As you know, our Rite Aid meeting was this past Friday and it took me all day yesterday to "recover" from a rough plane ride coupled with being under the weather a tad.
Now that I have a little energy, I decided not to wait until tomorrow to give you the nitty-gritty on how the meeting went.
The meeting was about 20 minutes long but it seemed like we were there forever and a day. We met with the buyer who handles the "health supplement" category. Her name is Diane. Nice lady.
At first I thought she wasn't really interested in taking a male enhancement supplement intoRite Aid until I realized that she could really care less what the hell the product is as long as it has a high mark-up and isn't offensive to their customers.
I will tell you...one day (soon) when you get your opportunity to pitch to a buyer at a nationwide chain, you'll have to (1) know the inside and out of your product, (2) sell them on why your product is different than others like it, and (3) negotiate contract points from terms to cost per unit.
There's good and bad in everything...even things that seem "good."
How can getting a multi-million-dollar contract/order from Rite Aid be bad?
When any large company wants Net 120 terms, that's bad. That means they'd get a ton of our product and not have to pay for it for 4 months.
And guess what that requires?
Yep, you guessed it. Kick-ass business credit where we could "float" them these ridiculous terms.
And I'm not willing to do that.
The other thing Rite Aid (and others like it including Walgreens and CVS) wants is a national advertising campaign, usually in the form of nationwide television commercials.
And I'm not doing that either.
Been there, done that with television commercials and it's just not an effective means of marketing.
The good news is that they want our product in as "strips" meaning that we will put our product on a plastic hanging strip of 10 - 12 packages and they want to put it in the "men's grooming" or "child/parent planning" department. (I'm guessing that's where they sell condoms and the like.)
This will require no national marketing/commercials on our part which is exactly what I wanted.
So...was this meeting successful?
I would say so...since we will be putting our product in sometime next year in the form of "plastic strips" rather than how we originally intended.
When it comes to large chain stores, you can't "bow down" to what they'd like you to do. As with Rite Aid and everybody else, they want you to advertise their store for them. They want you to pay big marketing bucks to drive people into their store.
So if I had a Trim Spa type of product with an Anna Nicole Smith and I did national commercials, they would have taken us instantly.
This is why I like doing things "small" using my "drug dealer plan," which I explained at my most recent 2-day boot camp seminar. You don't need to go nationwide with a product and go into extreme debt putting out commercials, floating Net 120 terms, and buying boatloads of raw materials that you have to package when you can stay small scale and rake in $100,000 net per month.
And if you need more money than that then we have a problem with your financial management skills.
Also, I should mention that once one chain Rite Aid takes us in with the plastic strips, the rest are a piece of cake. We'll have Walgreens and CVS by the end of next year.
Did we do a lot of "work" to get here? No. Did we have "connections" to pull this off? Absolutely none.
We just picked up the phone and made some calls. Then we sent our product sample in upon their request. It was no more difficult than that.
Okay, I'm going to take a nap now. Now that I think about it, we've really kicked ass in the past year on this project. Time to rest a little.
Today is the Rite Aid meeting. I'm in Pennsylvania right now...getting ready for the meeting after traveling for about 12 hours yesterday.
So...wish me luck. (I'll let you know how it went in a couple of days.)
What am I doing with Rite Aid?
Well, many of you know that I have a health supplement company and last fall we started dabbling in retail distribution of our main health supplement product.
Since November 2012 when we officially launched our retail packaged health supplements, our business has exploded.
And this was with a very little idea as to what the hell we were doing. We sort of stumbled and bumbled our way through the business.
Now we have seasoned "pro" distributors and manufacturers coming up to us as trade shows wondering just how the heck we've covered so much ground in such a short period of time.
We have a secret. It's called the Kicking-Ass-and-Taking-Names-Later secret.
You simply have to bulldoze your way through any industry as fast and bold as possible. Only 1 of 2 things will happen:
1) You'll go down in burning flames. It happens. Instead of being upset (or worrying that this could happen), enjoy the ride down and hopefully you packed a parachute.
2) You'll become extremely successful (and very rich) in an extremely short period of time.
We're opting for the latter in most cases.
I keep telling people over and over again that it's no longer an option to work for someone for 2 to 3 decades just to (hopefully) get a retirement pension and (hopefully) a retirement check. Even if you could actually live off a couple thousand to a few thousand a month, what kind of quality of life will that be when inflation pushes up food, medication, and housing in the decades to come?
Here's the reality of what's going on...
Case in point: Ronnie has a cousin who retired out of the Detroit P.D. this past June. He's getting a pension. However, since Detroit filed for bankruptcy, they'll be cutting his pension to 10%. His pension will diminish to a measly $310 per month in the very near future.
And nobody can live off that. Not even a guy in a tent living in a forest.
So, you're thinking..."Well, that's Detroit?"
Actually, that's anywhere nowadays.
Every other week in California you're hearing about how state employees may have to receive an I.O.U. in lieu of a paycheck in any given pay period. If they want to give active employees I.O.U.s, I'm sure those receiving pensions are pretty close to being on the chopping block too.
It's just a matter of time, folks! All of those "secure" jobs and positions you thought were secure are the furthest from such a reality.
It's time to retrain your brain to start understanding the reality (and exciting future) of writing your own paycheck through life!
Last month I did my 2-day Underground Secret Event in Los Angeles. This was myDistribution Profit Boot Camp Seminar. It's the first and only event of its kind where I talked about Aggressive Income on Speed & Steroids.
What's distribution about?
We live in a country where Americans are a highly consumable public. We love to buy new crap. We buy and buy and buy...stuff our garages full of endless amounts of stuff then buy some more.
This buying activity will never stop. Americans will keep consuming and buying well more than they need or even want just because...that's the way we are, damn it!
So...it's time for you to start thinking about profiting from this American cultural nonsense by selling people something they want to buy. After all, 100 years from now most everything you know today will probably be gone including cars (we should be flying by then), computers (we'll have something different to replace them), and even workers (we'll have robots to do all the work).
What will still be around will be people buying stuff. Selling products will never go away. After all, 100 years from now we'll still be wiping our ass (thus needing toilet paper), brushing our teeth (thus needing toothpaste), and eating food (thus needing...food stuffs).
There's nothing more "secure" than whipping up and selling a product that a lot of people want to buy.
Our forte has been in the c-store (convenience store) and gas station market because it's an easy market to break into and you can quickly distribute any type of product (that can be sold in these types of stores).
This is something I've covered at great lengths at my last 2-day Boot Camp Seminar in LA.
(Check out the kick-ass testimonials from this event athttp://www.monicamain.com/videos_of_the_underground_secret_event_in_la.)
You can sell a simple bag of snacks or a type of liquor or "new and improved" gummy bears and make millions this way!
Or...you can sell clothing and/or accessories (or other things) through retail giants like Target.
This type of business is not for everyone. In fact, I will say that most people won't like that there is work and effort that's involved. However, if you want to get wealthy, you're going to have to put some elbow grease into it. My advise is to find something you like so it won't seem like "work" but rather something you think is "fun" instead.
And I'll let you know how things went with Rite Aid in a couple of days.
One of my biggest student "pet peeve" questions I get is this one:
"What should I do -- what should I invest in -- to make money?"
My answer?
"I don't know! How the hell should I know what you should do?"
It's this lack of responsibility of taking life by the horns that really gets under my skin.
And it's only going to get worse with our next generation.
I think everybody who knows me knows that I have a 5-year-old daughter. I'm pretty strict on her and I expect her to maintain a much greater level of responsibility than most people would for a 5-year-old.
Why do I do this?
Because in order for you to be "great" at anything, you only have to be 10% better than everyone else.
Considering the sea of near-deadbeats that are coming up through grade school, junior high and high school right now...even taking responsibility to be on time to school is 10% greater than what most kids would attempt to do on their own.
Pretty sad.
I told my daughter this morning that in a couple of years I'll have her walk to school on her own (with other kids and parents, of course). We ran through a listing of kids she'll potentially be walking to school with and, unfortunately, had to eliminate one of the neighbor kids across the street. Their names are Emily and Andrew (4th and 1st graders).
You see, Emily and her younger brother Andrew are perpetually late to school every day. In fact, it's actually considered a monumental accomplishment when you see that they get to school on time in any given month. And this usually happens maybe once a month, twice max!
I told Brie (my daughter) that unless Emily and Andrew both start practicing some time management skills, she won't be walking with either one of them to school any time in the near (or far) future.
The worst thing about this chronic lateness is that it's the mom's fault for being such a wimp when it comes to her own kids. She says, "Well, they usually find a project they want to do or they start playing with something..." Blah, blah, blah.
I actually told her, "That's when you snatch the sh** away from the kids and say, 'time to get out the door! Plenty of time to play with this after school.'"
In one ear and the out the other...
Unfortunately, my generation -- the Gen Xers -- are teaching Gen Ys some pretty freakin' bad habits that will ultimately bite them in the ass one day. Some of these Gen Xers think that being "more relaxed" and "laid back" with their kids (than their parents obviously were with them) is better somehow.
Well...better in the sense that if they want a pot-smoking video-game-playing loser dwelling in their basement at the age of 53, then I guess these Gen Xers are on the right path.
Except I don't want that with my daughter.
My parents were hippies from the 60s. I grew up as a vegetarian with a religion called Kriya Yoga. They wanted to be so far from "status quo" as possible that it's surprising I have any bearings in the world of capitalism. (I guess a cat always lands on her feet!)
I think the only thing that gave me a radar for entrepreneurialism was my dad who always kept hustling. He was always a small business owner, did fairly well for a middle-class breadwinner, and was always working.
And that's exactly what my daughter gets to see.
Just yesterday she said, "Mom, thank you for working so hard for me."
Yes! It's sinking in!!
Even better, instead of having her go to some kind of day care after school, I pick her up from school and she hangs out at the warehouse until 5pm when I leave. She pretends to work, makes "shipments" out of envelopes and fake stamps, collects "important papers" in folders, etc. I even put her to work by having her run a contract, form, or other paperwork to Lea. Or to tell Lea something important. Or to give someone a note.
The best thing about all of these little things I have her do is not that she does them perfectly each time (because she does) but that she understands a sense of responsibility and commitment to "processes" in general.
I feel like most people have difficulty in finding their way through life financially (and in many other ways). You can't blame your parents...even if it's really their fault. You now have to take responsibility yourself.
Just like I teach my daughter the psychology behind taking care of herself, I teach my students the exact same valuable lessons they can immediately use to change their lives.
Your only "hump" to get over is your mind and whether you'll pull the trigger (or not). That's the part I cannot do for you. All I can do is give you the strategies and techniques in the most precise step-by-step fashion and it's up to you to follow it.
As you know, I've finished my 2-day boot camp seminar in Los Angeles: the Underground Secret Event. This 2-day power-packed event basically covered a new strategy on product distribution and how to strike it rich getting a simple product in retail stores (and chains) nationwide.
And yes, I walk the walk.
In fact, on Friday, I have a sales meeting with Rite Aid in PA to get our product in stores nationwide. We've been able to make such incredible strides in our distribution business in less than a year!
And you can too.
The way the economy is now, you have to become an entrepreneur. It's not merely a "should I?" question to consider. It's more like, "when should I begin?" question to consider.
And you have to begin now!
The economy has shifted so severely that there is no "security" in working for someone else. The only security you can have is by working for yourself. Hands down!
It's Friday morning and I'm catching up on work...on my vacation. Weird, I know.
But I'm a weird duck anyway.
I didn't want to go on this ship trip (a.k.a. "cruise") to begin with and there's a sense of comfort in doing what I do all the time (and what I'm best at): work!
So here I am trekking back to Miami in the Caribbean on a ship and I'm working on my laptop. There are only so many Mai Tais anyone can (or should) consume and so many rays of sun the skin should take (without becoming a cancer risk) when one is ready to get back into the swing of things.
As I sit here, I started thinking about the direction I see the economy going and where I see myself leading my students in 2014 and beyond.
During a couple of my beach escapades in the past few days, I kept thinking about this one student of mine who emailed me last week. I won't tell you her name because I can't. That's right. I can't. (She has to remain in "hiding.")
You see, this student went to one of my seminar events years ago. It was an apartment building event. And she had physical signs of "survival," if you will. Her story is actually quite brutal. She was physically abused by her husband to the point where he almost murdered her one day. She survived but her physical disabilities from the incident were very clear.
And sad.
But this student is a survivor in ways we'd never imagine. She had to overcome so many trials and tribulations that make our "problems" seem like a cake walk through Disneyland on a breezy warm day.
Unfortunately (and I didn't have the nerve to tell her in the email I sent back to her) but she still has that "victim mentality" where she likes using her survival story as a means of getting sympathy from other people. And that's the part that rubs me the wrong way.
I can tell you that I've also gone through an extremely abusive marriage when I was in my early 20s. I was hit so hard just above my left eye that I still get stabbing pains in that eye periodically (and usually out of the blue). I was even told by a doctor that there is a likelihood I'll slowly lose eyesight in that eye to the point of blindness as I get older.
And I can also tell you that I went through 2 crippling battles with the government...both I had lost my ass with. And both had altered my lives in ways you'll never imagine nor would I wish on my worst enemy; all because of some business errors, misunderstandings of the law, and a business that went financially belly-side up that pushed the full blame of culpability on my shoulders. (If you don't know the law you're liable, even if you don't know the law. Note, if you are ever thumbing through a "business opportunity" magazine one day and see a business that could be awesome, it may actually be illegal. This is actually what happened to me. I started a business that I thought was legal and it turned out that it was "partially legal." Go figure!)
And right now, I have a spouse that lives in another state. I'm basically a single parent to a 5-year-old because her dad is the worst type of deadbeat you could ever imagine. I have been paying the guy both child and spousal support for years and yet he sees his daughter for a few hours on the weekends.
Listen, I'm not telling you all this because I want to make you sad. In fact, I've never told my students this stuff before.
I'm telling you this to make a point because the difference between someone who has a "victim mentality" and someone who doesn't is...
The someone who doesn't believe they are a victim keeps moving forward and doesn't use "the victim story" to prompt a response from people.
And I'll call that non-victim a "warrior."
That's the category I put myself in. A warrior moves forward without lingering on the "feel-sorry-for-me" bullsh** and concentrates on "what can I do now to move forward and make a better life for me and my family?"
Back to my student...or "former student" as she referred to herself as in the email to me...
Here we are several years after this seminar event she attended and it's apparent that she didn't do much with what was taught there.
Yes, it's very easy to use any physical disability as an excuse but that can only get you so far before it just becomes an annoying excuse.
Did you know that I've made millions off both eBay and the Internet while never seeing a person or talking to anyone on the phone?
Did you know that the majority of the time when dealing with real estate, I actually don't handle any of the elements of the deal at all from visiting a property to even talking to a seller or real estate agent on the phone? (Other people do this for me.)
Shucks! I guess I can't use any type of physical excuse to not succeed now, can I?
Yes, being a woman in real estate has always been extremely challenging which is probably why I'm a bitch, I tend to be pushy and angry when dealing with people, and I'm a "straight-shooter," as I'm routinely called.
But I've always known one thing and it's the same thing I hope you understand:
I've always known I have a choice. And you have a choice too.
Sit on your ass, make excuses, and rally a bunch of people to feel sorry for you with an elaborate pity story?
Or say f*** the past, focus on what you really want for yourself, and go get it without further ado?!
I've chosen the latter, obviously.
Stop making the "happenings" in your life be the defining elements of you and who you are.
Last weekend I was shopping with my daughter. I was crossing this section of the parking lot to get to the store where I had to grab my daughter's shirt and pull her back because this stupid hag of a woman was clearly not going to stop for pedestrians, as she's legally required to do so. It wasn't like I was just walking right in front of her car. We were well on our way on our path and she was at least 100 feet away before she whizzed around a bend and seemingly intentionally wanted to blow past us because, after all, she can't lose 3 seconds out of her "busy Saturday schedule."
Even more weird, she was a mom. She had a toddler strapped in the back seat. So...apparently she just doesn't care about other people and their kids.
I gave her the middle finger, yelled exactly what it meant (in case she didn't know) including a few other choice words with it, and watched her miserable face as she absorbed every bit of what I said. And it would have completely made my day if she would have stopped because I swear she would have gotten a physical parking lot beat down right in front of a department store. (Otherwise known as the PLBD or "parking lot beat down.")
Yes, I was steaming for the first 15 minutes as I was struggling to concentrate on shopping, whizzing around in the store in a circle, looking at nothing and being as pissed off as you can possible imagine while my daughter looked at me confused as to why we were on our 4th run around the entire store without stopping to look at a rack or picking up a single item. It irritated me beyond belief how freaking inconsiderate, rude, selfish, and ignorant people are. Then I let it go and quickly moved on after my 15 minutes of excessive anger.
The point?
A "victim" would make this a part of who they are. They would make something somebody else did to them as a part of who they are.
"Oh, poor me! This stupid bitch in this cheap ugly silver 3-series BMW almost ran me and my daughter down in a parking lot so...I must be stupid, useless, dumb, and a failure in life otherwise...why would somebody do something like that to a good person like me? I guess I'll always be a loser so why bother trying? In fact, while I'm at it, I'm going to repeat this stupid-bitch-in-a-cheap-BMW story over and over again to as many people as possible so that I can get a whole bunch of people on my side about how awful my life is turning out."
Do you see how stupid that type of victim mentality is?
Yet this is what those with a "victim mentality" do...just on a larger scale.
A warrior would say something different such as...
"It's apparent that the extremely overweight bitch in her cheap BMW not only has very low self-esteem -- thus not valuing the lives of others let alone her own useless self -- but she was probably in a super hurry to get across the street to get to the food court at the mall to stuff that fat pie hole of hers. After all, it does take quite a few thousand calories every few hours for her to maintain that hefty figure of hers and she was probably going through food withdraws since the 4,500-calorie lumberjack breakfast she ate was only an hour before. Her stomach must've been rumbling up a storm, scaring her toddler in the backseat to distraction."
(Okay, I know this must offend some people but I really don't care. I used to be overweight and I learned something called self-control and discipline which means I eat fewer French fries and I work out 45 minutes a day. Furthermore, everyone -- politically correct or not -- has their own "things" they say in their minds during their most irate and angry moments that they wish they could express just as a form of release. This is actually a very normal emotional and psychological response when put in situations that piss you off. And if you don't admit it or state that you never have a negative angry thought in your mind ever, you're either a liar or you're simply not human. You get to choose which that would be.)
As you can see, the "happening" in your life -- no matter what that is -- doesn't become "part" of a warrior. It just becomes an "unfortunate event" that isn't taken personally. Why? Because sh** happens to everyone. Period. No one is "immune" to piles of sh** occurring either daily, weekly or monthly. How you process it though determines what kind of person you are.
The warrior might be pissed off for a moment but then eventually they move on with their path and productive lives. They don't let the "victim thing" define who they are nor do they use it as a feel-sorry-for-me pitch for anyone who cares to subject themselves to the verbal torment.
There isn't a damn thing I can ever do for you as a mentor or teacher in your life if you first can't get past any possible "victim mentality" hang-up that you may have. You can either choose to blow off the things that "happened" to you or you can choose to hang onto it as if it's part of your identity.
I'm recommending you blow it off and move forward. The faster you can make that happen, the better.
Here's a direct request:
Don't get involved in any course, mentorship, or seminar I have unless you are a warrior. Period.
I have no use for "victims" or those looking for a crutch. I can't be either one for you. All I can do is deliver the information and it's always going to be up to you to engage by putting the teachings into action.
Yes, the stuff I teach works and it works very well. Yes, it can make you wealthy in the shortest amounts of time possible.
What I can't do (as much as I'd like to) is slap you in the back of the head and say, "Stop it! Stop acting like a freaking victim and grow some balls already!"
I'm going to say this one last time in case I wasn't clear enough.
I'm really serious about "cleaning out" my student database as we roll into 2014 since I only want to work with people who really want the highly profitable information I teach by demonstrating that they're willing to put it into action.
While I was conducting my last seminar, I had a student come up to me and say, "I've bought all your stuff but I haven't used anything yet..."
Gee, thanks! (That's the wrong way to open up a conversation with me, by the way!)
I'm not like other gurus out there who don't care if you buy their $300 book and use it as toilet paper because I actually do care if those are your intentions.
I actually want you to use my stuff and become successful using my stuff.
You should know by now if you're a person who "does" vs. someone who "doesn't." And a person who "doesn't" can't be helped no matter how many courses or books he or she buys.
Again, it all comes down to choice. You always get to choose what to do with your life. And you can always start choosing something else in a split second.
Right now I have guests from Detroit staying with us. They've been here in California for the past week almost and they're awesome people.
Caesar, the guy staying with us, is retired out of law enforcement. He had a couple of big retirement parties thrown for him, one of which I threw for him. This was the last time I was in Michigan since the appeal for going back and forth between 2 states has really worn me out.
He's been retired for a full 4 months with a nice fat pension that actually exceeds what his paycheck was when he was still on the force.
And guess what?
He's already talking about going back to work.
He's been retired for 4 months with a nice hefty check coming in regularly plus a nice little nest egg he's built up for the past 3 decades and he wants to return back to work in his old position he left.
If you think "freedom" is not working, think again. The definition of not working and sitting around on your ass is called "boredom" and not "freedom."
I think a lot of us dream of the day when we don't have to work anymore but if you closely analyze what that dream really is, you'll realize (for most of us) that it's about not doing what we don't want to do anymore. It's not really about not working (unless you're my lazy ex-husband...then it's really about not doing anything).
When you're doing something you like doing, is it really "work"? I don't think so.
One of the things that gotten me my "groove" back (after coming dangerously close to a nervous breakdown from working too much) is my newer business which started out as a small New Wealth Ninja business...as an experiment for a book I was writing (and haven't finished yet).
Since I know myself and what I'm capable of, I figured I'd be my own best experimental guinea pig. I couldn't rely on my "average" student because the "average" person doesn't have the same drive, motivation, and work ethic that I have. So, I had to use myself as my own experiment when doing research for my New Wealth Paradigm book I had intended on writing. (I think I'll change the book's name to The Main Way to Wealth. It has a better ring to it.)
This is how my health supplement company started...as a "project" to write about.
Now it's a multi-million dollar company. All because I needed a "case study" for my New Wealth Ninja teachings.
How did I get my "groove" back with the new company?
I do a lot of design work for packaging as well as marketing pieces, postcards, brochures, etc. I notice that time flies when I get in my "creative zone" and I literally lose track of time. It was these bouts of "creative zone time" that pulled me out of a slump.
This is when I realized that I could never retire and sit around the house doing nothing. I hate being home as is let alone being stuck at home for months by myself. What the hell would I do with my time?? What a nightmare that would be!!
You're probably a lot like me in that you don't mind working provided that it's doing something you like. And my New Wealth Ninja stuff is right along those lines of finding some easy-to-do home-based business that you'll enjoy while making loads of money.
I did my first New Wealth Ninja trainings last summer (2012). I had one student in the group who was part of my first NWN mentorship and got the videos from both of my summer in-office trainings. His name is Gregg.
Gregg couldn't afford to attend my NWN in-office trainings as much as he says he wanted to so he took the course materials, NWN mentorship and dissected the videos over and over again until he "got" it.
Gregg didn't have the option of dilly-dallying around as a typical tire-kicker student that I tend to have to deal with. He had a small business and ended up losing it in the recession. He lost his home, his car, and even his wife.
Let's just say that Gregg was at rock bottom financially.
Gregg was a student of mine since about 2010 via my real estate courses. He, like many students, got my stuff and started working with it but "life" got in the way and he lost focus. He was just too busy with family and work that he didn't do anything at all with any of my real estate teachings. (And that admission in the email he wrote to me made me sad.)
But (he went on to tell me) that it literally took him having to lose everything for him to "wake up" to do something else with his life. As with many students (who have reported the same thing), when I introduced my NWN stuff in the spring of last year, it was at just the perfect time for thousands of my students who needed it the most.
Gregg decided to use my strategies and techniques that I teach in NWN to start a small eBay business. I can tell you what he sells. (Health supplements.) I can't tell you what his eBay user ID is...but I will tell you that when you type in "weight loss" in the eBay search bar, you'll see his supplements come up in the first 5 listings, guaranteed.
Two weeks ago when Gregg reported his latest update on his business progress via email, he told me that he's now making over $60,000 a month with his business. No, that's not gross. That's his net profit.
Amazing, isn't it?!
Now, it did take Gregg over a year to get to this $60,000 per month net profit amount but, as he's directly indicated to me, he was making $10,000 net within his first 6 weeks of starting and it just went up from there.
Not bad! Not bad at all!
In his exact words, this is what he said in his email about how he was able to start making money.
"...I just did what you said and started to hustle. You said in one of your trainings about how you'd never be worried about losing everything because you'd get your ass in gear and work your ass off round the clock until you set up your business. What made the most sense to me was how you talked about emulating other people with businesses online and that's what I did. I took the top 3 sellers of health supplements on eBay and basically copied everything they did without committing plagiarism. I also took your advise about naming products and creating product labels that stand out."
This is just a short except from his lengthy email. Here's another short except that I think you should read:
"Deep down inside of me I knew that I always wanted to have the flexibility of a home business but didn't know exactly what to do to get there. I thought it was out of reach for someone like me who isn't really that smart when it comes to any type of marketing. Right now I work about 6 hours a day and the rest of my time is my own. (This isn't some 4-Hour Work Week business and anyone wanting to take the lazy way out won't do well with the New Wealth Ninja teachings you do.) I never thought I'd actually have a business that would be successful like this and it's great!"
People do significant things when there is a need. Gregg was in that position of need. Maybe you are too. I don't know. But when we're forced up against a wall, we suddenly become capable of kicking some ass and taking names later.
You may be in that "in between" state where you know you need to do something else but you are comfortable enough to where need hasn't been forced on you. Why wait until that sense of "need" is forced down your throat before you decide to do something else?
One thing I love about business is that it's about as good as a well-trained house pet. If you give it focus, attention, and love, it'll love you back. It won't disappoint you so long as you put the appropriate time, effort, and energy into it from the get-go.
And it can make you extremely happy!
Of course, business and pets are vastly different but -- unlike people who are nothing more than "loose cannons" to me -- pets and business can give you "love" if you give them the appropriate attention from the beginning.
And that's what I like.
I like to know my result from the beginning.
If you give a dog love from the start, he's going to give you love back.
If you set up a business correctly from the start, the business will give you money back.
Those are basic rules of how I've found that life works.
I have a new kitten. It's a boy. I generally stay away from male cats but he sort of fell in my lap when a neighbor moved to San Diego last weekend and they didn't want to take the cat with because their daughter is allergic to cats.
So, essentially this kitten "adopted" me in one way or another.
I made it my daughter's cat. She's 5 and she's old enough to learn responsibility now. She does well feeding her aquatic frog and 2 fish so a kitten shouldn't be a big deal to add to her responsibilities.
Because it's her cat, she got to name him. She chose Pineapple. Ronnie was trying to get her to name him Louie. Louie (or Lou) is a cute name but nothing a 5-year-old would accept. So, his legal name can be Pineapple Louie...named sort of after a bar I know in Panama City Beach, Florida called Pineapple Willy's. (That place is cool as hell. You can even watch people walking on the beach on PCB right now on their website: http://www.pwillys.com/. Damn, I wish I was there right now!)
Pineapple, the kitten, is "off the hook." He's a crazy kitty...pounces, jumps, attacks, and tried to eat my face off yesterday. My 2 older cats can't stand the little rat and find their days filled with the exhausting endeavor of fending the little sh** off. Since they're both 10-years old, this can be extremely taxing on 2 old lady cats.
I have to admit; I love the new energy of the little one. He's shaking things up a bit in our household and change is something a Gemini (me) absolutely loves.
I also love animals.
I was thinking about this yesterday.
Animals are pretty predictable. Especially domestic pets. As I mentioned already, you just have to give them some love and they'll love you right back. It never fails.
People...not so much.
I had an unfortunate incident with a friend of mine and we ended up having a complete falling out after about 3 years of friendship.
And it makes me very sad.
I started thinking about business and, believe it or not, it's actually quite predictable. Much like domesticated pets.
Give it love, you'll get love back.
I think this is why I've done so exceptionally well with business and yet have continued to fail miserably in family and friendship relationships.
Business is extremely predictable because you'll get out exactly what you put into it. And you will get the result you're seeking provided that you know precisely what that is.
People are unpredictable and never have your best interests at heart because they're too busy focusing on how they can personally gain, even if it means you'll get the short end of the stick.
Now I know why I see so many old people in the world wobbling around with their old-as-dirt dog or cat while ostracizing themselves from the world. Somewhere along they way they've determined that people are too much trouble and they'd rather pal around with a scruffy dust puff of a pet because at least they know it won't maliciously hurt them.
Yesterday I indicated that I'm stepping out of the game of real estate investing training for awhile...or maybe forever...simply because after this upcoming Atlanta event in November, there will be nothing else to teach you on how to capitalize on the real estate market past the end of 2014.
There has been a huge demand amongst my students for more New Wealth Ninja "stuff" including the stuff I'll be teaching my students at my Underground Secret Event in a few weeks from now in Los Angeles. (And you can still get a deal to attend that event by clicking here.) This event, as you know, is non-real estate related and is all about Aggressive Income on Speed and Steroids.
Last year I started teaching my New Wealth Ninja strategies because my students wanted to know more about how to raise cash to inject into passive income real estate since the market started changing, competition with other investors became apparent, and it was obvious that if my students wanted to enter into the New Real Estate Market in our New Economy, they were going to have to cough up some cash for these deals.
This is how my New Wealth Ninja (NWN) trainings began...as a means for students to raise funds for real estate deals.
Then NWN became a demand in and of itself.
I started getting more and more stories of students with graduate degrees, a load of professional experience, and who were still sharp as whips sent out to pasture because they were too "highly paid" in their field and "too old" to play anymore.
Companies that were in the midst of the economic crisis (and many still are) found out about a little trick called the Dump-the-Overpaid-Old-People-on-Payroll-for-the-Moldable-Cheap-College-Grads Game. I noticed that this game started back in about 2007/2008 and has become more and more predominant in the employment arena.
It sucks to be an experienced professional or in a highly paid management position in a company, especially if you're in your 50s or beyond. Because chances are, you're probably not employed or employable anymore.
It didn't hit close to home until recently when my dad (who, unfortunately, I had to terminate out of my own company due to embezzlement issues) had to take to working at Lowe's part time because he can't get a job anywhere else. And he needed the position mostly for health care because he can't get government health care until next June when he hits 65.
It became even more abundantly clear that we're in trouble as a highly-populated Baby Boomer nation when I recently interviewed dozens of people for an entry-level low-paying job for both of my companies and found that I was sifting through hundreds of resumes from people who were overqualified (including those with degrees) to those who were over 50 years old to both.
And they were vying for a job with a starting pay of $11 an hour.
Rewind to about 2003...I interviewed people in a completely different economy and I couldn't get anyone to start at less than $15 an hour. And even this was like pulling teeth. I had people who were qualified and even under-qualified for the positions I had applying for jobs, 50% of the people who I scheduled an interview with didn't show up, and I had a hell of a time finding people who would work for me. (Interviewing was a bitch back in those days.)
What a difference a freakin' decade makes.
As an employer and business owner, I tend to lean toward hiring older people with more experience because they tend to be more loyal and dedicated in their positions. The young people in this day and age are texting their friends all day while having Facebook minimized in their "tray" on their computers. They are lazy, take too many sick days, and basically suck as employees.
Yet larger companies want these deadbeats to work for them because, (a) they start out as "cheap labor" and, (b) because they figure they can "mold" these screw-balls into whatever they want them to be for their company.
I couldn't disagree with that mentality more because, to me, it's like burning useless dollars to pay some Gen-Yer to text their buddies all day while uploading pictures to Facebook from the party they went to the weekend before when they got sloshed out of their gourd. But hey, at least they can "multi-task," right?
And then there's the whole $15/hour fast-food debacle where all these people who think working at McDonald's is a "career" feel like they should be getting paid more than minimum wage. Last time I checked, flipping burgers and making a milkshake doesn't take much skill, certainly not enough to justify $15 an hour.
WTF is going on with our nation?!
What these people don't realize is that there are ship loads of robots made in China coming over by the day that cost, on average, about $5,000 each that can do everything a low-wage worker in McDonald's can do...yet this robot won't require a wage, worker's compensation insurance, personal days off, sick days, vacation days, health care insurance, and you don't have to worry that this technical creature will sue you for sexual harassment, call in sick at the last minute, or steal from you.
I don't know about you but, as a business owner, I'll take the robots any day. And to think that all I'll have to pay for is some maintenance and a couple of software downloads here and there.
It's a lot closer than you think.
Then what happens to all the people who are minimum-wage workers...?
They may go from $8/hour to $15/hour. But I can guarantee you that they're about to go from employed to unemployed as things start to become more advanced in our society.
Gotta love Asia and the advances we can enjoy as a nation.
As an employee, do you hate the possibility that a robot can take your job?
If so, stop thinking like a f*****g employee and start thinking like a business owner...because as a business owner, you'd love the idea.
I have a machine coming over from China in a couple of weeks. No, it's not a robot but it'll be replacing a few minion jobs in the warehouse.
And a few weeks after that I'll be ordering another machine to replace a couple more minions.
And on and on it will go from there.
As a business owner, I've run the gamut with government regulations and have always noticed that they don't like to make it easy to operate as a business, especially in sunny California. I think the reason this is the case is because you have a bunch of dumb sh** government "employees" making decisions about what business owners should and shouldn't be able to do. And, unfortunately, these dummies don't take into account what the consequences of their dumb sh** thinking can be which usually has something to do with taking your business out of state or out of the country where -- guess what? -- no one can benefit from employment or the tax dollars associated with doing business here.
But what makes running a business most difficult are the employees that are associated with the business because they never do what you want them to do.
So...I can't wait for the robots to take over the employment market.
But if you're an employee, that doesn't give you really good job prospects in the decade to come, does it?
Guess what...you have to stop being an employee and start being a business owner otherwise you're not going to make it. Period. No exceptions. Especially if you're 40 an over...you're really in trouble now!
In the first half of 2014 (and until I turn 40 in June), I'll be focusing on showing you some cutting-edge New Wealth Ninja strategies to teach you how to have either a small cash flowing Aggressive Income home-based business or a larger cash flowing Aggressive Income multi-million dollar business.
Your choice.
Bottom line, you do have to choose one of the above presented options if you're going to survive and thrive in the years to come.
Until I turn 40 in June, that is. Then, after that, you're guess is as good as mine on what I'll be doing. Maybe I'll lay down and die on a beach in the Bahamas. (Doesn't sound too bad acutally, does it?)
Many of you have heard of Andrew Shaw. He started out with me sometime in late 2008 when he purchased my Apartment Building Cash Flow System. In 2009 he signed up and completed one of my first signature Apartment Building Mentorship Groups including taking the 9-week Advanced Group later that year.
But, like many of my students (unfortunately), he ended up in a phase of information overload paralysis. And did nothing with the information until the next year when he decided to kick himself in the ass.
He hasn't turned back since.
In this first couple of years of being a "serious" real estate investor, he climbed up from $0 to making $74,000 a month in passive real estate income.
Now he's at the $138,000 per month mark. And no, that's not gross receipts. That's what he gets to put in his pocket each and every month after all of his mortgages and expenses are paid on all of his properties.
So, here's what happened last month. I tried twisting Andrew's arm until it just about fell off to speak at my upcoming November Atlanta Boot Camp Seminar but, of course, he said no. Again.
You see, Andrew is the type of person that I think would literally have a heart attack if he had to utter 2 complete sentences in front of even a small crowd of people. (Goes to show you that even timid people who aren't socially adept can become massively successful in real estate.)
And that's why I have never been successful in getting him to speak at any of my events over the past couple of years. He's shown up at my events before and, even then, I wasn't allowed to point him out that he was there. Yes, that's right! For those of you who have been at my events before, you actually were sitting in the room with Andrew Shaw. He was even at one of my recent non-real estate related Underground Secret Events. (Can anyone remember who was in the room at my last Detroit event?)
But here's what Andrew did do for me. He wrote a book on exactly what he did to reach the level of success he's reached today and, in his own words, explains that if anyone can do it, you can too.
Andrew started with less than nothing. In fact, if I remember correctly, he had something like $40,000+ in credit card debt when he got started with me. He wasn't working and he really needed to hustle to get himself up and running in the real estate game.
And he did.
Without any money. Without any credit.
He did it easily, seamlessly, and quickly by following a simple plan that he created himself.
And he put down this exact plan on paper which you'll be able to get so that you can use his exact well-laid out plan for your own real estate success. Click here for more details on getting this book.
Why commercial-commercial real estate? Why now?
I'm going to be honest with you; not that I'm not always honest but I think it's time that you really come to an understanding of what's going on with both me and the real estate market right now.
Here's what I'll never become: a "guru" that stands on a soap box in front of a group of seminar attendees talking about irrelevant and non-profitable real estate topics that don't apply in our current real estate market. I promised myself that I'll never become anything like that which is why my students have always appreciated me being a teacher and mentor.
Come 2014 and I'll have thoroughly introduced and talked about every cutting-edge real estate strategy you can use including all of the "supporting" education such as building personal and business credit, raising capital, and all of the other needed elements to get to where you need to go as a successful real estate investor.
When we are in a recession, you will get your best deals and opportunities in almost every type of asset class in real estate investing out there.
When the economy starts to "thaw out" and take off, the opportunities immediately disappear.
And that's what's happening now.
Why do you think I've meticulously "planned" my real estate training "end" date to be December 31, 2013 since last year?
I knew the end was coming. And, sadly, it's almost already here.
Let's talk about what opportunities are left in cash flowing real estate deals and then we'll talk about what I'll be doing for my students until I turn 40 (next June).
What do we have left for profitable real estate in the remaining portion of 2013 and all of 2014 that you can realistically get into with some creative financing, little/no money down, and for a bargain in a market where things are getting very hot very fast?
1) Small multifamily properties ranging from "quads" (4-plexes) to 10-unit apartment buildings.
2) Small MHPs ranging from a handful of pads to about 20 pads.
3) SFR flips in certain areas of the country.
4) Smaller REO apartment buildings.
5) Commercial-commercial buildings, particularly office buildings and industrial warehouse space.
6) Self-storage.
7) Building small multifamily buildings to either buy-and-hold or flip to investors who will pay top dollar for them.
Again, these opportunities will begin to diminish one-by-one as we kick off 2014, definitely starting with SFR flips. Then vacant REOs. Then MHPs and small multi-families.
Then any commercial-commercial opportunity by the end of next year.
For my students that have been learning from me for the past several years, they already know that you shouldn't build a piece of investment real estate until you're in a hot market. Otherwise, building will cost you more per square foot than what you can buy it for in a slump market.
And that's a complete waste of money!
The next huge money-maker is buying raw land and building, especially small multifamily buildings anywhere from "quads" (4-plexes) to 8-unit buildings.
These can make you a fortune in this market because now, in many super hot areas, it actually costs less to build than buy a fully occupied multifamily (and even commercial-commercial) property.
What's awesome about this strategy is that, once you take a piece of raw land and build, you can quickly lease the units (because they are brand new, there is a higher demand and you can get top rent dollar) but you can "flip" the property to other investors who want the leased-up high-in-demand rental property.
In fact, you'll get more money per unit than comparable buildings in the area because the units are brand new and getting more in rent than other units in the same area.
Plus, this strategy can put you into Class A and B areas whereas before you were probably only investing in (or considering) Class C and D areas because it was more affordable to get into.
I have a new lender that handles financing both raw land and the construction portion of the deal. A construction loan goes up to 1 year and then you refinance it into a conventional loan after the construction (and lease-up) has been accomplished.
Why buy a Class C property when you can buy raw land and build a Class A property that commands top dollar in both rents and cost-per-door when you flip it?
There is a specific step-by-step strategy required to make a fortune with this investment methodology. I've never taught this rare, little-known strategy to any of my students.
Even better, this lucrative strategy can be used to build any type of asset class from 8-plex multifamily buildings to a retail strip mall.
And no, you don't need to be a contractor to pull this off nor do you need to get ripped off by a GC (general contractor) in most states. As long as you know the steps, you can contract the job yourself by subbing everything out one piece at a time.
Rehab and new construction have always been my favorite method of real estate investing just because it allows you to be creative and to become part of a process in making a nice home for people. It's the one facet of real estate I enjoy the most, even down to choosing the color of the exterior paint of a building.
