One of the questions I get asked is “what do you do for fun and relaxation?”  I started to type this boring post that sounded like I was Ms. April in playboy.  “I like puppies, long walks in the sand and……….”

Instead I thought it would be fun to show you what myself, the prince and some of our friends like to do.  This is the ultimate in relaxation.    Watch it in HD and stay to the end, I have an “ouch” surprise for you.

Leave a comment or subscribe to this feed – Thanks

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Is Carleton Sheets responsible for the housing bust?  The New York Times thinks so. On April 19, 2009 the New York Times wrote a piece on Carleton and for the life of me I’m trying to figure out the purpose of the article.
1.    He doesn’t run his infomercials
2.    His marketing in only out on the web
3.    He seems to have faded into the sunset

So what was the point?  If you read the article, it sounds like the housing blame lands square on him.  As I read the piece I could here the under tones of the towns people yelling “stone him” as they through tomatoes form afar.

Carleton didn’t tell the state of California to refinance their homes 125% of their value and then take that money and invest it in Pre-Construction condos in Las Vegas and New Construction Homes in NV, AZ and Utah.  Greed told California to go do that!  Not Sheets.

Carleton didn’t tell investors to buy houses with negative cash flow and “hope” for appreciation.  Greed did that!

David Hancock was quoted in the article “The truth is, some people take the information and use it and some people are simply lazy,” says Mr. Hancock, who has also appeared in Mr. Sheets’s infomercials. “It’s just like any diet or exercise book out there. They probably work, but how many people are willing to stick to them?”

I can give you the best techniques, the fastest solutions, brilliant advice but unless you go out and apply the information its worthless.  Were is the Accountability for ones own actions?  The New American Way Is To Blame Someone Else.

Please Tell Me Why Do We Quote John T Reed?
The genius in all of this is John T Reed.  He could be the smartest Real Estate Marketer ever.  He is smarter than every real estate guru, why?  He has learned how to use “Guru Reviews” (some of which are valid) to his advantage.  By writing about every “real estate guru” he has every keyword necessary to rank very high in all the search engines.  Its brilliant!  Did he tell the NY Times he has his own investing courses available for purchase on his website? Think about the traffic he got from a New York Times Article. Tons of website traffic = sales!!!!!

Is his stuff good?  I have no clue.  I haven’t seen any of his stuff so I can’t offer a review.

Why Do I Care?
I was his number one coach and he’s my friend.  I was with him for 10 years.  I have taught thousands of students how to invest in real estate.  I left Carleton in 2005 because I didn’t like how cost cutting depleted the talent pool and I wanted to control the quality of my own training.  In the 10 years I was with him, we changed the lives of those who went out and actually did the work.  Leave the man alone.   What do you think, did Carleton Sheets cause the housing collapse?  Leave me a comment or subscribe to this feed.

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One of my comedy writers didn’t believe me that I used his “wog” joke during one of my seminars.  I did and here is the evidence.  Scott when the jokes are this funny you gotta use them.

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Unless you’ve been held hostage by Somalia Pirates, you’ve heard that Ashton Kutcher raced CNN to be the 1st with a million followers.  I’m curious how many people got a follow back ☺ )  He’s a big shot movies star and CNN is powerful news giant. It should have been easy for both to accomplish this feat.

Set The Stage
I’m a nobody on the web but a legend in my own mind. I can’t get people to read my stuff; my blog title pretty much says it all and I want to use Twitter in an experiment.

My 5-Day Twitter Experiment
I want to see if Twitter and my followers can help me come up with the greatest list give away item since Al gore invented the Internet back in the 80’s.  At the time of this post I have 640 twitter followers and I’m following 638 people. For simplicity lets call my following / followers “my people”. 90% of my “my people” are Internet Marketers and Real Estate people.  These are the best and the brightest in their fields and I, through the power of Twitter want to see if at least 25 of my people can suggest a list give way item in the comments.

The Hard Part
The “Real Estate Business” has gotten hammered in the media, even though now is the best time to buy, invest or upgrade; real estate is like the bastard at the family reunion.  No one wants to acknowledge it.  I’ve tried a lot of things to build my list including giving away a house but most had poorer than average results. This is why I’m even doing this Twitter experiment, I’m stumped and I’m asking “My People” for help.

What’s In It For You?
You will be blogged about!  You will get your name, links and info splattered on my blog that no one reads.  But, someday soon, tons of people will be reading this and you might be the person who made that possible and you will get to tell the story of how you took a nobody and made them a web somebody.  You’ll get to link back to your work forever, children will sing songs about you. Woman will want to be with you.  Men will want to be like you and vice versa.

Come one Twitter lets see if you actually work.  Feel free to pass this along if you think some of “your people” should take up my 5 day Twitter challenge.  Watch for tomorrows update.

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20 years ago when I started my Real Estate Investing career, I did it because I wanted the “perceived” end result.  What I saw was Freedom, Money, Recognition and I’ll admit it, I saw a lot of pretty girls at the end of the rainbow.

Every entrepreneur has asked or will asked this question.  How do I get from where I’m at – to where I want?  The answer is simple.  It’s so simple, I’m going to ask you a question back.

Who are you spending your time with?

Look at the people in your life.  Look at the people in your life and ask yourself honestly what they do for me “emotionally”?  Are they on your emotional team or do they suck the life out of you?

I have a group of friends who are very successful, honest, decent, giving and there fun to be with and being with them makes me want to be a better person.  I’ll never tell them that because I’ll never live it down but it’s true.  Your life right now is the direct result of the people you spend your time with.

At the end of the day, look at everyone in your life and ask yourself, “Do They Help Me? Or Do The Hurt Me?  Today might be the best day to make some decisions.   What if your spouse it not on your emotional team, then what?

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Kind of……..
I read somewhere that housing affordability is the best it’s been in over 30 years.  People who couldn’t buy a home in California, South Florida, New York and other expensive city now can.  But, no one is buying.   Why?

Fear, media, global economical collapse, animals escaping zoo’s, venomous ducks, etc.

Now is the best time to upgrade into a large, newer, better home?  I’m telling you if you don’t do it now you might be kicking yourself in a few years.

Go out and find the home that you want – watch your numbers, don’t get crazy.  When this is all done I want your new home to be affordable.

Then sell your house using “owner financing” or lease option it.  The size of your buyers down payment will determine if you sell or lease option.  The larger the down payment, the more likely you will sell.  If your buyer has a smaller down payment then my advice would be to do a lease option.

There are a lot of different ways to work this deal – this is a sample possibility.

Your New Buyer
Look for someone who has bad credit, preferably bankrupt, why?  They have no debt and they can’t go bankrupt for many years in the future.

The Numbers – Sell The Old House For $200,00
Lets say that you owe $150,000 at 6% and your monthly payment is 899.00 principle and interest.  You sell your old home for $200,000.  You agree to a 10% down payment ($20,000) and you’ll finance the remaining $180,000 for your buyer at 8%.  This is called a wrap around mortgage or an all inclusive trust deed (AITD).

The Math
Your buyer owes you $180,000 at 8% interest with monthly payments of $1,320.80 principle and interest.  Each month your buyer pays you $1,320.80.  Because you left the old loan in place you would take $899.00 of the $1,320.80 and pay your old mortgage company.  That leaves you with $421.80 positive cash flow each month.   You are earning 8% on your $30,000 of equity (the other $20,000 you received in cash as the down payment) and you are earning 2% on the banks $150,000.  You are now doing a role reversal with the bank.  Instead of the bank taking your money and paying you 2% on a CD and loaning it out to me at 7% to buy a truck, you’re the one who is earning interest off of the bank’s money.

Protect Yourself
Make sure you qualify your buyer.  Look at their income, job and credit.  In California it take 111 days to foreclosure (each state is different so find out the time frame in your state) so I would council you to take $3,596.00 (4 months of payments) from the $20,000 you got at closing and set that aside so you can make the payments on the $150,000 loan if you had to foreclose on your buyer for nonpayment.

When it’s all said and done you get cash ($20,000) plus cash flow ($421.80).

If you wanted to add your cash flow of $421.80 to your new loan payment, you could have the new house paid down pretty quickly.

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Have you heard the saying “the money is in the list”!  I’ve been told if you want to build a huge list than you need to offer a give away, but what?

Below is a list of the things I have offered in building a list.

1.    Free Report
2.    Ebook
3.    CD
4.    DVD’s
5.    Contest – computers, iphones, ipods etc.
6.    A House – NO ONE BELIEVES THIS – so I included the video below.
7.    Videos
8.    Free Coaching
9.    Good Content

I’m a real estate guy and I still don’t know what the perfect give way is.  All of the above have had some results but nothing to write home about.  I thought giving away a FREE house would get people interested but of the 9 giveaways, it generated the least interest, who knew.

Here’s whats laughable, the guys and gals that seem to be having the best “results” building a list are the people who are offering FREE information on how to build a list with YouTube, Twitter or Your Own List.

Send me a comment – name your business and what giveaway is working for you.

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Some bold person asked me yesterday “what’s up with the name of your blog?”   I told them my blog name describes my road into the world of internet marketing.

So let me share my mistakes with you and maybe you can save yourself some headaches and possible a bunch of cash.  Its open forum so feel free to suggest a different path.

Things I bought
1.    A template website with a shopping cart, broadcaster, members area, blog etc.  It was a template site so SEO was out.
2.    I found out that the my website “broadcaster” wasn’t an autoresponder so I got GetResponse.  I like parts of it but I got turned off when I purchased their “we will help you build your list” system and their leads came from all over the world and my area of expertise is limited to USA.  I’m a real estate guy who buys and teaches within the walls of the United States.
3.    Need a SEO friendly website
4.    Hire a web designer (at the time I knew nothing about code)
5.    By now everyone I talked with is giddy about Aweber so I get Aweber and hated them.  Their email delivery was slow and some of their rules didn’t make sense to me (send me a comment and ask and I will tell you off the record)
6.    My website is almost done but my web designer tells me that I need a shopping cart.  1shopping seemed to be the one most recommended. I buy it and get rid of Aweber and Getresponse and move all my names to 1shopping.
7.    Its time to signup for all of my merchants accounts with authorize.net and my banks and now I’m in business.
8.    I was told that Adwords is the fastest way to traffic, so I set up an account, prepay a few thousand dollars and turn it on.  I freaked out a little when I discovered that I had to pay $5.00 – $7.00 a click for my keywords (mostly real estate related)
9.    I see an ad in the local paper from a marketing company who says that if you’re paying more that $1.00 a click your getting ripped off. I call them, we meet and the rep gives me a great line that he can change my Adwords account into gold. “I will have you making money the day I turn it on.”  Of course there was a few hundred-dollar setup fee and a few hundred dollars a month to monitor my account.  Big promises poor delivery, now I’m back to square one.
10.     My phone rings one morning from a “professional marketing company.”  Their angle is online and offline marketing with a guarantee.  The only problem is the few thousand dollars of up front costs but they have a guarantee.  The rep said, “we guarantee our work.”  After their delivery I’ll tell you go watch Tommy Boy “ If you’d like me to ………in a box and mark it guaranteed I can, I’ve got the time.”
11.    One day I’m reading my Iphone mail without a spam filter and I read the most interesting email that talked about getting traffic.  This person went on about organic traffic, link traffic, ad traffic that’s it I need a Guru who knows how to get traffic.  I bought his course “I LOVE IT”.  He warned me right out of the gate that getting traffic “takes time.”  His information is really good but it’s going to take time.   I have no patients as you can see so I look for a faster way.
12.    Through this one email and my lack of patients, I bought courses, ebooks, cd’s manuals, twitter guides, wordpress for dummies, SEO manuals, list building courses, affiliate courses and websites (stop laughing).
13.    My offline business requires customer management and communication so Infusionsoft was the best solution and for the record “I LOVE IT.”  It’s pricey but kicks ass on every other database management system.
14.    Don’t forget the “promote your website business services”, I have 4 of them.

It’s been about a year since I started this quest.  Have I made any money?  Ask me, if you’re brave enough to ask, I will tell you how much “online money” I’ve made.

Everyday my email fills up with product launch announcements and evidence of how you can make $1 billion dollars in one day “but you have to get in now because I only printed 500 units at $100,000 a piece.

The funny side to of all of this is that every day I’m reminded that I suck at generating website traffic.

As our good Friend Paul Harvey once said “and now you know (dramatic pause) the rest of the story.”

Got A Traffic Tip?  Send It!      Got A Question?  Send It!

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I was on the phone with my good friend Karl aka “My Coach Mentor” yesterday and he reminded me that Money is the greatest replacement for Prozac.  I happen to believe that laughter is the 2nd.

Yesterday all of the networks were pumped up about this Susan Boyle from the TV show Britain’s got talent.  The non-attractive single woman who has never been married and who has never been kissed.  The media networks failed to mention the clear winner of week 1.

Youtube did not allow embedding for this video but I promise you if you click on this you will discover that “laughter is the best medicine.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gHvATmUsSg

I have seen Michael Flatley and their mannerisms are spot on!

For the record I love the Donald!  I think he’s wacky, funny, and smart, has great hair and builds fantastic buildings.  But last night on Larry King he left anyone who invests in real estate scratching his or her heads including yours truly.

The interview with Larry King was all over the place.  It ranged from politics, to taxes, the economy and real estate.

Speaking about real estate -  (Thanks to our friends at CNN)

King: You said that this is a good time to buy real estate. What about financing? What if you want to buy and you can’t get the mortgage?

Trump: Larry, this is a great time to buy real estate.

And as far as financing is concerned, the only financing you should be thinking about is seller financing. If the seller won’t give you financing, don’t do it, because the banks are not doing their job. They’re not providing financing for deals.

Donny please, the best deals right now are coming from Foreclosed Homes owned by banks. Go ahead and name one bank that provides “seller financing,” they don’t. So if your advice is to stay away from these deals where should we invest and what strategy should we use?  Most traditional sellers are upside down and these types of deals don’t make sense.

If this is the strategy taught in your seminars and coaching programs no one is going to make any money.  Right now you can get smoking deals from banks, you can still get bank financing, use hard money, convert your old 401K to a self directed IRA’s to make these deals happen.  If you buy the property the way I teach you, you’ll be into the deal at a low investment to value, which will allow you to “Sell” the deal-using seller financing.  Now you can sell a portion of your receivable income to retire your old debt.  This strategy that I teach allows you to create cash and cash flow as a lender without the headaches of being a landlord.

Mr. Trump if you would like me to teach you and your staff at Trump University this strategy please feel free to contract me through the comments below.  Someone from my office will contact you.

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