If Only it Were Just That Easy…

Posted on by
2
Be Sociable, Share!

…to break those bad financial habits. To the good, I am at least automating my investing with Sharebuilder. Actually I am doing more than that. As previously mentioned during my “From Ma’am to Mogul” teleseminar, I talked about setting up your Six Jars as well as making a daily deposit into a Financial Freedom Jar. Hmmm, guess that would make it seven jars, but still; I actually don’t feel right if I don’t put something into that jar every single morning. At the end of the year, I use that money to buy stocks. Overall, I’m on track: I have multiple revenue streams, I’m paying down debt and investing regularly. Good times indeed.

Essentially it all starts with the right mindset, a workable plan and consistent action. Find a system that works for you and your lifestyle and implement it today. Whether you were personally impacted by the recent economic downturn or not, you surely know someone who has been negatively affected. The best solution should include diversifying your income and managing your money well, so that you’re not only making money, you’re holding on to more of what you make. That is the true road to wealth.

Do you really want to think about having to scale back on your current lifestyle – or the style to which you’d like to become accustomed, as I like to say? Or choosing between your rent or your medications, because you can’t afford both once you retire? Grim!

If you have true money woes, gird yourself and track your expenditures and pay down debt. You must also simultaneously invest for your future. This will include a well rounded choice of investments to increase your return, while reducing your risk.

So, break your bad habits; cultivate good money management skills and reap the benefits. Read more…

Be Sociable, Share!
Share

Lifestyles of the Soon to be Rich & Famous?

Posted on by
Reply
Be Sociable, Share!

 

New 2012 Viper

Yeah, baby!

When I saw a picture of the newly revamped 2013 Chrysler (Dodge) Viper SRT, I said to myself yes, this is the car I drive in my mind: it is HOT! The model shown was such a totally perfect shade of candy-apple red, ooo-la-la! In reality, though I drive much too sedately for a Viper; I’m more of a powder blue Bentley gal. And you? What car will you drive in your new, financially successful life?

Of course, such musings beg the question why wait to live like the queen you were meant to be? What is holding you back from achieving the wealth and lifestyle you deserve? Is it lack of confidence? Feelings of inadequacy? Lack of knowledge? Lack of resources?

While you may feel like you are too far away from the good life to dream, there are certain changes you can make today, so that you can start immediately enjoying life on a higher plane. The biggest change you can make right now, no surprise here, is to change your attitude. For example, begin right now with an appreciation for the blessings you currently have in your life today. Also, when shopping choose quality over quantity; shop wisely and rarely.

Yes, a prosperous attitude is one of the keys. A well informed mind is the second, and one of the most important keys to wealth. It’s imperative that you continue to educate yourself about business and personal finance. These two areas are the fuel that fire up the all-important action necessary to bring it all into fruition. Without this third step it is all for naught. When you harness the power of these three ingredients: attitude, education and action, nurtured by the right environment, you will be unstoppable!

Where to find the right environment? Join Pink Passport Society today and become part of the greater universal community as together we will all benefit by mastering the Art of Kaizen, continuous improvement. Truth wealth is about the journey to your highest and finest self. Today is the right time to start your personal Guided Journey to your Future.

Be Sociable, Share!
Share

Ready for Homeownership?

Posted on by
Reply
Be Sociable, Share!

Confused about whether it’s better to rent or own? Waiting to buy until prices hit their absolute bottom? Afraid all the wealth has already been made in real estate, that it’s too late? Listen, interest rates are remarkably low and combined with government efforts to clean up the foreclosure mess, now is absolutely the best time to buy!

Prices are More Affordable than Ever. You can buy your dream house today for a fraction of what it would have cost you four or five years ago. As a matter of fact the prices are much more reasonable and I can now use my VA Certificate to buy a house without having to get a “jumbo” loan.

First Time Homebuyer Programs Abound. Cities and Counties have various downpayment assistance programs for first time homebuyers, totaling tens of thousands of dollars. Really. Check with your City or County Housing and Redevelopment Department or speak with a knowledgeable realtor or mortgage broker. Who qualifies as a first time homebuyer? You do, if you haven’t owned a home within the last three years!

Thinking of Investing? Make sure your property cash flows from day one (meaning after all expenses are paid, you are putting cash in your pocket each month.) There are investor loan programs available and there is government money available- such as 203K Loans – so that you can get money for the purchase plus money to rehab the property. How’s that for incentive?

Foreclosure Lurking in your Past? All is not lost. Take this down time to rebuild your credit and save for a downpayment. You “only” have to wait about three years before you can get a mortgage loan. FHA has special “Second Chance Loans” which accepts credit scores as low as 580! If you’re ex-military, you can get a VA Loan after only two years!

Real estate is not dead – you just need to be careful, do your homework, and bring a little (more) money to the table.

(From Your Money and Your Life, a Pink Passport Society Exclusive Program)

Be Sociable, Share!
Share

Influence: Do You Know Your Real Value?

Posted on by
Reply
Be Sociable, Share!

(Today we have a post by a guest blogger, about your value in the work place.)

The expression ‘talk is cheap’ is a powerful one. The idea that words mean less than actions was the intention of this expression but in actual fact, talk can be expensive, it can be valuable, it can be discounted and it can also be cheap. The perception depends on the words you use and the value you attach to yourself, your subject and the value you attach to what you do.

It’s one of the big dilemmas people face when asking for a salary raise, going for a promotion, or preparing for an interview: understanding and owning their value. That word value: ‘the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance or preciousness of something.’

How do you describe the importance or preciousness of what you do when you’re discussing your role or what you actually do in your business?

Do you talk about your day-to-day actions for example, how many people you contact, how many calls you make, how many emails you send? Or do you talk about the difference you make, the importance or preciousness of what you do and – crucially – what ‘what you do’ does? That’s where the magic is. That’s where the value is. It’s not about what you do – the value is found in the outcome, the result of what you do.

OK, so here are a few quick examples of the difference between what you do and what it does – it’s easy to spot the value:

Do you “manage a team of 30 people in an energy company” or do you “lead a team of 30 people who save $ millions in wasted energy for our customers”?

Do you “make hundreds of calls a week trying to attract new customers” or do you “save our company $ thousands in marketing by speaking to potential customers and making sure they’re a fit for our business”?

Do you “make sure all our clients get updated information about what we do” or do you “build relationships with our clients so they keep doing business with us”?

Do you “own a consultancy business servicing the insurance industry” or do you “save the insurance industry $ hundreds of thousands by taking on their risk servicing needs”?

Do you “provide all the administrative needs of busy entrepreneurs” or do you “enable busy entrepreneurs to focus on the business of their businesses while I cover all their day-to-day admin needs”?

As you can see it’s the end results that make the real difference. Whether you’re promoting yourself, your business, your work – it’s about the value or worth attached to what you actually do, the results gained by your activities. So make sure you do talk about it; talk can be valuable too.
—————————————————-
KAY WHITE is a communicator who is as passionate about seeing her clients succeed as she is about them becoming more confident, more assertive and, crucially, more influential in their business. Once people really ‘get’ how powerful they are as they become conscious of how – and what – they’re communicating, their relationships become stronger and easier, their confidence soars and people are drawn to them. http://www.wayforwardsolutions.com

Be Sociable, Share!
Share

Real Estate Investing: Buying Your First Property

Posted on by
Reply
Be Sociable, Share!

Here’s a quick introductory video by Julie Asti, CFP with a brief overview of various considerations for buying your first property. Many things to consider, such as will it cash flow (does the rent cover the costs, or will you have to put money in every month?) Do you want to self-manage or hire a property manager (such as DavLin Properties, hint-hint!).  Please watch the video and let me know your thoughts – leave a comment!

 

 

As you recall, Pink Passport Society encourages women to have multiple streams of income, and real estate should definitely be one of your revenue sources. Please come back often and comment as we will continue to bring you the latest and greatest in prosperity!

Be Sociable, Share!
Share

Revitalize Your Meetings Part II

Posted on by
Reply
Be Sociable, Share!

Last week we talked about the reasons you decided to start a business networking group, and gave you some homework. Did you complete your lists of reasons “Why?” What did you find out? Are your goals being met? No? Then read on.

There are of course a variety of reasons people start networking groups, including relatively altruistic reasons like creating a sense of community for like-minded individuals. Even if that is the case for your group for instance, the “byproduct” benefits of increased leadership skills, opportunities for information sharing and business expansion can’t be ignored. They should in fact be encouraged!

Some ideas to revitalize your meetings so that everyone wins:

Facilitate introductions – you know the attendees and their line of business, so you as the group leader should proactively introduce them to potential clients or strategic alliances within the group.
Teach business development skills – End each meeting by briefly sharing a business or marketing tip the attendees can start using right away.
Encourage attendees to give more referrals to the group – create a quarterly contest & whoever provides the most referrals for other members receives a prize.
Go viral – videotape testimonials; have the members share how much business has been generated through participation in the group. Share these videos on YouTube, your website, in your group’s newsletter, on your Facebook Fan Page, and so on and your ranks will swell.
Develop speaking/presentation skills – periodically provide opportunities for the members to make an educational/informational presentation to the group and allow them to make a “compelling offer” at the end of the presentation.

With the additional clarity provided by the above steps, you can now facilitate the changes needed to enrich the experiences of the attendees which will then have the end result of also helping you achieve your goals for the group, including helping you expand your business.

Be Sociable, Share!
Share

Revitalize Your Meetings – Part I

Posted on by
Reply
Be Sociable, Share!

Do Your Meetings Make you Feel Overwhelmed or Energized?

Do you run a networking group? Are you feeling overwhelmed with the responsibility of putting the meetings together, finding speakers, promoting the meeting? Whew! My, aren’t you lucky!

Yes, you are lucky because you’re “in the captain’s seat.” Being the leader of a networking group offers many opportunities, not the least of which includes creating community and connections, providing leadership development, learning business management skills, creating connections, the potential for business development and so much more. An intangible, but very real benefit? All of these things help others see you as the expert you are.

Running successful meetings is a lot of work. But you already know that or you wouldn’t be reading this article. Before you throw in the towel, think about the reasons you decided to lead a networking group.

  • Take a few minutes to list the reasons you started your group, such as: meet other business owners, grow your business, generate speaking opportunities, get exposure for your services/products and so on. What else did you have in mind?
  • List reasons you think others joined your group: make business contacts, socialize with like-minded people, learn from other business owners, or exposure for their business. Other reasons? If you’re not sure, survey your members so you can better meet their goals as well.
  • List the goals or outcomes you want to achieve with your meetings, for instance: learn from other experts, increase business knowledge, or improve your leadership skills perhaps. What else do you want to achieve?
  • List several ways you can help the attendees become more successful, like: provide introductions, give them opportunities to share their expertise and facilitate active networking.

Doing the above steps should take you a little bit of time so we will continue this discussion in our next post: Revitalize Your Meetings-Part II. In the meantime, do leave your comments below, tell us some of the reasons you came up with doing the exercise above.

Be Sociable, Share!
Share

Three Tips to Break Through Your Income Ceiling

Posted on by
Reply
Be Sociable, Share!

Guest blogger tonight! Thought you might appreciate a little insight about achieving greater income goals. As always, let me know what you think! –Larisa

One of the traps most solopreneurs fall into is trying to become a Jack-of-all-trades-and –master-of-none. In other words, trying to do everything they can all by themselves. The truth is that nobody can do it alone. Everybody needs at least three areas of help in business (if getting clients, and building a profitable and sustainable business is your goal).

  * You’ll need a coach, to ensure you avoid certain mistakes, enabling you to take shortcuts and reach your goals faster. There is no magic formula; however, with the right help you can shorten your learning curve and avoid disastrous pitfalls.

 * You’ll need some support. No, you CANNOT do it alone. If you do, you’ll make more mistakes, you won’t do such a great job (because you’ll spread yourself too thin) and you run the risk of losing clients because you can’t cope with the demand.

  * You’ll need partners. You need to build a network of partners to help you promote your offers. Being part of a Mastermind group helps you achieve this (amongst other things) plus you get the added value of being supported, encouraged and you get to benefit from a panel of experts. Imagine Nike, Starbucks or Google, being run by one man (or woman!). Do you think it would be possible? Of course not, so why do you think you could do it?

  Don’t think that because your business is small, it means you must become a ‘One Woman Show’ all by yourself. It’s quite the opposite. As a business owner you must rely even more on outside help. There are only 24 hours in a day and you want to have a LIFE outside your business.

 Being able to focus on what brings clients and money into your business should be your primary goal, then serving your clients should be your only drive. And you can only do that if you have enough time.

 You may think that since you are a “part-time” business owner, you don’t need to hire somebody. In fact, the opposite is true: because you are a part-time entrepreneur, you really need support. I have heard so many stories of women working at night while the kids were sleeping, because they were what they call “only part-time”. What kind of part-time is it that requires you to work instead of sleeping! It is not part-time – I call that “Double Shift”!

Some people don’t have a problem getting clients; their issue is to keep the business from collapsing in a heap because they DO have a lot of clients. Let’s face it, if you want to ensure your clients are happy, that they come back or send you referrals, they need to feel confident that you are solid enough to handle the clients they may send you. It’s their name and reputation put on the line, after all. Do you think giving a referral is easy, if she thinks that you won’t be able to cope with the demand?

 Here are three key questions for you to help you get to the next level in your business:

 1. What is your short, mid and long-term goal? Whose specialty is it? How can you work with that person?

 2. Who can you partner with to help promote your offers? Who could you supplement with your own offers? What can you bring to the table?

 3. What business activity should you delegate, so you can use that time to increase your income to get a better balance in your life and get two hours of free time for yourself?

 Think about it and report back!

 —————————————————-

Christine Marmoy helps coaches and business owners tap into their brilliance and transform their passion into remarkable businesses. She works on three levels from discovering your brilliance, to daring to be bold, to finally claiming your spot. No stone is left unturned as she unleashes your creativity, your imagination and your innovative power so you become unstoppable in attracting great clients. http://www.coachingandsuccess.com

 

 

 

Be Sociable, Share!
Share

Fiscally and Financially Fit

Posted on by
Reply
Be Sociable, Share!

That was one of my passwords (of course in an abbreviated format), but today, that is once again a two-pronged goal for the New Year. And here it is the fourth day of the New Year and I am happily on my way. In preparation for these new steps, I found two new end-of-year traditions that I will continue to incorporate, and of course, encourage you to follow as well. Also, new for this year will be regular updates on my progress re the title of this blog: becoming physically and fiscally fit.

First things first: around mid-2010 you may recall that I attended the Millionaire Mind Intensive wherein we were first introduced to the six-jar money system, which in simple terms involved dividing one’s money into six categories: tithing, necessities, education/personal development, play time, financial freedom and long-term savings/debt reduction. I found it delightfully simple to follow and I was very diligent about the “7th Jar” which entailed putting in my “spare change” or making some sort of deposit every day. By December 31st I’d accrued $266 which I deposited into my brokerage account (first new tradition) and today I bought shares of an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF)- which will be the topic of a future blog/webinar. When I introduced the 7th jar, I’d suggested you might want to invest the money once a year on your birthday or at the end of the year. I happen to like the end of the year as it sets a happy tone for the following new year’s prosperity!

The second new tradition was cashing out my piggy bank – literally. I think most everyone has some sort of change jar, where you periodically drop loose change, right? Well it occurred to me to wonder what I was saving all those coins for, so I gathered them up and dumped them into a CoinStar machine (I think there are a couple of different brands) and cashed the $30 in for a gift certificate. (I didn’t want to pay the 10% charge to get cash; it’s a free service if you elect a gift card/certificate.) This is just simply a few dollars to treat myself to a guilty pleasure, in this case a bottle of expensive perfume (yes I’ll have to add a little more).

This weekend I will be at a seminar on trading stocks. At the end of 2010 I also opened a self-directed IRA so that I could invest my retirement funds in a wider variety of assets. I’ve also set up my brokerage account for automatic investing, into shares of a different ETF than the one I purchased outright. So, I will be increasing the balance in my stock portfolios, but as “current” monies (non-retirement) as well as inside of my retirement accounts (I also have a 401k to manage).

Re the physical side of becoming fit, I am starting to jog again so I can participate in a half-marathon this summer, and of course changing my eating habits. Did you get your copy of the Daily Success Habits for Passport Living? Included on that list was dedicating 30 minutes a day (minimum) for your health, as well as a few other new habits to incorporate as you become financially free.

So in summary, my progress to date: new IRA, six + one jars for money management, stock and index fund investments so far. Next will be bidding on new loans through www.Prosper.com so stay tuned. I will look forward to hearing about the strides you’ve made as well, so report back!

Be Sociable, Share!
Share

Follow These Wealth Principles in Your Quest for Success

Posted on by
2
Be Sociable, Share!

Becoming wealthy doesn’t really need to be as difficult as most of us make it. As a matter of fact, there’s a pretty VAST line to financial independence Vision + (the right) Action = Success Today. (I added “Today” so we’d have a nice, neat acronym; the reality is, success doesn’t happen overnight). Simply put, there are FOUR WEALTH PRINCIPLES, which if followed correctly will lead you to the ultimate goal of financial freedom:

Business Ownership: I feel confident that by now we all know you will not get rich working for someone else. The true path to wealth is through entrepreneurship because it’s not how much you make, it’s actually how much you keep. There are many advantages to business ownership and it starts with the only gift we will ever get from Uncle Sam: tax write-offs. Properly structured and documented, you will have the opportunity to deduct many of the expenses generated through business activity.

Leverage the Assets of Others: This really means you must be in a leadership position – think “CEO” whether that’s your actual title or not. You must become wealthy from the neck up (as in brain power) not through hands-on activity. Build a team, teach them to succeed and get paid through the results of others. Think of the relationship a real estate broker has with her agents: provide the training and resources, and take a percentage of all their sales. Are you a coach, trainer, Mary Kay Consultant – any kind of consultant, or in direct sales? Then “train the trainer” and split the fees. Naturally you’ll take the smaller portion because you didn’t do the actual work, but you’ve provided the resources, training and support so shouldn’t you get paid for your efforts? In this way, your income is virtually unlimited! Want more revenue? Build a bigger team!

Royalties and Residual Income: As a franchisor you are entitled to a monthly fee for the systems you’ve developed into a successful, monetizeable, replicatable business. A “franchisor” doesn’t have to mean McDonalds or JanPro-size business. As the owner of your business, once you create the systems and procedures that others can duplicate, you’ve effectively created your own franchise. What’s to stop you from replicating your business multiple times over – and getting paid for it? Happens everyday. The same with residual income, to some degree. Residual income is more along the lines of the way network marketing income is structured for example, by which I mean, you do the work once, and continue to get paid indefinitely.

Hot Topics & Market Trends. If you’ve been paying the least bit of attention you will have noticed that the internet is largely taking over the lives of our customers. This is primarily because it is so readily accessible, even when people are on the move – one no longer needs to be tied to a computer. From “smart” phones, to tablets, and other handheld devices, “follow me” (a la Twitter) has taken on a life of its own. Are you keeping up? Have you adjusted your marketing strategies to include social media? How about the latest innovation: text marketing? We’ve gone (are going) from “brick and mortar” sales to “click and order” – as in eCommerce. Shouldn’t your business be set up to take advantage of these trends?

How are you putting these wealth principles into action in your business? Need help? Join Pink Passport Society and start with our Emergent Entrepreneur Program. Set your business up correctly the first time so that you can easily keep pace with the resultant growth.

Be Sociable, Share!
Share