Archive for July, 2007

Today, I was approached by Scott, an Internet marketer, to participate in a DVD project he was putting together of various real estate gurus.  He said he was looking for someone that was an “expert” in “subject to investing”.  I asked how he found me.  He said he had heard of me from the Internet presumably based on titles I have written and recorded on the subject.

He was polite and pleasant but, once again, my guard was up.  I told him I was very careful on who I would associate with or attach my name to.  He offered to send me an email detailing his project.  I saw some of the names on his list.  A few I recognized, a few I didn’t.

I did some investigating into Scott’s related projects on the Internet.  The term “real estate guru” came up.  The first thing I thought to myself is I am not a “real estate guru”.  Another thing I realized is I don’t even want the title of being a “real estate guru” because of the image it conjures up in recent years.

A lot of what I have seen in the real estate information business is sleazy, hyped, and unprofessional and caters to the poor man’s mindset and priorities in life.

My books and audio programs are steady sellers and income-generators but nowhere near “best-selling” status where I am “getting rich” off of the information business (at least not yet…)

In any case, one of the reasons I started Ascend Beyond Publishing was to create the credibility, platform, and distribution channel to publish my own works whatever interests that might be.  In the last few years, I have focused on my entrepreneurial and real estate investing experiences and research.  Sure, I write some promotional descriptions for my titles but I would not consider them overly-hyped up and they are certainly not over-priced.  If anything, most of my products are probably under-priced compared to most of the real estate information industry.

Being approached by an Internet information marketer is, of course, flattering.  But at the same time, I realized I probably did not want to participate in his or most other people’s projects because I cannot control what my name or “The TurnKey Investor” brand would be attached to.

I went to a website which provided a list of reputable and not-so-reputable real estate gurus.  My name was not on that list.  And I thought to myself, that was fine with me.  Because on that list of 40 or so names, there was only a small handful of those people I would want my name associated with.  The rest of the names I could do without for one reason or another.  Some are not necessarily sleazy or don’t provide useful information.  Some I simply do not know, don’t care to know, or don’t agree with what they say or promote.

 At the end of the day, I regard myself more as an entrepreneur/businessman who happens to be knowledgeable (and perhaps “expert” occasionally) in what I do.  But I hate and refuse the “guru” title to the degree I have avoided participating in those activities that might reinforce that notion.

I speak and teach locally, sometimes nationally.  However, I don’t get invited a lot because I don’t “work” or promote myself in the the seminar or “guru” circuit at all.  And I have no plans to ever do so in that arena.  I don’t do a lot of hype and I don’t have a lot of high-end, pricey products that I could easily split with most promoters.  Basically, promoters would not make that much money off of me because I am not a “guru player”.

I am actually the product of many high-end seminar products but I also had to deal with some of the sleaze along the way.  Being a customer is one thing because I can choose to spend my money the way I want to.  But that doesn’t mean I want to play that game.

For now, I feel good about having the title of “real estate investor”, “real estate author”, or “real estate entrepreneur”.  But keep the “guru” title away from me at all costs.  I am 40 years old.  There are other things I want to become and be known for but it is certainly not being some real estate or seminar “guru”.

That means, I will have to politely turn Scott down.  I could probably get my name and my titles out in a much bigger way but I just don’t think I can stand my name sitting next to any sleazy guru’s name.  No way.

A couple of months ago, I had heard rumblings that the Rich Dad Organization was undergoing some internal changes.  Some changes seemed good, some did not seem so good.  RichDadUnderground.com reported that the Sharon wanted to buy out the Kiyosaki’s only to have the reverse happen.  The Kiyosaki’s wanted to buy Sharon Lechter out.  I thought to myself this was going to get interesting.  I wanted to comment but didn’t think it was responsible to do so until there was more substantial news.

Well, it appears that substantial news has happened with “The Business Journal of Phoenix” article from July 20, 2007.  It seems that Sharon Lechter is indeed leaving the Rich Dad fold 10+ years after the founding of Cashflow Technologies, Inc.

I have always had a great deal of respect for the triumvirate of Robert & Kim Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter.  They have done enormous things in the last 10+ years.

I am a fan of Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad” book series and his Cashflow 101 & 202 game since I came across them in the late 1990′s.  I still recommend the books and game to this day.  Although I do not follow what Robert Kiyosaki and the rest of the Rich Dad Organization does as closely as I once did years ago, I still have fond and positive memories of my interactions with them.

I always found it amazing that the 3 primary leaders could continue partnering together successfully year after year despite Robert’s forceful and assertive leadership style.

It started with Robert being at the forefront representing the Rich Dad brand.  Eventually, Kim came from behind the shadows to become a force herself to represent the women’s contingent of the Rich Dad community to lead the Rich Woman brand.

It seemed to me each person brought something signficant to the overall operation despite the fact Robert often represented the face of the Rich Dad Organization.  With the resignation of Sharon, the company will no doubt take on a different life and energy with Robert and Kim left at the helm.  It will put greater pressure on Robert and Kim to oversee the day to day management of their company.  While they may hire managers to assist in the operations, I suspect Kim will take on a greater role of the “nuts and bolts” decisions I believed Sharon was involved in.

Robert has always been a strong, forceful leader and a risk taker.  He seems focused on creating a three-way synergy between “Coaching” and the “Russ Whitney Organization”.  It is a bold strategy except that the Whitney connection to “Rich Dad Education” gives the highly regarded Rich Dad brand a serious black-eye.

Clearly, there was a difference in views of which direction financial education should take.  Sharon appears to want to work more closely with the school system and the public sector.  Robert and Kim prefer making a difference by targeting individuals and the private sector.

I admire what Sharon wants to do but her battle will be an uphill battle and bound to be a thankless job.  Funding will be an ongoing issue and breaking the current mindset will be even harder.  I taught community college for one year and I will tell you it was not the most pleasant experience with the bureaucratic mindset, laziness, and rigidness I had to deal with.  I taught in the private sector and it was far more rewarding both financially and emotionally.

In many ways, Robert and Kim’s approach is much more practical and (I believe) stands a much greater chance of success.  Their association with Donald Trump can only be a boon.  The Robert Kiyosaki TV show is also a great idea.  Marshalling the forces behind the Rich Dad Franchise is also great.  All in all, lots of great ideas.  But the Whitney connection makes me cringe.  I don’t think I could recommend anyone to attend any Whitney-managed or operated event.  (But then again, no one asked me either!)

I am definitely interested in seeing how Sharon progresses from this point forward.  Without the Rich Dad brand behind her, it will be much more difficult for her to deliver her message.  She will probably have to craft a new book series, website, and infrastructure to help deliver her message because sitting on various boards will not give her the splash or clout she once had.

Without Sharon’s support, the Rich Dad Organization will either power on bigger and better than ever since the lead management is much more focused now.  Or….. the Rich Dad Organization might start hitting some bumps on the roads behind the scenes without Sharon’s stability and presence.  Robert will continue to be the storyteller, creative genius, and bold leader.  If anyone can fill in the void left by Sharon, it will have to be Kim.  She is a very smart and well-liked woman.  But I wonder if that will pull Kim away too much from the things she loves to do.

No matter how it all turns out, I think the legacy left by Robert & Kim Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter during the last 11 years has been incredible.  I trust they will continue to make a difference in the years to come apart from each other.

In further writing and outlining the content for my new audio program, I realized I needed to change the working title of “Why Real Estate Investing Isn’t For Everyone” to “The Hype & Lies of Real Estate Investing”.

This better reflects what I am going to talk about and the tone of which I will be speaking.  The tone I will be taking will be similar to the strong one in my earlier audio program, “The TurnKey Investor’s Deadly Sins of Real Estate Investing“.

The working subtitle is “Why Most Beginners Fail & Other Ugly Truths Real Estate Investing Books, Courses, Seminars, Infomercials, and Gurus Won’t Talk About!”

This will be helpful information to any real estate investing student looking to invest more money into their real estate investing education.

Tony and I are looking to record this program within the next two weeks.

At long last after many reader requests,  my newest manual, “The TurnKey Investor’s ‘Subject To’ Mortgage Documents Collection”, has just been released for sale.  It comes with a CD-ROM with Microsoft Word-compatible files and MP3 instructional audio files.

This set was held for internal use for the last few years.  I had been reluctant to release it despite several reader requests but I was finally coaxed into doing so by Josh, my friend and associate.  And so it is now available two years later from when I first released “The TurnKey Investor’s ‘Subject To’ Mortgage Handbook”.

Special thanks to Josh Houghton and April Potts, student of The Investors Roundtable, for their assistance in this project.

It is currently available for the Introductory price of $159.00 for a limited time.  The Introductory pricing will discontinue without notice.

You can find this new title at AscendBeyond.com or TurnKeyInvesting.com.

I am currently working on an outline for a new audio program with a working title “Why Real Estate Investing Is Not For Everyone”.

This contrarian program actually tries to dissuade certain people from the real estate investing craze.  Quite frankly, there are some people who have no business getting into real estate investing.  Those people will actually hurt themselves more than it will help.

No one wants to hear it but some people are not really cut out to be real estate investors.  They are better suited to stocks or mutual funds.  There is a variety of reasons which most people do not want to hear that they should stay away from real estate investing.

This program is financially risky for me because it is negatively oriented and doesn’t actually teach anything unlike my other programs.  I really do not know how this program will sell.  Heck, it may end up sitting in cases unsold!  This program is simply a recorded discussion of what I consider critical issues people need to think about before even starting into real estate investing.  I actually try to talk people out of real estate investing!

I will also be dispelling some of the hype being promoted in real estate courses and seminars.  A lot of people will not like what I have to say in this program regarding some seminars and courses.  This program will likely keep me from getting any invitations to speak at any real estate seminar.  Good thing, I don’t speak on the seminar circuit.

I am excited about this program because I have plenty to say on the subject.  My friend Tony Calloway will be hosting this new audio program.

This is Part 2 of my commentary of the case of Immediate Capital Group Inc. dba Incredible Discoveries vs. Robert Danoff (filed in the District Court of Palm Beach County, Florida.

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In looking over the Plaintiff’s Petition, I tried to keep an objective eye and see it from Immediate Capital Group dba Incredible Discoveries (ICG) point of view but it is difficult because I have such differing opinions and philosophy of doing business.

And I have to say, if ICG is a legitimate business as they claim, it strikes to me they are being a bit paranoid and pointing out things that, in my opinion, are very weak.

In reviewing the points ICG made, these are my impressions.

Point 2 – ICG appears to be playing the sympathy card by phrasing their employees as “50 Florida residents…. with their families.” Well, how are they different from any other company that have layoffs, downsizes, or goes out of business? Very few people talk about the family situations and it is not really relevant to the case. It is a sympathy play.

Point 3 – There is probably some truth to Bob Danoff being a disgruntled, former employee that happens to know how to use the Internet. However, it is a bit melodramatic to believe that any one disgruntled employee can bring down an entire company and business. If that is in fact the case, you have to wonder about how strong and solid the business was to begin with.

Having dealt first-hand with the Cobra Collection Scam, people give me credit for helping them shut down. And yet, it really wasn’t me alone. It was the waves of angry, disgusted, and frustrated ex-employees, ex-clients, and ex-debtors that came out and rallied around the website I had created. Likewise, I don’t think Bob is that “powerful” by himself. There has to be a lot of negative karma going on for Bob to have any real power as was the case with the Cobra Collection Scam. There was so much negative karma going on, it hit a boiling point. Is there negative karma going on with ICG / Incredible Discoveries? I simply don’t know.

Point 4 – There are negative comments for almost every established company and product in the Google search engine. There are also disgruntled employees in every company that has been in business any number of years. I have negative reviews on my books but that does not put my publishing company out of business. I have unhappy ex-tenants whom I evicted, sued, and garnished for non-payment. I also have some people who I have fired who might be unhappy with me.

Fundamentally, no one can please 100% of the people but I strive to run my business well. That goodwill and success more than offsets the small number of complaints I get from customers or ex-employees. I also issue credit or refunds if I need to unhappy customers. What I do is no different than what most reputable businesses do. But most companies will not be brought down by this small amount of negative karma. How can Bob’s lone comments (if any) on Google bring any one company down? Give me a break. If ICG has truly been damaged, they need to look elsewhere and not a scapegoat.

Point 5 – ICG is upset with Bob for asking for legal assistance on the Internet. So what? Asking does not mean he will get it. And if he does get the help he wants, we have to assume that Bob and the attorney agreed to it. If ICG is afraid of being perceived as litigious, then maybe they should stop suing so much.

Personally, I don’t mind having the reputation of being a bit litigious. It tells people I am not goofing around when I do business. If you do wrong by me, I will not sit back and be silent. I have sued and will continue to sue if it is absolutely necessary. I also do not like going to court but I do what is necessary to protect our interests.

In browsing through the Broward County Courthouse records searching “Incredible Discoveries” and “Immediate Capital Group”, ICG does seem to indicate they do sue a fair amount of people. But then again, so do we. We have successfully sued lots of deadbeat tenants and we win all our cases. It does not hurt our feelings that if it our newer tenants know we will sue anyone who does not pay. It keeps the deadbeat types away and the others in line.

Last thing, ICG wants to go after Bob because he does not want to list his home phone or cell phone publicly on the Internet? How ridiculous is that? If I was a private citizen and did not have a business, the only way I would want incoming communication is email. Giving out your personal phone number is too risky today. Too many kooks on the Internet. And who wants strangers to burn up their cell phone minutes or fill up their voicemails with junk? Certainly, not me.

Point 6 – I have nothing to say on that as I cannot even find Bob’s Myspace page. I am a pretty good Google user and I couldn’t find it. Again, I think ICG is being a bit paranoid here. Besides, who would seriously pay attention to the content on most Myspace pages?  I have seen many Myspace pages.  They are either goofy personal stuff or blatant advertisements.

Point 7 – This is the one most relevant to me as parts of my blog are being used as a court Exhibit. I do take exception to this as ICG never asked my permission to reprint the contents of my blog for use besides personal reading.  Do they not know that the contents of my blog is copyrighted?

ICG is most focused on the comment by “AndJusticeForSome”. ICG has clearly made the wrong assumption on the true identity of “AndJusticeForSome”. I know for a fact it is not Bob. It is a woman who contacted me through private email. And if it is Bob, he is one hell of an actor capable of a gender change. I have also compared the writing styles of Bob’s public articles and “Justice”. “Justice” writes very well. Bob simply writes adequately on the articles I have seen.

Points 8 to 11 – I have no specific comments on these items.

Bottom line: I think that ICG just needs to let this case go. They are spending way too much time and energy over one ex-employee that I believe has marginal impact on the world at large.  If ICG is supposedly as successful as they claim, one disgruntled employee should not be able to bring them down. They are being paranoid. And if one disgruntled employee can bring their business down, they need to see what is wrong with their business model and operations that is so vulnerable to a “few” customer complaints and negative comments.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.

Yesterday, Bob Danoff, ex-employee of Incredible Discoveries, brought to my attention that parts of my blog are being used as Exhibits in a court case he is involved in. Specifically, the case of Immediate Capital Group Inc. dba Incredible Discoveries vs. Robert Danoff (filed in the District Court of Palm Beach County, Florida. This bothers me because everything on I write on this blog is copyrighted material and you are supposed to get permission to reprint or use it elsewhere.

Nevertheless, I was quite curious about how and why my name and words were being used as Exhibits in a court case.

Bob felt that I should be informed of an upcoming court hearing he had to attend because parts of my blog were going to be presented in a court case. I think Bob was concerned that if for some unforeseen reason I somehow had to go to court, I would be upset. As I am protective of my reputation, Bob would be right. It is strange because I have nothing to do with the dispute between Incredible Discoveries and Bob.

I have only written about my few interactions with Incredible Discoveries. As a whole, they seemed respectful and professional to me. The only reason I wrote about them at all was the fact that it seemed interesting that an infomercial company would want to talk to me. After all, I have no illusions of being anywhere close to a best-selling author (at least for now). At the end of the day, I am still very skeptical of the infomercial industry as a whole. And when someone asks me to pay money to the tune of $75,000, I am very, very wary and suspicious.

I happen to know a couple of people who were part of nationwide infomercials and I know they did not pay anything as the production companies believed in the individuals and the products they were selling. In any case, even if I was going to cough up that kind of money, I would use it as down payment to buy a smaller commercial real estate property in our local area, not spend it on an infomercial.

I asked Bob to fax over his paperwork so I could see how my name and content was being used. The fax included the Certificate of Service and Plaintiff Petition. Surprisingly, the documents were written in a direct, easy to read and understand format.

It appears that I have to set the record straight before this gets out of hand. First, it appears that the folks at Immediate Capital Group Inc. dba Incredible Discoveries (ICG ) appear to be giving Bob Danoff way too much credit for the alleged damage against Incredible Discoveries.

Second, I know very little about Bob to this day because he has been very guarded in what he says regarding Incredible Discoveries. He simply encourages me to do due diligence. Sometimes, when someone is very careful in what and how he speaks, it tells way more than anything he might say. However, if he is telling the truth, that is a whole different story. Bob clearly wants this conflict to end and he does not want to be accused of saying things he did not say. I cannot say I blame him.

I told Bob to not worry since his advice came too late. I have been naturally skeptical of the infomercial industry as a whole. And as a matter of course, I do a Google search on any company or individual I intend to do business with. I read what interests me and form my own opinions. If Incredible Discoveries feels I formed a negative opinion of them because of Bob, they are greatly mistaken. There were other sources involved.

In Part 2, I will give my comments on the Plaintiff’s Petition. It was very interesting reading.

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The latest information can be found on The Incredible Discoveries Information Page.

On Saturday, I have to say that I was quite impressed with Al Gore and Live Earth Day.  Although I did not watch much of the concerts, I did witness some of the musical talent he assembled and the large crowds of people he pulled together around the world.   Additionally, the event was televised around the world in well over 100 countries.

It was truly amazing.  Without being President, Al Gore has tremendously reinvented himself as a private citizen.  He has become a “movie star” with his documentary, a best-selling author with his books, and become a world player and world citizen with his personal crusade to inform the world on the issue of global warming.

I have to admit to being inspired with what he has accomplished after suffering a devastating “loss” against George W. Bush in the 2000 Presidential election.  I will continue to watch him in the years to come.  It will be very interesting to see his influence or actions during the 2008 Presidential election.