When Two Tribes Go To War… Which Online Tribe Are You?

The words of the iconic Frankie Goes To Hollywood song “Two Tribes” just about sum up the storm that’s brewing in the “make money online” world, with one tribe being the Internet Marketers and the other being the professional bloggers….

But before I tell you that story…first a bit of background…

Last weekend I went to Mark Anastasi’s ListBuilding Masterclass which, I have to tell you, was rammed to the rafters and a “who’s who” of internet marketing.  This was amazing in itself because this was a free three days, and usually when you give tickets away for free, you usually get less than 50% of the registrants turn up, while on Day 2, you only get 70% of those who were there on Day 1, with Day 3 being only 50-70% of those on Day 2.

In fact I think there might have been MORE people there on Day 3 than Day 1, as it was a Sunday!  The crowd was definitely a high proportion of self employed and business people with the employed forming perhaps a third?

Contrast  this hungry, up for it crowd at the Thistle Hotel with a much quieter little gig over the other side of town, which had been billed as a Wealth Creation seminar and was, unfortunately the gig I was booked to speak at!

The numbers  expected are usually 50- 100, only 30 odd showed up and when they found out that I was speaking on internet marketing, half left, having already booked themselves onto the stock trading workshop they wanted.

Great!  So I delivered my best material to a crowd of …….about 17.  I think they liked it!

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A Year In The Life Of The Money Gym

I read recently that, in business, you should never rehash what didn’t/doesn’t work but always focus on what works/worked and do more of that.  Simple but profound!

So I’m not going to do a roundup of what went well for the Money Gym (and me personally) and what didn’t go so well, I’m going to focus only on our successes and triumphs which will make for some pretty uplifting reading as we go into Christmas eh?

The year kicked off in January with the Internet Marketers Cruise in the Caribbean which was an absolute blast!  I took my sister, all our kids and hooked up with some lovely Money Gym clients including Susanne Jorgensen and Jane P Lewis and we had so much fun.  I got to go to a private cocktail party in Jennie Armato’s stateroom and hang out with Mike Filsaime, Michael Green and Robert G Allen among others.  A shooting star across the sky topped off the night perfectly.  I also made my karaoke debut that trip, singing “You Give Me Something” by James Morrisson very badly and we both met some wonderful new friends, not least at the poker table (Jennie won the poker tournament bringing glory to the girls)

January and February saw more speaking gigs with WIN Investing and although their audience was not quite right for the Membership Club Magic presentation, we did attract some great clients although not in great numbers.  At the Manchester event I met Daniel Priestley for the first time and liked him on sight, which led to an invite to speak for Triumphant Events.

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Are You Blocking Your Own Success?

You know how sometimes you are just meant to see / hear / read something?  Well, yesterday the very excellent blogger Yaro Starak send out a short email, linking to one of his latest blog articles entitled “Do Your Belief Structures & Behaviour Patterns Block Your Success” and as I love Yaro’s writing, I started to read it.

He talks about blind spots, being open minded and how your patterns of behaviour are anchors….all good useful and well written stuff…. and then I either got distracted or called away or started to feel guilty that I was reading for fun when I had so much to do, and I didn’t read the rest thinking I would come back to it later.

Later on, an email arrived from Steve with a link to the article, pointing out a couple of paragraphs nearer the end, that I had missed by not reading on, and which were particularly pertinent to something we had been discussing on Monday.

(Welcome home Steve, by the way!)

So, now another nudge to read this article, from the old Universe, so I did, I read it right to the end.

BANG! POW! KERZAP!

Very good indeed.  So good in fact, that I printed it out and have been carrying it around and mulling it over every since, now embellished with highlighted bits and underlinings.

SO GOOD in fact that the power of the thoughts that this article stirred up called for one thing and it’s something I’ve never done yet ……… I have started journalling.

Yep, manually writing in a book every day, something recommended by Julia Cameron in “The Artists Way” but never taken up by me, after my mother found my five year diary when I was a teen.

I’ve been thinking of starting a daily business journal, after an article I read last week by Todd Brown at Strategic Profits called “The Secrets To Greater Business Clarity” but was putting it off till the New Year, thinking I might get a lovely notebook for Christmas (it’s on my list!)

But Yaro’s article was reverberating so loudly in my head, that I dug out a new notebook Steve bought me recently and just pasted in Yaro’s article and started writing.

Here’s the first part of Yaro’s article for you to enjoy too!  You need to read to the end, remember?

“Do Your Belief Structures And Behavior Patterns Block Your Success?” By Yaro Starak

Are You Aware Of Your Blind Spots? asks Yaro Starak.

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Have You Taken Up Residence On Your Couch For December?

Sitting on my couch, among my new set of cushions, reflecting on 2009 and thinking ahead to 2010, I’m struck by how certain times of year lend themselves particularly to this kind of introspective thinking.

Easter, with the promise of spring and new life, September with the start of the new school year (and even us grownups still remember that feeling!) and of course Christmas with the impending New Year.

Funny old days, in early December, are they not?   It’s very, very dark, at both ends of the day, and recently it’s felt like it’s never going to stop raining.  One can hardly remember the sun or the sunny days of Summer and it seems an awfully long way off to next summer, that’s for sure!  The couch seems the best place to be, with Strictly or X-Factor on the TV and the heating on full.

The New Year is coming quicker than lightning but all we want to do is wind down to Christmas!

On the one hand some of the country go into a spending spree and Christmas decorating spasm, and on the other hand, some people are quietly emailing tales of woe, stories of quiet desperation and harsh self-criticism about another year gone by – wasted!  Months of procrastination, prevarication leading to …………….absolutely no results.

Do you secretly feel really cross because your 2009 has not progressed you to where you want to be, financially?  Perhaps you have been one of the pension holders or property investors affected by the credit crunch in some way or other and you rather hopefully had all your eggs in one basket?

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Would you like to make an additional £10,000 in 90 days?

Would you like to be coached live in 15 minutes on Blog Talk Radio by Nicola & Judith?

Starting on 20th January 2010 we will have a schedule of weekly radio shows during our new Spring, Summer and Autumn terms.

We are looking for wealth creators who are happy to discuss their financial ideas and ambitions in 15 minutes live on internet radio.

Up for it?

Book your slot here >>

And remember to tell us which URL or business or idea you want to work on.

Too shy to be on the radio? Check this box each week and listen in, hear your fellow Money Gymers feel the fear and do it anyway and learn from listening in, live or later.

See you on air!

Defending Debt by John Landon

Nicola says: I’ve been in conversation with John Landon from Pier Properties recently, who sent me a great article on Debt, for me to share with you.  John is an experienced property investor who, like all of us, is trying to help other people get their head around concepts that seem alien at first, but which have the power to change your life.  First though, you have to be willing to open your mind a little bit.

Defending Debt by John Landon

By chance last week, I found myself defending debt on three separate occasions. Twice, the conversations referred to mortgages when friends were discussing their borrowings and how they were trying to pay them off as fast as possible. I firstly had to decide whether we had time for the inevitable debate. So often, anyone with a fixed view that all debt is bad and should be paid off as fast as possible, takes a lot of convincing of the alternative approach.

So what is that debate?

I suggest they think of it as someone else providing them with the funds to invest in the property market – which in the UK is a very good place for your own money, let alone someone else’s being invested so you can get the profit. Sometimes that statement does the trick and the penny drops, but it often needs further explanation.
That debt declines in real term value every year. As your house increases in value – traditionally doubling within ten years – the mortgage that may have accounted for 90% of the house’s value at purchase, halves in proportion over the same period. (90% at purchase becomes 45% of the house’s value within ten years; 22.5% within twenty years and so on). Your equity grows in direct proportion. This is why residential investors only use interest-only mortgages. They don’t want to pay more than necessary for their borrowing so don’t worry about paying off the debt – they just let it decrease naturally as a proportion of the increasing value of their investment. They know that what appears to be a very high borrowing on day one, will quickly reduce as a proportion of the property’s value over time.

A personal example: I raised £300K mortgage to buy my office premises. The cost of the mortgage payments at the time were marginally higher than the rental would have been. I recall a friend pulling my leg at the time about paying more to own the premises than just renting it  – ‘some businessman you are..!’  Within four years, the property had doubled in value to £600K. Since I bought it, the rental cost in this building has increased by about 25%. I’ve thought about telling my friend but decided against it.
All this should illustrate the point that when you buy a property you instantly become an investor in the UK property market. Whether you are buying BTL or your home, the market plays by the same rules of economics regardless of your reason to own your property. As a result, you should always be thinking like an investor, which leads to the conclusion that perhaps you should not be paying off your mortgage – ever. Or even selling your home.

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My Dinner With Bill Clinton By Judith Morgan

… was not quite the intimate affair I had in mind, just me and another 900+ guests.

However, when teaching Cashflow the next day, a mistake after such a late night, I realised that it is one of the pink dreams on the outside track “Dinner with the President” and I went “ooh, I did that last night”. Only difference is, you have to pay on the Fast Track and I was a guest on this occasion.

We were invited to the Hilton in London’s Park Lane for 6.30 and penned up for a while drinking Taittinger champagne in a bar called Whisky Mist.   Eventually we were called through to dinner in the  Grand Ballroom where there were 90+ tables of 10 people. I was on Table 20 which meant he passed by me within 3 people on his way to the stage and stood for an hour speaking about 20 paces from me.   There were about 900 iphones trained on him throughout, recording, photographing, Tweeting no doubt.   No me, far too naff for moi.   I just sat and enjoyed him.

He is a truly inspirational speaker.   He spoke for at least an hour, he had notes but he didn’t use them much, he had stats which he appeared to know off the top of his head.   The content of his speech was generally about making a difference in the world because the theme of the evening was do-gooding (raising money for the Lady Taverners, a charity which provides minibuses and other support for disabled children to enjoy sport).

The great and the good were in the room – Chris Tarrant, Darren & Lilia from Strictly Come Dancing, Mica Paris, Raymond Le Blanc, Paul Young, Max Clifford, James Caan, David Frost, Rory Bremner, Rachel Heyhoe-Flint, Nancy Dell’Olio, Judith Chalmers, anyone who is anyone in fundraising, sport and celebrity – the resources the Lady Taverners leverage to raise funds.   They made over £200k from a glamorous auction of prizes which had been donated.

Our very own Maria Davies paid £700 for an autographed copy of Bill’s book “Giving”, as did Max Clifford.  Quite a memory to see them both left standing together in the auction.

Anyway, back to Bill.  He talked about inequality and unsustaintability.  He reminded me, perhaps even educated me, about how well the UK has done in certain areas – he was very complimentary that (pre-credit crunch) we would have been one of only four nations signed up to the Kyoto agreement who were set to meet our 2012 targets on greening ourselves, for example.   Not the only compliment he paid us as a nation.

He told some amazing stories about the healing in Rwanda and how they did that.   And about how his Foundation finds entrepreneurial and innovative ways of spending money which help communities in real, green, affordable areas and make a very big difference so that it wasn’t just about giving money away.   He said that Bill Gates announced it would be harder to give his money away (effectively) than it had been to make it in the first place.   The Rwanda story had me in tears.

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Shocking Truth About Judith’s Money | What Will Be YOUR “Return On Investment”?

Judith Morgan says: Nicola’s always asking me “Why won’t our clients tell us PRECISELY how much more money they have made by being in The Money Gym?”

I don’t know is the short answer!   What I do know is that in the UK we don’t like talking about money whether it’s because we’ve made less than we would like (and don’t want to share that) OR the more likely Money Gym scenario which is that we’ve made more than we think our friends and family would like (and we don’t want them to know or to show them up).

Many’s the time when we have been contacted by a particularly successful client and asked to TAKE DOWN a testimonial, because they are getting divorced, have just met someone new, don’t want to be stalked, are worried about burglars, don’t want the tax man to have any inkling….many, many differnent reasons.

This, of course, makes our Money Gym marketing very difficult, particularly for the Gold and Boardroom coaching programmes and it makes it hard to give people specific examples when they ask that age old question “How quickly will I get a return on my investment and how much will that be?”

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How To Run A Great Little Business

There’s a man in my garden called Michael.   And he’s building my garden office.   Coming free with my garden office, and he doesn’t know this yet but he will, is a refresher course for me on how to run a Great Little Business.

At every step of the way, Michael has been the consummate professional, taking care of every detail.   He came to scope out the project when he said he would, on time, phoning first to check I was in and had remembered and that it was still convenient.   We decided what I wanted and it turned out I would need planning permission because I live in a flat.

Michael drew up the plans and charged me no extra for that service, and in order to do that he had to make another couple of site inspections, all on time, all when he said he would.   He is businesslike, delightful, polite and respectful to do business with.   I put in the planning application, the council asked for more information. Michael returned to site and did what was necessary, no extra charge, all part of the service, all smiles, all quick and on time and exactly to his word.

We got planning permission in early September, during the post strike.   Michael’s wife, Lucy, had been on the council’s website and let me know the good news as soon as it was posted there.   We scheduled the work to start on Wednesday this week, 14th October.   In that intervening month, contracts were exchanged, deposits paid and terms for the third and final payment were agreed to suit my personal financial circumstances.   All very neat and tidy.   He told me when the build would start and end, when and how I was required to pay the three instalments totalling £12,800.

I got up early on Wednesday knowing that workmen like to start work earlier than I do.   I anticipated them at about 08.30, they contacted me 48 hours earlier to remind me they were coming and to enquire about parking and access for their deliveries.

Michael arrived on site early at 08.20, his assistant not far behind.   I showed them the facilities, the bathroom, the kitchen and invited them to help themselves to tea and coffee whenever they wanted.   Michael already told me that he was self-sufficient with his own supplies and would only stop twice during the working day for breaks.   His assistant said the immortal words “that’s OK, I don’t drink tea or coffee!”   Neither do I, so that’s just grand.   I was able to instantly banish the thought of becoming their tea lady for three weeks.

They set about their work with relish, the first day was mainly about bringing in the tools, staking out the area on which they were going to build.   Yesterday was about concreting the base and I could begin to see the standard of Michael’s workmanship which was exemplary. I could also see he was one of those entrepreneurs I always talk about in my trainings, a perfectionist control freak, i.e. on top of every detail and here before his team, leading from the front.   Fabulous!   I instantly knew on Day One that my garden shed is going to be gorgeous as you can see anyway from the photo.   I could see from the way he was perfecting the concreting just exactly the measure of the man.

So I said to the lad when he came to fetch to two glasses of tap water “I see Michael is a perfectionist, what’s he like as a boss?”   The lad was effusive.   He knows he’s getting a great apprenticeship.   I heard Michael giving him free life advice too, as they worked.

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Having The Vision | Daring To Dream

In The Money Gym we find that one of the first hurdles our clients have to get over is that of envisaging and then writing down a detailed description of their “Ordinary Tuesday”.

We ask them to write down what they will be doing on an ordinary Tuesday in three years, five years, ten years time, when they have “made it”.  We want details; from the minute they wake up, to the moment they go to bed.

Where are they, what does it look like, how is the décor, which country are they in, what do they do in the morning, afternoon, evening.  Who are they with?  what are the smells, tastes, feelings around them?

It’s a powerful exercise because sometimes, it’s the first time they have ever done any visioning since they were a child – we all do it all the time when we are children (it’s called day dreaming).

Who teaches us as children to tone down the things we dream about doing, being, becoming?

I remember the very exciting day dreams I used to have – I either wanted to be a princess (but that involved marrying a prince then doing what he said, so slight snag there) or a successful business person with a big sunny corner office, in the City of London (my idea of business success was a little corporate in those days, I didn’t realise you could run a business from your spare bedroom).

So children are largely much better at day-dreaming, visioning than we are as adults but some grown-ups retain the ability.  There are also different personality types who are naturally more comfortable with this kind of thinking, and they are called Creatives.  They are found in ad agencies, the corporate world (it’s called blue sky thinking there) and lots of the creative industries like fashion or music.

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