Many of you may know the marketing "guru" by the name of Dan Kennedy. I've known Dan since the mid-1990s when I subscribed to a newsletter he had called No B.S. Inner Circle. And over the years, not only has he been a guru and mentor to me but I'd like to believe we've become good friends too.
This picture above was taken this past April when we went out to dinner in Cleveland after I was at his house taking part in some marketing consulting I wanted for a new business venture.
And I saw him again during his 3-day Cleveland annual Mid-Year "Dan Only" Event called Mail Box Millions 2.0.
So...it's a shock to tell you that he's DECEASED as of August 21st.
Yes, he passed away!
I'm still in shock. I just talked to his long-time assistant Vicky on the phone yesterday morning who was still talking as if he was alive in hospice care, living out his final hours. Maybe she did or didn't know that he had passed the day before...or was living in denial...or maybe didn't want to tell me because I was already in tears when I was talking to her.
Dan was a diabetic but, as far as I could tell, he kept the disease under tight control. But...something happened just in the past couple of weeks which shook his health off balance in a way that could not be balanced out again. A variety of illnesses that, perhaps, could have been easily dealt with and healed one at a time, hit him all at once and his body wasn't able to recover.
He went from doing fine at the beginning of this month to dead only 3 weeks later.
Oh, and I should mention that he's only in his 60s. Pretty young to die of "natural causes," if you ask me.
This just goes to show you that you never know when you're time is going to be up. And for all of you who are waiting for a "better time" to do something -- whether it's to start your new business, start investing, or start taking some more time with friends and family, maybe traveling -- start doing it NOW, for crying out loud!! What are you waiting for? Your life here can end at any moment without notice. STOP MESSING AROUND AND START DOING THE THINGS YOU'VE BEEN PUTTING OFF!!
Because...
Life is too short to be dickering around, making excuses, and telling yourself the "someday I will" monologue as you get ready for work to fight traffic for yet another day...another week...another month...another year...and another decade waiting to live your dreams.
Your dreams don't come to you. You go to your dreams. Period. That's just how it works. And if you're waiting for your dreams to come to you'll end up passing away before you know it, not having done any of the stuff you wanted to do.
Don't let that happen to you! Please!! Start living now. Start living TODAY!
On Monday night I found out that my long-time mentor and friend Dan Kennedy is in hospice care. As of today, he only has days -- maybe only mere hours -- left to live.
What a SHOCK that was to me! I had just seen him at his annual mid-year event (which takes place over my birthday each year) in Cleveland this past June. I was at his house in April. He seemed perfectly fine to me.
But I guess the part that none of us knew that he had been battling a number of ailments, most stemming from his lifetime battle of diabetes. IN the end he decided he didn't want to be hooked up to machines to prolong his life...so he elected to be admitted into hospice where he's not living out his final moments.
What's sad about this whole thing is that he's only in his 60s. He was born in December 1956. But he did live a hard life and that probably did him in decades ago, long before he realized it.
I've been so heartbroken and sad all this week because I feel like I'm losing someone who has had such a huge impact on my life in ways I cannot even express. Dan and I go way back...to the mid-1990s. So, more than 20 years. He's one of the key reasons I'm as successful as I am in business and marketing today. Without him and his knowledge, I would not have been as successful in direct marketing and business as I have been.
It's amazing that one single person can have such immense impact.
It's also sobering to realize just how short life is. And that one moment you can be completely fine, the next...on your deathbed.
The thing about Dan is that he loved to work. He'd work 12 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week...BECAUSE HE LOVED WHAT HE DID. It wasn't work to him. To me, that is a blessed life. To do what you love and to get paid well for it. And even though some have criticized him for being all about work and having little to do with friends and family, that's the life he chose. That's the life he wanted. And that's the life he got.
What kind of life do YOU want for yourself? Have you ever stopped to think just how SHORT life really is? And that death could be looming at your door any time now?
I've thought about that a lot lately which is why I'm doing more things with my daughter, I'm branching out into different businesses and investments, and expanding my wings with my book that will be coming out on November 5th.
If you're not living the life you want to live, ask yourself this: "WHY NOT? WHAT IS HOLDING ME BACK?"
If it's the lack of money, I think I have the perfect solution for you.
Over the years people have asked me to summarize how to become a successful real estate investor and are usually sorely disappointed to find out that I cannot stuff all of these "secret strategies" inside one short paragraph, or on the back of a Chinese fortune for that matter.
But I can give you some overall strategies that will clearly pinpoint how to become a successful cash flowing real estate entrepreneur. Five to be exact.
Here they are...
#1. Decide on some type of Passive Income Asset that can keep giving you a positive cash flow month after month, year after year. This means narrowing down your type of what we call an "asset class" down to something that can give you this type of income. This also means avoiding those other pesky types of real estate investing opportunities that I put into the Aggressive Income category such as flipping property because this robs you of (a) long-term cash flow, and (b) valuable tax write-off benefits. I recommend investors new to the Passive Income game to think about and seriously consider residential-commercial acquisitions, namely apartment building investing or mobile home park (MHP) investing since this type of investing can give substantial monthly cash flows while helping you weather through recessions unlike other types of Passive Income Assets such as office space or industrial/warehouse properties.
#2. Find your ideal "farming area" or area in which you will be building your real estate "empire." This will be ONE area only and CAN be 1,000+ miles away from where you live. (I'll explain in a minute why you don't have to be anywhere near your assets.) Most newbie real estate investors start local to where they live. This is natural because they want to see the properties and have more of a hands-on approach to their property management. Plus, since most newbie investors get involved in flipping, they kind of need to be local to the property if they're going to do minor or extensive rehabbing on the property. Since you're getting involved in Passive Income Assets, you don't need to be in the same city in which you will invest. This gives you the freedom to literally go anywhere in the country to invest. I originally discovered this freedom back in 2001 when I realized that investing in my tri-county area (Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties) were just not that profitable. And forget about venturing down to Orange County or up to Ventura County where properties were ultra-expensive, giving no cash flow even if I were to give up 50% cash down to secure the deal. This is when I started investing on the gulf side of Florida then expanding upwards through the middle portion of the state...until I ended up in Georgia where some of my most profitable deals have come to fruition. You have to go where the cash flow is. Plain and simple. It's smart and definitely a manageable strategy IF you know how to pull it off.
#3. Getting the money and financing for your deals is quite possibly the most challenging aspect of real estate investing, especially for new investors who don't have any contacts or access to private investors. This is the secret to breaking into the business: getting the financing, getting the credit, getting the loans, and getting these fiscal resources together. Many people don't realize that they have access to more resources and contacts than they know. Others just need some doors opened up for them to get them started. The ideal way to acquire a cash flowing property deal is to have the 20% cash down and to have decent credit (720+ FICO) to be able to get approval for the mortgage financing. This is why I have extensively taught my Aggressive Income Strategies throughout this entire year (to this point) because it has allowed my students to raise this cash to get involved in these deals. But even I don't like using my own money for deals if I can help it. And that's when the benefits of understanding the art of raising capital becomes extremely valuable. For my students who think raising capital is hard, think again. It's much easier than you think once you understand the simple steps behind it that are required.
#4. Create or find a good management company to manage your out-of-state assets. This is HOW you're able to invest anywhere. You have somebody else doing it for you whether it's your own management company that you created or a management service. Many of my newbie students freak out when I tell them to buy property out of state. They're first questions are about looking at the properties and managing them. Okay, so you will have to get on a plane here and there to look at and acquire your properties. (Most escrow and closings can be done via FedEx.) You'll want to look at, say, 12 to 15 properties at a time when you fly out until you quickly realize that, since this game is all about the cash flow, looking at properties becomes a complete waste of time. (You have contractors and property inspectors who are professionals in their field look at these properties since, chances are, you are not an expert in state building codes in the state you will be acquiring properties nor are you an expert on determining if there is structural viability to the properties you are viewing...nor are you an expert in the neighborhoods in which the properties are located. It takes a few trips to your farming area to realize that you really do have to rely on EXPERTS to do this work for you and that you looking at properties yourself really does nothing valuable in the process at all.)
#5. Understand the reality on what it takes to get rich in cash flowing investments. BUY AND HOLD FOREVER. Yes, that's right. Buy the property and hang onto it until you're 6 fee under and it doesn't matter to you anymore. You only need a handful of small apartment buildings to get rich. Between 5 and 10 properties is all you need to be set for life. Rents typically will DOUBLE in most areas of the country every 15 to 18 years. And by flowing more of your profits back into each property by paying down the principle of each mortgage, you'll be able to pay each property off within 10 years. Imagine your cash flow in 15 years with doubled rents and no mortgage! Exactly. THIS is why you never let those properties go. Not ever!
The hardest part of the 5 secrets listed above is #3. Getting money for deals is the most difficult "hump" to get over. But I have a solution for you. I have a RESOURCE LIST that was given to me by one of my long-time investor partners who decided to make 2019 his year of retirement. I have his entire resource list which BLEW MY MIND! For a short time and ONLY for 24 SERIOUS students, I want to give you this powerful money resource list...which includes resources for down payments, rehab, new construction, and a BRAND NEW investor partner opportunity!
Many of you know that I've been working on other projects, namely promoting my (future) bestselling book called The Lost Secret. It's a big project and it's something I need to focus 100% on between now and the final half of 2019.
This means that I'm not able to be as active as a middle-man between my students (including you) and my investors. So, I'm going to have to leave it TO YOU to contact these investors directly...plus I have a BRAND NEW LIST of resources that was just given to me by a long-time investor partner of mine who is finally retiring this year!
I want to give you this DIRECT RESOURCE CONTACT LIST of investors, brokers, and lenders who can get you all kinds of cash for your real estate deals -- regardless of whether it is for commercial or residential real estate.
And these resources have their pens ready to write checks for sizable down payments, rehab money, and new construction loans on some of the real estate deals and projects you are looking at doing right now.
I'm not sure if you noticed yet or not but I've been taking a bit of a breather these days. I'm actually on what I call my "partial summer hiatus" except that I'm taking more time off than I ever have. I'm kind of hanging back these days while planning my next move as I come up on two (2) back-to-back seminars I'm hosting in Las Vegas in September...the Investing Secrets Bootcamp Seminar (about stock trading) on September 13th and 14th (with a special workshop for Platinum VIP in the morning of the 15th) and the Flip It Profit Bootcasmp Seminar (about flipping real estate) on September 16th and 17th (with a special workshop for Platinum VIP in the afternoon of the 15th).
I know I've said this before but...
I'll be thoroughly DONE with larger events and seminars once these are done and over with. I'm ONLY interested in doing very small hands on workshops after September. (So, if you haven't registered for one or both of these FINAL EVENTS, CLICK HERE for Investing Secrets and CLICK HERE for Flip It Profit!)
So...what am I observing? What am I contemplating at this moment in my life?
I'm trying to decide if it's worthwhile for me to continue teaching people...or not. It seems that very few listen to me. Many attend my events, workshops and mentorship groups but few follow through. Yes, those who DO follow through become massively successful because what I teach is real, relatively easy to understand and implement, and is life-changing for those who let it. Some of my students are making millions a year now. But what bothers me are those who are still sitting on their asses doing nothing. Why is that? Why are they sitting there...doingnothing?? I don't get it and I've started to take some of this personally. Actually, I'm now taking it as a direct personal insult, truth be told.
[PFFFUUUMMPPP!]
Did you hear that? That's the part where I'll be dropping the mic at my next Vegas Event. (I won't literally be dropping the mic. That's a metaphor for...I'm done. But you get the point.)
In the meantime, I have something pretty unique and outrageous that came across my desk only a short time ago. It seems that quite a few of my investor partners of many years past are starting to retire one by one. And one of my investors -- a guy I've been working with for 13 years -- is now suddenly retiring because he has more money than he knows what to do with. And he's tired of the game. He just wants to golf all day now. At least that's what he told me when I talked to him this past Monday.
The good news for you (and me) is that he's giving us both something quite extraordinary.
We now have a new office manager. Yes, I finally found someone kick-ass to replace Rose after all these months with an empty seat, empty desk...it's not full with a most awesome chick named Holly. (Many of you have already talked to her if you've called the office in the past couple of months.)
So, yesterday, I had her "fire" her first Success For Life customer. Yes, I did. Or you can say, "No, you didn't!" LOL! (Sorry. I'm in a rambunctious mood today!)
But that's not the real reason I'm connecting with you right now. I'm reaching out because this weekend I decided to put something on sale that I NEVER put on sale...because I want those of you who are truly serious about becoming successful (in business or investing...or both) to be able to have the financial resources needed to get started.
You see, THIS is ONLY for those of you who are SERIOUS about success.
After all, many of us talk about making changes year after year. And yet 5 years flies by...10 years, gone in the snap of a finger. Yet some of us are exactly where we were before. Dreaming big dreams. Talking a good game. But getting exactly nowhere.
Let's change that. Right now. The changes start with you. Nobody else can or will do it for you. And if you don't get off your ass to do something about it, it'll never happen.
So, ask yourself this: Do you really want the "same-old-same-old" you have now but in 5 years from now? What about 10 years from now? Two decades from now?
Or how about this time next year??
Yes, that would suck, wouldn't it? But it doesn't have to be that way. Maybe it's time that you fire yourself as the director of your own life and let me take a crack at it...at this event in March.
CLICK HERE to watch a short video which explains everything!
But have you ever thought about your own independence? Regardless of how many freedoms we have (and we do have quite a few), do you really feel free? Be honest!
Most people I talk to and work with feel far from free. They feel as if they are slaves to the grind, slaves to their job, slaves to the mortgage and credit card companies, and slaves to a never-ending treadmill with no end in sight.
And while it's nice to honor and have gratitude for the freedoms we have, let's be real. If you feel that something is "amiss" in your life and that you figured you'd be much further along than you are now...by now...then you're probably right.
You see, there IS a conspiracy of enslavement taking place right here in our "free" country. A handful of people run the world and they've made it a "thing" to enslave every man, woman, and child on this planet.
But slavery doesn't mean we'll all be breaking rocks in a salt mine.
It's actually WORSE than that.
We're already slaves to THEIR system...the system they created for them to get rich while keeping the common man and woman in an eternal state of poverty and treadmill-running.
That is part of the plan! Keep everybody so damn busy trying to keep up with bills and surviving that most people never WAKE UP to see the ways in which things can change in YOUR favor.
But what if I told you that there IS a way to turn the tables for you in a way that only the millionaires and billionaires know how to do it...
That is, until now!
There IS a way to get out of the rat race by playing their own game...AND WINNING!
Above you'll see a picture of two men taken sometime after the crash of the stock market back in the fall of 1929 when so many people had lost their jobs. We were still kind of a young country by definition back then. Still wet behind the ears. Not "hip" to the financial game yet.
And this is why the Great Depression happened to begin with.
You see, the elite and those who control the entire world realized during this earth-shattering period that you have to keep the game going if you're going to keep reaping the benefits of the pyramid that's been created.
Take the game Monopoly, for example. In fact, this is very close to how the economy is set up. Only a few take control over everything while everybody else spins their wheels and pays the piper every time they go around the board. Eventually the system is set up to wipe everybody out in the end, except for those who control everything.
I remember playing my brother a rather cut-throat game of Monopoly where I bought mostly everything and he went around the board paying more and more rent as I acquired my houses, then hotels.
Before long, he was bankrupt. OUT of the game entirely.
Then I got bored. The game was over for him. But most importantly, it was ALSO over for me too because he couldn't afford to pay me anymore.
This is what happened in 1929 (and thereafter) with the stock market crash and the subsequent Great Depression as we stumbled into the 1930s. The elite realized something pretty significant... "Yes, it's a great idea to rake everybody over the coals as much as we can, bleeding all the turnips dry. But what happens when there's not another drop of blood to be had?"
Hence, the Great Lesson of the Great Depression. The elite and all the powers that be realized that EVERYBODY still has to remain in the game...some way, somehow...otherwise THEY cannot get rich anymore either.
This forced them to restructure the game a little differently.
Fast forward to 2008. Notice how it wasn't an exact replay of the Great Depression? This is because "they" (the elite) realized that they had to keep the game afloat as to keep the players playing because without the players, EVERYBODY goes bankrupt (including them).
This is where CREDIT played a heavy hand in bailing out the failing financial system at that time. And if you think the money came from the government in the form of "government bail outs," think again. The green light on floating this money actually came from the elite and those who control the puppet strings of our entire system INCLUDING our financial and government systems.
Did you know that once you understand HOW the elite and other super wealthy use CREDIT to move and gain wealth, that YOU can ALSO use this very same system to gain wealth yourself?
Yes, not only is it highly possible, it's HIGHLY PROBABLE once you understand HOW the game works and HOW to use it for your personal wealth-building advantage.
CLICK HERE to watch a brief video that will show you exactly what I'm talking about.
The system will NEVER get better for you. It's not designed for lower-level, low-echelon people to ever get a grasp as success, wealth, and prosperity on a bigger scale. That's just not how this system is built.
But YOU CAN work the system to your financial benefit -- just like multi-millionaires and billionaires do -- but only IF you understand how to do it.
As a side note, October 24, 2019 marks the 90th anniversary of the day the stock market crashed in 1929, setting off the insurmountable tidal waves through the financial system that resulted in a long blistering depression. The men in the picture both included their addresses on the posters hung around their neck. While both these men are long gone, the homes in which they resided are still standing in Chicago. Back then they had no means, education, or ability to be able to capitalize on our credit system like we do now. And how different both their lives would have been if they had this advantage. In the very least, they would never have found themselves in the awkward and humble position of standing on a street corner for work.
But...fast forward to TODAY, my friend. YOU have the advantage these men didn't have. You have the ability to capitalize on opportunities by using OPM in ways that NOBODY (except the elite) had back then.
Why squander another moment by being a "victim" of how things are? Especially when you have a distinct advantage that wasn't available until the last decade or so?
A while back, I decided to do a training for my Viper Wealth group that has some pretty cutting edge business credit strategies in it...including some powerful resources at the very end of the 90-minute training. CLICK HERE to watch this intense (and long) training on the latest business credit strategies.
For those of you who want to take advantage of getting the Build Business Credit FAST! System at a HUGE DISCOUNT for my July 4th BLOW OUT, CLICK HERE! Those of you who have been my students for quite some time...you know that I NEVER put this system on sale EVER! So...take advantage while you can!
This system INCLUDES my latest unsecured credit resources PLUS an opportunity for an Investor Partnership!
A long while back I told you about this thing I got off eBay: The Vincent James' $77 Million Manual...and how it helped me create a multi-million dollar health supplement company from scratch.
For the manual itself, it was riddled with endless amounts of mistakes, English misspellings, grammatical errors, and was very difficult to read because he wrote it within days of being hauled off to prison to do a sentence concerning the mishaps with his company. (Yes, he ended up going to jail for lying in his advertising about "clinical trials" that he never did while putting people on credit card auto-pay, making it next to impossible for them to get off of auto-billing.) But, I believe you can LEARN from other people's mistakes just as well as their successes. What was awesome about this book (if you can still find it anywhere) is that it gives you his EXACT blueprint to create a multi-million-dollar direct mail marketing empire INCLUDING what NOT to do to get into legal trouble like he did. (He does talk at great length about what NOT to do which is critical for EVERY business to know!)
What I didn't quite get (especially with some of my students) is that they complain if one little thing is "off" or "wrong" with a book or manual, particularly with a misspelling or grammatical errors. My point was that, to me, it didn't matter how many errors there are in a text provided that it's giving me a MAP to become SUPER SUCCESSFUL in whatever I'm reading about.
As the $77 Million Manual did for me.
I DID follow Vincent's advice (with some tweaks and minor changes) and started a company called Brie Labs and then California Glow based on his precise business model. And within mere months BOTH COMPANIES turned into a CASH COW, bringing in millions of dollars based on his basic business structure as he outlined in his manual. All because I didn't care about the misspellings and slapped together text of the book.
And to think...if I would have discounted his manual because of the misspelled words, grammatical issues, etc...how I would have been running around like the rest of the unsuccessful "perfectionists" who won't dare follow through with ANY book, course, manual or other text that has a single misspelled word or one single grammatical error because, after all, that IS the ONLY reason you're reading a book about business or investing, right? Because you're trying to play self-appointed editor-and-chief? (If you're one of these people, STOP getting in your own way!)
What's awesome about what I'm doing now is that I'm teaching my students how to follow MY EXACT blueprint business plan that I've been using for the past several years (since 2011 to be exact) that YOU can now use to build your OWN multi-million-dollar empire using my very unique marketing strategies to help you build a home-based multi-million-dollar business starting from next to nothing!
CLICK HERE to listen to a quick audio seminar and to see my mind-blowing testimonials!
