A Wealth Creation Dream Come True

This week a long time wealth creation dream of mine came true….but before I tell you about that, I’ll tell you about my mad exciting week first!

Last Tuesday it was my boy Nelson’s 12th birthday so he, Phoebe and I went to Brighton to their favourite restaurant, Yo! Sushi, where they got through frightening amounts of….you guessed it, sushi, then we all went to see “Fame – The Movie”

This was great not only because I love all that singing and dancing “luvvie” stuff, but because the graduation ceremony gave me the best quotes on success I’ve come across for a while, but how to get hold of it?

I scoured YouTube but the film is too new for it to be up there yet, so I sent out a few tweets and an email to our Money Gym Google groups. It took a couple of days but Carrie Eddins emailed the speech back for me to use in my presentation on success on the “Really Useful Internet Day”

When I thanked her, thinking she must have had it downloaded or something, she said”I walked past the cinema, and thought..if  it ’s screened when I walk past then I will watch it again.. and it was. I watched it missed a bit and then it was immediately screened again!! It was fun in the end!!”

Wow, thanks again Carrie, that’s helpfulness above and beyond the call of duty!  Our google group and the people in it, is amazing.  Just think, if that’s the Silver level group support, imagine what the Money Gym Boardroom google group will be able to do for YOUR business!
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Business Profits & Success | You Need A Website!

I believe that the ability to create an effective online presence is absolutely crucial for any business.  If you are in business and not online, then you are leaving so much money on the table it’s unreal.

Every business needs a website, and not all websites are created equal sadly.

I’ll go further, there is NO real world business that can not benefit from having a coherent online presence.

I have one for The Money Gym (this one!), for my speaking/writing activities at NicolaCairncross.com, one for my Greek Property business, and made one for my friends Rona & Adrian, who lent me their gorgeous holiday home for rent, in Casares, Spain.  In fact, have a business idea, I make a website for it.  It helps me think through the offer and test the market, via quick free traffic.

Just think about it, for a second.

If you were out and about, and met two interesting people who both had a product or service that solved a problem you had, but only one of them had a website URL on their card, which one are you more likely to check out online and then use?  The one with the website of course!

Especially if that website was simple, colourful, professional looking, let you know about the people behind the business, and outlined the product or service, along with giving you some useful information on the topic of interest AND gave you the contact details.  Or a free gift of some kind, in return for your name and email, if you are not ready to call or email them yet.

So why don’t more businesses do it?

Because they think it’s complicated and expensive – but of course it’s not.

So, today I want to talk to you about how easy it is to do just that, and which elements you need to concentrate on first.

Nicola’s Quick 15 Point Step By Step Plan To Get Your Business Online & Making Your Money

1.  Visit https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and put in the key phrase you imagine your visitor would use to find your product or service

2.  It will show the results for the country you are in and the Global Search Results – click the column headers to sort by biggest numbers first on local or global.  Make a note of the top 10-20 relevent key phrases.

3.  Remember that these results are per month – this is the size of your potential market and customer base (even if you are usually very local, you can sell them SOMETHING surely!)

4.  Talking of local, while you are there, Add your business to Google Local www.google.com/local/add

5.  Buy a domain name which includes one of the most searched terms in your niche

6.  Get some decent, cheap hosting at someone like FunkyDomainNames.com or Hostgator.com

7.  Look for the link in your Control Panel to install a Wordpress blog on your hosting (it usually takes just one click – you will be amazed)

8.  Choose a theme you like and start adding information of interest to your ideal customer

9.  Find out how to enhance your blog website for customers and search engines alike with plugins

10.  Create a Facebook Page with the same name as your blog website and hook them up so that your Page shows on your blog/website and your site updates your Page

11.  Create a Twitter account in the same name as your blog website & Facebook page and hook them up with the TwitterTools plugin so they update each other

12.  Go create a profile and list your site at Technorati, StumbleUpon, Digg and any others you can be bothered with

13.  Create a YouTube channel in the name of your business and start “Favouriting” videos that would be of interest to your ideal customer and hook it up to your main site with a URL in the channel description.

14.  Hook up your blog/website to some sort of List Manager, we recommend Total Business Cart if you want to sell things or aWeber or GetResponse if you want to just recommend other people’s product or services

15.  Start selling stuff or recommending stuff and put yourself in REAL DANGER of making some money online!

Then just keep adding useful information to your blog website, which will update your Twitter and Facebook page, the search engines and blog directories.

As soon as you start making some money, invest a certain % of it into hiring the professionals to take your brilliant foundations you have built and take your business stratospheric.

How simple was that?

So why are you not doing it then?

If you did just those 15 Steps, you would be way ahead of MOST if not ALL of your competitors, I can guarantee you that!

HOWEVER!

If you STILL feel you need help and encouragement on getting going with making your business work online, then come along to our “Really Useful Internet Day” on Saturday 10th October 2009.

One day, just three experts, no bull, no hype, just down to earth practical stuff that you can put to work for you, making you more money from your business, or creating a second income for you, right now!

Seats are already flying out to our Silver, Silver Elite, Membership Club Magic and Gold clients, and the only way to make sure you get notified before the info page goes live at 12 noon on Friday, is to get on the VIP Priority Mailing list here

http://www.themoneygym.com/internetday

See you there!

Nicola

p.s. Tickets are only £25, it’s all going to the Big Issue and they are tax deductible if you have a business.  Don’t muck about, this is a day that could change your business life.

http://www.themoneygym.com/internetday

Money Gym Interviews | Jennie Armato

As we prepare for the Money Gym “Really Useful Internet Day”, here’s another in the series of interviews with Internet succeess stories – real people making real money (and big money!) online. I first saw Jennie speaking at the first ever World Internet Summit and we have subsequently become firm friends. Jennie is a mean Texas “No Limits” Hold’em player and won the Internet Marketers Cruise tournament last year (I came in about eighth!).  This interview was recorded the night before Jennie was due to speak at Mark Anastasi’s Traffic Generation Summit in London on 29th June 2009.

You can see Part 2 of Brett’s interview when you put your name and email in the VIP Priority list at http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/internetday and when we launch the bookings at the end of this week, and you confirm your attendance at the day and donate £25 to the Big Issue, you’ll get to enjoy the rest of Brett’s interview, Jennie’s interview and Martin Avis’ too.

Losing, Loving, Laughing & Life!

It’s been a week at home, this week, settling back into school routine, getting used to the grey skies, trying to decide if I want to stay here and try and buy this house, or move into Shoreham or Brighton to something brighter and newer.  Feeling restless…..but happier than recently as it’s been sunnier in Shoreham.

We’ve been gearing up for the Money Gym “Really Useful Internet Day” on 10th October and I’ve been starting to plan the marketing campaign for that which will take place over the next four weeks and will hopefully fill the room.

Because even an event with a ticket price of £25, all of which we are donating to our favourite Money Gym charity “The Big Issue” (helping the homeless help themselves), takes a full on marketing campaign to ensure it’s success.

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Silver, Quicksilver, Silver Elite and The Story Of How It All Began!

This week we have taken a massive leap forward with one of our interim products – designed to fit between Silver and Gold and enhance Silver membership by getting you off to a flying start in the first weeks of your Silver Membership.

We know that people join things with the best intentions of making them work, but then life just gets in the way, so we have created a goal setting and action orientated 12 week coaching programme called Silver Elite.  Working initially with Judith and me, you will come up to speed on how to use our new membership site, you will set some goals for the 12 weeks/90 days, and then be walked through the programme week by week, by online video, and join us for a weekly coaching call, where we will set homework to get you moving.  Judith is the master at running these group coaching programmes and I’m only interested in working with people who want to take action.  No “haven’t done anything this week because…..” excuses in this programme, oh no!

The first invited participants will be those who have been fully paid up members of Silver for three months or more, as of the end of March, or those generous souls who supported our Property Extravaganza by buying multi-tickets.

Then we will probably run the first open programme in September for anyone who wants to play.

The second of our interim new products will be called Money Gym Quicksilver, and will be everything we have, in a box.  Physical product, oh yes!  Bit of a job to pull it all together but I’m working on it – we have SO MUCH CONTENT.  This will be for those who want to rock through Silver in no time flat, rather than waiting for the month by month sequential delivery of the content that the usual Silver programme will enable.  I will also sell it from the stage when I speak, as the audiences at most of the gigs I’ve been doing recently can really relate to CD’s, DVD’s and workbooks.  We have some lovely extras planned for the QuickSilver box too – surprises!

I see these two working very much in conjunction with each other, and with the existing Silver membership, and will help to move folks on, from the ebook, getting them started with our support on their wealth creation activities, with a view to moving onto Gold, to work with a coach one-to-one.  The investment in both will be right smack bang between Silver and Gold and instalments will be available of course.

We are now starting to move all the existing paying members of http://www.themoneygymclub.com over to http://www.themoneygym.com/blog where all the content is now complete and ready to access in the same way.  If you have not had an email from Steve about this, can you contact him with your name, email address and your membership level.

I’m off to the Rick Otton two-day bootcamp in London’s Earls Court this weekend, with Judith, and I’m really looking forward to it.  Around 35 Money Gym bods will be there and Rick’s high energy style will make it a fun two days.

I need to get some advice about my ads, as my little ad in the Worthing Herald just isn’t cuttin it, although it brought in quite a few enquiries from motivated sellers last year.  I’m experimenting with Google Adwords and a mighty £2 a day budget, but I just can’t seem to get the traffic!  Trying an InfoMillionaire trick now, that replaces the first line of my Adwords Ad with whatever the searcher typed in.  I’ll keep you updated on progress.

Really need to do some flyering in Worthing and Shoreham, which would involve 37,000 leaflets and cost over £300, perhaps I should buddy up with another business to do this?  I want to get some feedback from the weekend about which flyers are working already though.

Having said all that, apparently people are struggling suddenly to find sellers motivated enough to do “below market value” deals and that seems to be because of two factors:

1. Mortgages are at an all time low in terms of monthly costs – Judith’s just been told that one of her’s has dropped to £0.08 a month – yes you read that right!  Interest only mortgages are on the floor and if you have been listening to the Money Gym about swapping to an interest only mortgage, and not locking yourself into a fixed rate for too long if you are an investor….. you will be getting letters like Judith’s hopefully!
2. Many investors are starting to come back into the market, often with cash to buy so bypassing the need for a mortgage, figuring that it’s bottoming out now.  Even my best friend’s boyfriend is starting to look around now and he’s been very pessimistic for ages about prices going lower.  He wants a flat in South London for around £250,000 if you have one, by the way!

So Rent2Own is a great second strategy for property investors, as it enables them to buy those properties where the owner is unable to drop the price, but is desperate to move on and get on with their life.

I’ve just been watching my “Quick 10 Minutes” from the stage at the Property Extravaganza (and having a little boo again at what a wonderful day it was).  I’ve just bounced into Steve’s room saying “we must put this video on the page where folks can get a trial membership of Silver for 30 days!” as it just sums it all up really.

You can watch it here

And then join Money Gym Silver here

For just £27.50 a month and lock that membership in at that investment – I’m not kidding in the video, we ARE putting the membership up at some point in the not too distant future.

Have fun, we always do.

Nicola

Property Investors Under The Hammer | £5000+ For The Big Issue!

Last week I was feeling very odd, in the lead up to our Property Extravaganza.  It was obvious by the beginning of the week that thanks to Judith’s inspired marketing emails, the guest line up and Steve’s working the “back end” so masterfully, we were going to sell out the venue, so there was no pressure there to get more bums on seats.  Judith and Steve had done all the organising and hard work, keeping me out of that aspect deliberately as detail is not my strong point!  I realised that I was experiencing the whole event as a customer and while it was most enjoyable, it was very odd.

To distract myself, I went to the ever-excellent Martin Avis’ London Lunch for internet marketers and spent a lovely hour or so on our table with Money Gym maties Susanne Jorgensen, Tricia Stone, Matt Garrett, Tim Brocklehurst and a new gentleman called Peter who had a hard time getting a word in edgeways!

Then off to the ever enjoyable Cumberland Hotel to meet Steve for drinks and dinner in the Gary Rhodes brasserie, which was nice but not all that (compared with the restaurant which is GORGEOUS!).  Lovely hotel room overlooking Park Lane and Marble Arch.

So, where do I start with a review of saturday?  It was a totally amazing day, with about 150 Money Gym clients there, both previous and current.  Judith herself, stepping into her star profile at last, and Alexis Garnaut-Miller who was a client from pre-Money Gym days even and who has just joined the Membership Club Magic programme!  From the first year or so of The Money Gym in it’s current format, it was lovely to see Sarah Mallett and Julia McDaid.  I also met people like Oliver, a property developer from Worthing, who I knew from my first ever Russ Whitney weekend which must have been 2003 or 2004….and who also turned up recently at one of our Cashflow games.

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Over £5000 Raised For The Big Issue Foundation

We are so thrilled and proud of all our Money Gym gang – over £5000 raised for The Big Issue Foundation.  £4500 from ticket sales and donations, including one from @JennieArmato in Australia, which Judith and I matched, and the possibility of another £5000 from some of the speakers.  Here’s me and Anthony North, Head of Fundraising from the Big Issue.  The Money Gym helping The Big Issue help the homeless help themselves.  The videos will be available soon too for a small donation, so the work goes on.

It’s A Big Issue Alright & You Can Help!

It’s a Big Issue to me as a Londoner. For the last twenty years of my life, I have been aware of the homeless sleeping rough in my great city.  As I go about my business I see plenty of those less fortunate that me. And you don’t know what to do for the best, do you?

I remember once calling Centre Point and asking how I could best help.

I was told not to give people on the streets money as it would simply go straight back into alcohol or drugs. I remember being surprised by how bald a statement that was.

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

You know me by now, I tend to think the best of people. I tend to be away with the fairies, living in a pink bubble of loveliness where we are all kind to each other and we have a warm comfy bed to sleep in at night.

And yet, of course, I know life’s not like that. That’s not reality for so many.

On Tuesday evening I met John Bird, the founder of The Big Issue. He pioneered his solution with Gordon and Anita Roddick in 1991 and it was tough love all the way. He said to the homeless “you are part of the problem, you must be part of the solution”.

They offered vendors a leg up and helped them to get started in changing their own lives through their own efforts. Selling the magazine can enable them to get back on their feet.

And if they go first, after three months the Big Issue can step in with all sorts of additional support. You haven’t begun to think what problems you can create for yourself if you don’t have a fixed abode.

Some of those were explained to us on Tuesday evening, along with the startling fact that if you have already enjoyed your 40th birthday, you have passed the average life expectancy of a homeless person.

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

Along with Carolyn & Neil, Karen & Rich, we went to see the Real Lives, Real Achievements awards at a laid back venue in Camden.  The Big Issue has two of the most wonderful sponsors any little charity could hope for.

1. Cadbury, who not only showered us with free chocolate, but demonstrated how they give vendors two weeks’ work experience at their factories which often leads to full-time jobs. They have taken nearly 170 people off the streets in this experiment.

2. CNN who had helped The Big Issue craft five little films about real vendors and how the Big Issue has made all the difference.  We will be showing a couple of those at our event on Saturday.

So what would I say to those who are critical of the way in which charities work? Yes, I know it isn’t always ideal. But TBI has only 14 staff supporting 2500 vendors across the UK. Their way of working is closely aligned with our own values at the Money Gym and I really hope that Saturday will be the first of a long and fruitful relationship us MG property folks have with helping the homeless to help themselves. Our target of £4,500 (when we reach it) is going to make a real impact, a real difference.

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

And it will make another dream come true too. Peter Stanley and Greg Southey and I had a number of meetings over the last couple of years trying to find a way to marry up property profits to help the homeless, it seems a natural marriage to us.

We met the awesome Sam Woodlock who is a volunteer worker with TBI, having been a homeless addict herself some time back. She is now married with a child, and happily doing great work co-ordinating Big Issue activities in Covent Garden. For me, she was perhaps the most moving story of the evening – a walking, talking success now helping others out of the place in which she had once found herself.

Not surprisingly I did shed a tear or two. Not as many as I thought because CNN did not fall into the trap of over-sentimentalising these five stories. But they are sad, and they are happy, and it is awesome to see people make a comeback from circumstances which I know I would find impossibly difficult.

There but for the grace of God.

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

One of the films is about a lad from Bath who wants to go on the Big Issue sponsored bike ride to Paris. He has raised part of the sponsorship money he needs to take part but at the time of making the film he had neither a bike or all the money for a Passport.

Just THINK what we take for granted!

If you can get free on Saturday and come along and support our fundraiser, that would be fab.   Help yourself, help the homeless to help themselves and help us to achieve that lofty target of £4,500. Come and see the CNN films and be inspired to make a difference, if not to the homeless then to someone you can help, perhaps by becoming their landlord.

I don’t know where I would be without the sanctuary of my own home, a place where I can be safe and warm and nurtured by my peace and quiet, my garden, my pussycat, my broadband and by fulfilling relationships with family and friends and work I love.
I am so abundant and grateful and lucky.

Counting my blessings, counting my blessings, counting my blessings and hoping to pay it forward today, tomorrow, everyday and especially Saturday 21st March 2009. That day will be only the start of what we can do to help The Big Issue support the homeless in this very inspirational way.

Thanks for listening
Judith

PS  If you can’t come on Saturday, you can still donate at our page:

http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property

Dawn, Daniel, Trades Descriptions & Direct Talking

A very early start on Saturday, to fly to Manchester to spend the day with an early client of The Money Gym, reviewing his business and investments and planning the next year for him. He’s asked me to meet up once a quarter as he finds a coaching relationship very motivating! Now this man does not need motivating, let me tell you, but I’ve decided he’s an entrepreneurial personality type so he thinks while he talks. And he values having someone objective to talk to! We definately came out of that day with a focused “to do” list for each of his “Lanes of the Wealth Highway”.

A lovely meal with my client and then I waved him off and had an early night at the rather nice Radisson SAS hotel, which was full of well behaved football supporters rather than hunky tough soldiers. Trades descriptions act, anyone?

Then to the Tower Thistle to speak for WIN Investing’s “Build Your Wealth” event. Very strange day, as while the response was very positive, nobody took me up on my offer, whereas with much smaller crowds in London, they’ve been beating my door down. Lots of sidling up and trying to get my private contact details as well, which was very odd.

A lovely lunch with Daniel Priestly of Triumphant Events, who I’ve heard a lot about but never met before. He caught the end of my talk and was intrigued, and I loved his presentation on Wealth Dynamics profiling, which of course we are big fans of at The Money Gym. Judith and I are Creator/Star/Mechanics (no!) and Steve is a Lord/Accumulator/Mechanic. Any Deal Makers or Supporters out there?

Then off to Manchester Airport which I always find most entertaining, where I got chatted up by a barrister en route for somewhere else. It took me a while to realise it was happening, as I’m a very friendly and outgoing type generally, but by the third compliment in thirty minutes (vivacious, lovely eyes, nice coat, warm personality etc etc) I was starting to twig. Ooo-er, what to do? Being a wimp, I couldn’t say “no” outright when he asked for my number but I figured if I took his, then at least I would be able to screen the calls. The man has a live-in lover for heavens sake, where do guys like that get off? He probably reads this ezine by now, my profile not being exactly low key, online, so, if you do, you were very nice but I’m not interested in breaking up homes OR playing second fiddle. Don’t you watch “Mistresses” – it ALWAYS ends in tears.

Talking of possibly ending in tears, check out my article on business and taking responsibility for your money, as nobody cares as much about your cash as you do. It’s a theme that Judith and I are very keen to make sure you are aware of, as the news gets grimmer and grimmer on the TV. It’s not just about jobs being in the firing line, but businesses too. And that may have a knock on effect on your earnings, your savings and your investments. Not to doom-monger but to encourage you to be aware, be pro-active and make plans for a different world than it was last year!

Back to work and it’s all been about the Property Extravaganza Day this week, with bookings pouring in. We are nearly half sold out so if you are thinking of coming along, book your place at http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property – it’s only £25, all going to the Big Issue after we pay the VAT, and eight great speakers. Loads of lovely networking and re-charging your wealth creation batteries.

This week, Judith and I interviewed the very lively Anthony North, who is the Head Fundraiser for The Big Issue, and an entertaining and moving hour it was too! I broadcast the interview on BlogTalkRadio, I’m going to podcast via the blog here on iTunes. You can listen to Anthony’s story here

I did a quick look on YouTube to see if the Big Issue had much up there already – perhaps their own channel, as they do Big Issue tours and events. Not a sausage on YouTube except some piss-taking videos of Big Issue vendors doing their best to bring a bit of Christmas cheer to their selling activities.

So I’m given myself the rather tedious job of breaking the interview down into six x ten minute segments, and getting it up on YouTube as video too. If Anthony gives me the go-ahead, I’ll create The Big Issue their own channel, so they can add our videos and those of some of the bands who have been on their tour.

While there I found an interesting video of Big Issue founder John Bird, talking about Ethical Business at the British Library and you can view that here >>>

And then I did a search on Google for John Bird and found this interesting article where John says the only solution to the homeless problem is to ……lock up the homeless!

I’m amazed at how this whole Big Issue thing is touching me actually, must be a “there but for the grace of god, go I” element creeping in. There have been many times in my life when I needed to move and have been housed by family and friends and I couldn’t help thinking yesterday, when listening to Anthony’s passion for his job, what would I have done without anyone to help and support me?

Off to London Friday ready for the next Membership Club Magic “Bonus” Workshop. All the people who signed up in September at Brett’s event are coming and the new people who signed up via the free online webinar presentation or via the Build Your Wealth events. Old friends, some not seen since 2003, and lots of new ones – marvellous.

Now, we are starting to think about taking on an intern for 6 months to a year. This would be someone, probably a college leaver or gap year person, who wants to learn how to become an internet marketer, run an online business, organise and host real world events, and discover how to develop information and software products. There would be no pay, for the internship, but all expenses covered, and the chance of a job with us, or someone we know at the end of it. I don’t think you would need to live near Sussex, as we could work remotely most of the time but the South East would probably save you some travelling.

Skills would include a thorough knowledge and use of the online world, for example, use of Bebo, MySpace or Facebook a must, and if they can use spreadsheets and type fast with good English, that would be a great advantage. Self starter, goes without saying, and outgoing with an eye for detail. Must be willing to learn HTML, blogging, shopping carts, autoresponders etc.

More to follow, as we thrash out the details, so watch your email. This is how Steve found out I was looking for someone to run the hotel, so you never know…

As he always says, he rues the day he opened that email, but he’s still here so… LOL

Money Gym Interviews | Anthony North, Big Issue

Judith interviewed Anthony North, Head of Fundraising for The Big Issue yesterday and we found out how he came to work at the Big Issue, what gets him up in the morning and what they are going to do with our donation from the rapidly filling up Property Extravaganza Day on 21st March 2009.  Book your place here >>>

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