Board Meetings, Blog Disasters & Brilliant Reports

It’s been a very odd week – great fun in most places and one very scary bit!  I’ll tell you about that first….

Yesterday, all of our 1500 odd blog postings and thirty carefully crafted blog pages just simply disappeared from The Money Gym Blog!

I had hardly done anything on the blog yesterday, having been working with Judith on our Silver Elite infopage, and Steve was out playing golf on a rare day off.

I had uploaded a page and some photos to our server, not the blog, I’d approved a couple of comments, one of which was a bit random but nothing sinister looking, I’d added a video of Susan Boyle, from Britain’s Got Talent, to our blog posting about her “overnight success” and that was pretty much it.

Steve came home and we had a long discussion about something else, before he looked at the blog in passing, to find nothing there!  Well, we both completely freaked – how can it have happened?  He had just finished all the pages for the various levels of the new membership site, about 60 new members had joined this week, from the old site, and while all the members info was still there……….no posts or pages.

We both felt very ill for a little while, Steve at the idea of having to recreate all that work, and me at the idea that something I had done during the day had made it all go wrong.

This really was the worst disaster to happen to me in about 15 years online.

The weird thing was that when I looked to find a backup, which I do everytime we have to upgrade the Wordpress software, my entire blog directory was gone from my computer’s “Websites” folder.  I did have a computer crash recently but I managed to retreive all my websites folders from the backup, which I do online every day.

We swung into fix mode, with Steve concentrated on looking online to see if he could find anything about a virus or on the Wordpress forums.  I twittered the issue and that went onto Facebook, and by the morning, one of my Rich Schefren’s GPS classmates, Clay Franklin (@ClayFranklin), had come back with the idea of contacting our server, and seeing if they could restore our site from their last backup.

Which they did for the smallest sounding $15 I’ve every been happy to pay in my life.  But we still don’t know what happened!

Even more strange, our Clickbank page has suddenly been getting lots of traffic from a hoplink called fjautohits and a URL that looks very odd.  About 400 visits in the last week!  And we’ve sold an ebook a week for the last three weeks, when we have never sold a dicky bird via Clickbank before! We are now listed in the Marketplace whereas we haven’t sold enough to stay in there before.  We have a gravity listing and everything.  At this rate, we will sell five items on five different credit cards, and actually get paid by Clickbank!

As I say, very odd, because I actually started to read “Clickbank For Newbies” by Harvey Segal this week, and gave up in despair at how complicated it is (Clickbank, not Harvey’s book!)

On a lighter note, on Wednesday we headed into the depths of the country, to the Alexander House Hotel & Utopia Spa, for our Money Gym Quarterly Board Meeting – and let me tell you they are never boring!
Judith brought along her flip video to replace mine, which I broke on holiday, and Steve got a quick shot of the conference room, which was very grand (yet reasonably priced including lunch and wi-fi) and discovered that Flip Videos can zoom….did you know that?

We went over our plans for the rest of 2009 and 2010, and Judith asked some very pertinent questions about each of our projects

One of which, Silver Elite, is launching its pilot programme shortly – we are inviting any Money Gym Silver paying member of more than three months standing to participate, as well as anyone who bought more than one ticket to the Property Extravaganza.  The headline runs “If You Definitely, Positively Know That In Order To Succeed With Your Wealth Creation…You Need Your Hand Held, Your Bum Kicked & Absolutely Nowhere To Hide…” and it’s aimed at those who want more accountability but who can’t afford Gold yet.

Debbie Winterbourne, Gold For Christmas winner, did a three month update for our Google group and highlights include…here’s what she had to say…

First I have to say how much I have enjoyed these sessions. They have really opened my eyes as to how to run a profitable business. Here are some steps I have taken:

1. I now have seven bank accounts! They include a contingency fund, an odds and sods account and a catastrophe fund. I have separated out my income streams into (a) legal consultancy work (b) business at=2 0Quantum House (c) a property account for my buy to let and (4) my personal bank account. With Nicola’s help I have created spread sheets for each bank account which shows me at a glance, which ones are working well, and where I need to make adjustments; Also a big thank you to Eileen who visited Quantum House and showed me how to use spreadsheets!

2. Nicola has helped me do three Google adword campaigns comparing different keywords and adjusting budgets, so as to attract maximum traffic to my website;

3. I have done a thorough investigation into my beliefs, behaviours and attitudes about money. the main thing holding me back was fear of paperwork! With Nicola’s help I am streamlining my business, and although I need to spend time setting up the various systems, hopefully sooner or later, I won’t need to worry so much about excess paperwork; I also worked out my rack rate and am now more aware of what I should be charging in order to earn what I want;

4. We clarified that I needed a volunteer office manager to take care of organising the bookings of room at Quantum House. Initially I did not think it would be possible to find such a volunteer. But I gave it a go: put an ad on Gumtree and got six replies! I have now interviewed everyone. There were a couple of bad apples in the basket, but today I hired a wonderful woman who will be the office manager for two days a week starting tomorrow! I am really over the moon about this and would never have taken the action had not Nicola encouraged me that it would work! As a bonus my new office manager has a degree in marketing plus experience of event management and room bookings!

5. I have joined a couple of websites at Nicola’s suggestion to try to market the room for hire. I have had a few bookings already! Money Gym client Lucy also put me in touch with various TV companies who might need a room for their auditions at short notice. Thank you Lucy!

6. I have hired four virtual assistants who have really taken a load off my shoulders in terms of email marketing and data mining.

There’s plenty more, but I am really thrilled with progress so far.

Debbie Winterbourne
http://www.trainingroomforhire.com

On the rent2own front, I’ve been talking to one lady in Cyprus (came via Twitter) and one in Spain (via my Google Adwords campaign) who want to sell their villas, and who might be interested in doing that on a rent-to-own basis.  The legal situation in Cyprus seems a bit tragic though with many people not having access to their title deeds, and on a par with the Land Title Deed mess in the Malaga area of Spain (remember Antonio Banderas’s villa repossession?) so I don’t know….

My magnetic car signs are coming along and I’m looking forward to picking them up – they are leary in the best Rick Otton tradition, and really stand out.

Steve will be able to take them off, when he drives it, and then I can put them back on when I do.  I don’t care how daft I look, if it attracts potential vendors.

Ready Fire Aim! Memberships, Marketing & Multimillions

It’s been a busy old week, what with the first draft of the Property Extravangza info page going live at http://www.themoneygym.com/events/property and the first flurry of bookings coming in.

We have decided that this event is in aid of The Big Issue, who help the homeless to help themselves, we have a great set of speakers, including Rick Otton as the keynote speaker, and Martin Roberts off the tele, property expert and star of Homes Under The Hammer. Judith has written a stonking bit of copy, quite inspired, and we are just waiting for photos of speakers, video testimonials of other events and suchlike. Then the page will really sing! http://www.martinroberts.co.uk/

I’ve just been watching Rick on national tv in Australia, walking folks through his whole “rent to own” system – they are really getting it there and the UK will follow behind. Only today on page 4 of “Property Today” which comes with my Worthing Advertiser, there is a big article about a new Rent To Own scheme launched in Littlehampton, on the back of the Government’s own “Rent To Buy Later” scheme.

On the same page, funnily enough, there is a property advertised with a “zacuzzi” in the bathroom….some little estate agent getting it totally wrong! Bless ‘um.

I started work with Debbie Winterbourne this week, winner of the “Gold For Christmas” competition – where she gets to work with me going through the Gold programme, then gets to hang out with us for life! We are doing one call a month where I cover the material module by module in the first half hour, via video webinar, then Debbie gets to ask general questions about what she’s just heard, then she goes off and does her homework, and comes back for a second call, where we explore her personal circumstances, and particular challenges around that module.

I had forgotten quite how bossy I was when coaching…..”directive coaching” it’s called. Phew! Must remember to ask more questions and issue less instructions. Debbie took it all in good part and she’s an action taker so right up my street. We need to do some work behind the scenes on both her websites as I can make an immediate difference there!

You can find out more about Debbie and her particular passion for deciphering the power of dreams here and if you need a nice but affordable workshop space in London, she owns Quantum House which you can find here

(some time later………..)

Lord I got totally distracted by Google Calender there – saw one embedded in Pat Lovell’s blog (Pat’s from GotAccess.com among other things and I met him on the cruise) and thought Wow! that would be great to keep my speaking gigs updated for the GP (general public LOL) and ended up embedding it to my blog, Ecademy account and all. You can view my peramulations around the world speaking here >>

Off to London this weekend for “Build Your Wealth” again, and I’m in Manchester for “Build Your Wealth” events – you can book here for just £7 for both days

Did you know, it’s over £70 on the train and takes 4 and a half hours, and it’s one hour on the plane and costs just under £100. Madness. Early start though! Which of the lovely boutique hotels to stay in, eh? Recommendations on an email…..

While in Manchester, I’m seeing an old Money Gym client for the day, to work with him to review his progress and plan for the next five years. Lovely man, really looking forward to it! I also joined a webinar this week with a software company who are thinking of taking me on as non-exec Marketing Consultant – I think I can bring a lot to the table as they come from the corporate world and while aware of internet marketing, are not yet quite aware of the power and speed of it, if you can just get your first ideal customer clearly in mind and communicate straight at them. This is going to be fun.

I hosted what turned out to be a very popular webinar to nearly 100 registered-in-advance “ideal customers” of the Money Gym the other night, quite on the spur of the moment, on membership sites. It suddenly occurred to me that it might be fun to test the whole idea of video broadcasting a powerpoint presentation, making an offer at the end, much like I do on stage. Yes, I know! It’s nothing new, used to do it lots years ago, but you forget things don’t you? I’m going to do more of it, and we did a “Google Analytics/Statistics Tracking” webinar with the Membership Club Magic bods this week as a bonus call. Great fun.

Busy but great fun.

Talking of the Membership Club Magic webinar, from Saturday the recording will be available to watch online again here - those videos take ages to edit, chop up and upload and nobody can get online while you upload them. Howls of rage echo from around the house when you try, as you hog all the supposed 8 meg bandwidth. Runescape gone! Pokerstars gone! Second Life gone! Skype gone! MSN gone! British Telecom…..8 Meg, my derrier.

Steve and I are on ANOTHER diet, this one being a healthy eating one, lots of delicious salads (and beans/pulses, no, don’t ask!), no wine or beer during the week and he even went for a run this week. It’s inspired by a book he’s reading called “Fat Bloke Slims (How I Lost 3 Stone” by Bruce Heron, who you may remember as D.C. Terry Perkins from The Bill. Actually I saw another diet (that’s me) but Steve’s made his mind up to lose weight now too. He does make the best salads and I’ve made some of my best lentil and garlic soup which we are having whenever Steve doesn’t want to cook.

And Judith proudly announced this week that she’s learned to play poker. She went into a game with her accountant and solicitor with 80p and came out with £1.22. Judith, have you not heard of a “fixed buy in tournament”? Even we don’t play cash games!! This sparked a debate about whether it would be appropriate to host a “Money Gym Texas Hold’em Tournament” after one of the Cashflow 101 games?

Hmmm, perhaps not!

And finally……….I’ve just finished Michael Masterson’s brilliant book “Ready Fire Aim” about how to take a company into the multi-millions and beyond. I enjoyed it so much I’m going right back to the beginning and I’m reading it again. Shot straight into my Top 10 Business Books of All Time!!

Caribbean Cruising, Beating The Credit Crunch, Communicating To Crowds

“How was the internet marketers cruise then?” you must be shouting!

Suffice to say I had the best time.  It was brilliant for work and such good fun.  I won’t go into it much here but I’ve been posting pics on Flickr and you can view them on the blog here – look out for the one of us covered in napkins at Miami International Airport because our flight was delayed by about 8 hours, and we were FROZEN.  Virgin Atlantic brought out some blankets just after we did this but still too little, too late.  Another highlight was my eating an entire sausage with peanut butter because I thought it was some weird american mustard.

Overall it was a great trip.  I met some amazing people, gave Robert G Allen a signed copy of my book (cheek of the girl!), made lots of new friends and potential strategic partners and had a ball.  I’ll be posting more about it on the blog as I remember stuff.

The Caribbean lived up to it’s hype and some!  We went to St Maartens, St Kitts and Tortola and Judith says they are not even the nicest islands.  I loved the way the weather changed all the time (see pics link above) even in one day, but was always warm and mostly sunny and hot.  If you are thinking of investing with Harlequin I would go for it  not just for the investment but just to get your 30 days free stay out there.

And if you go to St Kitts, and need a taxi or five, call my new mate Raphael, who drove buses in Hackney for 20 years, before retiring home to set up his taxi firm called “Empress Coaches”.  He personally owns two air-conditioned taxis but can call on his mates and does a great rate on tours.  Raphael can accommodate any number of visitors and boy! does he know his history.  He is a very funny, nice man, who will look after you brilliantly.

Call Raphael on his mobile 1-869-663-0324 (office: 1-869-466-7043) or email him on empresscoaches[at]hotmail.com

And if you want to join us next year visit http://www.themoneygym.com/holidays and choose Nicola Cairncross from the drop down menu to get Money Gym bonuses and be in our gang.

Back home and back to work – I’m going to cover my plans for 2009 in the “Success!” section of this ezine so I’ll just talk about what I’ve been up to the last few weeks here, shall I?

The “Gold For Christmas” competition and the all day Wealth-A-Thon was a fun event and won this year by Debbie Winterbourne.  I might do one every year….I’m starting work with Debbie via private ustream tv shows in the first week of February.  The runners up will be allowed to look over her shoulder, so to speak and all of it will be recorded.  Debbie has kindly given me permission to invite some of our other clients to watch too – she MUST be a star profile in Wealth Dynamics terms.

I’m hosting our “Let’s Talk Money” day next Saturday

http://www.themoneygym.com/events

We are only doing three of these in 2009 so if you miss this one, you will have to wait till 13th June!  We change the format every time, and I add the stuff that I think will move you forward in your wealth creation journey the most, so even if you have been to one before, it’s well worth coming again.

And then on Sunday I’m speaking for the first time for Darren Winters at his “Build Your Wealth” event.  You can attend the two day event for just £7 and you can book here at

http://www.tinyurl.com/buildyourwealth

Other events to watch out for are our property extravaganza in late March, with Rick Otton (We Buy Houses International) as our key note speaker.  Rick is the person who taught David Lee (who taught us) how to buy houses for £1 and he’ll be sharing his secrets with us then.

http://www.themoneygym.com/events

This is something I’m going to be very much focused on in 2009 and it’s entirely possible in the UK.

Hmmm, that’s pretty much it, so I’m off to upload more photos!

See ya!

Nicola

What Does 2009 Look Like For Nicola?

So it’s Friday and I’ve been back in England for nearly a week.  A week in which it’s rained hard every day, I’ve been battling with jetlag, we’ve had a tax bill larger than expected (eeeuuuughhhh!) and the news says that, as of today, we are officially in a recession.

Doom and gloom all round?

Actually no.  I’m really looking forward to 2009 and am going to “cut my cloth” accordingly and focus on MY OWN wealth creation a bit more this year.

So what am I going to focus on in 2009 to create more wealth for Nicola Cairncross Inc.?  Which “Lanes of the Wealth Highway” am I going to work on?  (BTW Judith Morgan Inc and Steve Watson Inc are working on their own plans too and we also have some joint plans!!)

1. Business:  The Money Gym
2. Internet:  Affiliate Marketing
3. Property:  Rent To Own

With our Money Gym product / marketing funnel super-streamlined and just six events scheduled for this year, I feel as if The Money Gym is getting clarity on how to move forward.

Read more..

Your Mortgage Based On Your Rent Paid Now?

A new type of mortgage will allow borrowers to buy a property based on their previous 12 months’ rental payments, says All Types of Mortgages Ltd (AToM).

Rent-to-buy mortgages are aimed at renters who want to make the step to home ownership.

The rent-to-buy mortgages look at the applicant’s ability to manage their money and make rent payments on time.

The upsides

It may mean successful applicants can BORROW MORE than with a standard mortgage, which multiplies your salary by up to three times. So a single person earning £20,000 a year would borrow around £60,000.

With AToM’s rent-to-buy mortgage, you could borrow 5.5 times one salary, or 3.75 times two applicants’ salaries. a single person earning £20,000 a year would borrow around £110,000.

As with some popular standard mortgages, AToM offer a fixed rate for two years with no early repayment charge after this point.

READ MORE ABOUT RENT TO BUY MORTGAGES >>>

(With thanks to Sarah Rourke, the RatRace Escape Artist for posting this on our Money Gym Google Group)

House For £1 – Join Us!

I’m delighted to bring you the edited version (view the out-takes here!) of my personal invitation to a Rent2Buy seminar in Worthing or Essex, with David Lee, The Cashflow Investor. If you are intrigued by the idea of making money from property without a deposit, or mortgage or about how to buy a house for £1, or turning your negative cashflow properties into positive cashflow ones, here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/cashflow

Invitation – The Out-Takes

To get 30 seconds of streaming video, you often have to have a few attempts at it! Here Nicola Cairncross from The Money Gym tries, battling against the elements, to get one take at an invitation to a Rent2Buy seminar in Worthing, for David Lee, The Cashflow Investor. I’ll post up the proper one in a moment! In the meantime, if you want to come along here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/cashflow

Property For £1 – My First One!

Welcome to the world of buying UK property for just £1.  Here is the first deal I have done, within 3 weeks too!  This is fast and fun……and the best thing is, you are helping people who can’t sell (without beating them down on the price) and helping people who can’t buy due to not having enough deposit, or being able to qualify for a mortgage.  Here’s the info: 

Charming 2 Bedroom Cottage To Let in Littlehampton, West Sussex.

Stop!  Think about this for a second……….why rent when you can buy?

I am offering a lovely two bedroom cottage in Littlehampton to let, on a “Rent 2 Buy” or premium rental basis.  If you are a first time buyer but can’t afford the normal deposit, or get a mortgage in today’s market, this could be perfect for you! 

Click here for a 4 minute, streaming video, tour around the property….

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olzAhu5_XEc]

The house is offered at £220,000 and you simply pay a 5% deposit, and then instalments of £1283 per month, and this lovely cottage could be yours in 2-3 years.  No mortgage required but you will need to provide work references and some other financial details.

Close to Central Littlehampton, with great road and rail links across West Sussex, in a very quiet private road, and a lovely secluded walled and gated garden – perfect for children.  The whole cottage faces South/West and is very light and sunny.  Fully refurbished thoughout, the cottage has a living room with open fire and beamed ceiling, double glazing and gas central heating.  There are two good sized bedrooms, lovely refitted modern kitchen with modern wood units and integrated cooker/hob, a hall/dining room, bathroom with white suite and seperate toilet upstairs.

Have a look at the video and if you would like to view this cottage, call me for more details on 01273 910986.  Stop paying dead rent and take your first step on the property ladder.

** Put your name and email in the box to the top right to get a Free Report on how “Rent2Own” works in the UK and join our priority Property List for 1 bed, 2 bed and 3 bed Worthing, Shoreham & Littlehampton properties**

Credit Repair With Rent2Own

For people who have a bad credit the rent to own home facility provides solace in the fact that they can repair their bad credit while in the process of buying the house. The rent to own home policy is a good one and helps the buyers purchase a house by renting it first.

Some people choose the option of a rent to own home in order to check out the neighborhood, before committing to the property. But there are other cash strapped people with bad credit for whom the rent to own home is the only way to buy their dream homes, because of the fact that they are unable to get home loans because of their bad credit.

There are a huge number of home owners who have found the home of their choice by the process of rent to own. Leasing the house before practically owning it is fast becoming the preferred choice of transaction among most people.

Suppose you have a bad credit history, then it is really hard to get finance from the banks to buy a house, under such a scenario the only option left is to go through the process of rent to own. In the process of rent to own contrary to the outright sales the buyer does not need to make a huge down payment at first, in fact the down payments are very small indeed. This makes it easier on the pocket for the first time investors as well, and the other fact that bout fifty percent of the rent paid by the prospective buyer is accredited to the rent credit account lowers the price of the house substantially.

People who have bad credit can always choose a leasing option where they have a longer option period , making it easier for them to repair their credit while being in the process of buying the house.

Courtesy :  Century 21 /HT Brown Realty

The good news is that Rent To Own (Rent2Own) is becoming more common in the UK, with a network of property investors who offer properties under this scheme growing all the time. 

Rick Otton, who pioneered the system in the USA and then Australia, mentored David Lee in the UK, and having got the process right over the last three years, David and Rick are now rolling out a tuition programme which is very exciting, and just right for the current market conditions.  First time buyers and novice property investors are struggling to get mortgages, and the Rent To Own / House For A Pound techniques are allowing investors to turn negative cashflow properties into positive cashflow, and allowing first time buyers and aspiring property investors with no deposit and no credit rating to find out how to buy a property (or several) for next to nothing.  This is not “no money down” but damn close to it!

The Money Gym sees this as a perfect complement to long term investing, and so we will be presenting the concept at our next Property workshop on 14th June.  Find out more here http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/mgpresents/property2.htm

Playing Property Snakes & Ladders

The rather interesting headline in todays Worthing Property Weekly was…”A Return To A More Steady Market”

Damn, damn, damn!  We all wanted another year of doom and gloom about house prices – never have there been so many empty houses with motivated sellers and prices being slashed.

The article goes on to say “The property market is correcting itself rather than heading for a spectacular crash, according to the National Association of Estate Agents.  It based it’s claims on information contained in the latest report by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors…….The house price falls are modest and the picture is still patchy with some areas of the country finding it tougher than others….credit crunch affected confidence….underlying factors that support property market remain:  low unemployment, historically low interest rates and a pent up demand for houses.”

As I say, Damn, Damn, Damn!  I was rather hoping for those 15-30% drops my friends (non-property investing) boyfriend is confidently predicting and I told you about last week.  On her usual entertaining note, Judith has written about her personal rather up and down property investing story here.

“My history with property investing is somewhat checkered to say the least. In 1979 my Dad lent me £500 towards buying my first home which cost £9,000 and on which Ken Livingstone, then Leader of the GLC, gave me a 100% mortgage. I sold the flat in 1983 for £21,000 and bought a house costing £43,000. I sold that in a sealed bid in 1987 for about £85,000 and bought a house for £125,000 and then rented it out in 1990 as an HMO (house of multiple occupancy) even before we knew what such a thing was, and bought a flat to live in costing another £125,000. So at that point I owned two properties worth a quarter of a million, following nothing better than instinct, naivete and native cunning.

And then interest rates went to 18% and I struggled manfully with the cashflow of my business in difficult market conditions and to pay both mortgages for about three years until I finally caved in and in 1992 both my homes were re-possessed and I found myself in debt to the tune of about £300,000 and facing bankruptcy. Snakes and Ladders. Back to Zero. Er, make that £300k below zero.

So, if I suffered so badly in the last “crash”, how are things different now?  Why am I buying, buying, buying and more to the point, how am I doing it?”

(Nicola’s note:  Our next Money Gym Presents day is on Property, and not only will the best thing since vienetta Ice Cream be presenting there – Greg Ballard – but Judith and myself will be sharing the “Top Five All Time Ways To Make Money From Property” – find out more here.) 

Judith says:  One of those ways is something we only came across this year, but has blown us – and many of our Money Gym clients – away.  Dave & Rick’s Cashflow Investor plan means you don’t acquire more assets – or “slumbering giants” as I call them – and don’t get me wrong… you do need some slumbering giants.

But what if you have no equity to leverage, no inheritance to invest, no savings deposits and no good credit rating? How are YOU going to make large lumps of cash in the property lane of the Wealth Highway?

Read more..