me to the very marvellous Blip FM

Win A Year’s Wealth Coaching With Nicola

This year’s Money Gym “Gold For Christmas” Competition kicks off – you can ask questions or give us feedback using the “comments” link above. Money Gym “Gold For Christmas” Competition Grand Prize, One Year’s Full “Gold” Money Gym Membership Including 1:2:1 Video Wealth Coaching With Nicola Cairncross **First Prize Value £11,392**

FIRST PRIZE INCLUDES:

• VIP Access to Gold Membership website – value £5754 (with Weekly Wealth Webinars & the Money Gym Mastermind Email Club)
• 10 hours of personal coaching from Nicola – value £5000 (via protected TV channel)
• Full access to six workshops in the UK in 2009 (or the recordings of same) – value £638
• “Gold For Life” Membership thereafter – Value Priceless!!

Nine runners up will be given a £1200 discount voucher for Money Gym Gold Membership to be applied between January 4th 2009 and January 31st 2009.

NEW DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES:

Midnight, New Year’s Eve, 31st December 2008

WHAT TO COVER – 10 mins max for video:

A.   2-3 minutes on your life to date (no sob stories, just the facts)

B.   1-2 minutes on the lowest point of your life so far and what you learned from it

C.   1-2 minutes on the highest point of your life so far, and what you learned from it

D.   2-3 minutes on which of the Four Wealth Highway Lanes appeals most (business, internet, property or stockmarket)

HOW TO ENTER:

You have two choices in how to submit your entry – in writing, or by video.

1. Either in writing by using the comments section of this blog posting here!!  Scroll down to the comments section and write up your entry covering the points as outlined above….

2. Via YouTube by recording and uploading your (less than 10 min) video and following the guidelines below

** Note: As soon as you enter, by either method, you should email nicola [at] themoneygym.com (with any appropriate URL’s) so she knows you have entered.

Video Entries:

* Entries can be pre-recorded, edited and uploaded to YouTube (or recorded direct using the YouTube
facility available.

STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO RECORD & UPLOAD YOUR VIDEO ENTRY HERE >>>

* Note:  All YouTube entries to include http://www.themoneygm.com in the first line of the description

WINNER:

The winner will be chosen by Nicola from the Top 10 “most voted for” entries. Nicola’s decision
will be final.

RUNNERS UP:

Will be the other nine of the Top 10 “most voted for” entries.

Any more questions about how, what, who, when, or anything else, use the comments box below !

STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO RECORD & UPLOAD YOUR VIDEO ENTRY HERE >>>

WEALTH COACHING FORMAT:

Winner must make themselves available for private video coaching via Skype for: 1st Tuesday of every month at 1pm GMT: Live Presentation by Nicola via live Money Gym TV on each module of the Money Gym programme.

1st Thursday of every month – 1pm GMT: Private video coaching on the content of that module, progress report, any issues arising from previous month’s homework.

Coaching to take place during 2009 – Jan, Feb, March, April, May, June, July, Sept, Oct, Nov

Homework in between

Email support in between sessions from Nicola, Judith Morgan, Steve Watson, The Money Gym Coaches & Clients

Needs computer headphones & webcam (or camcorder)

Please click here to register >>

Special Conditions of Entry:

1. Entrant must agree to their entry video being used on our blog and ongoing in any promotion
2. Entrant must agree to make themselves free at 1pm on 1st Tuesday / Thursday of the month, from February to November (except January’s calls which will be held in last week of Jan 2009 and April’s which will be w/c 20th April)
3. Entrant must agree to be active in the Mastermind group and post progress to it at least weekly and agree we can use anything posted for case study / promotion.
4. Entrant must agree not to share anything publicly about their finances that they might regret later
5. Entrant must agree to give us monthly progress reports by video that we can use for case study / promotional purposes
6. Entrant must agree to our using their coaching calls as a case study and that we can use that case study in any way we choose.
7. Entrant must agree to give us a specific and true testimonial at the end

Any questions or feedback on the competion are welcome – just use the “comments” link or the comments box.

STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO RECORD & UPLOAD YOUR VIDEO ENTRY HERE >>>

Warm Regards Nicola

This post was sponsored by Money Gym Gold – the only proven 1:2:1 wealth coaching programme that has been making millionaires since 1999!

Teeny Tiny Pension?

Do you have a teeny tiny pension knocking about?  I do, and I get those annoying letters that tell me just how little it’s worth and what I won’t have to live on when I retire.

Mine’s worth the princely sum of £10,837 and that reflects the growth in the very few premiums I paid back in the late 70’s / early 80’s when I was sold a pension by Allied Dunbar.

I’ve largely never had the spare cash since then to put more in, and more recently the last place I would put my money is in a pension or the stockmarket!!  Property, business and passive internet income is my preferred route to retirement at the moment.

But it turns out that I can do something rather interesting with it now and, if you have a teeny tiny pension too (TTP), you need to pay attention now.

I can transfer my TTP into a SIPPS, which is a “self invested personal pension scheme” and I can do several even more interesting things with it.

1.  I can use it to buy commercial property

2.  I can borrow an extra 50% of the existing value – making it worth £15,000, and buy more commercial property

3.  I can club together with one or two other similar age people to buy commercial property with it

4.  The same applies about borrowing an extra 50% even if I club together with others

5.  We can buy property in the Caribbean with it that is going to appreciate dramatically in value AND generate rental income/profits

6.  All of which appreciation and rental profit is tax free and keeps growing in our SIPPS till we choose to retire.

Just visit here to watch two short presentations – no charge – that will tell you more…

http://www.themoneygym.com/harlequin/register.htm

So, if you are 47 and looking to retire at, say, 60, why don’t you get in touch with me at nicola@themoneygym.com and Judith and I will see what we can do for you.

Actually, if you are ANY age with a TTP, get in touch and we will put you in touch with others of the same age, and the bloke who can help you.

By the way, this is just one of the AMAZING wealth creation things we know about in the Money Gym, that you probably don’t.

Why don’t you think about joining Money Gym Gold before Christmas ready for a January start and let the Money Gym team make your 2009 your best year ever, financially speaking?

If you join now, you will not only save £1200 on the 2009 membership fee AND get a stonking new bonus – not available to the general public yet – worth £1750.  this is our brand new Money Gym Membership Site Bootcamp product, which will teach you how to turn £5 a month into £60,000 plus a year.  Perfectly achieveable you know.

Just visit Money Gym Gold, have a read, and pay the deposit to secure your place for 2009.

And then email Nicola [at] TheMoneyGym.com about your teeny tiny pension!

Free Books For Christmas

Got a great email from the publisher of “The Money Gym : Wealth Workout” Debs & Joe from Bookshaker…

Dear Nicola

It’s that time of year again. Just 30 more “sleeps” to go until Christmas Day.

So, to celebrate, we’re once again giving away a free ebook to every one of our customers

who buys one of our print books from Amazon between now and December 24th 2008.

Here’s how to claim your free ebook…

1. Browse http://www.bookshaker.com/index.php until you find a book that you’d like to buy in print, and a book you’d like FREE as an ebook

2. Click either the “Amazon.co.uk” or “Amazon.com” button (where available) near the top of the product description for the book you want in print

3. Complete all the steps to buy your selected print book from Amazon

4. Email your Amazon receipt to me at mailto:christmas@bookshaker.com along with the title of the ebook you want – you can have any book you like

5. I’ll email you the ebook you selected as soon as possible

Please pass news of this Christmas deal on to anyone you know who likes to read and wants a freebie.

Feliz Navidad and thanks for staying tuned!

Debbie Jenkins & Joe Gregory

—

http://www.bookshaker.com/index.php

http://www.leanmarketingpress.com

http://www.leanmarketing.co.uk

http://www.nativespain.com

16% Interest Anyone?

My property investor friend and colleague, Peter Stanley, wants to pay you more for your money than the banks do.   And that’s ironic because he used to BE a business bank manager!!  I’ve known Peter for years – since 2000 odd, and he’s a top bloke and a VERY experienced property investor.

Read what Peter has to say:

“Some of you may know that I offer a private investors plan alongside the property coaching and sourcing arms of my business, Property Made Simple.  This private investors plan evolved after conversations where people wanted the returns you can get by investing in property, but for a smaller stake, over a shorter time and without any of the hassle of  owning property.

At first, I only offered it to close friends and family, but like the other parts of my business, it’s grown by word of mouth and is now something I offer, albeit quietly.

In fact, some people use it as an additional income stream or a way of increasing their nest egg.

So why would a successful property entrepreneur do this ?

I’ve been watching the Manchester property market for over 15 years and I strongly believe that now is the time to be buying property – despite what the media are telling you – so I’m raising money to buy more houses, whilst cutting the investor into my profit.

If any of you have read my blog or my monthly newsletter you’ll know how much I hate the media reports, written by people in ivory towers, whose only experience of the property market is from the safety of their desk.

So what do you get as an investor ?

We ask for a minimum amount of £5,000 and a minimum term of 6 months, which is documented by a formal loan agreement and signed by both of us.

Interest is paid monthly by bank transfer to an account of your choice at 16% per annum, which is around 4 times what you’d get if you left it in the Bank.

At the end of the term, we return the initial loan to you, unless you’d prefer to continue to the arrangement when we’d prepare and sign new papers.

This doesn’t suit everyone, so don’t worry if it’s not for you, but if you’d like to know more, drop me an email and we can schedule a time to talk or meet.”

Contact Peter directly at PropertyMadeSimple.com and tell him Nicola sent you.

** Have you entered our Money Gym competition yet
where you can win a WHOLE YEAR’S wealth coaching?
Just click here to find out more **

Free Money – £520 per child!

We all need a bit of free money right now and I got a great email from a friend telling me about  a little known Child Benefit that pretty much nobody knows about / has claimed.  £520 per eligible child….fancy it?

It’s called the “unclaimed children’s tax allowance for 2002/3″ and apparently hardly anyone knows about it although many of us are entitled to it.

I’ve just called the number shown and they checked my tax records and confirmed that I may be entitled.

They have told me to write to HMRC at my local office with all my details (including that of the name of my partner / spouse at the time, and specifically mentioning the “unclaimed children’s tax allowance for 2002/3 ” so it seems to be genuine!

Here are the details….

Information for Parents -Unclaimed Children’s Tax Allowance for 2002/3

The year before Tax Credits were introduced there was a different non-means tested allowance available which was never advertised by the Inland Revenue.

It is called the Children’s Tax Allowance for the Year 2002/3.

You can still claim this tax allowance before the 31 January 2009 deadline.

You need to phone HMRC on 0845 302 1437 and ask them to check whether you have already received this allowance and, if not, enquire as to what action you need to take.

You are eligible to claim £520.00 allowance if;

*You have a child born between 6 April 1986 and 5 April 2003
*The child lived with you for all or part of 2002/2003
*You worked and paid tax for all or part of 2002/2003
*You or your partner earned £6,000 plus in the year 2002/2003 tax year

You are eligible for the £1,040 allowance if;

*If you can answer yes to the four questions above, and
*One of your children was born between 6 April 2002 and 5 April 2003
Notes:-

*Making a claim does not affect your current or future entitlement to Working or Child Tax credits.
*Your Marital status is irrelevant
*You cannot claim the allowance twice and if your final tax code on your April 2003 P60 ended in a H or a T, you have already had the allowance.
*This is an easy claim for you to make so do not get duped into paying someone to do it for you because they are likely to charge a large percentage for their services.

Spread the word by clicking the “Share / Save” link at the bottom of this post, as this could be something which gives you and other parents a little extra in these difficult times!!

Marketing Welly, Women Talking Money and Wii’ing All The Way To The Bank

As we come to the end of the Money Gym events for 2008 we gear up with a bit of marketing welly, for Money Gym Gold, as December & January are traditionally very busy times for new clients signing up.

We always like to make an irresistible offer to encourage you all to take action and we have come up with a corker this year.

I’m going to let you in on the rough plan, so that you can give me some feedback using the “comments” button above, if you wouldn’t mind.  Especially if you are thinking of joining Money Gym Gold for 2009

First of all go and have a look at http://www.themoneygym.com/gold so you know what I’m on about.  It’s our flagship product involving working one-to-one on YOUR financial plan, over a year, with one of our experienced wealth coaches (all ex-clients themselves).

The lead in will be a month-long marketing campaign, culminating in a 12 hour long “Wealth-A-Thon” on live internet tv via www.MoneyGym.tv on Saturday 3rd January.  Just after New Year, on the last weekend of the holidays.  Perfect for those whose New Year Resolution is to sort out their financial situation once and for all.

We are not going to add masses and masses of bonuses, but we will of course include the six workshop days planned for 2009 (total value of £638 / $957).  Those will x 3 of our “Let’s Talk Money” interactive wealth coaching days, the Brett McFall event in September, a Property Extravaganza in April and a Business Success Surgery mid-year.  All the dates are being firmed up as we speak.

The extra-special bonus this year, will be the “Money Gym Membership Site Bootcamp” product which we sold at Brett McFall’s event for £1750 / $2625, which takes you through, step by step, how to set up a blog then how to create a membership site from your blog and how to hook it up with TotalBusinessCart, a payment gateway, and a forum.

Some of our existing Membership Site Bootcamp people are coming up to speed nicely (see next week’s ezine for the rest of the links)

http://www.TheBlazingBBQ.com/blog
http://www.TheFluencyProject.com/blog
http://www.LivingRightNow.co.uk/ – click on the blog link on the left
http://www.InsideMotorRacing.com
http://www.MakeMoneyAtUni.com/blog/
http://www.ClassicMiniClub.co.uk

and the wonderful http://wiihealthzone.com/blog/ where Jodie Lawton has put all her classmates’ blogs on her blogroll, bless her!

Now, hold this thought for a second………..

If you can deliver enough value to make the membership of your site worth £5 / $7.50 a month, and you get 1000 people as members, you will be earning £60,000 / $90,000 per year.  5000 members will bring you in a handsome £300,000 / $450,000.  16,666 will make you a million a year.  Marvellous!

But be under no illusion – the hard work is not setting up the membership site, or even delivering the £5 a month value, it’s driving traffic to your site.  The best way to do that is by paying for traffic via Google Adwords and by blogging every day, on topic.

This is where most aspiring online entrepreneurs will fall down and I will be covering this and many other reasons why people find it so hard to succeed online, and financially actually, in my new report, tentatively entitled “Three Million Unemployed – That’s A Good Thing!”.

During the “Wealth-A-Thon” I will be coaching folk live, who are struggling, I’ll be video interviewing Money Gym clients, our various experts and other people of interest around the world (if you would like to be interviewed on the 3rd January, book your slot by emailing nicola@themoneygym.com)

I will also be giving away the newly-re-written-for-2009 Property & Internet marketing chapters of my book “The Money Gym” via a special opt in page that our affiliates will be sending their traffic to.

If you want to get involved in the promotion of Money Gym Gold, and earn affiliate commission of £240 / £360 for each new client that signs up, just click the links below to join (or confirm your membership) of our affiliate scheme.

Money Gym Affiliate Signup
Money Gym Affiliate Login

For super-affiliates, I will be creating special copies of the new report and the “Leaked Chapters” with their affiliate link embedded, so their list members won’t even have to opt in but the super affiliates will still benefit if anyone clicks through and buys an ebook, or joins Silver or Gold.

And then, at midnight on 3rd January, for 2009, the investment in Money Gym Gold will go up from £379.50 a month to £479.50 a month or £5754 for the year.  So you will save £1200 if you sign up for Gold before the midnight deadline.

And finally, we are limiting the intake of Golds to just 50 people as that is the maximum we can handle at the moment.  Playing with the idea of just the first 20 to sign up getting the Membership Bootcamp bonus.

What do you think?  Exciting launch or too confusing? Let me know, using the comments link at the top of this post.

Where have I been this week?

Up to London for a great Harlequin Presentation – how to take your dull old pension and turn it into a SIPP which you can then use to invest in Caribbean Property.  This was two short presentations which were actually really good fun and very, very interesting.

You can now view that online – no charge – by visiting
http://www.themoneygym.com/harlequin/register.htm and putting your name and email in.

We also hosted the last “Women Talk Money” workshop day – an experiment from 2008 that we won’t be continuing but we enjoyed very much.  All the participants got a lot out of it, the most surprising element of which was increased self confidence!

We played Cashflow 101 – and several have booked to come to all the Cashflow 101 games planned in 2009.  Find out more at http://www.themoneygym.com/events

And I stayed at the Hoxton Hotel again – marvellous!  Then I came home to find my sister and her kids moved in for a week, and I played in the Fab Five poker tournament at the Crown & Anchor (got bust out when I went “all in” with Ace King but came up against an “all in” Ace Queen, and I dealt a Queen on the flop – tragic).

So a very busy week, but very enjoyable.

Have fun, we ALWAYS are!

Nicola

Traffic Up Says Compete.com

I don’t know what specifically we are doing right, but Compete.com says our traffic is going in the right direction…..

This post was sponsored by Money Gym Gold – the only 1:2:1 coaching programme that has been making millionaires since 1999!

Money Gym TV – Guy Levine Interviewed

Poor old Guy Levine, he just happened to drop by to view the show and lo and behold, the next thing he knows, he’s being interviewed on Skype! He SAID he didn’t have a webcam and we will have to believe him as he works in an office with 9 employees now! Not like the good old days when he got up in the middle of a webinar to let the scally in delivering his fridge!

We cover web marketing, flying your helicopter to speaking gigs, what we got up to in Vegas, and how Guy has grown his business from a one-man band with outsourcers to a proper grown up company with his very own office. Find Guy at Web Marketing Advisor

Watch the show here (click the screen) and follow wealthcoach on www.Twitter.com to get notified when the show goes live!  Ask your questions for next week, or request an interview here >>>

This post was sponsored by Money Gym Gold – the only 1:2:1 coaching programme that has been making millionaires since 1999!

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