REVIEW: Cash Machine for Life

Loral Langemeier flips the proverbial bird at the average personal finance blogger. She writes,

If you want to sit around counting pennies and live a smaller, have-to life, then focus on your debt. In fact, I promise you that if you spend the next year focused on getting your debt down to nothing, you will have exactly that at the end of the year-- nothing. Focusing on debt is like dieting without exercise. It's an endless cycle of starvation and deprivation with no lasting results. (pg. 3)

And, since I'm one of the rare few who made it a point never to carry either school or credit card debt, I can kind of see where she's coming from. She continues:

A colleague of mine drinks three iced quad venti nonfat no-whip mochas a day. His monthly coffee habit is some people's car payment.

She neglects to mention his heart exploded from caffeine overload, and even the EMS crew left the scene buzzing, only to get run over by the Maserati-driving barrista who profited from his loss.

Anyway, Langemeier has written three (3) books with "Millionaire" in the title. How's that working for you, Loral? The latest one is about creating a "Cash Machine for Life." She outlines this with her proprietary (her word) Wealth Cycle (string of trademarks here), which is our first warning sign. Always beware authors , talking about money, who have clearly made that money by talking about making money (I include my cat in that group), or worse yet, selling a proprietary system that makes you money.

Langemeier does, as seminars and exclusive networking opportunities. They look better than those "Millionaire Cat" seminars, where you point at your cat and yell, "I HAVE A MILLIONAIRE CAT!" But they still leave me a little wary.

Fortunately, her book is useful, mainly for how it defines "Cash Machine." It is NOT a pie-in-the-sky great idea, like franchising MMA CATpitalism interactive scratching post sellers all through the world. It IS, however, a laundromat. Or a car wash. It has to make money NOW. And it should be related to what you already know, not what you want to know. So for me, it's not DOGpitalism-- no, I know cats, so I should focus my energies there. For instance, start a consulting business where I explain to cat owners how to realign their portfolios into cat-friendly equities.

To build a Cash Machine, she emphasizes the fast & the practical. Two ideas stand out: "Seven Weeks to Sales" and the necessity of NOT being a "Lone Ranger." I never watched Westerns, so I'm glad she explained that she meant to find a mentor, a model, and to get other people to cover your weaknesses. I, for instance, am bad with setting things on fire, so I would outsource that to a contractor. If my Cash Machine for Life involved setting things on fire. Which it doesn't.

The "Seven Weeks to Sales" walks through a process not just of coming up with a business, a plan, and a team, but a structure. You have to make it a legal entity. For her model, it's non-negotiable. That way, you can expand it, hire others to do the work, and-- most importantly-- sell it later.

She gives some web extras that deserve mention. One, a PDF of Cash Machine ideas, lists 25 pages' worth of every job known to humankind. A sample:

• Pick-up kids from school
• Tutoring
• Pet Psychic
• Advertising Coach
• Personal Assistant Service
• Mobile Coffee Truck
• House Sitting
• Pet Sitting
• Flower Shop
  

It is so encyclopedic as to be quite useless, and kind of thoughtless. I can't imagine she expects anyone will read it.

So, fair enough. Some other books cover similar ground, but not with her emphasis on the nuts-and-bolts. Business organization and legal structure are perhaps the most important part, but books like The Four Hour Work Week flit right past them. She gives them due attention. You'll still have to hire an accountant or a lawyer, but at least you'll know what to ask.

IN SUM:

How This Book Gave Me the Gout, a Misunderstood Disease Not Just for the Old Rich:

• The "proprietary" nonsense. It's a sound set of principles, but a "process" only so she can sell it-- so it's jargon-heavy. I can't stand jargon, and having not yet read her other two books, much of this book is rougher going than it has to be.
• The organization. She relies a lot on stuff from her Cash Machines Seminars, so the book can be needlessly hard to follow. In other words, should I just take the seminar? Well, I'm not interested in furthering your Cash Machine, because those kinds of things are always fluff. It's a good time management principle: AVOID MEETINGS. In my book, Seminar = Meeting.
• Learn to write better or spend more for your ghostwriter, whichever it is. If this book is a bestseller, it's because people want money, not because you can write your way out of a wet paper bag.
  

How This Book Fed My Cat Delicious Tunafish:

• Has a sense of the legal ramifications of business-- what other money-machine book talks about due diligence?
• She's right about getting rich. So many people have long-term plans to retire rich, but in the meantimes they bend over backwards to pinch pennies. Rather, building more income streams-- especially passive ones-- makes more sense.
  

Cat Skills Assessment

As many of you know, my cat Zooey has decided to help out monetarily. But she's become discouraged after her initial enthusiasm. It is hard to find work in this world, especially when you're a cat.

Yesterday she threw up all over the deck. I was worried-- stress is pretty bad, and now the deck is too. I could hear her up late last night. When I woke up I found this on the computer screen:


What an amazing cat! As an outdoor cat, she must have had a copy of the housekey made when I wasn't looking.

She had gone through my self-help books, and opened up Loral Langemeier's Millionaire Maker's Guide to Creating a Cash Machine for Lifeto a self-help skills assessment early in the book. So we sat down this morning and worked through it to give her some direction. This is a short version of it, so you can have an idea of what it's like:

1. List your job responsibilities:

• eating
• coyness
• sleeping
• stalking through lawn & forest as mistress of all i survey

2. List the tasks associated with these responsibilities:

• monitoring small animals
• climbing trees
• somber frolic
  

3. List the industries and markets you have experience in:

• pets
• hunting
• food service

4. List the tasks you do at home:

• tongue-bathing
• resting
  

5. List the activities you find you do in spare time

• rubbing face against lawn furniture
• marking territory
• leering at Mr MacMuffin through his living room window, especially at night when the terror sets in

6. List the tasks others ask you to help them w/

• pest control
• relationship problems
• money problems
• emotional problems
• family problems

7. List the tasks you're good at & may take for granted

• sharpening claws
• furniture control
• consulting.
  

That's her list. Honestly, I'm a little surprised at some of her answers, but she is an outdoor cat, after all. And the Cash Machine book is interesting-- I'll have my full review up tomorrow!

Moving Along with the Plans...

Looking back to our CATpitalism Plan Part I, we've achieved most of our objectives.

The blog's up and running, and we have increased our traffic. To our new readers, welcome! And the SEO is buzzing along. In fact, doing a Google search for "Catpitalism" yields us as the #1 hit! Just like Cat Stevens. Well, #4, but the #1 is our Blogcatalog page. Close enough.

Look at the competition we've beaten out:

• The good folk of Lawrence, Kansas discussing how our very own blog destroyed Chinese Communism
• A Senior Member(!) of a prominent Catholic discussion forum says, " I'm convinced that Catpitalism is the best economic system." Me too!
• And one "Tweaker" intones this simple fact: "Catpitalism works." Like a charm!
  

Since these are all discussions, just do a search for "Catpitalism" and you can see the quotes. And I must say Zooey & I are flattered and humbled by the attention our unique cat-centric brand of e-commerce has received.

But we still had two leftovers from that first plan.

#4 was to open an online bank account, either with ING or HSBC. Which I have done! In an 11th-hour reversal, I chose HSBC for their higher rate. The sign-up was painless-- a few forms filled out online, and a quick credit check and I was good to go. I had read about much more complex application process at other blogs online, but all that remained was to send in a check. I'm still waiting for the check to go through their system, but soon I will earning a big 4.25% interest! Well, probably lower, since the Fed cut rates. At least that'll keep my portfolio from tanking. I hope. Please.

#5 is a Cat Skills Assessment. Which will come, after we have reviewed another book. Next week we'll be getting into some business design & entrepreneurship books. We can't wait!

Meanwhile, have a great weekend-- I think Zooey and I will try to spend more time outside together.

Seth Godin's Cat Builds No Wealth

Kind of cloudy and overcast today, so I was snooping around in Seth Godin's blog. (I reviewed his book Meatball Sundae yesterday.) I found this post, which has some cobwebs on it, but raised some issues pertinent to my CATpitalsm plan.

Briefly-- read the post, though, it has some good points. In sum, Godin destroys my hopes, my dreams, Zooey's plans for gold-dust litter and braised rat pate. He refuses to monetize his blog.

He outlines good reasons for not doing so. Among them, the fact that one of his favorite blogs changed from being a nice place to hang out and read good ideas, into the e-version of the Vegas Strip. Ads, blaring out, carnival barkers touting the dude's new book, his bloated resume (this is the blog Godin describes, not Godin himself-- his blog is elegant and clean, and ad-free), so forth, dogs & cats living together. Just awful.

So yeah, I can see his point. But-- he's also a bestselling author with fourteen-odd books out. (I don't mean his books are odd! It's just English, for pity's sake!) So he doesn't seem to need to monetize his blog-- it's a loss leader, serving as an ad for his books, his speaking, his consulting.

Zooey & I don't yet have a catsulting service together. Or a speaking/meowing tour. Perhaps we will, after doing Zooey's skills assessment. But until that day, we'll have some ads. Maybe when we're raking in more money than Mr MacMuffin ever DREAMED of we'll demonetize the blog. And the cat. But until then...

And I want to reassure you (and myself, shamefaced after reading the post) we never changed! We were all about the boodle from Day 1! Cat-Daddy, Zooey-Monetization, so never mind that we have ads! Don't forgive us, enjoy our catpitalist path! Imitate it! Golden Land of Opportunity! My cat makes money! Your cat can too!

REVIEW: Meatball Sundae

Seth Godin has made a name for himself in marketing circles because he writes short books. He admits it in the intro-- those sell better, so breezy reads like The Dip have made the rounds. It helps that he's long on ideas and short on bloated, crummy prose. Would that his peers could all write as well as him, instead of cranking out filler just to make the spine more visible on the rack.

Anyway, his new book made the librarian raise her not inconsiderable eyebrow. "Meatball Sundae? What's THAT?" I immediately knew not to try the Singles Bar Test on this one.

And what is it? Well, a meatball sundae is flat-out disgusting, the kind of thing you make your beloved when the expiration date's long gone, if they can't take a hint. Not because of the meatballs-- meatballs are great! So's whipped cream & the cherry on top. Together, though...

In the business world, it's when all the newfangled Web 2.0 viral XML marketbot stuff gets applied to, oh, toothpaste. Or buckets. Inverted, it's like a Happy Meal tie-in for Cloverfield. Oops! Horrified screaming kids, smashed Mickey D's.

So Godin puts forth the novel idea: all this Inter-Web gobbedlygook works, but only when the user adapts to it. Huh? In other words, if the Web demands you communicate with your customers fast & honestly, it's a hard fit for a huge Megacorp. Unless the Megacorp changes how it does business!

Godin shows this through his well-integrated case studies. Constantly dipping into real-world stories with Kiva & Recording the Beatles, as well as Amazon & Wal-Mart, he outlines fourteen trends he sees as central to the huge shift underway. The shift, of course, is the change from a huge monomedia model (TV, radio) to a diversity of outlets thanks to the Internet.

The trends, many will have already heard of, like outsourcing (#6), direct consumer-to-consumer communication and commerce (#9), and the Long Tail (#5). It does, however, have as much food for an entrepreneur's thought as for the executive. I have certainly rethought many of my approaches to CATpitalism reading it.

Best things I can say about this book: he can write! And he has things to say.

Also, as another bald guy, I appreciate that Godin has branded himself using his own bald head. It's shapely, and full of Godin goodness.

REVIEW: The Marketing Gurus

Since 1978, Soundview Executive Book Summaries has offered its subscribers condensed versions of the best business books published each year.

My first question: Is this legal?

It would appear so, as each summary says the authors gave permission. I guess they got some scratch back, too. I also guess high-powered CATpitalist executives don't mind the details when they need to fit a book into 20 minutes. And when they have someone they pay to take care of the details, like actually reading the things.

Now I too can pretend I've read a book. Thanks, Executive Summaries! Some of the books I've mastered:

• Networking with the Affluent by Thomas Stanley. Give them things and they'll pay you back later with business contacts. Don't ask for anything, though.
  
• Relentless by Johny K. Johansson and Ikujiro Nonaka. The Japanese market differently than we do. They follow the leader and differentiate their products with incremental improvements, while treating the customer like a king.
  
• How to Drive Your Competition Crazy by Guy Kawasaki. Coopetition!
  
• Lateral Marketing by Philip Kotler. This one's more about product development, but taking product development from a marketing perspective. In other words, don't rely on your scientologists to make up new products, let the market & the product appear at the same time.
• The Purple Cow by Seth Godin. The beast of the title looks weird, but people remember it. And TALK about it-- viral marketing!
  

There are more-- not all fit a small entrepreneur like me, but I will return to their ideas of corporate-marketing dominance once CATpitalism has swept the world's porch.

Now that I think of it, Zooey is kind of a high-powered executive. I run errands for her, get her lunch & dinner, clean up after her, and generally make sure she looks good. That's a pretty good gig. Maybe I should dress up in a cat suit and start hanging out down in the Subdivision of Mansions behind the gates. I will sit in my owner's lap, sipping champagne, purring out Executive Book Summaries in front of the fire.

RESOURCE: Online Marketing Resources

I went back to the library yesterday for a last round of marketing books. The Dummies books were still out, sorry, and it was Sunday so the bars were closed. No Singles Bar Test, but I have a couple more books on marketing, and then it's on to figuring out new cat-monetization strategies.

But I'm just about done with marketing books.

The reason? Frankly, books are too slow to keep up with what's going on in the world of e-marketing. In fact, this post is probably too slow, too. It's Monday, after all. But there are sources out that which can give you the lowdown of some good marketing strategies in addition to what I outline in my first post on the subject:

• Dosh Dosh blogs on marketing with a bunch of cartoon girls. The guy behind it knows his stuff, and has more of a tech head than I ever will. And his blog's nice to look at, which is more than I can say about some of the other blog marketer/monetizers.
• Other marketing blogs I like with useful info, throw 'em in the RSS reader in no order at all:
• Some SEO blogs, like Shoemoney and SEO Roundtable
  
• Charlene Li is smart. And she's here.
• Seth Goodin is smart too. I'll review his new book in a couple of days. And he's here. Oddly, not monetized.
  
• Practical small-business marketing at Duct Tape Marketing. The page kind of gives me a seizure, and appears to be a front end for sales, but has useful tidbits in the noise.
  
• Web Worker Daily is not just marketing, but has a good overview of issues related to working online.
  
• Many of the blog networking services-- Blogflux and Blogcatalog, whose icons appear to the right-- do not appear in books. Submitting to them, if they accept you, is a good way to increase the ever-elusive Page Rank, so you show up in search engines.
• Other than that, SEO ("Search Engine Optimization") is an area ripe for guruization. In other words, people say they know a lot about it and charge you a lot for it. Of course, this world is kind of slippery-- how do you quantify it? How can you show your boss you have definitely gone up in the ranks? And if everyone is doing the same SEO stuff, what do you do? Answer: read about it, but don't pay a guru tons of money for an SEO e-b00k.
  
• Fortunately, StumbleUpon and Digg! are both free. Note buttons below-- if real people like what you're doing, you can hit the roof. Publicity caused by reader interest, not spending money you don't have. I don't, anyway.
  

So I have registered with the services and put in social network functionality. I haven't started a "Monetize MyCatSpace" page yet, but we'll see how it goes. And I do have more hits than I did last week-- not much, but we're still building, ey? Step-by-step.