Notes from a Seminar

You can always tell when there’s a seminar going on at TaxLoopholes - things get really quiet on the boards and the blog.

With Diane on stage all weekend, I figured I’d play “Johnny-on-the-spot” reporter and give you updates of what’s happening today.

Think about this: what if you lost everything and had to start over again? How would you do it? That’s the first question Diane posed to seminar participants early on, with a goal of being able to answer it by the end of the weekend.

Something unique about this seminar is its focus on business, and how to look at your business through new eyes, and how to leverage your existing assets. That’s not to say real estate is over - but having a healthy, successful business is perhaps the best way to fund real estate purchases that can create passive streams of income.

We began by talking about what it takes to push a business forward. The first step? Finding the intersection of three key elements: what you’re good at, what you’re passionate about, and what clients want. Each element represents a key part of why you’re in business - but the spot where they meet is the point where your business will truly begin to grow.

Back from break, we’re talking about ways to monetize websites and find a way to write off your biggest personal expenses. Here are just a few of the over 30 tips we talked about:

• Paid forum: the benefit of a paid forum is content control.
• Paid advertising
• Create a blog to get information out there
• Guest columnists
• Keyword Optimization
• Email List
• Good Information for free. Don’t give away the farm, but do provide some good information for no more than an email address. This puts goodwill out there, while growing your database for later marketing. You know they’re interested in your products, that’s why they signed up. Now you can focus in on what they want and provide it … for a price!
• Mentoring/Coaching through virtual methods: teleseminars, webinars, etc. Create community around your product or service. Members helping members leverages your time and creates a continuing sense of value

We talked for some time on how to take your biggest expense and turn it into a business, ideally through the creation of a monetized blog or website. Jorge Manzitti just rolled out a new service: Blog Business in 2 Days (www.BlogBusiness2Days.com). In the span of two days, Jorge will create your personalized site, complete with advertising links and SEO optimization. The faster the blog site goes up, the faster you can begin converting that expense into a tax deduction. Ideas on topics included turning childcare expenses into deductions by researching childcare facilities and talking about what to look for in a good facility, and dining expenses by blogging about restaurants. Affiliate marketing on the sites could include childhood educational toys and resources, or restaurant advertising.

It’s not often that you get to sit in a room and listen to someone of Sharon Lechter’s caliber talk about how to take a dream and make it happen. It’s even more rare that you get to listen to Sharon herself. And it’s almost unheard of to get to listen to Sharon Lechter talk about how to write a best-seller book.

When Sharon co-wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad 11 years ago, there was no Amazon. Without a major publisher, there was no way to get the book on the shelves. Rich Dad was never intended to be anything more than a brochure to accompany the Cash Flow Game. Yet the book became the business and the brand. Not many people remember that the real name of Rich Dad is actually Cash Flow Technologies.

The way she sees it, a book is a business. It can start a business. It can propel a business, and it can explode a business. Apart from time, there is no monetary cost to writing a book. On the other hand, the rewards can be huge: success, recognition, an introduction to you and your business, and let’s not forget a steady stream of passive income.

Books have two major purposes: to sell or to serve. When the purpose is to sell, creating a sense of competition is key – why you have the best, cheapest and most accessible, product. Where the purpose is to serve, the emphasis becomes collaboration.

A book that serves provides answers to questions, provides information, motivates, provides credentials and promotes your business. It becomes a super business card.

What makes a book successful is what each person gets from the book. It’s that nugget that gets passed along to someone else, and encourages others to buy. It’s that piece of information that pushes a book from the back shelves to the front of the store.

Sharon’s seven points to writing a book are:

• Choose Topic and Focus
• Who is Your Audience?
• Start writing!
• Rewrite and edit … often!!
• Publish or self-publish?
• Develop marketing plan
• Take action

Sharon’s preferred writing style is conversational. A conversation is a collaboration between two or more people … and the book needs to be the same. If the book is talking to the readers, the readers are listening. That means plenty of edits! Nothing will go from your keyboard to final version without continuous editing for content, clarity and message. Falling in love with a first draft can be a disaster. Most authors have so many ideas in their head and so much information to impart that they tangent. Too many side-trips, and the book’s message is lost. One of Sharon’s secrets to writing a successful book was to have her editors and muses read her early drafts, and mark sections that were off topic. Those sections were then stripped away. Sometimes, they became the genesis for another book or articles. And, once out of the book, Sharon doesn’t deal with those elements again until after the manuscript is done. This helps her to keep her focus on the message.

Interestingly enough, much of the discussion had less to do with writing a book than how to use a book to grow a business. Topics ranged from protecting ownership rights, negotiating with publishers, and the biggest question of all — how to get started!