Headlights In The Fog? That Won’t Work! Try This…

Nicola Cairncross from The Money Gym here, and I’m writing to you today, on 30th December 2009 at the end of what has been one of the most confusing years anyone can remember.

Investment strategies no longer working, rock solid jobs feeling a bit like quicksand, formerly successful businesses going down the tubes……

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/silverelite

Nobody knows which way to turn, the signposts are gone and we feel like we are feeling our way along in the dark.

What tools can we use to make sure we survive these times?  How do we know what will work?

It’s a bit like………..

You know how, when you are driving along and you hit some fog, you automatically switch on your headlights……..thinking it’s going to make it easier to see?

And it doesn’t?

Even full beam?

The one tool that you would think would work, is actually not working at all, and might be making things worse!

Well, would you like to know which tools – practical and emotional – you REALLY need to use to get out of the fog of your financial overwhelm and worry?

We know, and we want to share some of those with you – right now!

Video 2 in our new Wealth Creation series of streamiing videos is up and online, ready to view.  Just put your name and email in here, to be jumped to the page where you can watch Video 2 and comment!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/silverelite

Warm regards

Nicola, Judith & The Money Gym Team

P.S.      Watch our new video to find out just a couple of the tools that REALLY work to help you find your way out of your financial fog …

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/silverelite

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?

Read more..

A Week In The Life Of Another Wealth Coach: Like Sex and Magic

So you’d like an insight into a week in the life of another wealth coach??

This week certainly hasn’t been typical for me by any stretch of the imagination. However I fear it may be sign of things to come.

My father died recently. Although he hasn’t been a well man for many years, his death was very sudden and unexpected. It leaves me as carer for my sister Lynn. Now Lynn is exactly the reason why I began my journey with the Money Gym many years ago. I knew that one day I would need to care for an adult with learning difficulties and my expectations of “support from the system” suggested I should start to make my own provisions for being financially free and able to choose how I spent my time. Unfortunately the need has arisen a few years earlier than any of us anticipated so this week has been spent chasing solicitors, bank managers, filling in probate forms and inheritance tax declarations… tomorrow I’m getting advice on the legal and tax implications of being an executor of a Trust Fund…

What do I learn from this experience that I want to share with you?

Well, death is one of those things which although inevitable is usually unpredictable. My Dad has left his estate in a really very good state for someone to pick up on the important bits – and yet four weeks later I still find myself chasing information on tax paid, little sums of money in odd accounts and trying to identify the number of children born to my Dad’s deceased brothers and sisters.

Given that you never know the hour and that it’s almost certainly going to be when anyone least expects it,
- take time to get your affairs in order while you’re still fit and well,
- write a will and keep it updated
- have a conversation with your executors showing them where all the important documents are located…

My Dad filed all the routine stuff in files, wallets or filing cabinets. The really important stuff he kept in shoe boxes: it took us a little longer to locate these so I guess he figured that a burglar or casual thief would give up before they got this far!

Make me realise that I need to organise my affairs slightly more intuitively and, most importantly, leave something very nice and wicked, chocolates and/or alcohol, in a file to thank my executors for volunteering to do this on my behalf!

Read more..

Strange Old Week (And It’s Only Wednesday!)

It’s been a very strange old week so far, but it really has highlighted the benefits of working for yourself, from home.  The benefits of not only being flexible with your time, but with your money, and getting the best help for whatever job needs doing at the time, in time.

I was SUPPOSED to be writing up the final three BlogTalkRadio live shows, where we showed three more people how to make £10k in 90 Days EXTRA from their new or existing businesses.

On each of those emails I was SUPPOSED to remind you that we have extended the deadline for expressing your interest and joining the Money Gym Boardroom, and securing your launch discount of 30% on the whole year.

More info here: http://www.themoneygym.com/boardroom

And in time to join us for a lovely dinner this Thursday night, and then at the first Boardroom meeting, the next day, this Friday 6th November.

I was SUPPOSED to be reminding you that all you need to do is email Judith by midnight, tonight, to secure that discount and your seat.

However, the best laid plans of mice and men…….and wealth coaches…….”oft gang astray”, in the words of the poet.

Monday was a day of broken hearted, love struck teenagers, living rooms full of handymen, the first visit of new math’s tutors, frantically ironing huge swathes of curtains for said handyman to put up, then in the late afternoon, of emergency doctors appointments and shocks to the system.

Tuesday was a day of more handymen, phone calls to insurance companies and doctors surgeries, contacting specialists offices and friends coming and going with large hugs and cups of tea.

Thank goodness for friends, tea and large hugs eh?

But here we are at Wednesday, and I’ve not had a chance to write a word, and I’ve not yet reminded you about tonights deadline.

Tut tut. Sorry guys.

But, as I say, being your own boss means being flexible. Looking after things including yourself and your family. And we want to help you become your own boss, or if you are already, to be the best boss for YOU, that you can possibly be.

So, here’s your reminder and, between mentoring calls today, I’ll write up the other radio shows and get them out to you and onto the blog.

Well worth a listen.

Just email Judith [at] TheMoneyGym.com before midnight tonight, if you want to secure that 30% discount no matter when you want to start OR if you want to come along to The Boardroom dinner on Thursday and then get stuck into your business on Friday.

I’ve seen the agenda, and it rocks!

It will rock your business, your money and your life.

See you there!

Nicola

Internet Marketing Workshop | Selling The Sausage Not The Sizzle?

Are we selling the sausage but not the sizzle of our Internet Marketing Workshop this Saturday 10th October?   When we first came up with the plan for “The Really Useful Internet Day” we wanted to avoid all the hype and over-excitement that you get at the bigger events.

http://www.themoneygym.com/internetday/booking.htm

We wanted to put on a down to earth day, that would do three things:

1. Give you some simple step by step actions that you can take, to start making a second (passive) income online

2. If you are a business owner, give you some ideas for creating extra profits, and the knowledge to put those ideas into action.

3. Give you some insights into the mindset of the most successful people who make money online, and what really made the difference for them.

So far, so good, you might think.

However, I’m wondering if we are wrong to be selling the sausage and not the sizzle. Because we all know that people don’t want the sausage but always buy the sizzle!

So…………..what is the sizzle of an internet marketing workshop?

The sizzle is the promise that by attending this workshop you will be able to leave your job, close your business and spend the rest of your days travelling the world with your laptop, checking your bank balance occasionally.

Well, to be honest, if I sent the kids to live with their dad, I could actually do that now, but I love the little blighters and will have to wait for them to go to college, before I up sticks and go live somewhere much cheaper and just commute back and forward to the UK.

Read more..

Why Internet Marketing Is A Really Big Issue By Judith Morgan

At The Money Gym, one of the issues which always brings forth the most controversy, the most heated debate, is Internet Marketing.

Why is it such a Big Issue?

I am grateful to The Money Gym for teaching me a lot about marketing and about internet marketing specifically and latterly also about social networking.   Where would we be in this day and age without understanding how to use to world wide web to our advantage?

When I think back to my early days in business the choices were direct mail, still effective by the way if you know how to do it well, or expensive advertising which can be a bit hit and miss for my money.

And both of those took a very long time to achieve results and both were also costly; you lay out your cash before you know whether or not it will bring you the clients and customers you so desperately need and want.   Not much of a model for success, that.

The web offers us the chance to get almost instant feedback from our market, whether or not they like and will pay for our latest offering.   And you can find that our for free (if you dont count your time into the equation).

That’s why I love and appreciate what I have learned.   And why I use it almost every day in my businesses and in my life, both online and off, because some of the marketing lessons apply equally well offline too.

But my bugbear, if you will, and where I take issue with the multi-millionaires who teach us how to do this, is that they sell a dream. And the dream is that you can make passive income from a hotel balcony in the sunshine with just your laptop.

And you get to spend all day counting your money.

Just this week a client asked if it were possible to make £1,000 pcm within six months……

Read more..

Business Websites | Improve Performance Quick

Do you have a website for your business?   If so, would you like three quick ways to improve its perfomance?  Get you more traffic, make sales, make you more money?

1.  Check that you have a good Meta Title, relevent Meta Tags and a great, compelling Meta Description.

You would not BELIEVE how many expensive, corporate looking sites don’t have the basic information in the code of their index page, that the search engines need to list your site in the results, if someone is looking for a site like yours.  It’s easy to check, even for a non-techie.

Just right click on the background of the front page of your blog (the coloured area, outside the white page bit) and choose “View Source” or “View Page Source Code”.

Quite near the top you should see some words enclosed by the little chevrons which are tags.  I can’t reproduce them here as they screw up the layout of this email but imagine the word title had a chevron at each end.

title Your site info here          /title

Then, further down, you should see something that looks like this:

meta content=“money gym, nicola cairncross, blog, blogging…………..” with about 10-20 of your top relevent key words and phrases in.

Then you should also see your meta description, which is what Google shows the public, if someone searches on your key phrases and your site is shown.

meta description “Wealth expert & Money Gym Founder Nicola Cairncross shares the secrets about becoming wealthy, how to grow rich & become a millionaire, wealth creation, success thinking, the law of attraction, making more money, working from home, property investing, building a business to love and internet marketing.”

2. Add articles to your blog or website that contain your highest traffic keywords, to get more of the same.

Look up “entrance keywords” in your Google Analytics or on Alexa.com and make a note of the Top 10 or 20.

Write the article (or review someone elses!) but make sure to include the keywords in the Title of the article / blog post, and again in the first line of the article.  Sprinkle it throughout in a natural, conversational way.

Two of the biggest key phrases for The Money Gym are “how to be a millionaire” and “how to become a millionaire”.  When I posted my article “How To Become A Millionaire” containing the link to the report of the same name, using the guidelines above, and then, on the same day posted an article about “How To Be A Millionaire (Right Now” and tweeted it, which went onto Facebook too, our traffic tripled that day.  Now all I have to do is set that tweet to be sent out automatically every day perhaps, via SocialOomph (formerly TweetLater) and that will continue to bring traffic.

3.  Put yourself & your website in danger of making some money!

One of the first things a visitor should see is a free gift which you give away in return for their name and email.

If you don’t do this, you are losing the opportunity to follow up with all the people who are interested in your product or service but who are not yet ready to buy.  This follow up can be automated, and spread over as long a time frame as you like.

You can decide if you are going to share these leads, or keep them for youself (and you can set up your mailing list accordingly).  If you are in an industry where your competitors buys leads you can make a serious extra income from renting out those leads (via someone reputable like Hilite DMS).  If you are buying leads at the moment, you could reduce your lead generation costs dramatically.

And we all know that a reduction in overhead is like a pay rise!

A great tool that is evolving all the time is www.Alexa.com and if you don’t have Google Analytics you should skoot over there now and put your website URL in the Site Info section.

You will be able to see the keywords and phrases that bring your traffic currently, the demographics and age of your visitors and all sorts of other useful information.

Have you found this article useful?   I hope so, because I wanted to demonstrate to you the kind of knowledge we have and how easy it is to utilise it.

Because we are going to be sharing a lot more of this down to earth, practical, easy to use, yet dynamite information with you at our “Really Useful Internet Day” in Central London, on Saturday 10th October.

If you are a small business owner, or service provider, or solo professional trying to attract more clients, can you really afford to miss it?

I don’t think so!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/internetday/booking.htm

See you there!

NIcola

p.s. Don’t forget that all the ticket money is being donated to The Big Issue, who help the homeless help themselves.  I love that strapline, don’t you?

Financial Success | Run Your Money Like A Business

Here’s a quick money / personal finance success tip I was asked to write for a journalist, then they pulled the feature so I though I would share it here!

If you want to be more financially secure, or even become financially free, you could learn a lot about running your money from the model that a successful business would use.  If your name is Gemma Jones, think of your financial world as Gemma Jones Inc.

A successful business plans out how much money they expect to have coming in for the next year (turnover), then they work out what it’s going to cost to earn that money (cost of sale) then what it costs to run the business (overheads) and what is left is profit.

They pay tax on the profit ** then put part of that profit aside to cushion their cashflow for the forthcoming year and re-invest in the business to grow it, then the owners/shareholders draw out what is left to spend as they wish.

You are the sole shareholder in Gemma Jones Inc, unless you are working as a couple then you are Mr & Mrs Jones Inc, with a 50% shareholding each and equal voting rights on what happens with your joint money.  (If not, why not?  This is a whole other article!)

The business constantly looks for new opportunities to make more money and they are careful about what they spend, looking for the “return on investment” and how long that will take.

You can probably already spot some significant differences between how a successful business runs its money and what you do with yours – and those differences are what is making the difference to your financial success!

Taking that model and applying it to your finances, you can work out what you expect to earn this coming year (I suggest you look at your net earnings or what goes into your bank), what the costs of earning that money are (travel, clothes, lunches, etc) and then what the overheads of running Gemma Jones Inc are (rent, food, bills etc).

What is left is the profit the place most people fall down financially – they are simply not making enough profit!

Once they have paid the costs of going to work, running the house, then paying for all the bits and pieces that they think they need to be happy, there is just no money left for the important stuff.  And this is where most people go wrong , because they are not taught to run their money like a business.

I know, because I ran my money like that for about 40 years of my life too.   Even now, I know many business people who don’t run their personal money in the same way they run their business money.  You know who you are, Money Gym Club Members!

If you ARE making a profit after paying for your day to day life, then ideally some should be put towards cushioning your cashflow against potential changes in the market next year (savings) and some should reinvested in growing the business (you!) and creating new income flows.   Learning new skills, investing in property, starting a part-time business on the side of your day job.

Before you take any personal drawings, to have fun with, as a shareholder in your business.  For example, refurbishing the office (your house), or taking the staff (you) on holiday.

Like any business, you should always be looking out for opportunities to increase cashflow and profits, because those extra earnings can be put towards buying, what we in The Money Gym call “income producing assets”.  Similarly, you should always be looking for ways to cut overhead, without affecting quality and almost as important, quality of life.

Because you are your business, and you are your main asset.  You need looking after.

The more of those income producing assets you can invest in and accumulate, the quicker you can become financially free, as the income from your assets outstrips what you need to live on.

And that’s the day you never have to work again, if you don’t want to.

Because you are financially free.

“Relationships and The Credit Crunch” by Susanne Jorgensen

Nicola says: We are currently on holiday with ex-Money Gym and ex-mentoring client of mine, founder of The Singles Gym, Susanne Jorgensen, and as I’m feeling very lazy in my last few days, I asked her if she had a nice money orientated article for you.  Her first book “Get Real: Relationship Success Is An Inside Job” is about to be published this Autumn, via my publisher Bookshaker.com, so there is a nice rosy glow of achievement (and reflected glory) around her at the moment – she’s thrilled about getting her first ISBN number……..little things!

Relationship Coach Susanne Jogensen says:

“Everywhere you turn the words ‘credit crunch’ and ‘recession’ are being used.

Read more..

Did You Know About Tax Freedom Day?

Tax Freedom Day 2009 falls on 14 May.   This means that for 134 days of the year, every penny earned by the average UK resident was taken to support government expenditures.
The bad news is, you’ll have to work until June 25 to pay off Brown’s borrowing binge.

Tax Freedom Day, the day in the year when the average Briton has earned enough to pay his annual tax bill, will fall on 14 May this year. This means that for 134 days of the year, every penny earned by the average UK resident will have been taken to support government expenditures.

Read more..

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