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Employee Engagement – The Key Ingredient to Increased Profits


Being Transparent: The New Way of Business

Business Scammers Beware: Clear Business Directory and CEO Space Partnership Brings Transparency to Business

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Business scammers everywhere can count their days numbered. A new partnership aims to put a serious dent in the unopposed, smarmy practices of businesses that take advantage of entrepreneurs and business owners. The Clear Business DirectoryTM (CLEAR) and CEO Space International, Inc. (CEO Space) join forces to send a clear message that preying on business conferences is no longer a lucrative business strategy. The vetting practices of CLEAR, founded in government counterintelligence principles, and the long history of CEO Space in growing successful businesses combine to create the perfect team to send business scammers packing.

Over the years, business conferences have become fertile hunting ground for fraudulent business practices. The energized atmosphere and ambiance of camaraderie create a cesspool for those who’ve mastered slick sales techniques and get-rich-quick schemes. “We have a clear and long-standing culture of collaboration. Unfortunately, some people try to take advantage of that by promoting fraudulent businesses. That hurts our members and keeps them from growing their businesses. We needed a solution. We’re excited to position ourselves as leaders by featuring a fully vetted faculty,” recalls September Dohrmann, President and CEO of CEO Space.

The CLEAR founders know a thing or two about detecting deception. With over 20 years combined counterintelligence experience, Army veterans and former government agents, Justin and Tonya Dawn Recla, were shocked when they found similarities between the espionage world and business: “Shortly after we joined CEO Space, the other members asked us to vet potential investors and service providers. Because of our backgrounds in the spy world, it was easy for us to ask the right questions and verify the answers. We taught this kind of thing at the Counterintelligence Special Agent Course. The idea of the directory just naturally came from business owners wanting a reliable source for gauging business legitimacy,” explains Justin Recla, COO and co-founder of CLEAR.

The importance of this partnership becomes even more apparent when the cost of frauds and scams for business owners is assessed:

  • The average scam costs a business owner $5k to $20k
  • The biggest hidden risk to your business is from people you think you know
  • Businesses that operate transparently are 80% more likely to avoid a fraud or scam
  • The ROI of a bad hire is -298%
  • Businesses that vet are 90% more likely to avoid a fraud or scam

“With the advent of the internet and social media, anyone can be a self-proclaimed expert. Businesses need a way to sort the legit service providers from fraudulent ones,” claims Tonya Dawn Recla, CEO and co-founder of CLEAR. “The market needed an affordable and reliable vetting process in the B2B space. We provide that.”

The Clear Business DirectoryTM is the first fully vetted business directory that screens members for frauds and scams and the only provider that offers affordable B2B vetting and employment screening. ClearBusinessDirectory.com

CEO Space International, Inc. is a business acceleration community, that works in cooperation to help members speed up the growth of their businesses. CEOSpaceInternational.com

The post Business Scammers Beware: Clear Business Directory and CEO Space Partnership Brings Transparency to Business appeared first on Clear Business Directory.

Minimum Wage Increase: The Hidden Risk to Your Business

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Minimum wage increased. What are the hidden risk to your business now that the minimum wage increase is taking affect in multiple states? Listen in as we discuss the hidden risk to your business and how you can mitigate your risk by hiring right the first time.

Show Notes

Welcome to the In The Clear Podcast I’m your host Justin Recla along with my amazingly talented wife Tonya Dawn Recla.

Hello. Hello.

Welcome to the show everybody today we are going to be talking about things that are in the news, especially here in Arizona. I know a lot of states with the given elections for talking about the minimum wage increases that we’re seeing across the nation and the hidden risk to your business. It’s been a big topic lately I know for a lot of small business owners that we’re going to start feeling the crunch on their numbers of the cost of hiring employees just went up.

What Really Happens When You Hire the Wrong Candidate

There are a lot of small business owners that are very concerned especially like you mentioned here in Arizona because that’s a new thing for them and we’ve heard the horror stories of what have happened to businesses in all articles around McDonald’s putting kiosks in and stuff like that. You know me like I’m kind of middle of the road type a gal. So, while I love to listen to the conspiracy theories and kind of the people who want to bury their heads in the sand I think the sweet spot is right between those two. Like what does it mean and what are the specific implications for your business? So, you know one of the things we do with our consulting client is risk mitigation. This is very personal and it’s very specific to business and it’s an it needs to be customized in that fashion. So first and foremost everybody, stop freaking out, just because something might be bad for somebody else’s business it may be a really great thing for your business. But you just need to educate yourselves.

Prop 206: Arizona voters approve $12 minimum wage

Exactly, and part of that is coming down to hiring right the first time and looking at your employee acquisition cost, what does it cost you to train an employee, and what does it cost you if you lose an employee? Ultimately, just make sure you’re hiring right in the first place and having a process because at the end of the day if you hire right it doesn’t matter if the minimum wage is $12 an hour or $15 an hour you’re going to adjust your services accordingly. However, you can save yourself so much time and money by hiring right the first time.

Well, that’s why I’m so excited about the fact that we do employment screening not because, we do employment screening, because as you know that was really back and forth lengthy conversation for us to choose to go into that arena because we’re not real big fans of a lot of the labor laws. You know they probably served us very well when we were employees but as small business owners they don’t service as well. So, we did kind of stayed away from that arena. But I like the fact that you said making sure you have a due diligence process because whether it’s a B2B transaction for your business or whether it’s an employee hiring situation you want to make sure you have a process. So, yes we offer screening but that’s not enough. Folks, you have to make sure that you know exactly what Justin was just talking about. What does it cost you to retain an employee or to not retain employee and what is hiring wrong in the very beginning cost your company in on the flip side of that coin? What is hiring right and having a really valuable employee in the right place benefit your company.

Arizona Proposition 206

Exactly. You know what of the things that a lot of small business owners have to take into consideration is that it’s not just the cost of hiring that person and the hourly wages that you’re going to be paying them in there but all the time that you’re paying somebody else to train that person and all the time that you’re paying that person while they’re learning and learning in the job and making decisions of whether or not they are a good fit and one of the hidden risk to that is you can absolutely have someone pass a background check. But if they’re not a good fit for your culture, your business culture that’s a big deal.

Absolutely, and one of the cost that you didn’t mention was the opportunity cost. That’s something that most small business owners overlook because they don’t stop to think what if it doesn’t work. So not only could it go bad and you’ve got costs associated with that, but it also means that you’ve lost all of that time. I’ve often said that losing momentum is one of the worst enemies to a small business. We always think about the time and money factor but momentum is a big part of that and if your business has a lot of ups and downs, and ups and downs, and ups and downs, and then more downs than ups it takes a toll.

Well, and it can add up really quick because next thing you know you’ve lost momentum and now you’re having to scramble to get back to a place of just being good again. Whereas, if you had a process in place that prevented you from losing momentum especially when hiring people that’ll save you a ton of time and headache.

Absolutely. So what can we talk to people about, what can we give them right here now that help? because I mean I think we’ve kind of addressed the issue and so again don’t freak out. There are ways to mitigate risk. You know maybe you do have to go and completely up your employee process if you’ve got a large number of employees and that’s going to take a toll on your bottom line. Again, don’t freak out. There may be ways that you can outsource thing. There may be things that you can do in B2B transactions. There are always unique ways. You know if you want to sit down and have a talk with us about what that looks like or give us a call you know what we’re happy to discuss some creative ways to go about that. But let’s say that you are an employee dependent business what can they do?

Well first off, one of the biggest things that I’ve seen especially since this minimum wage change has come out is a lot of small business owners don’t have a hiring process. They have an application someone comes and fills it out and maybe you sit down across the table from them and then the person’s hired or they’re not. That’s essentially their process. So, what I would encourage small business owners to do is to actually put a process in place, one that includes having them fill out an application, going through an interview process, but then actually going forth and actually paying the money for an employment screening. That small amount of money that you’ll spend on an employment screening is going to save you a lot of heartache in the long run.

Well make sure that that employment screening is customized to your business. So, one of the things we looked at when we made the decision to get into that arena. We did it with that in mind because you know one small businesses employment screening isn’t good enough or another one. It really depends on what they’re going to do. I mean would you want an employee to be screened the same way if they’re stocking shelves in a warehouse versus teaching a room full of kids. No, you don’t. There are certain parameters that you want to take a look at and if you don’t know what those are you know ask somebody, get some assistance with that. Don’t just toss in the person’s name into an online you know clearance type of background company. If you don’t know what their processes or what databases they’re using or what it actually checks you are putting your business at risk. So, I agree with Justin that a due diligence process the employee hiring process is crucial and it can be modeled after our B2B due diligence process which is the three steps. Think about what you need to know about an employee. Learn how to ask questions like Justin talked about the application process. We love the filtering system where it’s simple can you follow instructions like what are some of the things you need your employees to be able to do they need to be technologically savvy.

If they do then have an application process that is heavy on the tech side of things so you can kind of gauge can they go to this link, can they fill out this paperwork, maybe they need to upload something you know whatever you can do on your end to filter the people that you really do take all the way to that screening process.

This is another key piece of the screening processes when you’re having someone fill out an application or maybe you’re taking a resume for somebody. There’s a stat out there you can find in a website that talks about how like 60 percent of people that fill out a job application, this is my big word for the week, Are you ready for it? Bloviate their job experience.

Oh gosh, well of course they do. And I mean we train people to do that right. again that’s why I prefer to work business to business. Not that businesses don’t bloviate as well we’ve learned that. But the onus is on you as a small business to have a process to mitigate some of that. You’re not going to catch everything but that’s OK too. But at least for your own peace of mind make sure that you are making informed decisions that requires you knowing what information you need and then gathering that information.

Exactly and one of the great things that you talked about with one of our Clear Business Directory members Rachel Lutowsky of Dynamic Leadership Solutions we talked about culture. So, maybe in integrating this part of your process of having the other employees that are currently working there. Getting their feedback on what they’re feeling. Do they like the person and do they communicate well with them; do they get along or are they going to be able to work together because that plays a big part of whether or not that somebody they’re going to want to hire.

Employee Engagement: The Key Ingredient to Increased Profits

That’s actually addressed in that Tribal Leadership book. They talk about one of the companies they featured in that book as a case study used, they had 10 people took the person out to lunch you know and the thinking on that was really valuable in the sense that you know you may be able to fool one or two people but you’re not going to fool 10 people, I mean maybe, we’ve seen psychopaths do it but regardless it betters your chances.

Exactly, so this is just some things that you can do to mitigate some of the hidden risks you know from hiring wrong because at the end of the day even like I said even with the minimum wage going to $12 even if it goes up to $20 an hour you can mitigate the risks by having a process in place by putting in having you know having people fill out an application doing an interview. But more importantly doing the unemployment screening on the back end before you hire to make sure that they are a good fit because you don’t know what you don’t know until you actually check it out.

Yeah, and again before you freak out thinking that your business is going to go under because you’ve run the numbers and you just cannot afford to pay the number employees that you have or the number employees that you need that amount of money really. Let someone else get some eyes on your business plan and your processes and your systems there are always ways to trim things down or to get more expeditious or lots and lots of very creative strategies are out there we’ve seen a lot of folks doing some unique stuff with businesses so don’t freak out just yet. There are things that you can do to mitigate some of the risks that we’ve talked about.

Exactly. So, if you’d like more information on our employment screening services you can go to clearbusinessdirectory.com/employment. We’ve got lots of valuable free resources on the site for you to take a look at a sample guideline sample policies and stuff that you can get and download to implement in your business today as well. Also, for the record we offer extremely affordable employment screening solutions with no monthly fees or dues pay as you go. So if you’re interested check us out at clearbusinessdirectory.com and until next time make sure your business is In the Clear.

The post Minimum Wage Increase: The Hidden Risk to Your Business appeared first on Clear Business Directory.

Investing in Transparency with Lior Gantz

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The investing and finance arenas are wrought with frauds and scams. Those who operate legitimately struggle to compete with smarmy business practices and snake oil sales techniques. Listen in as Lior Gantz talks about his experience openly educating and transparently operating in an arena known for its bad reputation.

Show Notes

Hello everyone this is Tonya Dawn Recla your host for the In The Clear podcast today and I’m really excited to have with me Lior Grantz the president of Wealth Research Group. He deals with real estate investing and he’s been called the thrill seeking entrepreneur. What I’ve really enjoyed over just moments that we’ve had to get to know each other is his really refreshing approach to the finance industry. He seems to merge those concepts of the financial world with the trust and transparency piece that we’re so big on here at The Clear Business Directory. Then also he’s got this really cool self-actualization piece in there he’s discovered along the way what so many of us discovered that there’s a direct relationship between personal growth and the business growth. And so I’m really excited for him to share his knowledge and experience with you all today from that perspective and so please join me in welcoming Lior the show. Welcome Lior!

Hey, I’m excited to be here. Thank you.

Oh absolutely. Well, first of all. We talked a little bit before the show you’re in Israel, is that correct?

Yeah. Currently in Israel.

Awesome. Very cool. Well we’re really grateful that you took a little bit of time out of your schedule to share with us. One of the first questions I wanted to ask was just to get some clarity on when you talk about your industry and your work if you could give us a little bit of background on Wealth Research Group.

Sure. Wealth Research Group was founded earlier in the year after about a decade of managing money for high end clients. We’ve partnered up with three money managers and we launched a Health Research Group. The idea behind it is very simple. We wanted to provide a rich plethora of information for savers and investors. People from ages 20 to active retirees that need a to strengthen their financial fortress daily just with everything from when it comes to just the one on one investing and then more advanced investing and our timing for launching the business in 2016 was because we saw a very rare window of opportunity in the natural resource sector particularly in the precious metals sector which tends to be very explosive.

But you really got to know what you’re doing because there’s only one company out of 3000 actively publicly traded companies ever become truly profitable. You have to really know the top jockeys. So, that’s what we’ve been able to do, we created a membership that wants information that is big picture about the global economy and what to do when interest rates are so severely low. You know this time obviously saver’s cannot save money at today’s rates and they need alternative information. Then on the flip side this environment is perfect for precious metals.

So he suggests a very select few companies for our members. Every year that the idea behind it is if you partner up with the right people in the right project you can really make great investment decisions. You know four of our stocks have gone off more than 400 percent this year. Three of them have more than doubled. We’ve had great success and it’s because we’ve already research about 758 management teams this year and only selected like eight companies. So it’s all about that relationship and that transparency that you’ve talked about, building the relationship with management teams, and spending time with them to understand their goals and who they truly are at the core; helps you make great investment suggestions to your members would with resources. Tonya, more than anything else.

This is a business about people you know you can have a five – year old run Coca-Cola at this point, right, the product speaks for itself. As for companies that want to build a mine or do you know drill explored do anything that’s very very hard to do and it’s based on professionalism. You really got to pick the few out of the pack. So, that’s what wealth research group does as well as we also have a lot of information as personal finance geared. So, you know it’s very important to understand that if you don’t wake up in the morning with the right attitude nothing else matters, right. So, we provide content that is geared towards inspiring you every day.

I would say that’s so crucial right now. and I really like one of the things that you said about knowing kind of who’s at the top of their game. One of the biggest challenge we see it seems like, and maybe this is just me being naïve, but it seems that business owners have so much to deal with and it’s really overwhelming. So, you know in the B2B side of the house when you’re dealing with people seeking advisement in the finance world the biggest challenge our clients have is how do you know who’s at the top of the game. You can’t possibly be the expert in every single industry and unless you who’s in that industry it’s really difficult to tell. What advice can you offer to people regarding how to discern who’s really doing what they claim to be doing in that industry.

Sure. Here’s what I’ll tell you right off the bat. 94% of money managers do not beat the index that you can easily buy with no fees and with no issues. The S&P 500 has been the world’s greatest wealth creating vehicle for the past I don’t know how many decades. So, it’s really important to understand this. One of the best thing you can do and I don’t know if you know Tony Robbins that he wrote this wonderful book called Money Masters Seven Rules pretty recently and in that book they go through a study where 94% of money managers, you know just understand this, people who charge on a lot of money to manage your money, do not create any value for you. So, in the financial industry it’s import and it’s really crucial to understand who manages your money is probably going to fail at it just doing the most boring thing and that’s just finding the US index. So, with that said wealth management, which is not a money manager it’s a financial newsletter. Our role is to make sure that you are emotionally wired to make decisions and then we focus on specialty industries that are not participating in the broader indexes the SRP 500 or the NasTech or these large broad indexes they do not have exposure to explosive markets like gold, silver, zinc, uranium you know natural resource as a whole. They do not have exposure to Nanotech, Biotech all these smaller cap companies that if you really know the people you can partner up early with great management teams and that takes an excessive and relentless amount of research and building relationships for that to happen. With that said just realize this is the most important thing in managing your own money is to be emotionally ready. And I believe that’s the most important thing wealth research does by providing information in a very regular fashion. Our members are always active at the right emotional environment to make good decisions you really don’t want to make decisions right off of extreme greed or extreme fear. You want to be calm and collected. And that’s kind of what we do for our members.

I really love so much about what you’re saying. We see a lot of times the folks in the finance industry, it’s got this like it’s almost like this understood, promoted sense of urgency you know and scarcity mindset to it. And the idea of preparing people first emotionally and getting them in a solid decision making place is really unique to that industry where did all this come from for you all?

Well first I started investing at the age of 16 and I’m 32 now so half of my life I’ve been investing every day. So for me the emotional side, the discipline side had to come in at some point and the thing about me is that I’m a very avid reader, I read so much and the books that I choose are in alignment with that. That’s something important, Tonya, to understand, if you do not have the proper knowledge the best thing to do to leapfrog all that learning curve in any industry is to pick up the right books and to talk to the right people.

And what we’ve done in finance and this is really easy to do is to tap into the best minds in finance because they write books and so very early on I read probably the best books about investing ever written. So, I did the next step and that was to emulate that and to get into that mindset and that mindset is all about being calm and collective and all about being long term. So, that scarcity mentality for me it’s fell away a long time ago and I focus on and on just making sure that I am early enough so that the potential is still there but there’s nothing so urgent that you got to do it right this second. Everything can wait, there’s opportunities all the time.

And really what you got to do is be prepared yourself for that opportunity because you know if one of goes away without you taking part in it don’t worry about it. There’s so many more opportunities coming your way. All you’ve got to do is be really prepared and just educate yourself daily. That’s the most important thing. You know for me you know two of my personal mentors and I don’t know if I can say personal mentors because I’ve never met them personally but mentors meaning that I emulate so much of what they write. One is Warren Buffet which is arguably the best investor of all time. And Peter Lynch who’s the best fund manager of all time. Their theories and practices have helped to inspire me and move the information that I receive into our membership.

That’s so cool. I mean I’m just kind of sitting here in “Aw” with the concepts that you’ve married together. I love the “Get there early enough” theory. You have this really calm cool demeanor to you that is so necessary within that industry. One of our biases here is clear business directories that we feel like the popularization of social media and the Internet has really led to an increase in frauds and scams and questionable business practices. Has that been your experience?

I’ll tell you what. I make sure to research and by the way I should say, the membership the Wealth Research Group is free so anybody can go to wealthreasearchgroup.com just sign up and just you know take a test drive and see what information we provide. Also, go to “Special Reports” tab on the top menu and download some of the more advanced information that we provide. I think that’ll be a great first step just to understand exactly what Wealth Research Group is all about.

But with regards to your question, the way I personally act is I spend so much time researching who I should listen to that I don’t get to read so much and see so much of that fraudulent aspect of the business. I think people shouldn’t be copying what I told you. So basically you want to look for the top five or six people in the industry and forget about the rest. What do you care? For fun, yeah go ahead and read some more information. But I got to tell you this my experience has taught me that there there’s like 10 opinion shapers in every industry and the rest just copy and recycle whatever they say. It’s true because it’s so easy to avoid copyrighting these days you have like 10 original thinkers in any industry and the rest just feed off of them. Which is fine you know everyone’s got to make a living right. But if you really want the best quality for your life stick to those high end people and if they charge then pay up. I mean I pay up for a lot of services that I use and I don’t mind because you know you can really see it’s all about obviously it’s all about return investment, right. So, there are some great free information out there but there is also people who charge and obviously that’s important to mix it up.

I really appreciate so much of what you say and its applicable folks to those of you listening to every industry. While it’s really refreshing to hear this stuff about the finance industry we see some of the same issues in the I.T. industry, the SEO’s, website development, App development, anything that has a seemingly technical or potentially difficult to comprehend piece to it. That’s where we see business owners and end users getting the most trouble because it feels overwhelming it feels intimidating and really listen to or sharing is that it’s not that difficult to kind of feel into who’s at the top of their game you just need to take the time to do that and that’s where that relinquishing that scarcity mindset really comes into play.

Yes, and, Tonya, I would add to that as a business owner if I am if I’m contracting to do something with anybody the most important thing is I want to know two things from them. Their honesty level so I ask some very qualified questions regarding and then their ambition level. I only work with people that do not need to be told what to do. And so that’s a very important question to ask and it’s a truly critical aspect of your life if you really want simplicity and outsourcing in your life.

You really have to hire the people that will do stuff even without you telling them just because that’s what’s needed to be done. They just have that high level of personal initiative and that way you’re freed up to do what you need to do with it for the business. Because I see so many business owners are chasing their tails and making sure double, triple, quadruple checking what their people are doing. I say you know take that time and just find a better person because that’s a poor waste of time and energy. You really got to have this wealth team around you.

I agree with that.

Yeah. And then your life becomes so much more simple. Otherwise, you’re always going to be micromanaging and you really don’t want to do that.

Do you find that at your business success grew that it was harder to find partners and collaborators and service providers the more successful you got?

I would say got it got easier because you can pay more. But so starting a business is extremely difficult. And then growing it is much easier. That’s why I feel so many people are reluctant to start businesses or have issues starting businesses. And for me the most important part of the equation of starting a business. So, I’ve started the five businesses and I am 32 years old and I sold three of them already and two of them are actively running and I am working on the third one opening next month. And I can tell you this the most important thing in business is a partner. So I know, Tonya, you work with your husband and that’s as perfect. But I would say to anyone listening who has had doubts regarding opening a business the best thing you can do is find a partner even if it takes months to find somebody with your ambition level you know, that his strengths compensate for your weaknesses, and you have the same mindset regarding how to build long term relationships, and is just a good person overall even if that takes a long time. It doesn’t matter because that time is well spent. You think to yourself singers are the most solo acts out there right. They only achieve what they achieve because of their own selves. Even singers have voice trainers. You have to have this inner click does this wealth around you know tennis players is solo game right. But look at the audience all the time and he’s got this crew there’s entourage over there. These are the people that help him get up in the morning in the right spirit. Even Da Vinci had people around him to I mean anything and everything just it’s not a solo thing and so many people just try to do it all themselves. You know it’s truly it’s hard it’s really hard. You know if you come away only with one thing from this interview it should be partner up.

I am just sitting here with the biggest grin on my face because of everything you just said. With the Clear Business Directory, it was a complete collaborative model because of everything we saw and what I predicted moving forward. We have to figure out how to work together. So the challenge is that it takes a certain amount of self-actualization and development in personal growth to be ready to work with others. Not only that but what comes out of you and what growth develops when you start working with others. So, we are very cautious to that subject matter experts and the people who have experience in the industry. Also, those who’ve done that work on themselves and have climbed their own mountains to get to that place of self-actualization because it is challenging to work with people who aren’t willing to look at themselves and when people meet in that space that’s where the real magic happens.

I agree with everything you say be in order to be in business. You need to have a develop personality just because business is about relationships it doesn’t matter which business. So you know bottom line getting into business is a huge step if you’re not wired for it personality wise. You’ll find just by doing business you’ll find how you need to work on yourself. You know other people will reflect your weaknesses and you can work on that. So that’s why it’s very important to get into business regardless. You know I’m and I’m sort of ready, fire, aim type of person. So, look I’m all for business and all I’m saying is a partner is what can help you reflect on what’s going on with you when you need to know why you’re not getting some of the results that you’re looking for. And another good idea is to become a stowaway for another person. So, find a great individual that is having great success work under them personally for a while so you can learn what works for them. Then you know kickoff on your own. Maybe if that person is smart then they’ll take a portion of your new venture in and you can partner up. That happens so frequently in small business but in the large business in corporate they try to block these kind of people. They sign him on three year deals where even if they quit they can’t open a competitive company. But you know you know small timers you know people that have 20 to 40 employees and you know I’m not talking corporations here. They do not do that. They do not deter it. And they even become very happy for people want to leave the company to start a new company. And they basically encourage it from day one. That’s what I think is really great about that.

I love it. It’s like the old kind of apprentice model. I think it’s brilliant. And that’s one of the reasons why we stick with entrepreneurship and some of the smaller size businesses because there’s so much more agile, flexible, and creative, and innovative that it’s exciting to me. We were at a big tech conference here recently and there’s a vendor that was going on and on about some big I.T. solution and all this stuff and I was listening to him and it reminded me of my I.T. corporate days and I just I finally looked at him and said “You know what, when our company is ready for that solution I better have sold it” you know I just have no interest in all of that. It felt really good to be an awareness that there’s something really magical about the innovative space and the creativity that’s involved and really building each other up and doing the outsourcing. That’s why we like collaboration in outsourcing and JB’s. It feels really good to provide that opportunity to help each other grow and to kind of lean on each other. Again, I go back to that exponential growth piece like when you learned to create win win win situation all around. It’s a lot of fun. I think it’s very energizing. And I love the challenge of putting all those puzzle pieces together. So I really resonate with everything that you’re saying.

Lastly the last question I really want to ask you is what advice do you have for folks in the finance industry who do want to stand out from their competition and want to let their customer base and their potential clients know that they are on the up and up and they’re willing to operate transparently. Do you have advice for that?

Well. I think the most important thing in any business is to find your target audience. So, do not try to be everything to everybody because you’ll end up be nothing to nobody. So, just focus on a group of people that really need your help or that you really are looking for specific information and cater to that and you’ll find all the opportunity you need within that niche. Just try it well not even try. Just do the thing that’s necessary to become an expert in one little area and dominate that area. You don’t need to expand. You don’t need to reach out just stay within that niche and grow it become a brand in a very particular form of the of the industry. I think that’s where you’ll find your best opportunities.

You really don’t need more than that. Just to give you an example for instance. Right. So, if you become a money manager for people who have $250 to $500,000 now you know you say right off the bat I only a quarter million dollars to have a million dollars. People are looking for a 7 percent yield stocks that deal in pipeline operators in the U.S.. That’s it. That’s the entire model. Now anybody who comes in and wants to work with you, you know that they have the money and they’re looking for that exact thing. If you just say hey I’m a I am a financial planner and I can help you.

Well, that doesn’t mean anything but if you tell somebody hey if you’ve got a quarter million dollars to a half million dollars and you’re looking for a 7 percent yield on your investment because we’re going to invest in the safest pipeline operators in the U.S. and I’m going to spread your money between X amount of pipeline operators if that’s interesting to you then come work with us. How many companies are there like this? Well, there’s absolutely zilch because I just came up with it just for example purposes but you can see the power of it.
If somebody approaches you is a very qualified lead because you know that he knows that you better not be calling you if he doesn’t have the following interests and terms in place and you can become known as the 7 percent yield company. So you know just stick to your niche. For a Wealth Research Group. What we do is we cater to people who are looking for that balance core portfolio with companies that are what we call wealth stocks. These are your cash your cash gushers, Tonya, that have gone up in profit even during the financial period of 2008. So, if you’re looking for that core base those companies that are just excellent any day. They can be run by morons and they’ll still flourish because their businesses models are so good and that’s one part of our equation, that’s for the people who are looking for what we call compounding. Compounding is making money in the stock market on a thirty – four-year period. So, in the long term and its use is compounded interest which Einstein called the Eighth Wonder of the World. But then you also need current income right. You know you get zero for your for your savings these days. So we have a very very closed niche of companies that we recommend that are yielding 8 percent or more. So, that’s a very unique world and you have to do a lot of research to find those. And then you know the cherry on the top of the cake is the Natural Resource Base which has been called the most potentially explosive profitable wise of all industries and they go through these wild cycles and if you catch them on time the profits are simply insane. I can I can tell you just out of personal experience that I put some funds in one company earlier in the year and it went up from February until June by 900 percent. Now obviously those kind of companies want to limit your funds and your risk in all the things we talk about with Wolf Blitzer. But just to give you an idea and that’s important for people to have this core that’s going to compound current income with high yield. And then I would call it Smart speculation in these more explosive industries and that combo of that trio of safety income and explosiveness is what Wealth Research Group is all about, with regards to how we approach investing.

I love that it’s so it’s so refreshing to hear you talk about all this I know our listeners are going to want to know more about you. Where would you like for us to send them.

The best way to kind of you know think is to test drive is go to wealthresearchgroup.com. Then you know if you if you want to sign up for free it’s right there. There’s a there’s an e-mail then sign up. If you want to read some of our research and I think that’s very important as sort of a due diligence period right. You go to the “Special Reports” tab on the top menu and just download any of the special reports I think you’ll find it very fast, and you’ll find it very actionable and I think that’s what people are looking for education and then action steps. So that combo should resonate with people who are looking to strengthen their financial fortress.

Very cool. It’s been a delight getting to know you and hearing about your approach and I really I just appreciate knowing that you are out there doing some good things in the world. Thank you so much for sharing some time with us today.

Tonya, I really enjoyed it and thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Take care and everyone out there. Thanks for listening. Until next time make sure that your business is In the Clear. Bye, bye everyone!

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Peer Review Sites Put Your Business At Risk

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Peer review sites put your business at risk. Do you know how? Listen in as we discuss the pros and cons of peer review sites.

Show Notes

Welcome to the In The Clear podcast I’m your host Justin Recla, along with my crazy talented wife Tonya Dawn Recla. So this week we’re talking about peer reviews put your business at risk. What does that mean to you don’t you, Tonya?

Well, this is a very touchy subject and I get that. The challenge is that we can glean a lot of information off a peer review. But the problem for small business or even mid and large sized businesses is that who monitors that? And who has a say in any of that? And so everything from you know corporate espionage and conspiracy stuff. You know your competitors coming in and Bam Basting your business. Bam Basting? That’s it I did it again…

That’s this week’s big word, “Bam Basting” your site for your peer review things with negative information that may or may not be true. It is very difficult to get that stuff off of there if you’re not the one in control of the site. You know anything short of slander is kind of fair game anymore and so what do you do? You know if you irritate the wrong person.

You know if you refuse somebody a refund and you’re well within your rights as the company based on your policies and everything else and they choose to take it to social media or these peer review sites. So it can be a very touchy conversation.

Yeah, it’s one of those things that has become a necessary evil per se. I know a lot of business owners are choosing to opt out of certain peer review sites. Mainly because of the business tactics those sites use in only showing negative reviews first if you don’t pay their monthly fee or if you don’t subscribe to their programs. Those businesses that are actually on a peer review sites and that have ratings, I highly recommend that you monitor that those sites for reviews good, bad, or otherwise.

Because it’s going to give you some insight as to what’s really going on with your digital footprint and what people are saying about you. So, you can monitor things like Tonya just said competitors coming in and leave bad reviews and so forth. But at the same time while these public peer review sites put your business at risk. You can leverage them a little bit by if you find a negative review posting on that and responding to it. When you do that it speaks volumes to your own business transparency and how you’re choosing to show up.

And we could talk about on another show we’ll talk about you know how you can avoid peer review sites altogether. For the purposes of this show recognize that that peer review site you know peer reviews can be a risk to your business and there are ways to mitigate them.

Think Yelp is Unbiased? Think Again!!

Absolutely. That’s really was the inception point for what has become our fraud and scams screenings. A lot of companies have no idea what’s out there on them which can be hugely detrimental. So, not just is it a necessary evil but it’s a necessary cost. Like you’ve got to either monitor all that yourself which is your time or pay somebody to do it and do the responses.

Which depends on what type of business you’re operating and just how visible it is virtually. It’s a challenge for the small business owners because it’s not enough just to do your social media and your SEO and everything else. Everybody wants traction. Everybody wants views but understand that those views and the higher number of views you get and the more you’re out there in the Internet world then this is this is something you really have to address and so people are talking about your business you want to know what they’re talking about.

Exactly and this is one of the reasons why you know certain peer review sites work really well for certain businesses. You know things like restaurants for instance you know peer review sites work really well. I’ll use the example that Tonya likes to give all the time you know whenever we go out and we’re not sure where to go Tonya loves to hop on a yelp. It may not necessarily for the actual review of the food. he just wants to make sure nobody died eating there.

At least that’s been reported. Haha…

But you know for certain types of businesses peer review sites may be OK. For others it may not be may not be OK because you may have limited interaction with your client base. And so if you have you’ve got a client that’s got one bad experience with you and next thing you know you’ve got a bad ranking on whatever a peer review site it may be whether it be rip off reporter yelp it doesn’t matter. It’s now out there. So you have to be cognizant of those things or It just becomes another piece for you to juggle. Like I said I know a lot of businesses that are opting out of certain peer review sites and they’re monitoring their reputation through other means.

Absolutely and it just dawned on me we need a right to know we’ll do it. We’ll do a show here in the future on running comments and reviews and stuff on your own site because that brings with it a whole new set of risks it’s really valuable for traction purposes and everything else. And there are some risks associated with that as well.

So for now though let’s keep it to external sources that you know where people may or may not be talking about you. You know it’s always great to get those positive reviews but what do you do when you have a negative one. And so one of the things you can do one is know, you need to know, and you need to be doing your share. This is why, first, we absolutely recommend it and we require for the Clear Business Directory members that you re-vet yourself once a year. If you’re not good at it which you know a lot of people aren’t you know self-admittedly, then have somebody else do it for you so you know what’s being said out there. What others are finding when they are looking for you and do that you owe it to your business to stay on top of that.

The second thing is make sure that you have enough good offsetting the bad. You know and we don’t recommend doing smarmy, sleazy, tactics or you don’t want to go in and just try to push out a whole bunch of random like press releases or articles to offset negative review on there. Be smart about it because savvy business and savvy consumers are going to look to the companies who are handling themselves with decorum, who are going above and beyond to say “Hey, look I screwed up” or saying “You know this was the situation without pointing fingers without the blaming and name calling. But really owning your company’s reputation is a great place. It’s just a much more empowered way to look at it.

Well then just like one of our shows that we did recently was talking about you know being transparent. In owning things that come up so if somebody does have a bad customer experience addressing that. But you know these peer review sites that are out there that exist have different ways of making money with the way their business model is. And like I said earlier it’s it works really well for some businesses but if you’re if you’re in a B2B situation a Peer review doesn’t tell you much about either business.

So, it actually puts your business at risk in the sense that you don’t know what another business owner thinks. From a peer review you know what a client thinks but you don’t necessarily know what another business owner thinks. And so that’s where the Clear Business Directory comes into where you can make an educated decision on a business you’re getting involved with. You can take a look at their business history, their business experience, what they’ve done, and who they’ve done it with and so forth.

So, you can make an educated decision because just because a client has left a bad peer review on a peer review site that may just be indicative of just a bad experience but it may not be indicative of frauds and scams. But if you’re going to engage in business on any level outside of becoming a regular client like going to visit a restaurant. A peer review doesn’t say anything about fraud and scam screening on who you’re going to get engage with.

Well, let’s look at it on the flip side so let’s say you’re looking into a company that you want to do business with and you do see some negative stuff out there. That’s a really great source of information not for you to immediately judge the company but then go back and look and see did they respond. Do they even know that it’s out there? But if you’re in dialogue with them you know through that you know kind of courtship process of choosing whether or not you’re going to hire them. Ask them about it. Say you know I saw that you had some reviews on this can you kind of tell me what that’s about and gauge their response.

You know to us is as much as we can folks let’s handle some of these situations with decorum and maturity, let’s not crucify people because somebody left a bad review. Let’s instead be informed go back engage in conversation and give somebody the benefit of the doubt. Until they’ve dialogue with you and then maybe you know maybe they’ve demonstrated why somebody might have gotten upset with them, you know. But have a conversation and have the chutzpah have the have the courage to have a dialogue. Because you don’t any and if we can’t talk to the people that we’re looking at hiring and doing business with.

Trust me when I say that relationship is going to get ugly before you know before too long. So really challenge yourselves to be transparent in your communication and again not going into it from a judgmental standpoint but just asking “Hey what’s this about? Can you explain it to me?” You may be shocked at how people respond. And you know as we like to say you know we very rarely ask questions to get an answer we ask questions because we’re gauging response and that tells you so much more information about a company or a person than if you never asked the question at all.

Exactly, and so again peer review sites do put your business at risk. In the sense you don’t necessarily know what’s out there so you have to be monitoring them. If you’re ready to completely opt out of the peer review sites and just operate from a place of transparency take a look at Clear Business Directory at ClearBusinessDirectory.com where we can screen your business for frauds and scams so you can build expedited trust with your potential client base. Until next time make sure your business is In the Clear.

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Due Diligence Process for Mergers and Acquisitions

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Due diligence process for mergers and acquisitions is crucial.

Show Notes

Welcome to the In The Clear broadcast I’m your host Justin Recla along with my business partner and wife Tonya Dawn Recla.

Hello everyone!

So this week we’re talking about due diligence process for mergers and acquisitions.

Such a great topic. We will get into this all the time with folks who really think that they’re doing solid due diligence. Attorneys in particular for their clients and making sure that you know they’ve got all the business information and that the financials have been passed on to any CFOs or CPA is involved. Inevitably when I ask them “So who’s looking at the people involved in the business?” they get kind of sheepish you know like, one guy here lately even said to me “You know if I’m totally honest we do a very cursory look at that.” Well, of course you do. Everybody does because most people don’t think to do that. Then mergers and acquisitions those M&A folks listening, that is a very serious problem and you all know it’s kind of like the elephant in the room that nobody’s talking about. We all know that the biggest risk to the business are the people involved. You know because again the agreements, the numbers, or, whatever we’ve gotten pretty good at checking those out. Most people who you know are savvy about business read documents before they sign them. But the challenge is those documents don’t always contain the information you really need to know.

And then there’s a whole other area. I recently read an article that talked about how due diligence in M&A were really lacking on the information technology side of it as well. Yeah that’s important as well. Ultimately at the end of the day it comes back down to the people involved because like you said in a merger if you’re buying a business or you’re merging business you’re in you’re inheriting all the other problems that come from that personal interaction that the people have in the business. So whether it be piss poor customer service, ruined business relationships, missed opportunities, maybe they stepped on somebody else’s toes. You do a merger and you don’t understand those relationships and you don’t understand the people involved in the business. You’re now inheriting that big bucket of risk. 

Don’t Neglect Security in M&A Due Diligence

Right, and not only that but wouldn’t you want to know? That’s the thing that kind of baffles me and I think in all honesty what’s really going on in these arenas is it’s not that people don’t want to know but it’s that they don’t know how to go about getting the information. So, they kind of brush it aside. It’s like it’s just too overwhelming to think about trying to figure out how to really get a read on these people. Or they have talked to them, you know well you know throughout the M&A process like maybe it’s one of those where they have had discussions. So, you’re sitting there across from the person and you think you know but that’s not an unbiased read on that individual.

Yes, and your interaction with that person may be completely different than the way that person interacts with their clients, with their employees, and with you know everybody else that’s involved in the business. Of course, especially if you’re going into a merger and you’re get ready to buy that other person’s business or they’re wanting to sell their business because they’re just done with it. Of course, they’re going to be nicer to you in the process because you’re absorbing the cost you’re in their business. While it might be a great opportunity for you, you have to go into those relationships with eyes wide open you have to do your due diligence on the people involved in order to fully mitigate risk.

Yeah, and I really think, folks, gone are the days where the numbers just look really good. We just talk about this all the time we’ve developed technology world that you know, no one can hide secrets so let’s say there is something really colorful in that person’s past or in that company’s past and you don’t know about it and perhaps it goes 100 percent against your business or one of your businesses company cultures or what you stand for as an individual, that can destroy you and so reputation becomes an issue. Not only that but what all are you inheriting? There may be a budding court situation going on that you don’t know about. It’s like surprise you know and again you know there’s all kinds of wiggle room and blurry lines in that conversation but to me you know coming out of the Intel arena I’d much rather have more information than less.

Exactly.

And in using that information to make an educated decision. So not using it as a ace in the hole per se but using it to say “Hey Bob I see you have this issue here. What’s this about? How has it affected your business and how is it going to affect our merger?” We’ve had clients come to us in the middle of mergers to do due diligence on the principals involved. You know better late than never but at the point you know one client in particular came to us that the ink was already dry on the contract and they were doing due diligence after the fact because the minute the pen got put to the paper the relationship changed. Our client came to us and wanted to see what’s out there and what’s going on because they’re acting different and sure enough we did. We did our thing and they had literally inherited a nightmare of customer relationships because this client claimed to have had all these great clients while they had lost almost half of their client base in the last year prior to the merger because of the principle involved and the way he managed the company.

Unfortunately, that’s usually when things come about you know that’s the challenging part. So we like to arm our clients with as much information as possible so that they can make some smart decisions. And again this isn’t surreptitious folks we’re not going to go dig around people’s trash though we have done that. You know in all kinds of other things to get information this is just literally like, who are these people? You know develop a profile like you’d profile a business. For example, what’s the mission, what what’s the vision, what are the numbers, you know what’s their structure? You know you deserve to do the same for the people involved with them.

And again you still have to do the intuitive piece, the intuitive due diligence. You still have to like the people. If you’re if you’re merging with somebody go meet the employees, go meet the managers, meet the people that are going to be working for you, now, in that merger and acquisition because you’re going to have to get to know them, they’re now part of your business family and if something is off in the chain of command of that business it’s going to cause problems. It’s going to become an issue and unless you do that intuitive piece also in getting to know the people and their roles and the level of risk that they bring to the business. Not knowing is your ticket to a huge risk especially if you’re taking on a ton of change from purchasing the business.

 So, to quote GI Joe “Knowing is half the battle”

Haha, there is the military reference the week!  Yep, there it is. And the big word of the week is surreptitious… I can’t even say it’s too big… it’s surreptitious.

Go look it up! Haha

Here’s the thing folks, is that at the end of the day the numbers are always going to be the numbers. The agreement is always going to be the agreement. And those things are typically always well done and you can mitigate your risk from those because the numbers check out and the contracts written well.

Or there negotiated right and you’ve got a lawyer or a CP that can manage those. At the end of the day business dealings don’t go bad because the numbers don’t add up because if they didn’t add up you wouldn’t be looking at the business anyways. If the agreement was not written well to your favor or protected or was fairly balanced, you wouldn’t be doing it anyways. So, at the end of the day business dealings go bad because of the people involved. 

Absolutely. And any you know get to where you’re willing to have those discussions. It’s interesting to me that it’s totally acceptable to question people about numbers all day long. It’s not personal, right, the numbers aren’t personal. Well neither is it somebody’s reputation when it comes to their company. It’s not personal anymore or like there it has an impact.

Well and it’s a whole new level of doing business. It’s moving away from that big corporate culture mindset and moving it back into what business is really about and that’s people. Because at the end of the day without people no amount of money in the world matters. All that matters is the people involved and the impact the business is going to have and the changes that’s going to be made. And it brings it back down to Why did you get into business in the first place and you can’t do that unless you know who you’re getting involved with.

And make sure you have that due diligence process, we are not advocating for you to do a quick Google search and think you know make sure you’ve got a whole process and that includes knowing what you need to know what is pertinent in that decision making it’s not it’s not cool to go around like I said digging in people’s personal private lives. If it’s not pertinent to their business or by having a due diligence process someplace and having a team such as the Clear Business Directory on your side, you get a third set of eyes on the agreement on the people that are involved who.

From our perspective we have no emotional attachment to it. So as your due diligence company we have no emotional attachment to the people. All we are going to share with you is look here’s a potential risk because this person’s got this this and this background have you taken that into consideration. Oftentimes we get is like well I wasn’t even aware of that. It’s because you until you look into the people that are involved you’re not going to know.

Better yet we advocate for transparent due diligence process if you’re going into a merger both sides of that coin should be transparent about who they are and what’s pertinent for that decision. And that’s something that we can easily facilitate and we’re happy to do that because it’s only going to strengthen that situation moving forward. If it’s an acquisition you know the acquiring company should be requiring that those people are willing to answer some questions.

Also, including people as part of the due diligence process moving beyond just the numbers and the contracts. So, with that if you’re going into a mergers and acquisition or your looking to sell your company and your looking to raise the bar and increase your chances for success take a look at the Clear Business Directory at clearbusinessdirectory.com where we here to meet all of your merger and acquisition needs. If there is anything else, you need from us please contact us and don’t forget to make sure your business is IN THE CLEAR.

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SEC Affirms Due Diligence is a Must

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SEC continues to send the message the due diligence is a must. This follows a recent performance data debacle with F-Squared. “You know what, there’s a good chance because somebody didn’t do their due diligence. Here’s the thing, folks, the SEC has been saying this ever since Bernie Madoff in 2008. If you’re going to hire a sub adviser for your clients, for your business, for your investments, for your business you have to do due diligence.”

Show Notes

Welcome to the In The CLEAR Podcast. My name is Justin Recla, and I’m your host, along with my business partner and wife, the gorgeously talented and amazing, Tonya Dawn Recla.

For the record, folks, if you don’t know it, Tonya is also the CEO of a company called Super Power Experts. You can find out more about Tonya and her Super Power Experts at superpowerexperts.com. It’s a merger of the two worlds here. What you’re getting here, when you have Tonya on the show and taking things from a whole other perspective. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate her being here with me on the In the CLEAR Podcast.

Thank you honey. Thanks for the shout out. We have fun over Super Power Experts. But of course, near and dear to my heart is the CLEAR Business Directory, and the transparency and trust work that you all do over here. It’s awesome.

Well, thank you for being here. So, this week, we are talking about one of my favorite topics. This organization has quickly become one of my favorite government entities, and that’s the SEC. We’re talking about how the SEC continues to affirm Due Diligence as a must for your business.

I just want to take a pause here because this is like a shining moment for the SEC. Somebody just said that you are their favorite government entity. I don’t think they get that very often. Let’s just give them their moment.

The SEC affirms due diligence is a MUST. The horror stories that we get alone, that we hear from our clients, some of the stuff that we uncover and see in the stories we get are just unreal. To see an entity such as the SEC coming out saying Due Diligence Is A Must, is pretty big.

SEC Uses F-Squared Saga to Drive Home Due Diligence Message

In this latest batch of affirmation, stems from the whole F-Squared debauchery of F-Squared producing inaccurate performance data.

I think it’s debacle.

Yes, thank you, debacle. For its Alpha Sector Strategy Investments.

Although, there may have been debauchery involved, I don’t know.

You know what, there’s a good chance because somebody didn’t do their due diligence. Here’s the thing, folks, the SEC has been saying this ever since Bernie Madoff in 2008. If you’re going to hire a sub adviser for your clients, for your business, for your investments, for your business you have to do due diligence.

Just because a sub adviser brings you information, you still have to verify, you still have to do your own due diligence. You can’t just go beyond what one person says. You didn’t have to take that information and verify it because even here at the Clear Business Directory, with our vettings, you still need to go out and do your own due diligence.

And this is so crucial because the SEC gets a really bad rap for being kind of the bullies on the playground, especially when it comes to small businesses. But a lot of their stuff, folks, is for your own good. I know that that’s kind of like heavy-handed parenting tactics, but it’s important.

What we’ve seen, at least from our end of things, is that they’re trying to do everything they can to really convince small businesses to take some extra steps. The challenge with when you operate a small or medium sized business is that you’re not big enough to have the pockets, and the legal teams, and everything else that the big guys do. But yet you have the same responsibilities. And that is consistently what comes forward. You can’t shirk those responsibilities.

If you want to get into business and make money off of people consuming or having your services or whatever the case may be, you have responsibilities. If you’re trying to outsource pieces of your business or bring in other people or whatever the case may be, and you haven’t done your own due diligence, your clients, your customers operate off the assumption that you are operating responsibly. Therefore, they don’t question whether or not you’ve done the due diligence to bring in these sub advisers, or whatever the case may be, a consultant, service provider, vendor, it doesn’t matter. You owe it to your clients and your customer base to have done this. Just like employment screenings. You have to screen the employee before you bring them into a company. It’s no different. For too long ,really bad business practices have been acceptable.

When the concept of due diligence, stopping at “because somebody else told me it was so,” and taking an adviser’s word for it. Especially if that adviser is getting paid if you purchase the investment. How good is that due diligence? If the person is making a commission off of selling you on something and they told you that they’ve done their own due diligence on that investment opportunity. Really, how much weight does that due diligence actually carry?

It’s like asking a drug dealer if you should take drugs.

Exactly. That’s a whole other conversation. Again, we have to consider the source of the information. If you have a sub adviser that is going to benefit or profit off of getting you involved in whatever the opportunity is, you have to do your own due diligence. Again, even the SEC has come out and said that even if you have an adviser, you’ve got to do your own due diligence. It’s essential. it’s a must.

But they’ve said that for a while now, even when they came out with the bad actor, that whole umbrella. That was forcing companies to take responsibility for the people that they’re bringing in, saying that you have to know who’s on your team. You have to know what they’ve done. You have to know if they’ve done bad things. You have to know if they’re still doing bad things. And you are responsible for that. It’s simply the cost of doing business, folks.

It’s also part of the new way of doing business, and that’s operating in transparency. Making sure that you’re throwing everything out on the table, so your clients, your potential investors can see what the hidden risks are. If you are a business that is raising capital and you’re not fully transparent, now you’ve just taken somebody’s money and now they find something else out about you that would have prevented them from investing in you in the first place. Guess what. That’s a huge headache that you now have to mitigate potentially having to give back.

We’ve heard horror stories, folks. We literally got stories where we know businesses have to give back millions of dollars because they didn’t do their due diligence prior to a raise.

Absolutely. Every single securities attorney that we’ve queried, and we’ve talked to many, many securities attorneys, every single one of them has said the same thing. If you can demonstrate that you have a practice of due diligence, that you have a policy, that you have steps that you take and you apply it across the board, the SEC is going to look very kindly upon that. They can’t obviously say that you’re in the clear, or that you’re covered completely, but it’s better than 90 percent of the businesses out there. If you want to stand out, and you’re doing anything that has any kind of SEC scrutiny to it, I suggest standing out and operating in over compliance. Make sure your business has a due diligence process for every business that you’re getting involved with, everybody that you’re bringing into the situation. It’s just smart folks.

It’s not only smart, but it’s really going to increase your chances for success because it’s going to show your prospective clients, your prospective investors, people that you’re bringing in your business that you operate above board. And, you’re going to get a cookie from the SEC because they tell you, you have to do it.

Absolutely. There are places in your business that you can skimp. Buy the cheap toilet paper, whatever that may be for you and your business. But in the due diligence piece of things, when you’re bringing on other companies, or you’re outsourcing, or you’re bringing in people, or whatever that looks like for your business, do not skimp there. Make sure you’ve got solid due diligence processes in place, make sure you’ve been advised by due diligence professionals on how to do that because if not, it’s going to come back and bite you.

And when it comes back and bites you, it’s usually three times more costly then had you done due diligence in the first place. It’s always less expensive to do due diligence on the front end than to clean up on the back end, especially when dealing with the SEC.

Absolutely. And it can be scary. I get it, folks. They feel like an overbearing government entity, and on some level, yes, they are. But, just be smart. If you start digging into things, they usually provide you with a decent amount of information and little clues on what you can do to protect yourself in just about every situation. If you’re a company that falls under their scrutiny, get a really valuable securities attorney. Unfortunately, folks, we have talked to securities attorneys that were really poorly advising their client base and not advising them to follow due diligence practices, but rather getting them to sign waivers so that the attorney and the company the attorney worked for wouldn’t be liable when the SEC came down on them. That’s not the kind of securities attorney that you want. Ask them about due diligence. If you’re doing capital raises ask them about Bad Actor, and they should be able to be educated about that. Ask them what policies should I have in place, what due diligence practices should I have in place? Chances are good that your securities attorney isn’t going to know a due diligence firm that handles that from a people perspective. But you’re listening to us, so you know. And you can definitely connect us with them and we’re happy to work directly with your attorneys.

Exactly. And that’s the key, folks, knowing that you have options out there to help you with your due diligence. That’s where most people get stuck because they had no clue as to where to even start. Fortunately, at the Clear Business Directory, that’s what we do. We live, eat, breathe, and sleep due diligence, making sure that you’re getting involved with the right people and that you know the things that you know to mitigate the risk about those people. So if you’re getting involved with the SEC, if you want to stand out, you have some due diligence needs that you need to stay compliant, make sure you check out the Clear Business Directory.

And one final point here, where we really excel at the Clear Business Directory was predicated on, was based on my experience and Justin’s experience in the human intelligence arena. When we talk about that due diligence perspective, it is strictly from that human perspective. That is really where we are seeing the biggest, gaping holes right now. The SEC has identified it also, and they’re not being lenient about it. And so, when you talk about due diligence make sure that you’re including what we call the human risk factor into those conversations.

Exactly. Before you get involved with anybody and put your business at risk, make sure your business is in the CLEAR.

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Yelp the Hidden Risk Behind Peer Ranked Sites

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Is Yelp hurting small businesses? “The challenge is, of course, for small businesses or medium sized businesses the Yelp process has come under a lot of scrutiny.” Listen in to find out the hidden risk behind peer ranked sites.

Show Notes

Welcome to the In The Clear Podcast. I’m your host Justin Recla along with my gorgeous wife Tonya Dawn Recla.

Hello everyone!

So this week we’re taking on a giant. This week we are looking at Yelp.

Just call us David!

Yelp and the hidden risk behind peer ranked sites.

Maybe I’m going to explain my comment. So, you are talking about taking on a giant; which then my mind went to Goliath; which then that led me to David and then I envisioned the rock and a slingshot.

So, that’s where that one was going folks, but make no mistake about it you know Yelp kind of runs the world. I like to joke all the time that you know Apple runs the world or Google runs the world. I don’t know that that’s a funny joke but Yelp has become its own noun or verb. It’s a thing that they did a phenomenal job becoming a household name.

Kudos to them for doing so!

Absolutely! We love these success stories. You know that started off as some folks sitting around talking about what would be great. that’s the story of my most phenomenal businesses.

The challenge is, of course, for small businesses or medium sized businesses the Yelp process has come under a lot of scrutiny.

Yes, a lot of scrutiny. There’s a lot of people that are opting out of Yelp because of the methodologies that they use to make sure you’re paying your monthly bill.

5 Yelp Facts Business Owners Should Know (But Most Don’t)

So, here’s a challenge, you can’t opt out of Yelp. You cannot. Somebody else can just opt you in. You cannot as a business opt out of Yelp because all it takes is someone else going in and setting up a profile. Is that correct? Can anybody still do that?

Yes, as far as I know they can. A client can go and leave a review on your business even though you are not a member of Yelp and leave a review on your business. Good, bad, or otherwise and now your business is part of Yelp.

Right, which is not a bad thing. You know people think exposure, exposure, exposure. The challenge, though, if people are looking for positive reviews and either you don’t know that you’ve got a profile out there or you’ve got a couple negative reviews and that’s all that’s showing. It is possible that even though maybe you’ve got some positive reviews they may not be showing.

“Gasp!” Could that happen?! Is that a thing. Say it ain’t so!

Of course it’s so folks! How do you think these companies make money? Yelp is free to the end user. There is no charge for that Yelp app or when you visit Yelp dot com you can search all day long how do you think that business makes money. Well, of course traction and ads. One of the ways they make money is through these business profiles.

And if your business has reviews on the site and you’re not a paying member, if you’re starting to get negative reviews. Guess what? You’re now a paying member. It’s the only way you’re going to be able to monitor those reviews.

So, again you know the Yelp process has kind of come under scrutiny a little bit. I’ve heard stories of people completely opting out of Yelp and whatever is on Yelp they just let it go. They just let it be and they address things with their client base on a more personable level. Those businesses that are opting out are typically smaller mom and pop shops that you know have a client base that knows them personally.

So, if you’re a small business that is wanting to grow. You can’t really opt out of Yelp, you kind of have to play their game. So, there’s a way of going about doing that, and part of it is one being aware of what’s out there on you.

Then that can be challenging too. So, what do you do if you’re a small business and Yelp comes knocking on your door and says “Hey, you have to pay this much money a year for your profile or we’re going to limit what reviews get up on your site.” What do you do when that happens? Then that’s a personal question for every business. Do you want to play that game or do you not?

It’s like the mafioso techniques that we’ve seen with other sites and other folks that know that small businesses rely on good press, and good ratings, and good reviews.

That’s a conundrum I’m not going to lie. There are things you can do to mitigate it but ultimately you know apply that due diligence process to that decision as well. What are the pros and cons, and asking Yelp, hold them accountable and say to them “OK, what are my options here?”

You know if you’re going to go ahead and dive into that make sure you get a commitment that the positive views are going to be showing first or whatever is important to your business. Ask those questions and read those terms and conditions before you choose to opt in or opt out. Also, as a consumer or let’s say you’re looking into a business make sure you’re doing the same.

Exactly, and the beautiful thing is that there is an answer to that. There is something that balances that peer review site and that’s The Clear Business Directory. The Clear Business Directory is not a peer review site. We don’t give you an “A +” or “D – “rating. It’s not a ratings site. Clients can’t leave reviews. It’s simply, who are you? What’s your business history? What’s your experience? It allows your business to operate in transparency. So the end user can make a decision from that place.

You get to promote that using the Clear logo. That, I think is a big key, you get promoted in a way that is valid for your clients and potential customers. It is also very useful for business to business kind of situations or if you’re looking for investors or whatever the case may be for your business it really does give you the opportunity to manage that process. Also, we advise people and require you get re vetted every year. So if there’s stuff out there on you that you don’t know about you’re in awareness of it and then we have strategies to mitigate that also.

Exactly, and that’s one of the huge hidden risks of the peer raked site, is that if you are a consumer or if you are a client and you go into the peer ranked sites that doesn’t protect you from frauds and scams.

It’s just a place for people to go and share their experiences good, bad, or otherwise so it doesn’t say anything to the business from a fraud and scam perspective. It only shares from a what was this one individual’s perspective as opposed to what was the overall experience of the business.

Right, there’s no triangulation. Here’s the challenge Yelp gives you the impression that as an example, let’s say a company has five hundred different reviews and they’ve got four and a half stars. The end user then assumes that the average of those 500 reviews was four and half stars. That’s is not necessarily the case which is why they’ve come under such scrutiny. Companies that pay their dues may have 500 reviews but an average of maybe two stars but those other reviews aren’t showing. Then vice versa the ones that don’t pay may have phenomenal reviews and they’re all being hidden.

So, that’s a big challenge. I say Phooey on Yelp for this, because even though it may be in the terms and conditions that people are starting to become aware of it. It doesn’t matter because people trust you to be the conglomerate of information.

So, the end user assumes that the information that they’re reading is comprehensive and it’s not the case. That’s kind of crap.

No exactly especially if you know maybe you could or what are your favorite restaurants and they’ve got phenomenal food and they got great reviews. But on the back end you don’t realize that they’re running some sort of notorious other side business out the back or the owner has got a history of supporting something that you don’t agree with. So it doesn’t show the whole picture.

Right, I actually think Yelp should listen to the show that we did on being transparent. I think that would be a great help if you’re listening out there, Yelp.

That’s a great suggestion and being transparent is really what it comes all about because again a peer review has hidden risks for business it doesn’t paint the whole picture.

Even worse, to me and in the pecking order of things you know that peer review sites have their own problems and we talked about that in a previous show. But the peer ranked sites to me are far worse because you’re saying this like there’s some sort of a stamp of approval or rating system or something like that’s being given out.
It’s just not truth. Yeah. The criteria used to get to come to that is faulty. So, end user beware!

Exactly. Just know that there are hidden risks to your business out there and the peer review sites. Be leery of Yelp. Make sure you realize that it’s not the end all be all, especially for your own business. As always if you’re ready to opt out of those peer review sites and you’re ready to operate transparently. Check out the Clear Business Directory at www.clearbusinessdirectory.com. Make sure your business is in THE CLEAR.

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Debt Financing for Your Business with Jeff Shick

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Debt financing can be a challenging technique to navigate. It’s important to have someone you can trust on your side. Jeff Shick with Money Miners, a member of the Clear Business DirectoryTM, joins the In the Clear podcast to talk about the importance of transparency. Listen in as he shares tips you should know before pursuing debt financing for your business.

Show Notes

Welcome to the In The Clear Podcast this is a special edition live from CEO Space. I’m Justin Recla you’re a host of In The Clear Podcast I’m live today with one of the members of the Clear Business Directory, Jeff Schick of moneyminers.biz. Jeff is a new member of the Clear Business Directory and we have him here today so you can get to know him a little bit better. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Justin, I appreciate it.

So, I met Jeff here at CEO Space a while back and I was super excited to meet Jeff mainly because he’s in an industry where we don’t cover a lot of fraud and a lot of scams.

What is also super exciting about Jeff is that he’s also a veteran like myself so we connected on multiple levels because of that. CEO Space is a great opportunity. I was super excited that Jeff was able to get in The Clear Business Directory and you can check out his profile there.

Jeff, why don’t you give our listeners a little better understanding as to what moneyminer.biz is.

Sure, moneyminers.biz is a specialty boutique lending brokerage firm. So, what we do is we specialize in helping people who are doing startup businesses or early stage capital raising for their business. So, we really are a one-stop shop for raising funds for their new business.

Fantastic. So, outside of being listed in The Clear Business Directory, which really separates you out from a lot of other companies that are offering the same type of service that you have. What makes your program a bit different from everybody else?

I think probably the biggest thing that makes us different is that we do not require prior business experience, financials, or tax returns. All the requirements that a normal bank would ask for a business loan. We have put together a lending package that doesn’t look at any of those things. What our program does is totally focuses on your current credit score and your credit profile or history only what kind of credit if you had in the past. Those are the only requirements.

Fantastic. I know that’s a pretty big deal for a lot of startups who don’t have the business credit history to be able to get a business loan, but they need that working capital. Is your program expensive compared to some of the loans that are out there?

That’s a great question and it’s one of our key features. When you look at startup funding when you are able to access it, which is very rare and it’s also very expensive. The reason that this solution works so well is due to it not based on being a business loan. It’s based on your personal credit score and history. Although, it is a business loan and used for business purposes it is not looking at the things that most businesses are turned down over. It’s really looking at you.

That is very unique and it. Provides a lot of opportunity for new business owners that are starting up. That’s absolutely fantastic.

So, in your experience and starting a business, is there anything that you wish you could do go back in time and do over again?

Absolutely!

What would that be?

I wish that I could go back in time and know how to keep my expenses down. So, that I actually would have made money when I started. I learned that the hard way.

Not overspending is especially tricky when starting up a new business. It can be very costly.

Oh it’s exceptionally costly, you go back, and you look and then say, “Why didn’t we spend that money on that?”

Right, you say to yourself “I spent how much money for something that I don’t even have anymore.”

Correct.

It’s a huge thing when it comes to business credit and accessing money. I would have been much more careful about making sure all my payments occurred on time. I didn’t appreciate just how expensive that makes lending and for how many years it makes it expensive.

That’s so true. If there was one question that you could educate your prospective clients on and our listeners on; what is one thing that our listeners or somebody that was perspective client should ask you before they actually decide to hire you for instance?

Actually, the biggest thing you want to ask me or anybody else in this subject is you want to ask, who we have worked with and who else have we assisted? What kind of references do we have? What institutions do we work with? You want to be able to verify that we’re real. So, those are the questions I would be asking.

So, in those questions that you get. What are some clients or industries types that you are currently working with?

Without getting permission from somebody specifically, I don’t want to give a name but I would share with you that the bulk of my new customers are new business people that are trying to do a startup. People that are doing things for the first time.

Maybe they’re in the employee sector and they want to break out in the business.

Right, or they’re retiring from what they used to do and they want to do something else. A bank isn’t going to touch you. That’s prime time for us.

So, do you work directly with the banks on behalf of your clients?

We work not only with banks; we also work with credit unions, insurance companies, Wall Street, and private money. So, we source everywhere.

Got it. So, your company manages all of that for the clients, is that correct?

Yes, we put together a package that we call a portfolio of loans or our new term is Publock, which stands for the portfolio of uncollateralized business lines of credit.

That’s key because I know that a lot of time and effort especially something as specific as raising capital. Having somebody that you know has been screened for frauds and scams that is doing that on your behalf is extremely powerful. This is important because, again, we uncover a lot of fraud in the financial sector, especially for business owners that want to raise capital.

Knowing that the first opportunity of “big money” that comes along may not be legit because the amount of fraud that we’ve uncovered in those situations is huge. So, knowing that there’s an option out there that would allow a new business to work with somebody like yourself, somebody who has been screened for fraud, scams, and is listed in The Clear Business Directory. This gives them peace of mind in knowing that you are legit and you are who you say you are. From that point it’s a matter of a conversation about is it good fit or does the program work for them. That’s all part of the relationship building process that they can determine after they engage you.

Absolutely. I think one of the things that we look at that’s really critical is where your credit score currently is and where your current history is and what can we do to raise that score. I typically am able to get anywhere from 25 to over 100 point increase in credit score before we put the portfolio together. The difference in results is night and day.

Oh, I’m sure. Especially, with people who may not have the best credit. Helping them raise that so they get those loans. That’s Huge.

Most of the people we work with don’t have the best credit and need to have some assistance in this area and that’s why we do that first.

That’s a fantastic program and I’m glad that you’re in The Clear Business Directory because again we didn’t have anybody that we can refer out to in that area. Knowing that you’re in the Clear is a big deal for our client base as well for those people that are in the startup sector.

Is there anything that you want your prospective clients know about you specifically or your business? What drives you? What is the one thing you want somebody to know about you and your business?

The biggest thing that I wish everybody knew about me is that the motivation for doing the type of work we do is we believe that the next solution that we need as a country is going to come from a small business.

We believe the next solution for most of the problems we have will come from the genius that is a entrepreneurialism and what we do is we enable entrepreneurs. We provide the rocket fuel they need to take their rocket off. For me that is the ultimate reason why we do what we do.

I absolutely love that. So, much in alignment with what is going on here at CEO Space. Why we come back here as mentors is because like yourself we are firm believers that small business and entrepreneurs are the ones that drive this country. Create opportunities create jobs. It’s why we created The Clear Business Directory was to give business owners an opportunity to work with people that are on the up and up and operating full transparency. Like yourself of course, it is super powerful.

Jeff, where’s a good location. E-mail address or contact information you can share that is outside of looking at The Business Directory where people can find you.

You can find us at our Web site of course which is www.moneyminers.biz. I have lived in the same house for over 20 years. I am in central Florida. You can find me in Palm Bay, Florida. I have a long track record and I think it’s easy to see that.

Again, you can read more about Jeff in his profile in The Clear Business Directory at www.clearbusinessdirectory.com.

Jeff, thank you so much for being on the show today! Appreciate your time.

Thanks and have a great day!

Awesome and until next time make sure your business is IN THE CLEAR.

The post Debt Financing for Your Business with Jeff Shick appeared first on Clear Business Directory.

Serial Entrepreneur Nathan Hirsch

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Serial Entrepreneur Nathan Hirsch talks about transparency in the ecommerce arena. From starting an Amazon business from his college dorm room to co-owning Freee Up, a solution for remote hiring, Nathan knows a thing or two about entrepreneurship. Listen in as he talks about the importance of transparency in today’s business world.

Show Notes

Hello everyone this is Tonya Dawn Recla, and this is the In the Clear Podcast. And you all are in for a treat. This gentleman is a firecracker. But it’s so refreshing to hear neighbors talk as he’s really cracked the code in the e-commerce industry. I know if you’ve been in business for more than a day, and one of the biggest headaches is how do you how do you get folks to fulfill some tasks that you need in interviewing process and in you get on fiber and that’s a crapshoot. And so, I’ve really tried to be to talk to him and how he’s shaped and molded within that space. So, Nathan, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

I am really excited. I get excited to talk to people but with what you’re doing in the e-commerce sphere and the remote hiring and stuff like that. First of all, it’s so in alignment with our transparency mantras and everything, but it’s so necessary right now. The industry’s really icky. How did you even stumble into all of this?

Yes, it’s pretty crazy. And I agree, I was really excited when I talked to you because I do think we’re very much in line, and a lot of our clients have had the same experience across the board.

So, I got into e-commerce when I was 20. I started Amazon business out of my college dorm room. It radically expanded beyond my expectations, where to the point where I was running a multimillion dollar business out of my college dorm room. I was hiring employees before I could legally drink. I’ve hired in the past seven years, I’ve hired hundreds of remote workers, both in house and remote workers. I’ve written an e-book on remote workers. I teach a lot of podcasts and webinars on it because like you said, it’s hard. You never know what you’re going to get. It’s very much like hiring a new business for the first time or a contractor to work on your house or any of that stuff. You don’t know what’s legit, what’s not legit, what quality you’re going to get, what or why you’re going to get and all that stuff.  

So, when I was first hiring, I made some great hires. People that are still with me seven eight years later, and I also made some terrible hires people I fired or people that I kept on too long and it sucked money out of the company. And I should have hired them faster and I learned from those experiences and I wanted to create a better way a company that I wish I had when I first learned about the UpWorks and the Fiverr’s of the world, I was posting jobs and spending half my time going through applicants and trying to make good decision based on limited information. So, I created FreeeUp to be the hands-on way to hire remote workers, where we do the pre-vetting for you, we get hundreds of applicants a week. We have a great interview process that’s based on my seven years of hiring, what’s worked, what hasn’t worked, and we struck communication, which is half the battle because it doesn’t matter how skilled the people that you hire are if they can’t communicate. It’s never going to work out. So, we test them on communication. We have very strict communication guidelines and then we make these already pre-vetted the top 1 percent workers available to our clients on a first come, first serve basis, to really make a safe and trusting marketplace for freelancers and remote workers.

That’s fantastic. And for those of you who already run into Google to look this up it’s FreeeUp.com.

The third E represents E-commerce.

Perfect. Awesome. It is so nice and refreshing to hear you talking in this way. I can’t tell you how many sites I have tried to navigate and try to find somebody. And it is just gets in the pit of your stomach, like it might not work. One of the things we are teaching, we tell people do play the “What If” game? What if it doesn’t work out. And for specialty, small to mid-sized business, in a momentum and time or every day and it’s not even that costly. You could stomach the loss of the Five Hundred Thousand, Five thousand dollars it’s the loss of momentum and needing to have that done, and needing to have it done well, and there’s nothing more frustrating than folks who don’t come through on those projects.

I agree. I’m someone who preaches this valuing your time at a very high level. And people that waste my time anything that waste my time I try to eliminate to the best of my ability. And like you said just that momentum time is something that you never get back. If you waste three months on someone that isn’t going to work out you’re never getting that three months back. It’s different if you’re five years in your company or if you’re a corporate, and even that hurts. But never mind a startup that really needs that initial time to just get off the ground. A lot of times you can’t make it back out from a really bad hire like that. So, I try to protect my clients. However, I can by pre-vetting and saving on the whole other nightmare.

And it is a nightmare. That’s a great way to describe it. We get all of those for stories because of the work that we do, and a lot of folks, unfortunately, come to us after the fact. What can they do? And what my husband will tell them is, you lost five grand on a bad hire, you might as well crack a beer and chalk it up to experience because it’s actually with the artist and the small businesses, most of them don’t have any money. Like let’s say it is a purely fraudulent scam concept, they never litigate. All the time or the money to litigate, and for most of them, it’s like the biggest risk is in that too. And so, I appreciate the fact that you’re addressing all those things that screen and we see it come up because of the miscommunication pieces. So, we’ve been training people for the last five years in business, how to ask questions. What should we be asking? In fact, for the members that come into the Clear Business Directory, my husband interviews them for the podcast and that’s when the questions he asked is, what should people be asking you before they hire you? And I love the fact he took a lot of that off the table. How do you manage things, communication wise, on the other end of the spectrum with your clients? How does that work?

Yes, so we have very high expectations for our workers. We’re essentially putting them through our process. I was a client myself, so I know what clients want to hear, what they don’t want to hear, what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable, and our guidelines are based on that. And we’re expecting our workers to communicate at the highest possible level. So, when I pass over our client to a worker they know they know our processing, know our system, they know our software, and they’re good to go, and hit the ground running. And really, the only time I want to hear back from the clients is if it’s a compliment or they’re requesting a new worker, or they need help with something that has nothing to do with that worker because any I we just don’t have time for client kickback or any bad experience.  

I’m a realist. We get out enough workers each week that stuff happens here and there, and you address it. And from my side. It’s in my best interest to make every client happy with our service, and if there’s a hiccup over the course of a year, there’s always going to be one or two. You make it right. You credit the client or give them a new worker, or get something done for free for them, whatever it is. And we really don’t run into that many issues based on when you put it as a percentage for how many hours you bill. But what’s nice about our service, or what I’ve tried to build is that thing that you have someone to go to. Whereas, if you make a bad hire and you fire them it’s not like you’re going to go to that and be like, hey give me this money back or fix what you broke or whatever. That just doesn’t happen. Or if you hire someone from across the world you are never going to talk to that person again. But with us you have a company that’s going to back you up that has these policies already in place and were insurance against turnover. So, our workers rarely quit, but if they do we cover all retraining costs we get you a new worker right away only make sure you never take a step backwards for H.R. reasons. So, you could hire someone and six months later they quit. We’re covering the training for the new worker. So, you never have to cover training costs twice. And training is very expensive as you grow your company and it’s usually a sunk cost.

So, if I understand you correctly the and if this is in fact true, you are absolutely brilliant. So, the concept of you having direct communication with your client is minimal, and the client communication happens after they’re assigned the workers. Is that accurate?

They’re right on the website. There’s a calendar that you can book a time with me. I’m an open book. I love meeting with clients. I want to hear about the pros and cons your business concerns you’re having what you’re looking for and hiring and it’s me and my team’s job to get you the right workers for once I introduce you the worker. All the communication is between the client and the worker and our worker knows how to communicate at a very high level or they haven’t made it through the process. And we usually only hear back from the client if they’re requesting the next worker or if they have some complimentary feedback.

Perfect, so they are absolutely brilliant. And then my follow up question would be, how do you manage communication on the front end with the client because we see a lot of problems happening when people don’t really know what they need. We always use the website design industry, we pick on thema lot because a big part of the challenge is, not only is there a lot of fraud and scam in that arena, but it’s also that most clients don’t know how to communicate clearly. They don’t even know what they need. And so, they’re not asking the right questions, and they’re not making the right hire. How do you manage that piece of it?

Sure. So, you’re right. There’s really two types of clients that come to me. They’re the clients that have their business and processes in place and they just don’t have the manpower, and they need good reliable manpower. Those are clients that it’s not really my job to tell them how to run their business, I’m just there to fulfill their worker requests and get them the workers that they need. 

And then we have other clients who have a great idea of their business is growing really fast and they don’t know what the next step is, or they don’t know how to get organized. And it’s really impossible for me to do that on a 15 minute or half an hour phone call over the phone. But what we have available is experts, consultants, project managers that you can hire that can really go into your business, do their due diligence, understand your goals and expectations, and come up with a plan that may include just them or may include other cheaper, lower level workers, and creating process and systems and really help you get organized. And that’s for the business owner that doesn’t really know what they need. So, it’s really up to you.

I’m well aware that it’s a client’s business it’s their baby. They’re going to want so on how they want it done. They want to come in and be like Nathan this is what I need get it for me. Great. Boom. I’m going to supply them with those workers quickly. And they’re like Nathan, I want your advice on why your consultant’s advice, I’m all about that as well. I love helping people so we really cater to both kinds of clients.

That’s perfect. Well very cool. It sounds like you’ve thought a lot of this through. And I know a lot of business owners are going to be really excited if they hear about this. What advice can you offer folks in the e-commerce industry that help them. Like let’s say they’ve identified everything you have. What can you help them to get them going along the same trajectory?

Yeah, the biggest thing is diversification. I can’t tell you how many businesses rely on one source of revenue or even on the flip side one worker or one employee. A lot of business owners think that is the easiest or the best way to go about it is to hire one manager to do everything, which is actually the worst way because your entire business is reliant on this one person. So, what I try to preach is diversifying getting on different marketplaces finding different revenue streams, but also your workforce and your processes and your systems. Think about if your entire company would go down if one person left or one person took three weeks off or whatever it is and really break down those processes get multiple people and get assistance and that can cover, cross-train, and really protect yourself at all in all aspects of your business. Assuming that anything could go wrong at any time and that’s the biggest advice that I try to give and the best way that I can protect my clients long term.

Brilliant absolutely perfect and I know everybody is going to want to find out more about you we sent them over to the Web site. Is there anywhere else you want to send them or direct them to.

Yeah, we’re everywhere. You can check out the free app to FreeeUp.com on Skype. All the social media. We have our own free blog where we post a lot about hiring and building a company culture and the e-commerce industry. Anyone that signs up and mentioned this podcast gets 5 percent off their first worker. And we’re really there to help people so right on the Web site you can book a free call with me just see all your needs and see if FreeeUp is a fit. We’re really all about meeting our client’s expectations and helping you grow your business by saving you H.R. time.

Awesome. Brilliant. And kudos to you. Nathan, it sounds like he really cracked the code on that and I for one am excited to get a little bit better. Thank you.

Definitely I’m looking forward to providing you workers, as well.

Absolutely. Thank you to everyone out there of course we appreciate you listening and it’s all next time. Make sure your business is In the Clear.

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Realtor Mark Ferguson Talks Transparency

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Realtor Mark Ferguson Talks Transparency

Realtor Mark Ferguson knows real estate and real estate investing and he knows the importance of transparency. He admits the industry is wrought with snake oil sales tactics and advises clients to educate themselves before trusting an agent. Listen in as he shares secrets from the trenches and tips for becoming a savvy consumer.

 

Show Notes

Hello this is Tonya Dawn Recla with the In The Clear Podcast and I have with me today a real treat for you all. Mark Ferguson is realtor, real estate investor, author and he has created a whole web site and business called Invest For More.

What’s delightful about him is that he gets it. He understands that the real estate market is fairly saturated and there are some questionable techniques happening with it. So, I’m excited to have him on the show today to talk to you all about some ways that if you’re in that industry you can kind of stand out. Also, if you’re looking to hire someone within that industry just some things to think about.

So, please join me in welcoming Mark to the show, welcome Mark. 

Thank you, Tonya! I am really happy to be here and excited to get this interview going.

Very cool. I think I have laid out the industry that you’re in but you handle both real estate buying and selling as well as investing. Is that true?

Yes. So, I’ve been an agent since 2001. Right now, I run a team of ten with six licensed agents that buy and sell houses. I also have flipped over a hundred houses in my career. I own fourteen rental properties. So, that’s why I started the blog was to talk about all that. I do have both the agent and investor background.

So, what has that done for you by bringing that into the equation; what happened to you at the point that you were buying and selling and investing and how did you move into all of those areas?

My dad was an agent so I got started after college when I graduated with a Finance degree and did not find a decent job. Went to work with him part time even though I did not want to be in real estate. That turned into full time so I started out as an agent. Then my Dad would flip houses once in a while. Then, I learned the flipping side of things that way. So, learning to buy and sell happened at the same time and then I started owning rental properties later on in my career. 

What do you think that has done for both sides of the coin by being able to see both of those perspectives?

I think when you get into the real estate industry many agents have no idea what it takes to have a good investment property. Whether it’s a flip or a rental because most agents have never bought an investment themselves.  

Therefore, by being involved in the investment side it gave me a pretty big advantage to help other investors buy and sell properties. I know what they will have to pay for a property, what repairs will cost, what a property will rent for. So, it gives you an advantage as an agent just from a knowledge base.  

Wow. Yeah, I can tell you honestly we had absolutely no idea when we got involved real estate, which I am sure you hear that story often. I can see how that would be so valuable for your clients to be able to offer that perspective. I think a lot of times people get caught up in the excitement of the homes buying experience. It can be challenging to think critically during that time.

Definitely. Real estate can be one of the biggest wealth building tools out there if use correctly. Most people never really know how to use it. It one of the only places where you can get an awesome deals on houses and make money as soon as they buy it. It’s such a huge advantage financially.

Most people just don’t take the time to learn how to do that or they rely on agents that don’t know how to do that. So, if they can take the time to learn how to get a great deal it can be amazing for your financial stability. 

It’s funny I remember going through that process and I wasn’t thinking along those lines. I was thinking more about all of the responsibility that goes into owning a home. I remember there was a book out there called The Virgin Home Owner. I mean I was reading about septic tanks and all of these things but that is where my mind was really immersed.

It never hit me until years later about really learning the ins and outs about financing that house works. I have mentioned to you that I helped to systemize a few real estate companies. I was floored to learn how much fraudulent activity happens in that industry.

Yes, it is unfortunate. You’re dealing with a very high dollar purchase. There is a lot of people who get dollar signs in their eyes and try and take advantage of people. So, it does happen a lot not just in buying and selling houses but in teaching the investment side of it as well. 

So, since you grew up in that arena, what do you think has changed? One of my personal bias is that with the rise of the internet and social media it really created a ripe environment for some of these snake oil salespeople to come forward.  Have you seen that in that industry? 

Yes, real estate was probably one of the first snake oil salesman industry. I mean I was growing up in the 80’s but I remember the infomercials with the guys with the cars and the yachts and the girls selling real estate. That was kind of the same thing where you’re buying into that. I don’t know if people realize but some of these internet “gurus” which is what we call them. They are charging 30-60 thousand dollars a person for their courses. It’s crazy! They use high-pressure sales tactics similar to selling a time share. Which is also real estate! It’s sad to see people who are trying to make a better life get stuck even further behind because the spent so much money on this training.

So, what can people do? What should they be thinking about, what should they be asking? How can they sort of save themselves from that heartache.

I think one good thing about the online world and technology is that it is so easy to find information now. So, you can go online and research so many things for free. Whether it’s my site or another site. There are tons of free articles out there. Books! Books are a great way to gain information as well. I have written a few paperback books to reach as many people as I can at an affordable level. So they are not wasting all of their money on training.

So, start with that. Learn as much as you can for free online and with books. This way you can get an idea of what you want to do, because there are a lot of ways you can invest in real estate.

You can also learn about what to look out for in these “real estate investment training programs” they usually start out with a free lunch at a seminar and then in turns into a 3 day works shop. What happens is they don’t actually teach you anything it’s just all marketing.

How can people know if what information is being shared is legit. Basically, how can people vet the people they are getting this type of information from?

I think that one thing is being transparent. Are they talking about their investments? Are they investing right now? Are they open about their investments or are they holding secrets back that you have to pay for.

I am a big fan of not having any secrets. I made my books to make the information easier to read so that you don’t have to go through 300 blog articles. All the information is out there for free if you want it. I am not hiding anything, I talk about all of my investments, how I find them, how I finance them. There is a lot of other people who are doing it too I am not the only one. I always just recommend look for signs of secrets and paying for more information.

What do you do with your team to help foster a culture of transparency in a market space that seems to lean in the under direction?

My dad was really a huge help in that. He has been an agent since 1978 and just retired. He is the most honest and transparent person I know. You are so much better off to tell the truth if you screw up that to try and hide it or try to fool people.  Especially in the real estate business because so much of your income is either referrals or people that you have already sold houses to. If you treat them poorly, you’re just killing your income source. The better you treat them and the more transparent you are with them the more money you will make in the end. 

I saw him give away commission for mistakes he made or even for mistakes; he didn’t make to make a client happy when closing deals. He would not buy investment properties if he had another investor who wanted it because he felt it was a conflict of interest. The more honest you are the more people want to do business with you or refer you, which is really what makes you money as an agent. 

I agree with that. It’s funny because we have a seven year old right now and that is kind of like parenting 101. Teaching people to tell the truth and I don’t want to sound cliché about it. I think it can be challenging. We run into so many business owners that are very well meaning people tend to buy into the idea that if they screw up and are honest about it somehow they will be seen as less than knowledgeable or less professional. It invokes these feelings of some real vulnerability.

I have discovered that it’s quite the opposite that your most powerful stance is owning up to things. We could say that it come straight from the espionage book because the concept of being open about things means you can’t be bribed or black mailed for anything.  It is a powerful stance when you can be transparent and honest. It just feels like not everyone crosses over into that space, especially in business.

A lot of times in the self-help arenas it’s the same concept to be honest with your partner and your kids and everyone else. I don’t know where it got messed up translating into business. So, I think that’s where you run into some of the posturing and the egotistical defensive responses to screw ups.  I know I am going on a bit here but I am just reflecting on what you said and how simple and necessary your advice is and yet a lot of people miss that.

Do you run into that with your team members and how do you help them manage that; or is that not a problem in the culture of your business?

I mean it’s always a problem. I hire new agents all of the time. I have also had to let go of quite a few agents too just because they didn’t meet that culture. The tough thing about being an agent is when you first get start out you may not get paid for a few months. That can be stressful on you and your family so that might make you do something you might not normally do in order to get a deal closed.

I saw some agents on my team not being fully transparent and not being honest and we had to let them go. You know I gave them warnings and I tried to help them and if it just keeps happening; not only does it hurt them it hurts my whole team. That is just not something that I can promote. Really what you said too is so true, people like when you own up to your mistakes. I see on Facebook all the time some of these real estate guys out there who fudge the numbers and they try and present it as something better than it is, and then they get hammered by these investors that know what’s going on.

Then the ones who make mistake and own up to it, people see that and they are like “Oh my gosh it’s so nice to see someone say they made a mistake”. One of my most popular article or podcast I have done is about mistakes I have made and learned from them. It shows that your real and not trying to be someone who has never made a mistake and knows every answer. 

Yes, in addition to my counter intelligence background I am very much a teacher by nature. I remember even the freeing feeling when standing in front of a class or a workshop and saying “I don’t know? Let’s figure that out.”  It’s really been highlighted through parenting. You know kids don’t let you get away with anything. I your posturing or trying to pull one on them they are going to call you out on it, you know it their sort of innocent, cut to the chase way.

It has been such an experience to be able to show up in that transparent space with our daughter as well as clients and to translate a lot of that over to business. I can’t imagine operating any other way honestly. I do acknowledge the challenge comes when you’re leading groups of people and to maintain that as part of the culture. It’s one thing to emulate it and of course that always helps, there’s a trickle-down effect, you can’t have that culture if the person leading is not that way. However, like you said it butting up against people’s fears in particularly in business when it comes to money and survivability I feel like you’re spot on that, that’s where people tend to choose differently.

Right, it’s kind of like trading short term gain for long term wealth. You may have to sacrifice sustainability for a short period time. 

I love that. It really investing in the overall reputation of who you are and the business that you operate.

What advice can you offer to other business in your industry that can kind of help them stand out, I know we have talked about being honest, but what do you see moving forward for business in your industry. Do you have any tips you can offer?

I think one thing I would offer is on the investing side of things, and this goes for anyone agent or not. If you’re really trying to buy quite a few good deals, doing what you say you are going to do is huge. If I write a contract to buy a house there is a 99% chance I am going to buy that house. I am not going to fiddle with the numbers or squeeze more money out of the deal.

By doing that I have created, a reputation in my area and my area is not huge its about one hundred thousand people. The investors and agents will often know each other. I will have agents that come to me with investment properties asking me if I want these deals. Because they know I am going to do what I say I am not going to mess around and I won’t screw over their sellers. There are a lot of other investors out there that try and play games with the numbers, mess with inspections claws, or back out. You just don’t want to deal with them, I don’t want to deal with them, nobody does. 

If you focus on relationships and building a reputation it will make you so much more money than trying to nickel and dime people.

That’s brilliant I really like that advice and people just don’t naturally think of that. Having integrity of word and deed and the benefits go way beyond the deals themselves. As you were talking it kind of creates this air about you, you know this sort of whole person concept of integrity which is beautiful. That is fantastic advice. Thank you for sharing it!

It would be much easier to do business if everyone operated that way.

Yeah, but then you wouldn’t be so unique and why would we talking. It would be commonplace. Haha!

Thank you for joining us today. I know the listeners are going to want to find out more about you, where would you like us to send them?

Yes, my blog is www.investfourmore.com  is the best place to find me. I have a couple of free books on investing and on being an agent. There are also over four hundred free articles, You can also email me, I answer all of my emails personally, mark@investfourmore.com is the best place to email me.

So, I am going to go out on a limb and say that the number four is because you have two beautiful children and a lovely wife.

That’s actually completely wrong. Don’t feel bad most people have no idea what that means! I started that because it’s really difficult to get more than four loans on a rental properties because none of the big banks will do it. So, the whole idea is getting more than four mortgages and how to do that.

I don’t know I like the whole family thing…but we’ll go with that. Before I let you go you do have a new project that you are working on, do you want to tell the listeners about this?

Yes, I do I am working on a new big project on the basics of buying and selling houses. Hoping to be able to educate people on the overall process so they are not blindly going into it just hoping that the people that they hired are doing a good job. 

Awesome! Well, I look forward to that and I know our listeners will too, so keep us up to date on the release of that. It has been a real pleasure getting to know you a little bit better and I appreciate your perspective and you being so open and honest regarding the real estate industry with our listeners.

Of course. Thank you for having me on the show and I look forward to keeping in touch. 

Very cool! And to everyone out there, thank you for listening and until next time make sure your business is In The Clear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Being Vulnerable in PR with Josh Elledge

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Being Vulnerable in PR with Josh Elledge

Being vulnerable in public relations feels like inviting the sharks to circle. But what if vulnerability and transparency are the quickest ways to truly connect with your audience and create raving fans? Josh Elledge talks about his experience in the PR world and why he chooses to operate transparently.

Show Notes

Hello everyone! This is Tonya Dawn Recla. This is the In the Clear Podcast. And I am really excited to have with me today Josh Elledge, out of the PR sphere. So, this is particularly entertaining for me because we hear a lot about people getting snookered out of the PR and Marketing Sphere. And it’s such a necessary part for business, to get out there and to get well-known. What our bias is that you could do that in a transparent and authentic and integrity way. And so, I think we’re going to hear from Josh some ways to do that because he embodies that also. That, hey-let’s-put-it-all-out-there-and-be bold-and-courageous. And I’m really excited about the conversation that’s going to unfold between us.

So, if you all could help me welcome, Josh is Chief Executive Angel of SavingsAngels.com, which I’m excited to hear about. But the bigger pieces is just that knowledge around the PR industry. I’m really excited about sharing lessons learned with us today. So, welcome Josh to the show. We’re excited to have you.

Thank you so much Tonya. So, great to be here.

Yay! So, would you consider yourself in the PR industry? Is that your main sphere?

Yeah. So, I own two companies. So, the first one, Savings Angel, I’m very much a consumer expert and a consumer advocate. And we’ve done very well over the past 10 years in helping consumers cut their grocery bill in half and save money in all areas of their life. And it’s certainly where I have gained my own success in working with the media. So, a few years ago, I started teaching on how I was able to do this and how we were able to create millions of millions and millions of millions of dollars in sales with next to zero advertising. And I just started getting inundated with requests from other business owners who also wanted to learn this. So, I reluctantly started a PR firm. Yeah, we do things a lot different from what is currently exists out there in the marketplace. And so, we try to focus only on working with entrepreneurs and business owners and startups who are comfortable in telling their story, and they’re comfortable networking. And we just speed up the process of turning entrepreneurs into media superstars.

Wow. So, you stumbled into PR. I love that. I think those are the best stories of the accidental businesses that develop. So, were you pretty cool with that. Were you hesitant to get into that space or how did that feel for you?

So, I was in the United States Navy for five years, and I was a Navy journalist who did a lot of work in public relations then. Although I studied family science and family therapy in school, I found in fact that that was actually very helpful because to become very successful in communications or public relations or journalism, you have to respect and honor relationships. Relationships with other business owners, relationships with your audience. And if you’ll do that you’ll find that things like PR will come very natural for you.

I did also own a small-town newspaper for a couple of years and I’ve always been just fascinated in working with and around the media. So, when we launched Savings Angel 10 years ago, I had no money for advertising. I had a great idea. But instead of just paying to put up billboards and who knows what else, instead I just reached out to local newspapers, local radio stations, local ad magazines and other digital influencers and I just found ways to bring them value. And I brought enough value to other people because of so doing, I ended up gaining a lot of audiences who really wanted more. And we developed a membership based Website. And that became our success.

Awesome. First of all, thank you for your service, we appreciate that.

Thank you.

Beautiful. I love the story. You and I talked very briefly before the show about you just have to gear up for this thing. That idea of vulnerability and being transparent in front of other people is a little bit foreign in our world. My big promotion of my campaign these days is to make it more popular. But I think it’s picking up steam. We’re hearing a lot more about it. Especially in business. It’s something we’ll talk about in relationships and parenting and all kinds of stuff, but bringing that into the business arena is new. It used to be we wore our 9 to 5 mask when we were somebody else. And I see a lot of folks opting for what I call the holistic lifestyle anymore. It’s like you are who you are, who you are, and every scenario is that. Does that feel like what you’re seeing?

Oh, my gosh absolutely especially for digital influence I’m sorry for digital entrepreneurs. You look at your average person who has a decent social media following. And you’ll see that the one thing that they have in common is they’re generally very transparent. They’re generally very open about their lives. And it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to share things that would be too much in terms of it would put your family in harm’s way or that sort of thing, and you don’t have to share your personal mailing address, that sort of thing. But you definitely will find that the more vulnerable you can be with your own insecurities, with your own failures, with your own questions, and concerns, and fears, you’ll find that people will say, “Oh my gosh, this person is a real person and I identify with them because I feel those same things. And as a result, I want to find out how did they overcome it or what is their solution or maybe I can join them in that journey and I can experience the reward of growing together.”

I love how you’re saying that. I think it’s spot on. I think that’s why we saw the rise in social media, like people wanted to get glimpses inside people’s lives. Of course, we have an entire business because of social media, because it’s easy for people to come into the business sector and look good and really have no oomph to their business or anything else. So, for us if you have to at both sides of that coin you have to have that willingness to be open and transparent and also be honest about what you can really. Accomplish and not accomplish. I love that you said you had a great idea, but you didn’t have the budget like you were it wasn’t it wasn’t a successful business yet so you had to go out there and bootstrap it a little bit to see what could happen. those are my favorite examples of like the brick by brick by brick building. And it’s OK to be transparent about that when I’m out the gate with our successful multi-million dollar businesses.

And it also does not need to be done overnight. And I know there’s so many people were like oh I want to get rich overnight. No, I don’t think you do. I really firmly believe that. And it can be disruptive, and it can be a bit uncomfortable. But enjoy the journey. Chances are, if you’re listening to the sound of my voice, you’re going to be around for a while. So, you may as well just enjoy this thing.

So, with this second company, which I launched a couple of years ago, I’m very intentionally controlling growth. So right now, we’re not taking on new clients because I wanted to do this right. But in January we look to scale and turn upendPR into a company unlike any other PR marketing company. We fully intend to have over a thousand clients. Now, our clients are a little bit different than what most PR firms try to get in that our clients they generally pay us about a thousand dollars a month. And most PR firms like really big clients. I don’t. I like to operate more as a Special Forces, a SEAL team approach, as opposed to calling out the entire inventory and just charging these ridiculous billable hours. We really just want to empower our influencers, our business owners to become very successful with or without us. And that means that we need to make them the stars and not just try and get in the way of everything.

I love everything you’re saying. I’m laughing because you’re absolutely spot on. We did identically the same thing we did. Initially, we didn’t. We came out the gate really naive and made some huge mistakes and reeled it all back in very fast. Like OK stop. What are we doing here? And I do, I like the journey. Moving into emerging growth and a couple of different businesses. You can’t beat startup. It’s like courting people. Startup is like a magical time. And not that the other stages of business are, but I tell people that a lot enjoy this. You don’t ever get that back in big business. So, it’s very much like relationship building.

I think you’re spot on. I think that people have no idea what they’re asking for when they talk about some ways these get-rich-quick schemes or moving into capital raises prematurely. If you don’t have the same confidence to be an exist at that next level which some people can only get through the experience of getting there more and more up to the night you’re going to fail anyway and so. So, you’re better are doing it methodically. There’s so much that occurs in that growth phase, much more than what the bottom line would reflect. I think that’s awesome.

And I like your approach to the PR thing. I’ve been on my own little personal rant here that I don’t see a ton of really awesome service providers in that sphere. We I would love to see more people service –the just-after-startup space. Tons of solutions in the higher-end big corporate spaces. I’m not a business person, so I’m not sure I’m saying the levels right or categories right. But I see a lot of folks serving the early-stage startups and the solopreneurs and the professionals coming out the gate, and a lot of folks serving the bigger companies. I don’t see a ton of really solid offerings in that middle sphere. Sounds to me, that’s your sweet spot.

Yeah it is. And I really just signed up and PR to be the service that I needed for so many years, but it just really didn’t exist. It seemed like if you wanted really great service, you’d have to pay a ridiculous sum of money. And if you just wanted to try and find a solution for a thousand dollars or under, good luck because of my experiences was generally not real great. And either you were just not treated as a very important client or again just the caliber of the PR expert that you would be working with, just not real experience or just not very successful, which is why they were charging so little. So instead, we just try and focus on well what do we absolutely need to do and what can we work together on with the client, empower them so that they can do some of this stuff, so they don’t have to pay us. So again, it’s just I think it’s just the perfect balance of identifying who needs to do what. And as a result, we can provide what other PR firms easily charge $5- 8000 a month for. And we only have to charge a thousand to get the same, or in many cases much better results.

We do the exact same thing and. Bring the corporate counter-intelligence perspective into small and mid-sized businesses. The biggest issue is scalability. Can you systemize it, can you create it, and are you comfortable sharing like you’re talking about that education piece and really training plan to do what you do. And I think for once we had a huge year and he to be the running mantra of the speaking industry and training industries, you don’t want to give up all your information and like trust me when I say that you could throw it all out there. Anybody who spends any time on YouTube has access to all that information anyway. People are still going to hire you. They want to know who you are because as a business owner you can’t do it all anyway. And so, I’m much more apt to go with the company that has shared their information, is putting it out there, wants to educate their client base. Those are the ones I’m more likely to completely outsource to than the ones who are trying this trickledown effect, and going-to-give-him-a-hug-but-I’m-really-not-going-to-tell-you-anything. I’m an intelligent person, I will go and fight. I could become an expert in just about any arena, if I really wanted to, just with the Internet alone. So, those days are over in my opinion. So, yea, you have a raving fan in me with regard to that perspective. And it’s very refreshing to hear about.

What can people do? What can clients do if they’re looking for PR folks? What questions can they ask? How do you help people in that space?

So, if they’re looking to create their own PR or if they’re looking to hire a PR firm?

Yeah, I guess it wasn’t really clear that they’re looking to hire somebody if they’re looking for some assistants. How do who’s legit who knows what they’re talking about and that type of stuff.

Well, you clearly want to look at whoever they’re working with right now. And so, the more information you can get about the placements that they’re giving for their other clients, I think that’s going to be a great indicator. Are they comfortable letting you know who that is? What you want to look for are are they working with clients that are like you. Are they in your industry? Are they about the same size as your company? What kind of budget are they operating, is it a similar budget? Because again, look, PR is not going to happen overnight and it’s not going to be free. Now, you can do it yourself. And we do a lot of work in helping people, educating them and helping them do it themselves. But just know that it is going to take a little bit of time, if you want to do it yourself. If you want to hire someone to do it, just make sure that they’re not going to waste your time by just talking about theory and philosophy and all this garbage that you don’t need. Most of our clients didn’t really care about that. They just want to know can you get me a lot of visibility? Can you get me on different Websites? Can you get me on TV? Can you get me quoted in magazines? The answer to all that is, yes.

And for us, we show you here is all the media placements that we’ve done in the past couple of months. And you could see very directly. Now, if you can find a PR firm that’s willing to do that and they’re comfortable with that then I think that’s a good indicator. Are they willing to let you talk to their clients? And so, similarly, you can go and you can see exactly who we work with and go connect with them on social media and talk to them and say, “Hey Josh and upendPR, are those guys are legit?” And I think any of them will tell you, “Yeah, let me just do it.”

You could do a Google search for any of our clients and you could see exactly what media placement that they’re getting. So, that’s the thing that you would want to ask. You want to see. You don’t want to do whatever their lip service that’s one thing. You want to see their results. 

Also, are they invested in teaching and giving with or without you’re billing information and so that’s another thing that I really believe in is that you want to look for a firm that is a giver not a taker. And so, if they are forwarding thought for their industry for their clients then that’s another good sign. Is there are a lot of really great information that you can read that you can learn. Do they have a podcast?  Do they have a blog? Do they have great social media stuff. And look and see what they’re doing. And then finally, one thing and I think this is so funny, I see this all the time, is that you come across like a social media or a marketing or public relations firm a,nd you say, “OK well let’s check these guys out on social media,” and they’ve got like fifty-eight followers! That’s another thing, look at the amount of engagement they have on social media. And that should give you an indication of how conscientious they are about practicing what they preach.

And so, for us, you and I we’re talking and we’re very methodically growing slowly the first two years where. We turn away about as much business that we bring in just because we’re looking for great fits, we’re learning a lot ourselves in terms of all of our tips and tricks and secrets and stuff that nobody else in this industry is doing. And so, we want to perfect those systems before we go into hyper growth because you can always go into hypergrowth. That’s not hard on grow a business. You just need to find something that works and then just do a bunch more of it. People will do your advertising for you and have good success first. Otherwise it can all crumble on you.

And so, as a result we have focused on making sure that we’re practicing what we preach and so we’ve built a lot of. We’ve done a lot of work on authority building first before we go on and just sell the thing. One thing that I really dealt with in the beginning was this imposter syndrome. Like who am I? I didn’t go to school for public relations myself. I was in public relations for the Navy for five years and I owned a newspaper for a couple of years and I certainly had a lot of success, but going back 20 years ago, that’s not what I majored in. There’s, I think, a lot of people have that hang up. And I’ve never had a client ask me what’s your educational background. Never. They don’t care. They just want to know can you get me results. And we focus on getting our clients results. And as a result, we end up getting a lot of business.

We went through the same thing. I’m the first person to admit that I was the slowest moving into this space because I didn’t see it. I didn’t see how espionage translated into a business. People kept coming to us and asking us to do these things for the. And I’m like, how can we do that? It just didn’t make any sense to me. And I think that that’s a real valuable thing. A personal attribute to have is you do question, you do look at yourself, you do observe and not from a disempowered place, but from a really like I-want-to-make-sure-I-know-I-can-do-this. I want to make sure my business can do this. Because you’re spot on. Growing it is not difficult. It’s sustaining that growth that is really super challenging.

But I do want to circle back because I think you made a number of really critical points. But one in particular. Folks, when you are looking to hire somebody in your business, you need to know that they’ve done that for a business very similar to yours. The business landscape is super complex right now. There’s a million and one different business models. It’s not like real estate, is real estate, is real estate, or marketing, is marketing, is marketing. When people come to us and they ask us to vet companies, what the first thing the investigators ask them is, what are they going to do for you? And you will believe how many people are like, “Oh, they’re going do my marketing.” OK, what marketing? Are they going to put an ad in the newspaper, are they going to do it on social media? What are we talking about here? And, most people aren’t asking those questions. And our very favorite is, “They’re going to help me take my business to the next level.” Well, what does that mean? Which level? And do you even want to be there?

And so, not to poke fun, because very educated business owners fall into that trap because it’s overwhelming. There’s many aspects to your business, but you are the one who is in control of it like you have to be and you have to be asking questions. Don’t get intimidated by folks who seem to know more about their area of expertise than you do. That’s why you’re talking to them. But anybody who’s confident in what they’re doing, wants you to ask questions and wants you to be ready to hire them and wants you to know what you’re getting into. There’s nothing worse than taking on a client and you really have no idea how you’re going to serve them. It’s a pain for all of us.

And so, don’t hesitate to ask. One of our favorite questions we advise people to ask is, what questions should I be asking of you? What should I need to know before I hire you? And anybody who is really wanting to work with you on the up and up will answer you, and they will answer honestly, and they will work with you to build that relationship. And so, Josh, I love everything that you’re doing with everything you stand for and it’s so needed particularly in the PR industry. So, for sure we’re going to want to stay close to you and as you grow 2017 and support you however we can because it because we have so many clients who need that. So, thank you. 

Terrific Absolutely.

Very cool. Well so, I know people are going to want to know more about you. Where can we send them?

Oh yeah. Well you’re welcome to. You could just Google me and you can find all kinds of stuff that I’ve done. Isn’t that a powerful statement by the way? I thought you would appreciate that, and I really mean that. And that’s another thing that you should do when considering bringing on a contractor is just Google them and see and if you don’t find a lot then chances are they may have been working very privately with clients, but maybe they haven’t done a whole lot in terms of making the space better for everyone.

So, if you search Google my name is, Josh Elledge. J O S H E L L and then edge, E D G E. And you’ll find a lot of stuff all about me. I work really hard to make sure that I have a great digital reputation. And the way that you get a great digital reputation is you just have to be a giver and you have to serve a lot of people. And as a result, Google will reward you for that. And if you like, you can just go to upendPR.com and you can see exactly how we work with other clients as well I’ve got some great blog articles, I certainly have a lot of great audio and video you can learn from, even if you never pay me a dime. That’s terrific. I hope I have made your life just amazingly better on how you increase your own exposure so that you can go out and become wildly successful.

I love that well. Very cool. We’ll just definitely keep us posted on your successes as you move forward. And let’s stay in touch around that. I appreciate everything that you’re doing and thank you for coming on the show and give us some advice for our listeners.

Thank you so much Tonya.

And to all of you out there, thank you so much for listening. We appreciate your loyalty. And until next time, make sure that your business is In the Clear. Take care.

The post Being Vulnerable in PR with Josh Elledge appeared first on Clear Business Directory.

Creative Companies Create Transparency

US Fraud affects more businesses every year


Creative Companies Create Transparency

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Creative Companies Create Transparency with Prescott Perez-Fox

Prescott Perez Fox is the founder of The Busy Creator and joins the In the Clear podcast to talk about transparency in the creative space. “The Busy Creator is a website and podcast about creative productivity. So, it’s essentially a resource for folks in the creative fields. This is for designers and illustrators, and writers, photographers, and really anyone that makes things, creator. And really, I wanted to offer folks insight on how things get ahead they get made, how things happen.”

 

 

Hello this is Tonya Dawn Recla with the In the Clear Podcast. And I’m excited to have with me the founder of the Busy Creator Brand, which is a lot of fun. And this is Prescott Perez Fox, and they have done a hundred episodes on this podcast, and that’s no small feat. I am really excited to have him come and speak with you all about some of the things he’s seeing within his industry and how that looks from the transparency perspective and how to establish trust in a really saturated and busy market space. And so, please join me in welcoming to the show Prescott Perez Fox. Welcome!

Hey it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Oh absolutely. I’m delighted to have you here sir. So, let’s jump in and talk just a little bit about Busy Creator. What’s going on there?

Yeah. Well, the Busy Creator is a Website and Podcast about creative productivity. So, it’s essentially a resource for folks in the creative fields. This is for designers and illustrators, and writers, photographers, and really anyone that makes things, creator. And really, I wanted to offer folks insight on how things get ahead they get made, how things happen. So, not just the finished piece, which is very inspirational and it’s the thing you look at on Pinterest, and you’re like, oh man, that’s good. But actually, how it gets done on a daily basis. So, this is workflow, this is software, this is agency culture and employment issues. This is logistics and finance too, especially for solo practitioner’s freelancers, they don’t really have a background in accounting. So how do you get a client to give you a down payment and how do you conclude a project? And things like that. So, it’s mostly cool yeah, it’s needed It’s a big issue though it’s like a monumental undertaking. And mostly I’m doing it as a podcast. I’m also blogging and also posting resources and other things to the site.

Very close. How did you get into that?

Well it’s a side project and the need I guess arose because I was a little frustrated in my current job at the time. And I was like hang on. The only way that I’m really going to be able to exercise my ambitions is to have a side project because I wasn’t in, let’s say, a top 10 firm working for like top 10 global clients, which is the first way the conventional way. But then I was seeing how a lot of people, my peers and other industries, that you can bring a lot of notoriety to yourself through a project. And for some people, this is a whatever-daily napkin sketch, or it’s some pop up store. And I’m thinking, OK, well let’s do a podcast, and let’s get in for the long haul and talk to other practitioners and learn from them and then each it right back. So, there’s the altruistic side of seeing the industry and seeing where folks need to learn and what they’re struggling with.

Very cool. I love that. And I like that it grew out of your own creativity with a guy like how do I do this like how do I contribute in this fashion. That’s pretty awesome. So, let’s add in that idea of transparency. Do you ever, on the show, about how do you engage in dialogue with them? What do you do when somebody asks how do they know you’re for real? Have you ever dialogue around that?

Yeah. The funny thing is that creatives are actually very open and sharing. And I’m a designer. I’m a practicing designer, and with my clients, most of them have never actually asked me. They’ve never questioned the work in my portfolio. But if they did, I’ll be happy to show them a whole case study and show them how it started. And even sketches and the ideation process at the beginning of the project and then show them because that’s a process as well. So, if it’s where the past client I could do it again with them and I’ve sort of codifying my process as well.

But most creatives are like that. And they’ll say, yeah, we did this last year, and here’s how it started, here’s where it went wrong. And they save everything as well. So, a lot of designers and writers and photographers are packrats, digital packrats. So, if for some reason a client wanted like your second draft of the logo or something, you could dig it up if you wanted to talk about it. That’s one side of it, I guess. The other side is that, if someone’s making those requests for you, and you’re not even in a paying relation to the writer, they’re not actually clean. There is a prospect at some point it’s it becomes about time. It’s like listen man I’m not turning over a college thesis just to do a brochure like do you want to work with me or not? That is another part of it definitely becomes a balance.

And then we spoke with one of our members in The Directory about that exact thing. We did a whole meet in the middle for a while because he she had a whole process where if people ask for references, he didn’t provide them unless they had at least taken some action toward showing that they were interested in working with him. And I saw his viewpoint after we dialogued about it because, exactly what you’re talking about. Especially solo practitioners, consultants, people who do operate their own one person show. Time is money. And it’s very time intensive to respond to requests like that. I think that’s to toot our horn, I think that’s one of the biggest selling points of The Clear because that’s all been done for you on some level. And so, you get the opportunity say look, I’m legit. Not from the creative aptitude, but from the year and legit company. You’re a real person. That type of stuff. Yeah. And I totally get. And so, it is always a balance between your time. And to your point, I think we always talk about your client due diligence. And sometimes if the person is really pushing persnickety up front sometimes it’s just easier to say I don’t think this is a good fit because it’s usually very telling about things to come.

Oh, yeah totally. And same thing with this sort of controversial now in a lot of creative fields about doing an RFP or doing a proposal. And I’m in some online groups and things that people talk about this, and say hey do you guys do proposals to you. How long are your proposals? And some people are like I don’t do all my flat out refused. And some people like I have a standard two-page capability’s document, whatever the other person’s, like I’ll do it. But it depends on the size and the effort. Somethings for example like anything in the public sector there’s going to be some big process there’s going to be some documentation and like a standard form that you have to go through. So, you have to look at that. No, this is the funny thing that so many creatives. Want to do good in the public sector. They want to work for museums and waterfront commissions or whatever the heck. But. It’s just so arduous to get involved with the red tape and all these compliance issues. So, for a one-person firm who’s saying for example like hey I can redo your whole logo and your whole identity system whatever. All you have to do is like give me someone to call and they won’t do that there’s no phone number available because that would be an inside bidding or maybe like hang on. So sometimes it’s a little baffling in that side of things. But the other thing I want to add it’s hard to go back to your previous point that a lot of creatives especially firms will celebrate their own agency culture and they’ll post photos of their company and they’ll paint the front of the building and then they’re like stand in front of it for a group photo like they’re very happy to celebrate their workplace and their work product. So, the fact that they would be like potentially hiding it and hey you guys I saw you guys in a photo but it’s actually your office. Like usually yes, they then.  

I guess the only way the creatives, I’m speaking more specifically to designers, and web firms, and advertising firms, that type of thing because that’s what I’m familiar with that I guess the one area of deception we sometimes run across is that folks will say like oh we have an office in New York and another one in Singapore and another one in London. But actually, it’s just like one person in London. And so maybe he can rent a conference room if you if you need one that type of thing.

Some folks try to appear bigger than they are. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a case where people want to appear smaller than they are, but I guess it does happen. It becomes a cultural issue within the creative fields. It’s like, how do you write your copy? When you have a website and talk about “we did this,” “we engaged such-and-such client,” is it actually just you as one person? And if so, why don’t you just own it and say, “Hey, I’m a solo practitioner. I team up with freelancers when I need to.” Some clients are going to be turned off by that, but other ones are going to be really attached to that and they’re going to know exactly what they’re getting. So, that’s like a new movement too, is to be yourself, even if you’re small and admit what’s actually happening. And say “Listen, I live in New Jersey, but I call it New York because no one knows where Hackensack is, or whatever it is.

Well and I love that you’re bringing all of that up. Those are conversations happening in every industry because that trust component is becoming so crucial. We created, perhaps inadvertently, a world where it is difficult to know who’s legit and who isn’t, unless you’re able, or even have the thought to dig under the surface a little bit, and just make sure that that the person is actually a legitimate person, that they can do what they claim to do, and all of that good stuff.

Unfortunately, in our industry, we do see flat out lying, like flat out. There’s a lot of companies that make decent money simply pretending to have a company. And it’s easy to do. I think that what I love about what you do is you naturally attract the people who are improving their business, and want to know about business, and want to make theirs better, and really want to serve their clients better. You have a real opportunity to change that dialogue a little bit, and say, “OK within us, the legit people, like how can we help our clients know that we’re not that?” And that’s really all you really have to do because in the creative field it’s either you’re creative or you’re not. You can make a good product or you don’t.  Your products speak for themselves. The issue is just getting over that initial hurdle of do-I-even-want-to-see-your-portfolio, type of thing. That’s a worthwhile conversation to be having, especially because, as you as you pointed out, so many people have these amazing gifts and really just want to work with cool, appreciative clients. It’s like, can we do a matchmaking service or pair cool, appreciative clients up with really cool people who have cool skill sets? That would be an amazing business.

Absolutely totally. Let me come back to just a second because I thought of something. A lot of times with firms in web design, and marketing, and graphics, or whatever, it is that you’ll see their site and it’s done well. What usually gives you the impression of confidence, and this is what branding is done well, is that you have an understanding of who you’re dealing with and it’s clear there’s a sense of clarity. And even if it’s small, you can read their web site, look at their photos, whatever it is, and you say, “Oh, this is a three-person web design company in Cleveland. Cool.” You’ve learned that and you are clear about that. And not only that, but a third, if they’ve really done their site well, you’ll also learn from their colors, and from their choice of type, and from their choice of photos that they have a certain personality. So, it’s like, “Hey, this is a web design firm and they specialize in metal bands and rock concerts.” That’s going to have a certain aesthetic.

So, this is when branding really comes together. You get that clarity and you get that purpose. Especially with a small business. You’ll often see a photo, you’ll often see an address, and you can see the social media links, so you can Google it. So, you don’t really have to be a detective. You just have to go one layer deep, literally. And then, if somebody doesn’t have any social media links, they don’t have any address, they don’t have any photos, it’s almost that they’re hiding by default. So, you’re like, “Wait a minute, what is going on here?” And you see that a lot with search engine marketing, with SEO. Sometimes it’s just coded Web sites that like services, that will take your designs and turn it into a coded Web site for people that sort of don’t know how to program, but they can apparently design a web site, and those types of things. Where you’ve read the site and you’re like, “I actually don’t know what these people do. I don’t know if they’re skilled. I don’t know if they’re good at it. I don’t know where they are located.” And you have to use your best instinct as a consumer because, like in so many situations, don’t blame the consumer just for coming to it with his own instincts.

And you’re touching on two really crucial point. One is that good branding is like gold. It is an art. I don’t care what anybody says. I know everybody out there thinks they cracked the code. It is an art to do all of those components, like you talked about. And I can tell you, just with the number of clients that we do this work for, the biggest issues we see is ineptitude, more than blatant fraud and scam. It’s ineptitude. And so there just aren’t that many people who are that good at it, was one issue that you’re talking about.

But the second piece is, and I love that you’re saying all this, one of the initial things when we first started looking at how can we really provide something of value to clients in terms of training and teach them what to look for? And one of the things we teach and look for the necessary evils of business. And there are just certain components that successful businesses have these days in certain industries. And one of them is social media and an online presence. And if that isn’t there it doesn’t mean they’re a bad company, but you should ask why. What is it about their business that would not have them be there? And there are legitimate reasons for that. Well there’s a lot of not so legitimate reasons as you pointed out.

And I love that you’re saying all this. I will tell you, the vast majority of businesses before they hire people, don’t ask these questions. They don’t look. We’ve had a number of situations where clients called, this is back when we were heavy into the consulting side of the house, and wanting us to look into people, which started asking a few pointed questions. And it was shocking how little they knew about this person they were thinking about hiring.

Well that’s a whole other side of things, too. It is like, how does someone represent themselves as an employee? Because if you can craft a message, I think it’s easy to get through one or two interviews and hoodwink somebody, especially if you speak the language of viability, if that makes sense.  

Absolutely. And I was speaking more like service providers and transactions. But we see it in employment screening as well. And so, there’s all these components. And, just the fact that you’re pointing those out is great, and rare. Much rarer than you would realize. And so, I love that that’s just something that is common sense to you. Like why would you hire an SEO person if you can’t find them anywhere? That’s not a good indicator.

There is there is a situation like the cobbler’s kids never have shoes. I get it. It took us about three years before we did our own due diligence packet. When finally, somebody asked for it and we’re like, oh yeah that’s probably a really good thing for us to have on hand. Like you just don’t think about doing for your own business sometimes, what you do for your clients. And so, I do get that piece but it’s. But there are indicators and I think that that’s that circles back around to what you are or what you’re indicating.

Yeah definitely. And by the way, my Web site too, I think it’s like six years since the last time I updated the actual design of it. Like I’ve added new portfolio projects, but I haven’t redone the whole site. I don’t really do web design. I do more branding, and packaging, and logo design. But it’s getting to the point of making it a little embarrassing, which is funny.

Well it’s tough though. It’s like you go where the money is, and there’s no immediate money on your site. Obviously, over time, of course, you have to do that. But when you’re busy, and sometimes it’s a good indicator. Like they’re busy doing other people’s sites. So, when you say just don’t go look at mine, here go my clients.

Oh definitely. And what’s funny too, on that same point like there are firms in New York that I’ve worked at that basically didn’t have a Web site. And they were, just based on the size of the employees, they’re multi-million dollar companies. And they’re like, “Yeah, we don’t have a website, we just have clients. Everything is word of mouth, and it’s business relationships. We don’t get inquiries based on the front door of our website.”

I remember hearing, this is now secondhand, but Jordan Hartridge from the Art of Charm, was talking about a company that he met the CEO or something. And he never heard of this company before, but apparently, the back-end technology on some of the biggest Web sites on the web. But they barely even have a Facebook page. Well, the CEO was like, “No one’s going to like us. They don’t even know we exist. What are they going to comment on our blog? Which doesn’t make any sense. We’re just a back-end technology. We’re B to B, and we are hard core B to B, really industrial B to B. Our clients are not the bagel shop in town.” They are like Cisco. I don’t even know but that makes sense to that you don’t have to use the same tactics and tools if you’re not visible the same way.

And it’s just knowing what questions to ask. And there are degrees of success in terms of when you’re pounding the pavement and creating your own stuff. Like you’re going to try a little bit harder. The social media, web site game, and then perhaps you’ve got so much work and so much referral business that you don’t really need to upkeep that stuff, and that’s its own look and feel. There’s other indicators of success at that level. Like you. And you obviously just do this stuff naturally because you said, like by the size of their employees, like how do you have that many employees if you can’t pay payroll? That’s an indicator. And so, just training yourself to look for certain things and making sure that there are congruencies, rather than that they’re just pieces that don’t match up. Some people do it very naturally, other people not so much.

Exactly. And I guess there’s also room for a mention here, that I’m always amazed that some companies have almost automatically have big, lucrative, continuous projects, and other companies that are really nice people, really talented people, and they run a tight ship, but they just can’t seem to bring in new projects. For the service, oriented businesses, that applies. But think of like there’s probably a really great restaurant that of your town that maybe went out of business and it’s like they had good food, but they didn’t have the traffic that they needed. And then there’s the opposite case. McDonald’s is the opposite case, where it’s garbage. But everyone knows about it. So, you always have that situation.

I’m always so fascinated by that. And in design, specifically, there are, I don’t even know how to call them, like I don’t want to say like bad design firms, but there are firms that are making a lot of money, making good business, there are solo practitioners who make $200,000 a year from their underwear, doing substandard work. And they’re not up, they’re not pushing the industry, they’re not winning awards, they’re not speaking or anything, but they have captured a market, and they’ve captured the attention of those particular clients, which is really fascinating. So, I wish I could explore that, as well, from a clarity point of view, or just from a business point of view on how they work.

There’s so many components to that. Now you’re speaking my other language, which is in a whole personal development and self-actualization, that fear. And when you’ve got, especially, entrepreneurs, and where it’s so personality and individual specific at its infancy, hyper dependent upon the architecture of the people involved. If those components are there. And so, a lot of times it comes down to straight like chutzpah, like confidence. Like do you have the grit the determination the willpower to push through certain growth phases. And in my opinion that’s the biggest indicator of success in most cases. And then on top of that let’s throw and throw on top of that the branding issue that we talked about, and good branding can sell just about anything. As it’s just it’s just that way and there’s a viral component to it. But I’ve seen phenomenal branding invoke the viral component for absolute crap. But nobody cares because of the emotion that’s been built in the messages that it sends and the association that people want to have with it.There are so many variables.

I know we are talking about, we were talking before the interview about phonies and about user interface and things that everyone, that you eat. Everyday somebody is talking about Spotify. Like today, Spotify wants to offer President Obama a job or something like that, which to give them like the President of Music or they created some phony job for him, just to get their name in the paper. And I’m sitting there like Spotify is the worst web site. It makes no sense. It’s like the intuition is just bizarre. And also, it requires flash, so it doesn’t work on my Mac because I refuse to install Flash. But anyway, this is one of those sites where everyone’s like, oh yeah you got to go Spotify to get music. They’ve like become the winner and I’m sitting here like has can actually use this thing like this is ridiculous. So, it does look like. And there are other choices there that it doesn’t matter.

And that’s the name of the game anymore. And that’s where I think, especially in the small businesses, that’s where a lot of them get snookered, is they want to ride that hype train. And they either end up hiring service providers or consultants or whoever totally out of sequence, and so they can’t really utilize them. Or they hire people with absolutely no substance because they’ve got a lot of the flash. And from the small business, entrepreneur perspective, that’ll destroy any chance you have success. In your personal life, if you want to buy flashy smartphone over the other one, like whatever, you suffer the consequences. But it’ll take down businesses.

And so, it is the conversation of, even in your industry, you mentioned is if you run into situations where creative companies may be amazing at what they do, but that doesn’t mean that they necessarily know how to manage the finances of the business, or business strategy, or growth strategies, or some of the some of the more traditional growth building business things. Well what happens then when they turn around and hire somebody because they speak a language they don’t speak. They don’t know what they really need from a CFO or even a bookkeeper. And the next thing they’ve been siphoned. Siphoning off money. And they don’t care if this are they doing what they were doing. And so, the flip side of that coin is true also. Not just how do you promote your own transparency, but how do you demand transparency from all the people you get involved with to make sure that you’re protecting what you’re working so hard to create. And I don’t see any way around it anymore because we’ve created again, perhaps inadvertently, a market space where anybody and everybody can be an expert. All they have to do is put up a Web site that’s in alignment with their social media and they look pretty freaking good online.

Yeah that’s it. That’s all it takes anymore. 

But it’s tough in creative fields I think because you have to deliver value for your client. And if you want to charge more you have to back it up because first of all only a certain caliber of client is going to be able to pay your fees. And if you say OK I’m going to do this logo it’s going to cost you fifty thousand dollars a day, it better have a real impact when it hits the market and it better be on a piece of precision.

Possibly but what we see more often than not is that those things get sold. Sometimes it’s just the right introduction everything else and then. Making run fast enough. Most small businesses aren’t don’t have the money or the bandwidth to litigate. So, nobody knows. So, you can keep going for quite a while doing that. And it’s not a bad gig if you can get it, to pull 50 hundred thousand dollars per client and not really deliver. The challenge is obviously the bigger your clients go the more risk you run trying to pull that scam. But it is happening and it’s not that hard to do, if you can get yourself invited into certain circles and mean a lot of work to get my attention. But we come from the espionage arena and I can’t even tell you what those folks go through to sell secrets. So, who knows why people are motivated to pull deceptive acts like it just is and it’s happening because it’s easy to do.

I guess I’m always thinking of this shadow economy like online, that there’s so much garbage on the Internet and there are entire web sites that are built just to look like a site that you accidentally typed in. And this is not just shady, it’s like downright immoral. But I’m thinking of myself like there’s somebody that had this idea and then not only had the idea but pursued it for months and months. And I think it’s just amazing to me. I don’t know I don’t have a coherent example like really like Rip-Off has a business model, I guess Patent Trolls work, which is if you want to get your head spinning just research Patent Trolls. Oh, it’s just it’s so upsetting. But that type of thing. Non-practicing entities. Oh yeah. It’s amazing. Some shady stuff either.

And, here’s the whole point, not to make everybody paranoid, but to apply common sense. Like if it doesn’t feel right, if something doesn’t match up, if they’re saying one thing and you’re not seeing results like ask the questions sometimes the best gifts we offer people just ask the questions. Say one of our favorite questions is how do I do my due diligence on you? Like you said before, if somebody would ask you that, you would come up with ways to give them. And for me, would say, “Oh here’s a portfolio, here’s my process like you would be helpful. It like that. That’s all that needs to be done usually because it’s easy then to separate out the people who really are confident about what they’re saying that they can do versus the ones who aren’t. And for a small business sometimes that’s enough. Can you just do that part just to that step in any year. Light years ahead of the game.

I’m also surprised too that a lot of times when folks are shopping for creative services and they’re looking for web design, or digital marketing, or photography with something like that, they won’t do the same simple tactic that they’ll do for a plumber or for a guy on your lawn, which is to ask someone you trust. Ask a neighbor, ask someone you’ve been in business with, and say, hey, if you have ever worked with a marketing firm, ever worked with a designer? What’s a reasonable fee, before you just hit Google? Before you open up the trade magazines? Actually, I would say that most clients nowadays probably don’t have the foresight to admit that they’re a little bit clueless and to go research another industry that they’re trying to get services from.

And they’re intimidated by it.

And maybe they’re not admitting it. I know again at times, but everyone’s busy. But if you’re about to spend $50,000, buy one magazine about graphic design and see who’s in the mix. And that presents another problem about fame as an industry. The people getting written about are the only ones getting calls and that they just get written about again. And you have this problem.

Well let’s just add to the problems there.

Well no because it often happens. And this is I guess Cossack’s economics right but if you. If you just picked up a magazine and said OK I want to see the top firm in packaging design today, you could call them and depending on the size of your business if you’re like a local muffin store, and he said, “Hey I saw you in this magazine. You do really great work. Can you take on this project?” And they’ll say yes sure, $200,000. And you say, “Oh, boy. Can you recommend someone cheaper and smaller?” And they say, “Actually, yeah, this guy used to work for us and he just set up his own business. He’s a one-man studio. Why don’t you call him?” That actually happens quite a lot. So, there is someone suited for everyone.  

And I think, generally speaking, businesses want to do business with someone on their same size. And not just for capability and scope, but also just that’s how the relationships work, and how the mechanisms work. A CEO talks to a CEO, and a Director of Marketing talks to a Creative Director. That type of thing. A Solo-Practitioner should talk to and another Solo-Practitioner. The mismatch happens sometimes, and you have someone who is like the head of a three-person firm, he can be the founder and he has to go through seven chains on the other side of the table, just to get something approved that he’s used to doing on literally a minute by minute basis. So, there’s also the cynical side which says companies want to work with someone they can sue if it goes wrong. And if I’m working with Microsoft, Microsoft is going to sue me, it’s like oh congratulations what do you want, my second-hand couch like go ahead and take it.

I love of it. And again, everything that you’ve been talking about really points back to this concept. What’s consistent with that messaging? What works? And does it make sense for you to pay $50,000 to hire a huge company if your companies aren’t ready for that? One of the greatest comments I ever heard was a guy, Chris Collins is the branding guy, and we were talking with him one day, and I asked him, we’re at that point in time I don’t care that his price point was tens of thousands of dollars or whatever it was. So, I said when is it appropriate for a company to hire you? And he said the most brilliant thing. He’s like, “When you and your business are ready to have that size of a Brand.” And I thought about that and I was like that’s a peculiar response. And I really do enjoy dialoguing with him. And when we flushed it out a little bit it just made perfect sense. It’s like there’s no point.

You could you could get a business loan, remortgage your house, empty out your retirement account, whatever you want to do, and hire like this $200,000 firm to remake your website, redo your brand. But if you yourself are ready to step into that space you’ll tank it anyway. And I spoke to somebody who sure enough, she went through that process with them, and she said took two years for her to grow into that brand. Two years, and she was really forthcoming about that. It’s like she’s like, “I just wasn’t ready and it was perfect.” It’s just a great depiction of being where you’re at. We hire the people who are where your business is at who serve that community and then grow it from there to try to be in a space that you’re not in it you chance of success are slim to none in that space anyway.

Totally. No one more thing on the topic of pricing that you’re seeing now a lot of practitioners and small firms are starting to not necessarily list their price because there’s a meme in our field that you don’t want to become like a Chinese menu. It says it’s a logo design $800 what it wherever it is there’s nothing more frustrating than. Taking prospective calls or inquiries or at the worst case doing a whole proposal and then finding out that your budget is way off from what the client has or what you proposed. And I’m talking way off from talking to an order of magnitude 10 times that they want to spend 80 bucks a logo and you’re like are you kidding me. So, what folks are doing now is they’ll just have like a single line on their Web site and it says comprehensive packages start at $5000 a month or something like that. And that will show you what size you’re working with. Now if you’re super huge if you’re a global company if you’re a publicly traded you probably don’t need to do that.

You’re exempt.

No, I’m serious because folks if you are obviously huge, then you obviously have these huge budgets. But if you’re especially a one person or a small firm, it’s good for clients to know what they’re dealing with. And then of course that gets you out of having at least one conversation because folks know they know your starting point. And so, that you’re never going below that. But at the same time, that’s something that I think our industry doesn’t really do a lot of what we used to talk about finances more. Talk about Project fees because you’re seeing this a little bit at conferences, and things. But I think it’s really interesting to hear what folks are charging and how. How do you make these jobs? How do you go from going from $15 an hour to $30 an hour? Because when you make that change, it’s huge. And then how do you go from $30 to $70. How do you get from $70 to $110? And then of course once you’re big, once you’re a big studio and there’s all rates for like a single human. But once you have an aggregate studio rate, now you’re talking $250 to $400 whatever it is. And people rarely talk about those transitions. And when’s the first time that you meet the client who can get you to that next strata. Those are interesting conversations and I would like to see more of that. And for the spirit of transparency but also for the spirit of rising tide the whole industry.

Oh, I agree completely and I think you’re really onto something. And sometimes it just takes somebody starting that conversation to be able to say and how do we go. How did you do it how did how did it work for you. and that was invaluable for any business to find. masterminding and stepped foot in your industry. So, and it sounds like you’re on the right track to create that space for folks so congratulations. Yeah thanks I appreciate it. Very cool. Thank you so for joining us I know people are going to want to find out more about you. Where do you want to send them?

All right well for design and branding type stuff you can check out starship dot design and that is my portfolio and there’s some basic contact info there. And then for everything else it’s BusyCreator.com.

Very cool. Well awesome. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. It’s been really delightful to have that perspective and representation from that industry. I appreciate it.

My pleasure. Take care.

Very cool. And everyone else for you get involved with a business, make sure that your business is In The Clear. Take care everyone.

The post Creative Companies Create Transparency appeared first on Clear Business Directory.

Personal Finance For The New Economy with Daniel Ameduri

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In The Clear 58 | Personal Finance

In The Clear 58 | Personal FinanceDaniel Ameduri is the editor of the Wealth Research Group and the cofounder of Future Money Trends Letter, FMT Advisory and Crush The Street.

In this episode, we talk about the outdated techniques in the personal finance world. He tears down the veil of a few topics that we all have been taught to do as mature adults, like financial advisors and 401ks. He also provides some tips and resources on finding a great financial advisor to entrust your money with.

Hello, everyone. This is Tonya Dawn Recla. This is the In The Clear podcast. I’m really excited to have with me today, Daniel Ameduri. If you go back and listen, I also interviewed one of his partners, Lior Gantz a while back. These guys are doing some really remarkable stuff in the finance industry. As you all know, we’re not shy about pointing fingers at the finance industry for being wrought with frauds and scams and some less than savory business practices. I love getting a chance to bring these guys on and talk about some of their approaches to this. Really, in my opinion, kind of tearing the shroud and the veil off of some pretty outdated techniques in that world. I love their approach and I’m really excited about having Daniel here talking about Future Money Trends, which he’d been up for seven years. Then he can introduce a new concept that they recently launched. Please join me in welcoming Daniel to the show. Welcome, Daniel.

Thanks for having me on the show.

Absolutely. Thanks for joining us. As you know, we like to talk about transparency and how to raise the bar in some of these industries. Tell me a little bit about your approach in the finance industry. It feels really unique.

In The Clear 58 | Personal Finance

We consider ourselves personal finance for the new economy.

We consider ourselves personal finance for the new economy. We really try to focus on, first off, offering people the opportunity to make those decisions for themselves. We give them the information, we give them the same thing that a broker or a financial advisor might see. Most people think that a financial advisor might have gone through some four year degree program, but actually most listeners would be shocked to learn that it actually takes more training to cut hair and get a license to cut somebody’s hair at a salon than it does to become, I’m being serious, than it does to become a financial planner.

Now we understand the problem in that industry.

In the finance industry, my goodness, it’s littered with mines, with bombs out there. For the most part, it’s commission based but also there’s something where people don’t even realize, when you go to a 401K, your financial planner puts you in an Oppenheimer Fund or Fidelity Fund, which you don’t realize is the reason, for the most part, it’s going to those people is because the Oppenheimer guys are sending his family to Disney cruises and making sure he gets better pay on the backend. There’s a lot of that going on.

There is something called the fiduciary, which if you are going to get a financial advisor or planner to help you out, I would strongly encourage everybody get a fiduciary. A fiduciary is about that 3% to 4% of all financial advisors. They actually are the only ones that truly have to be transparent to such an extreme that if your fiduciary bought, let’s say, IBM, it’s a familiar stock to everybody, in the morning and then you call them up and wanted to buy IBM by lunch, they actually are legally obligated to give you the better price. If they perhaps bought it for $100 and you bought for $102, they actually have to swap those shares that they bought with yours and give you that price point. A fiduciary is definitely the most transparent possible person you can have if you’re going to use a financial advisor.

Wow, that’s awesome to hear. That’s why I love talking to you guys. That’s really valuable to know. Folks, we like to give you feedback on what questions you should be asking. In my opinion, that’s probably one of the first questions you should be asking, “Are you a fiduciary?” I hadn’t heard that before so I really appreciate that insight. I want to go back to what you’re talking about, about giving people information, allowing them to make their own decisions, which we’re also big fans of. Do you offer services as well for the folks, like me for example. I love getting information, I like being knowledgeable. At a certain point, I also want that trusted person that I can turn some of that over to and outsource. Do you all provide that?

We do have an advisor we recommend. His name is Nicholas Green, he’s in Phoenix. The website is FMTAdvisory.com. Again, that is who we refer to. We have some ownership in the company. The fiduciary actually is the senior owner. He’s been doing this for ten years. By law, he is obligated to give you the best deal. I think that’s a great question to ask anybody that you’re going to give your money to. With that said, at the Future Money Trends letter, we don’t necessarily recommend everybody get in the stock market. In fact, that’s one of the things that we think is the biggest secret in the financial industry. Everybody feels like they earn money, they’ve got to reallocate it immediately to something, reallocate it to the stock market, reallocate it to some sort of mutual fund.

That’s not necessarily the case because the fact is, most people, they don’t understand what they’re buying. If you don’t understand what you’re buying, what are you doing? It comes down to personal finance 101. Majority of the income that you’ll make throughout your life is going to be from you. You’re your best investment. When you look at where your money actually comes from, it’s the person in the mirror. For some reason, we’ve all been conditioned to reallocate our money to other people who happen to earn a living off of taking our money. Really you’re the first and the last line of defense for your money ultimately. Some of the best investors like Warren Buffett and Jim Rogers have said this. Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. There’s nothing wrong with having some cash. You’ll sleep well at night.

I like that. I really like that you’re willing to call some of that out because it is an industry. We see this a lot in maybe the tech industries for business owners or finance industry for businesses and for personal. It just is so overwhelming that people get really intimated in that space. I think the best advice for folks out there is educate yourself a little bit and just start to feel into what feels right, what works for you. Ultimately, I think a lot of advisors in this arena don’t stop to ask somebody what do they want. What life do you want to have? How easily accessible do you want your money? All of that stuff. I appreciate that you’re sharing that.

I want to go back to this fiduciary thing. Because in our world, one of the biggest issues we run into is we encourage people to vet people before they get involved with them in their business. A lot of times, what happens is we’ll have clients who bring people to us over and over and over again, they’re finding these scammy people. We’re the bearers of the bad news, “Nope, you picked a bad one again.” They get frustrated, they’re like, “Just tell us who to work with.” I can see folks in the finance side of things feeling similarly, that if the fiduciaries are such a small portion of the financial planner world, other than the gentleman that you recommended, how do people go about finding them? Is there a special secret place to hang out? Where do they go?

There is a fiduciary’s association that you can find. You can find fiduciaries in your area. I’m sure people could find it by googling fiduciary and their city or the next major city next to them, they could find a fiduciary advisor. I know Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker, he has a company that’s a fiduciary company that he actually is a partial owner in. There are some good fiduciaries out there. Everyone should take the seriousness of handing money over to somebody and respect their money with what your hard earned dollars deserve by asking these people, first and foremost, “How long have you been in business? I’d like to have three referrals.” If they can’t give you three referrals, I wouldn’t do business with them. These people have been doing business for five and ten years, they should have three people you can call that are non-family members and ask them what is it like, what is it like working with this person and how has your experience has been.

In The Clear 58 | Personal Finance

Personal Finance: Be very clear that your financial advisor understands your own needs.

Also, making sure that the person just isn’t putting it into some sort of cookie cutter program. Something that caters to you. Be very clear that they understand your own needs. Perhaps you don’t want the money to be locked up. A lot of people say that they’ll take moderate risk until something goes down 10% and then they don’t want to be moderate risk, they want to be more conservative. There’s other alternatives out there for you. A lot of things that are advertised to the rich, like whole life insurance policies or specific kinds of real estate investment trusts, these things are advertised to the rich but they’re not really advertised to the middle class. The middle class keeps getting thrown at mutual funds with these huge enormous fees that take over a third of your gains over the course of 20, 30 years.

60 Minutes has done an excellent show on this that you can find on YouTube about 401Ks, they did about two years ago. They’re showing that people are getting feed to death. Behind the upfront fee, there’s anywhere from 18 to 21 hidden fees. You just got to be very careful with your money and not so easily just give it to anybody, especially if they’re just a financial planner. Again, these are probably good people, well intention people, but they’re really are salesmen. These are not investment advisors.

That’s so funny. I was just going to say, I bet you have some pretty strong opinions about company 401K plans?

I’m not a fan, to be perfectly honest with you. For the most part, the 401K companies that are approved, these are the companies that are these big corporate donors. They’ve weeded out the competition. They’re very high in fees. Now they have these new things which are target funds, which are even more dangerous. Many people, even in Congress, have come out against these things now that they’ve seen them actually play out here for the last ten years. I’m not a fan overall of the 401K for many reasons. I don’t know if we want to get into all of that.

The 401K, if you’re getting a company match, sure, it could be worth it. You get 100% return from day one, that’s not a bad deal. You can just own some blue chip US stocks. Overall, at Future Money Trends we’re not, only because I don’t like for younger people locking that money up. You have to pay a fee if you want to get your own access to your own savings. You’re very limited to how many investments you can make. On the finance side, the fact of the matter is, the whole idea of a 401K is you’re going to defer taxes so you can take taxes out at a lower tax rate when you’re 65. Look, at Future Money Trends, and I think for most people, I don’t think the plan should be to fail. Why would I plan to be in the lowest possible tax bracket? My plan is, at 65, I’m going to be in the highest possible tax bracket.

Gosh, you’re such a breath of fresh air. I love it. That’s the thing, the responsible message, especially for the middle and lower class, is that you follow the rules and you do this and people pat themselves on the back because they’re doing the responsible, mature, adult thing because that’s what we’ve been told to do. Wait a second, who made these rules? I think ever since I was born, I’m always the one going, “Wait, wait, wait. Who’s behind this? What do they serve to gain from this?” We tell our clients all the time, “Follow the money.” If you really want to know who stands to gain from this stuff, follow the money. We can talk about the medical industry all day long. Everything that we’re taught to do as mature, responsible adults is usually funding somebody else’s dream.

Very true.

I really appreciate you doing that. I think what you guys do is awesome in terms of offering information. I’m sure you find a lot of what we find. We educate, we provide content, we provide training, over and over and over again. I think that for the majority of people, it’s just so overwhelming. I think this information age that we’re involved with, the biggest challenge is making yourself standout as somebody who can be trusted and where people can go. How do you all manage that process, to just tell people, “Hey, look. All of that noise over there, here’s why you should be coming to us for this”?

There is a lot of noise out there, in the markets, with the publishing industry. We just try to give people brutal honesty and say, “Here are your options. Here are options that nobody’s really talking about.” I also tell them what I’ve done with my own finances. “My wife and I, we saved, we were frugal.” I give them extreme savings ideas. I got tired of clicking on articles that tell you how to save money, it’s like these three basic ways. I like to give people, “Here’s how you cut into the bone.” By the time I was 30, I had already become, as far as a net worth millionaire, and then later became a multimillionaire. I’m still in my 30s. I just basically lay it out for people, “Here’s how I did it. There’s no two roads alike, but I’ve happened to notice that when I read about other people who become financially independent, that there are definitely some common denominators.”

In The Clear 58 | Personal Finance

Personal Finance: It’s one thing to rely on mentors or experts, but it’s another thing just to follow the conventional plan.

The biggest common denominator is, of course, trusting themselves and looking to themselves for many of the answers they’re researching. It’s one thing to rely on mentors or experts, but it’s another thing just to follow the conventional plan. Because the conventional plan, it’s definitely not a plan. If you do that, “Let’s just retire in 40 years,” that is what you’re going to get. It’s an experiment too. 401Ks were not around when Adam and Eve were around. A lot of people think the 401K was around forever. The 401K has been around since the 80s. It was passed in Congress in the late 70s, it’s been around since the 80s. Only now are we seeing this experiment come to fruition. According to a lot of articles and studies and research by even the mutual fund companies, the 401K is not working out. I just read an article yesterday JP Morgan put out where they’re recommending that, “Hey, this is not going to work.” They’re at least advocating for some sort of mandatory government run retirement system, even beyond social security, because the 401K is not even coming close to doing what I think people had anticipated. This is all an experiment.

The whole 65 year old thing, it’s a hilarious story. You research it and go back to when they created social security in the 30s. They literally were sitting around, having a conversation. First off, the men were dying off at about 58 years old. The women were dying off at 62. This social security plan that we all have now was really meant for the worst case scenario. If you outlived your life expectancy. Anyway, the story goes is they were sitting around going, “Hey, why don’t we do social security at 62?” Then somebody said 67. Then they’re like, “Hey, 65 sounds about right.” There was no study, there was no in depth research with life insurance companies. Somebody just picked the number. That now is essentially our retirement year.

That’s it. That’s the magic number. I can honestly say you’re the first person on this show to mention Adam and Eve. That’s impressive. To tie it into finance, that’s creative. I could talk to you guys all day and pick your brains and everything. I really appreciate your approach to this. I know I’ve said that a few times now. Folks out there, ask yourself, whose plan are you following? I think that’s the heart of what the Future Money Trends guys are all about, is really just think for yourself. What works for you, what works for your family? I love that you said there aren’t any two paths the same. It truly is. You can create it however you want it to be. Get clear on that, and then go about finding the people who can help you get there.

The same is true in business, we advise businesses all the time. Where do you want to go? There’s a million and one ways to do business these days. How do you want it to look? And then go looking for the individuals who can help you with a specific piece of that. There’s nobody who can tell you how to walk your path, it’s impossible. It’s your path. I think that can be applied to the finance game as well. I, for one, love the diversity of the stuff that you’re talking about. I think it’s important to shed light on the fact that there are a lot of vehicles to help you get there. How do you work? Do you work with clients? Do you do trainings? Do you just manage the website? What do you do?

Future Money Trends is subscription based. The subscription is free. The ways the website generates revenues is either through affiliate marketing or just regular ads on the websites. We have ads generation, which is your Google Ads and different ads, we also have mining stocks that sponsor our website that we vet. We have advertisers who pay for the website, which is generated from the website traffic. The subscriptions remain free for users and it also keeps us with a nice relationship with our users, that I’m not accepting any money from them and they’re allowed to come and go as they please and read our newsletter for free.

However, with that said, we have recently launched a new website and it’s PermanentWealthPartners.com. There’s a special link if anybody wants to check it out, PermanentWealthPartners.com/Wealth. What this is, I wanted to start a paid newsletter. There are many out there, but all of them have the same issue that all of the financial people have. Everybody is either making a living off of their paid subscribers or they need the paid subscription, they’re constantly promoting it and it turns into spam in your inbox and they’re constantly trying to upgrade you. Over the summer, what I did is I approached somebody who had made over $100 million, they had built $2 billion companies. I said, “I think there’s a hole in the market for some unbiased advice in these microcap companies that people can make a lot of money from.” They’re just too risky because the microcap space or penny stocks, they are honestly 95 plus percent fraud and it’s a huge scam.

I approached Keith Neumeyer. He’s a very successful entrepreneur. I said, “I know you don’t care about the money, but what if we started a paid letter? It’s something that Future Money Trends people could upgrade into if they wanted to basically invest in what you invest?” I said, “All you’ve got to do is tell us, when you’re about to buy a stock, send out an alert, let us know and let us know why. Then every month, we’ll do an interview with you and get an update on these stocks.” For people who are looking for riskier plays, speculative plays, certainly this is not where your retirement fund should be going. But if you’re looking to have a little fun in the markets, rather than just take some newsletter writers, a guy’s opinion, we’ve simplified the whole thing.

Here’s somebody who’s been doing this for over 30 years, he’s made hundreds of millions of dollars, he’s helped other people make millions of dollars. We’re not asking them for a pick a week, a pick a day. I told him, “What do you do?” He said, “I’m only going to buy about three or four stocks this year.” I’m like, “That’s fine. Then we’ll just do three or four stocks with you.” Just simplified and clear. Because everybody, a lot of people are interested. Penny stocks is still one of the most popular search phrases on Google. We all want to speculate on these things, but I’d like to take out the uncertainty of the whole thing because what’s behind every penny stock is their shareholders. You’re either an insider or you’re not. That’s our new website that we’ve launched that has a paid membership. That’s PermanentWealthPartners.com/Wealth. That’s what Keith Neumeyer as the sole person who picks the stocks.

In The Clear 58 | Personal Finance

I’ve managed to get out of this river where everybody is either grinding out ten hours a day with no hope. Now, I’m just trying to help people out.

Otherwise, Future Money Trends. My goal is to help others. I feel like I’ve managed to get out of this river where everybody is either grinding out ten hours a day with no hope. Now, I’m just trying to help people out. I feel great. I wake up every day, I’m with my wife and three children. I work from home and I do what I want. Since I was a little boy, I’ve been reading about personal finance. Now, every day I read about personal finance. If I see a good idea, I love sharing it. I killed two birds with one stone. I’m constantly looking for income ideas for myself, and as I find them I’m able to act on them myself, share them with the Future Money Trends subscribers.

Awesome. We’re fans of what you guys are doing. I appreciate you coming on the show and just sharing your insights and being so transparent. That’s a big deal in that industry. I appreciate that you’re modeling that and raising the bar by calling people out. I think it’s time. We like what you’re doing. You’ve mentioned a few of your websites, is there anywhere else you’d like for us to send people to go check out your stuff?

Future Money Trends is the easiest. It sounds like you guys have already to Lior at Wealth Research Group. FutureMoneyTrends.com, if you go there, that’s the best place. On the website, we have links to other letters, as well as the FMT Advisory.

Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today on the show, Daniel.

Thanks very much.

Absolutely. To all of you out there, thank you. Make sure that before you make any decisions for your business, that you are in the clear. Take care everyone.

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Marketing for Marketers with David Dunworth

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In The Clear 59 | Marketing For Marketers
In The Clear 59 | Marketing For MarketersDavid Dunworth is part of Marketing Partners LLC and one of the members of the CLEAR Business Directory.

In today’s episode, he discusses Marketing Partners and how their services are so good that they actually do marketing for marketers. Their company is aimed at helping small business owners get more customers and be more profitable. He also talks about the future of marketing in this age of smartphones.

Welcome to the In The Clear Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Recla. Super excited today as we are doing a live, on the spot interview with one of the members of the CLEAR Business Directory. We’re down here in Florida at The Business Acceleration Summit. I’m speaking with one of the mentors today. David Dunworth is part of Marketing Partners LLC. He’s absolutely a really neat guy. You could tell that he is just 100% genuine and authentic in who he is and what he does. I’m excited to have him here on the show today. He’s got a business that is tricky for a lot of business owners. He brings an aspect of authenticity that I’m excited to dive in with him here on The Clear Podcast. David, welcome to the show.

Thanks for taking the time to invite me and spend a little time with me.

In The Clear 59 | Marketing For Marketers

I spent a lifetime in hospitality sector.

I appreciate it. David, can you tell our listeners a little bit about your business and your background?

Sure. I’ll start with the background. I spent a lifetime in hospitality in a sector called The Private Club World, which is a little bit different. It’s a lot different than a public restaurant segment.  It’s a lot different than hotels. I have operated clubs that did have hotel rooms. But the mainstay of my entire hospitality background was in high end, private social athletic clubs, country clubs, things of that nature.

Fantastic. Tell me a little bit about Marketing Partners?

That segued into a 15-year consulting opportunity that I took on. I focused on generalists, but hospitality kept drawing me back in because my skill set was that strong. But all my entire career marketing was heavily involved; marketing, promotions, and advertising. To make a long story very short, I partnered with a financial backer who has nothing to do with business other than cashing a check, which is great.

That’s a good partner to have.

Because we actually have checks to cash. We service several different niches. We do stuff for small businesses. Most small businesses, the owner or the person running it is scratching their head most of the time, wondering, how do I get more customers? How do I make myself more visible online? All of those types of things. We solved that. We educate our clients what’s most important, what they can do themselves to become more visible online, and what we can offer them in terms of do it yourself, do it with you or done for you. Either way, they’re going to get as much help as they can handle based on what their objectives are. It’s like that bulldog in the corner. You don’t know whether you want to wake it up or not.

But regardless, you’ve got to feed it.

Exactly.

Regardless, you do have to feed it. I know that the concept of marketing, especially about videos, those sketch drawings. There are so many different avenues. Like you’re talking about, video is the new trade. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

In The Clear 59 | Marketing For Marketers

The advance of video because of the mobile transition.

The advance of video because of the mobile transition. We are working with fully operational computers in our pockets. It’s in our hand. We look at it all day long. It’s like an appendage. The market is shifting to make a streaming video, the national networks are doing it, cable TV is doing it, business is doing it. The forecast is that by 2018 as much as 70% of all content viewed online is going to be video. That’s pretty shocking to me because the video is not inexpensive. To be done right, there are a few dollars to it. Hopefully, like anything else, when the automobile came online it was shockingly expensive for the average person. But as critical mass took over, like new TV, the first year it’s $2,500. Two years later it’s $299. Hopefully, the price of video will become more reasonable so that small businesses can actually afford quality video. There’s a lot of junk out there.

You see people that do a video on their own. You see people that do a video that right way, they hire a professional. You can see the difference. Like you said, you’re going to have to do it in order to keep up with the competition out there.

The competition is only going to get more difficult.

Exactly. David, what would you like our listeners and your prospective clients to know about you? What is one thing they should be asking you before they decide to hire you?

If they were to ask me why they should hire me over somebody else, I’ll give them a couple of reasons. First reason is, my biggest client, who actually is in New Jersey, is a marketing agency.

You’re a marketing guy who’s got clients that are marketers?

Yes, I have a client in Wales that is a marketing agency. He calls himself a media company. But it’s actually a marketing agency and I do some work for him.

You do marketing for the marketers?

That’s correct. The second reason that I think it’s important to know is that we’re experts at lead generation and that’s what small businesses need. They need more customers. We’re not going to be able to close the customer for them but we can certainly drive them to the business owner and teach them how to make that connection, to make the buyer’s journey end with them. We pride ourselves on being masters at that. Here’s the inside story. We offer a guarantee. Now, there are other marketing agencies that will guarantee some of their activities. We’re the only marketing agency in North America, I can’t say the world because we haven’t looked at Europe yet, but the only one in North America that offers a double back guarantee.

What’s that look like?

What that means is if you worked with us for a year, specifically geared towards awareness, lead generation, traffic to your website, and we don’t produce more qualified leads than you’ve ever experienced we’ll give you every penny back that you have invested with us for the entire year twice, double. That’s why we call it the double back guarantee.

That’s something you’re not going to hear from most people.

You won’t hear it from anybody.

I’m pretty sure you probably will never have to do it.

We’ve been in business almost five years. Haven’t had a client that said, “You failed me.” We’re pretty proud of that.

David, you’ve been in the business world for some time now. As an entrepreneur, you know we all have lessons that we go through and stuff. Is there anything in your business background, in your business history that you wish you could go back and do over again or something that was a huge lesson for you?

Sure, there’s a lot of things.

Anything that stands out?

There’s one thing that I think bothers me more than anything else. That’s when I ran a club that had more than 3,500 members and their families. That’s a population of almost 8,000 people. It was a ragtag mess when I got there and became a club of the year when I left. My biggest regret is I left. I should’ve stayed a little bit longer. But things happen for a reason and people make decisions that they may regret, but it all turned out for the better. I missed probably the best year I could have ever had, was to bask in the glory of the success. But being an entrepreneur, I’m looking for that next challenge. I don’t really regret it, but if had to I would redo it.

That speaks volume as to who you are. That tells me that you dived fully into the projects and the businesses that you work with.

In The Clear 59 | Marketing For Marketers

Mohammad Ali was the greatest ever.

That’s also been a challenge for me. In the hospitality business, you tend to live your business. You’re married to the business. I was no different. The 70, 80 hour work weeks were routine. I’m in it, heart and soul. My greatest idol as a youth and still believe that Mohammad Ali was the greatest ever and you couldn’t knock him out. You could knock him down. He got knocked down a couple of times. But that’s like me. I boxed because of Mohammad Ali. I boxed amateur while I was in the military and I had a pretty good record. I was 23 and 3. 23 wins, 20 of them knockouts, 3 decisions and they were mixed decisions and there was no knockout. You can’t keep me down. I refuse to stay down. Maybe that’s why I’m still working at my age. I don’t know. I feel like I’m 30, and I’m twice that. In fact, it’s my birthday next week.

Happy birthday.

Thanks. I’m just going to keep going. One of my catchphrases or clichés, I’m known as the Over Caffeinated Entrepreneur because I’m at a high pace. I have no fear of caffeine. Even though my doctor says I might want to cut back a little. There’s plenty of time for sleep, and when I’m dead I’ll get plenty of it.

I tell people, “I’m an entrepreneur. Sleep is a crutch.”

It’s a choice. Most people make it. I fight it because there’s so much that I want to do. There’s so much out there that needs help. We work with veteran-owned organizations. We give them a 50% discount on everything that we do for them. Non-profits, we offer the same thing. We’ll help whoever needs the help. We even have a non-profit client who is struggling so much to stay alive. We’re just doing the marketing for them pro bono. It’s more about their bottom line than mine. I’ve had a lifetime of successes. Some failures. But it’s my way to give back. The universe is taking good care of me.

That’s awesome. David, thank you so much for being on the show. Before we head out, can you share with our listeners, outside of looking at your profile inside the CLEAR Business Directory, can you share with our listeners where they can find more information about you?

In The Clear 59 | Marketing For Marketers

The Entrepreneur’s Amended Bill of Rights.

Sure. They can find us at MarketingPartnersLLC.com. I have my page. On the About page, there’s the story of how the business got started, some of the key players that are involved. Right now, there’s a free release on a book that I’m about to publish. It’s called The Entrepreneur’s Amended Bill of Rights. I wrote the original one back in 2011 and it was published right after the first year in 2012. But it’s sorely outdated. I amended the Bill of Rights. It’s pretty interesting to read. It’s based on my beliefs in the entrepreneurial environment, what entrepreneurs are really entitled to. They have rights just like anybody else. It’s formulated from the belief system that I have that I inherited from my grandparents. I talked about my grandparents in all my books. That bothers people that it’s in a non-fiction business oriented book. I’m sorry, but that’s who I am. That’s my story. My grandfather was a tremendous man with a third-grade education who built the largest World War II manufacturing plant for the B29 Superfortress Bomber. They made the engines there. He was the guy that put it together with a third-grade education. He had a story, he had his ways. I learned everything that I know from him. It’s a good read. It’s not heavy. It’s not technical. It’s a light read. It’s fun. You’ll learn something, hopefully.

Fantastic. David, thank you so much for being on the show today. Again, we’re here at The Business Acceleration Summit here in Florida. David Dunworth is one of the mentors here at the summit. We’re just super excited that he’s part of the CLEAR Business Directory. You can check out his profile inside the CLEAR Business Directory at ClearBusinessDirectory.com or you can take a look at his website at MarketingPartnersLLC.com. David, thank you so much.

Thanks for the time. I appreciate it.

Take care. Before you get involved with anybody, make sure that business is In The Clear.

Amen.

Learn more about David Dunworth

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Due Diligence: Conspiracy Theory vs. Corporate Counterintelligence

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Due Diligence: 

Conspiracy Theory vs. Corporate Counterintelligence 

Let’s face it who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory? There can be a ton of fun in speculating the who-done-it. However, conspiracy theory can quickly become an emotional roller coaster, especially when a theory assumes that some underlying force is out to get us (or a client).  While conspiracy theory can be fun and entertaining, conspiracy theory really has no place in the business world.

Conspiracy Theory 

This by definition is “a belief that some covert but influential organization or person is responsible for a circumstance or event.” So how does this even enter into the realm of due diligence and business? Simple, often times we come across people who feel they have some understanding of what corporate counterintelligence is and because of the movies, or some misguided understanding, they automatically equate anything “bad” that happens in any business setting as some level of conspiracy.

The problem with conspiracy theory in business is that it actually creates more problems than it does good. Conspiracy theory tends to focus on possible events that may or may not have happened and often relies on speculation and decisions based on an incomplete picture. In essence, conspiracy theory comes from a place of fear and really doesn’t paint a clear picture about any situation.

This is dangerous in business and can cost clients time and money. Not to generalize (ok, I’m going to generalize), but the “background check” mindset tends to play into the arena of conspiracy theory. Now, most of the good P.I.s I know may start in conspiracy, but they are at least aware enough to come back around to good ol’ fact finding. However, there are those P.I.s out there who are more than happy to take your money and feed someone’s running script that everything is a conspiracy theory. This is why you don’t see a term in business called “Private Investigative Intelligence.” This is also what really sets corporate counterintelligence apart in the due diligence world.

Conspiracy theory also operates on the assumption that since someone may or may not do something again, then time is of the essence. This is where conspiracy theory as a means of due diligence begins to really fall apart. This is because most due diligence cases actually fall into one of two camps, cleaning up a messy situation or preventing one. In either case, time is not of the essence but being thorough and efficient become more important because the information discovered in the process may need to be used for a legal situation.  And, if an attorney is already involved in a specific situation then the do’s and don’ts of due diligence become even more restrictive and the level of execution for fact finding and deciphering of information becomes extremely precise. This fact alone is why conspiracy theory becomes dangerous because it can not operate in the same realm of precision that corporate counterintelligence requires. The mere construct of conspiracy theory falls apart when the level of deciphering, assessing facts, and analyzing information needed to protect a client’s interest comes into play.

Corporate Counterintelligence

The term corporate counterintelligence exist at a variety of different levels in the due diligence arena. However, at the very center of the understanding of this concept lays the idea of pure objectiveness. Conspiracy theory is not effective in this realm. In order to be an effective counterintelligence agent, one has to understand the facts objectively so an effective decision can be made to navigate certain life or death circumstances. The same is true of corporate counterintelligence in the business world. The corporate counterintelligence process requires uncovering, deciphering and processing various amounts of information. Depending on the level of risk this level of due diligence can become very complicated. Especially since the goal is to remain objective so the best course of action can be identified that will mitigate any risk.  Notice I did not say eliminate risk. Regardless of the due diligence process, risk still exist. However unlike conspiracy theory that automatically assumes some level of “danger,” corporate counterintelligence identifies the risk so the choices that are decided can be done in confidence.

The tricky part to corporate counterintelligence is navigating the enormous amounts of data in any given problem set while navigating all of the peripheral information that affects the situation as a whole. This includes the emotional impact of a situation, other people’s opinions about how something should or should not go and, of course, keeping any conspiracy theorist at bay. Now to its credit, conspiracy theory can highlight potential avenues of approach, however, objectiveness has to remain the focus when performing due diligence utilizing corporate counterintelligence.

Corporate counterintelligence is not a fast process, nor is it designed to be. Of course there are times where the process can be expedited. However, the process still takes time. That is because of the amount of data needed to be researched, understood, assessed, analyzed, and processed in order for all of the avenues of approach and potential risk to be identified. Once that is done, the information then has to be assimilated in such a manner that it can be understood by those who it serves (i.e. the client) so they can then make an educated decision on a situation.

When it comes to due diligence, conspiracy theory is like throwing spaghetti against the wall in hope that something sticks so you can say, “See, see I was right” with no game plan on how to mitigate risk moving forward. While the corporate counterintelligence method of due diligence may be more time consuming, in the long run it ultimately saves time and money because it identifies the potential risk. In doing so, it gives the client the information required to navigate those risk in order to mitigate loss and prevent repeating similar mistakes that created the triggering event that required due diligence in the first place.

 

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The Complexities Of Raising Capital with Russell Weigel

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In The Clear 60 | Raising Capital
In The Clear 60 | Raising CapitalRussell Weigel is a securities attorney and a member of the Clear Business Directory. Through Investment Attorneys, he helps his clients with compliance matters, arbitration defense or investigation defense.
In this episode, Russell talks about the importance of due diligence, of being transparent to his clients as well as the other way around, and of trust, particularly in the securities industry. He also discusses education in raising capital and how being educated allows people to avoid a lot of mistakes that may get them in trouble.

Today, we’re super excited because we’re talking to one of the members of the Clear Business Directory, Russell Weigel. He is a securities attorney, his business is the Investment Attorneys. I’m super excited to have him here because he brings a plethora of information to the business world. If you’re raising capital, if you’ve ever dealt with bringing in investors, it’s so important to have somebody on your side who knows what it is that they are doing. I’ve met Russell at CEO space, Business Acceleration Network and Summit. Russell is the real deal; he isn’t only down to earth but he is extremely knowledgeable. He’s here to join us and share a little bit about what he’s doing in the world and how he can help you with your business. Russell, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Justin.

We’re so excited to have you here. Can you share with our listeners a little bit about your background and exactly what it is you do?

In The Clear 60 | Raising Capital

Most of those representations involve compliance matters that we deal with but a lot of them are arbitration defense or investigation defense.

I‘m an attorney, I’ve been practicing securities law for the last 26 years. Of that, ten and a half years I spent with the federal government as an enforcement attorney with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In that capacity I served many different roles, from investigator to litigator to management supervisor. Over the course of ten years, I became fluid with the mindset of the SEC. It’s that background that I brought into private practice. A lot of the techniques and mindsets and approach to handling security transactions and in doing defense work, protecting clients against investigations and litigations from the SEC. The primary areas of my practice are doing security transactions for both private and public companies, I represent both. I also represent people in the financial services industry. Most of those representations involve compliance matters that we deal with but a lot of them are arbitration defense or investigation defense. We handle anybody who’s in the industry or out of the industry but happens to get in the crosshairs of the SEC somehow. I am, I believe, one of the most effective defense counsels in the country for handling those matters.

We have a lot of clients that comes to us that are raising capital.  They do their due diligence on the people that they’re getting involved with, but it’s so important to have somebody like yourself whose got hands on experience working directly with the Securities Exchange Commission because they can be quite the bulldogs if you’re not doing things right. Having somebody who’s got an inside view as to what to do, how to do it, and what not to do, is extremely powerful. Having somebody on your team that can assist you and guide you along the way really sets you up for success.

I know as an entrepreneur, it can be so easy to think that you know everything about raising capital and the ins and outs. But there’s so much to it and so much complexity to raising capital, what you can do, what you can’t do, what you can say and what you can’t say. It’s really easy to get yourself in trouble. We’ve seen it over and over again with clients that we work with. Knowing that they’ve got access to you in the Clear Business Directory is a huge deal. It’s just going to make their teams more powerful by having you a part of it.

Thank you. Just to clarify, in my world, all my clients are innocent. They often times get crossways with the government even when they’re innocent, when they think they’re doing things correctly, may have done things correctly and may in fact be innocent. It’s an adversarial regulatory system that we have. There’s no mediation provision in the securities laws. There’s no pass that people might get if they were arrested. Maybe on a first time basis they might get pre-trial diversion and get out of it, that never happens in the securities world.

It is adversarial; you could do right everything and still find yourself in trouble. That’s why it’s so important to have somebody who’s knowledgeable about the ins and outs of that system, to have someone like you on their team. Russell, one of things we like to ask to everybody who comes on the show is, if there was one thing that you would wish that your perspective clients could or would ask you before they engage you and bring you onto their team, what would that question be? From a due diligence perspective, that know your client due diligence. What is the one thing that you want your clients to know about you and your business?

I’m not sure if it’s something I want them to ask, but I have a threshold amount of disclosure that I require of all clients that are doing offerings or intending to do a capital raise for which they are hiring my firm to assist them. We have a very detailed questionnaire that we ask all the officers and directors to execute and return at the threshold of the engagement. If we don’t get it back we just don’t take the engagement because we expect them to be truthful to their council.  If we’re going to be drafting disclosure documents that are going to be used to present to perspective investors then we want to know that we’ve got a complete disclosure because we’re going to be the ones drafting the biographical information on them.

If there are hiccups in their background, we need to know it so we can decide how to deal with it rather than having our client not tell us and then something that somebody can say later is material background information is omitted from the disclosure document because they didn’t want to let us know about it. That ends up often times being a toll hold for a fraud case. We just don’t want to go down that road and we wanted to start off the right way.  We have done very complicated disclosure matters where people have had histories with the SEC before or criminal convictions, litigations in the financial area or bankruptcies and things like that. We’re able to get around these issues but we just have to be aware of them. That’s a threshold for us.

Transparency expedites trust and it makes doing business, regardless of what you’re doing, so much easier. Especially in the situation like you said, having your clients be transparent is so important. I love that fact that you model that for them because you are part of the Clear Business Directory.  Everybody can go on there and take a look at your report, read you transparency report, know who you are, know what you’ve done. You model that for your clients. That’s extremely important in business where we’ve seen a huge shift in more and more businesses coming online with transparency piece because it just makes things so much easier when dealing with clients, situations and just business in general.

In the securities world in particular, it’s a requirement of the industry. Anybody who’s participating in it, who’s seeking capital and whether or not the client is a startup company and they’re not planning on doing a full blown offering document, it doesn’t matter because we still need to know who they are and what their background is. We just need to have all the cards on the table so that we can do our job the most effective way we know how.

Speaking of transparency, is there anything in your businesses that you may have experienced that you wish that you could go back and do over again or something that’s really unique that really shaped where you’re at in your business?

In The Clear 60 | Raising Capital

The court then turned around and appointed a criminal investigator to investigate me and make a report to the court.

One time in a family matter, I was trying to seek appointment as a guardian ad litem. I had other family members who weren’t too happy about it and made false and damaging reports to the court that appointed me guardian ad litem. The court then turned around and appointed a criminal investigator to investigate me and make a report to the court. I can say that I’ve been investigated. For my clients that may be facing that kind of scenario from the SEC, I’ve done this as an enforcement attorney for most of my SEC career, being on that side of the table, but having been with a gun pointed at you, that was a six month matter that ended working out just fine. It was still probably one of the most unpleasant professional things I’ve ever had to deal with. It ended up backfiring on the relatives who complained because they got in trouble with the court and so forth.

That’s so neat that you got to experience that because that really puts you in somebody else’s shoes. If you got a client that is going through that, you know exactly how they feel because you had to experience that for yourself. That’s neat in the sense that it really allows you to connect with those people, see it from their perspective and it gives you a whole other understanding.  Like you said, you’ve been on the other side of it as well when you were enforcing it so you know both sides. That experience in itself is invaluable when it comes to hiring a securities attorney such as yourself. You can bring a lot of unique experiences that you bring to the table that other securities attorneys don’t necessarily have.

That experience was humbling, if nothing else. It’s true, I can easily hold the hand of my client and walk through the valley of death with them because that’s often times, in those situations, what it feels like. You’re whole world is at issue and you don’t know where to turn. You need somebody you can trust implicitly whose going to be there for you. Frankly when I litigate, I bring all that to the table. I fight like hell for my clients because I know what they’re going through. That’s how we play the game.

I know you’re a mentor to so many and an educator as well.  I know you love sharing your knowledge of the securities industry. Is there one piece of advice that you would like to share with our listeners and your perspective clients about what and how they should be doing when it comes to raising capital?

In The Clear 60 | Raising Capital

Capital For Keeps is designed to assist entrepreneurs and executives in planning through a potential capital raise.

I wrote an entire book on this subject and it’s called Capital For Keeps. The book is designed to assist entrepreneurs and executives in planning through a potential capital raise. It doesn’t tell them how to do a capital raise because there’s plenty of people out there that’ll tell you how to do it. From a legal perspective, it gives them the full gamut of what their looking at in terms of risks and gives them the descriptions of the exemptions from registration that they’re going to have to work through.  Their attorneys may or may not explain it to them. This gives them all a background and arms them for conversations with their attorneys to help them think about the process and give them options that they might not have even be aware of. The book takes you through what I would take a client through in terms of initial education about the process, what the lawyer has to do and what they should expect in the legal side of things that they’re getting into.

The reason that I wrote the book in the first place is I did it as more of a warning, because in my defense practice I run across people all the time who made simple mistakes. If they knew in advance what they were getting into and the potential consequences are, did they really want to do this,  were there are alternatives to them that they could’ve considered and why did it have to be this way. If they could’ve avoided walking into the so-called shark infested waters unknowingly, some of them would’ve avoided it. I’m not saying you shouldn’t raise capital; I’m probably as much of capitalist as anybody. But there are folks who might not approach things the same way if they were more educated about the process.

I certainly want to minimize the number of people that show up at my door needing defense assistance. That was really the goal. It seems to me that some of these things could be preventable by folks who were better educated. That’s the point of that. Get some understanding and make sure this is what you want to do. Get counseled throughout the whole process of doing the capital raise, from planning to execution, to make sure you stay well within the guidelines. We don’t want any of our clients deviating. That’s the safest thing they can do. We want them to be successful and we want them to raise the capital and we want their business to flourish. We want to be their clients for the entire duration of their corporate lives. That’s our goal, we prefer to be their transactional attorneys rather that their defense counsel.

It’s a completely different ball game when you’re coming in to do transactions versus having to defend somebody. The education piece, especially when  raising capital, is so important just because it’s got so many moving parts. You have to ask yourself, “Is this what you want to do?” The complexities that are involved in it are important to understand and what it really takes to raise capital, to raise that kind of money. Is there a place where people can go, take a look at you website and learn about your book Capital For Keeps?

The website for the law firm is www.InvestmentAttorneys.com. The book has its own website which is www.CapitalForKeeps.com.

Thank you so much for being on the show today. You can also check out his profile at ClearBusinessDirectory.com

This was awesome. I appreciate it.

Before you get involved with anybody, make sure that their business is in the clear.

Learn more about Russel Weigel.

The post The Complexities Of Raising Capital with Russell Weigel appeared first on Clear Business Directory.

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