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Interview 15.1: Jeff Brown, Real Estate Investment Advisor

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Jeff, What Do You Do?

Jeff Brown pix

I met Jeff Brown last year on the telephone. After an hour or so of questions, we decided to work together. Somewhere within that hour, I asked the “What do you do?” question. Jeff had a wonderful answer. “I make people wealthy, and help them reach their retirement dreams.” Jeff didn’t need any lessons in conversation from this writer-business girl.

I liked Jeff right away. He is integrity, intelligence, and intuitive detail about his business. Last week, this week, before taxes seemed an appropriate time to interview Jeff about his business. You’ll note that neither Jeff nor I suggest that you invest your millions without developing a plan that you fully understand.

Let’s begin.

Jeff, why should someone have a real estate investment advisor? How can a RE advisor help plan my retirement?

Essentially when you begin anything as crucially important as investing for your retirement, you want to ensure you have the answers you need when you need them. The greatest value a real estate investment advisor brings to the table is answering questions you didn’t know to ask. There’s very little planning you can execute when you don’t even know the questions.

Your advisor should understand how to create a Purposeful Plan for your retirement. He or she should be able to integrate financing, proper cash reserves, where to invest the capital, (what region) along with what kind of real estate makes the most sense. And those are just the basics.

The ability to simultaneously understand the appropriate tax law, including 1031 tax deferred exchange, various depreciation approaches – including cost segregation. Maybe the most important skill is being able to get the timing right when making moves with all or parts of your real estate portfolio.

This next piece of advice may surprise you – especially coming from a real estate guy. The very essence of retirement, at least financially, is nothing if not lots and lots of monthly income – and it better be reliable. Towards the onset of retirement I have many of my clients convert some of their equity into investments outside of real estate. Why? Because these specific investments, offered by another segment of the investment community, produce the pure gold retirees long for – annual TAX FREE income — for life.

In the end, your real estate investment advisor should be able to be the Captain of your retirement ship, navigating you to the retirement you’ve always dreamed of. He should be able to plot a course, and weather troubling seas. He should be able to adjust on the run, and in real time, because Murphy is alive and well.

It might help to know what a real estate investment advisor isn’t. He isn’t a real estate agent who sells houses one day, and the next he’s an investment expert. I’ll make an absolute statement of fact here, unfettered by any wiggle room – there is no such animal. The necessary training to be an effective advisor is almost daunting it’s so comprehensive. Tax law, after tax cash flow analysis, demographic trends, proper structuring of transactions, and a myriad of other factors.

And even though I have that training, plus almost 40 years of experience, I still have specialists in several fields just a phone call away. Retirement is too important to be ‘pretty sure’. Doing things on purpose has to be the bedrock principle of everything you do when investing for your retirement. There are very few happy accidents.

Okay, so now I get the part of what Jeff does, well sort of. . . . He guides real estate investments so that I can retire with cash to live as well or better than I did when I was working.

In Part 2, we’re going to talk about the two myths that get in the way of most folks being able to retire with out having to supplement their cash income.

Thanks Jeff. This is important stuff.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Jeff writes at his own blog BawldGuy Talking and is a contributor at the Bloodhound Realty blog. Jeff will be attending SOBCon 07 in Chicago on May 11-12.

SOBCon News –Time to Book Your Room

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Don’t BE Left Out

Hi Everyone!
Today is April 6.
All of the SOBCon Speakers are pulling together the final touches on their conversations with the groups.

SOBCon 07

We all really want you to be a part in the most convenient and inexpensive fashion. That’s way I write this email today. It’s time to get urgent about attending SOBCon. Let me tell you why.

  • People are signing up remarkably early for this conference of this size.
  • All rooms at the Chicago OHare Sofitel outside of our special group rate have bookes. Our blocked rooms will be released on April 13 that in 7 days!!! There are no room or room rate guarnatees after that date. Click the picture to get to the hotel information and the special rate hotel promotion code.
    Chicago OHare Sofitel
  • kayak.com has the air fares for major airlines right now!

    Check your city’s flights to Chicago. kayak is amazing and known for service and realiablity.

    Lorelle on WordPress checks their fares for every conference she plans . . . and she’s about 75 conferences ahead of the average event planner I know.

    • Miami to Chicago Ohare starting at $188 -over 1600 choices

    LAX to Chicago Ohare starting at $259 – over 600 choices

    DFW to Chicago Ohare starting at $195 – over 500 choices

    LaGuardia to Chicago Ohare starting at $144 – over 600 choices

    Newark to Chicago Ohare starting at $149 – over 500 choices

You get the idea — We don’t want you to miss getting there because of a technicality.

We need your brain and your heart to make each speaker’s conversation go deeper.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
SOBCon 07 limited seating. Register Now!
If something is getting in your way, please let me know — Liz

WOMMA: What Gets People To Talk About You?

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What People Talk About

Word of Mouth Marketing Book

Andy Sernovitz knows what people talk about. He knows how to get people like me talking the way I’m talking to you about him right now. In fact, he wrote the book Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking.

If you want to get people tarking, Andy says in his book. You need to know what people talk about. People talk about three kinds of things.

  1. We talk about other people and their stuff. If you are interesting, we talk about you or the stuff you are selling. We talk about how the service you offer is grander or more remarkable than we expected or how you have done something that captured out imagination. We want a reason to talk about you. Good conversation makes our life more interesting too.
  2. We talk because it makes us feel smart, important, and helpful. We remember how you treat us and pass that along to our friends. Treat us exceptionally nice, and we become die-hard fans. Give us a product or service that amazes us, and we’ll become the experts on where to find you — making sure everyone knows you are the best in your field. Everyone likes to feel that they have the key to something special. We like to help our friends by showing them how to find a great deal. Keep your attention fresh and exciting, and you will keep us interested and talking about you.
  3. We want to feel part of a bigger group. When we share how we feel about a product or a service we have enjoyed, we feel connected to the experience and connected to the people we tell about it. The more times we tell the story, the more we identify with it as a part of us and our life. Offer something people want to be a part of and they’ll tell others about it.

Talking to each other is what we do — on the phone, at our desks, in the comment box, in the grocery, over the kitchen table. We fill up our life with stories about our experiences. Talking is how we share the experiences that we find interesting and defining.

People like to talk to people. What can you do to get people talking about what you do? What stories come to your mind when you read this? Are they all BIG and heroic or are some stories of regular size?

Thanks Andy. I can’t wait to hear you speak at SOBCon.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Hurry! The special rate rooms in the SOBCon Block at the OHare SOBCon 07 will be released back to the hotel on April 13th.

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WOMM: If You Hate Self Promotion, Get People to Talk about You!
Andy Sernovitz Is Speaking at SOBCon! Pass It On!

SOBCon 07 News: Dr. Robert Wolcott Is Attending!

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In the Audience

Dr. Rob Wolcott, Ph.D

We lift the ideas out of the comment box and give them voices to speak, hands to shake and faces to put with names

The best thinkers will be adding to the conversation as we discuss as SOBCon 07 ways to bring readers and customers into the interactive experience that is our blogs. To that end we have focused not only on the presenters, but also on building an audience of attendees who can take the conversation to a new level of innovation. We’re pleased to announce that

Dr. Rob Wolcott, PhD, the Director of the Innovation Initiative for the Kellogg School of Business is jazzed about blogging. Rob will be attending SOBCon 07 with another member of his team from the Clareo Partners. His firm has also extended an invitation to all professors, corporations, and students at the school.

Some of the most resonant names of the blogosphere will enrich this unique event. The magnitude of the event goes beyond that of a traditional bloggers conference through that will have in the public representatives of the Kellogg School of Business of the Northwestern University and other prominent business figures. –A. Garber Clareo Parners

The audience of attendees is a critical part of SOBCon 07 conference.

Relationships are everyone’s business and every business is relationships.

Are you going to be there?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Andy Sernovitz Is Speaking at SOBCon! Pass It On!

WOMM: If You Hate Self Promotion, Get People to Talk about You!

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Get People Talking

Business Rules Logo

Remember in Jr. High, the worst that could happen was to know that people were talking about you. Even if what you heard might be good, you couldn’t be sure. It was creepy.

Life is different now. Talk is how people share the news about interesting, fascinating, dangerous, marvelous, outrageous, remarkable, unique, and outstanding events, people, businesses — anything that isn’t BORING OR INVISIBLE.

If folks AREN’T TALKING about you and me, we virtually DON’T EXIST.

Don’t exist as in we are invisible. How does a business thrive if no one knows it’s there?

Some folks seem to have a knack for getting folks to talk about them. I’d name, but that would be redundant. The fact that they’re good at it means you already know who they are.

So what do they do that gets them talked about? Andy Sernovitz says they do four things. In his book, Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, Andy names four rules to follow if you want t6 be talked about.

  1. Be interesting. No one talks about boring. Give people a reason — an unexpected detail, a moment of something, a visual surprise, a unique feeling. People tell othere people about interesting things.
  2. Make people happy. Inspire your readers. Get them jazzed or move them to action. Energize them with positivity. Tim Sanders wrote a whole book in the Likeability Factor. Put it to work for you. We love to talk about people we like.
  3. Earn respect and trust. Know your truth and live your values. Keep your promises and make people proud to say they know you. Who doesn’t like to talk about their friends and family?
  4. Make it easy. Have a simple message and help folks share it. Put your message everywhere people look. Keep it in motion. Say it yourself whenever you talk.

Makes total sense doesn’t it? Four ways to spread the word gets people talking about you, me and our ideas.

Thanks Andy. Tomrrow, we’ll check out what folks talk about.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the SOBCon 07 blog

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Andy Sernovitz Is Speaking at SOBCon! Pass It On!