The Professional Wordsmith

What poison ivy teaches about business writing

2011-05-16T06:30:00.000-04:00

Just before speaking to a business group about writing I picked up a case of poison ivy . . . so I decided to link the two in one itchy presentation. The rash was bad enough that I didn't want to show it during a breakfast meeting, so I had to rely on my ability a paint a picture with words to get my point across. Here are the main points I addressed:

It's sticky. You can't get poison ivy by touching a rash, but the way it spreads makes it appear that you can. The chemical gets spread around by touch, making sure that its mark is felt days later. The best messages spread around.
It lingers in the consciousness. When you have poison ivy, it's not easy to forget it. Are the words your clients read as compelling?
It's targeted. Urushiol doesn't bother fur-bearing mammals, and it makes a lousy defense mechanism since it takes two or three days for its presence to be felt. When writing is targeted to a specific audience, it should be all-but-invisible to everybody it won't affect.
It's memorable. Who here has gotten poison ivy? And who knows what it looks like? A message that strikes a chord in its readers will change their behavior for the rest of their lives.
It's not pushy. Urushiol is not present on the surface of poison ivy; you have to break the plant's skin to get a dose. It's more like a white paper than one of those sales letters most popular among various get-rich-quick schemes. However,
It's infectious. The skin of a poison ivy plant can be broken by hitting it with a dandelion seed. You want writing that will grab the attention of the casual reader through word choice and formatting.

My audience left slightly itchy, and thinking about the power of effective writing. All in all, it was the best time I have ever spent with a poison ivy rash.

Nothing makes a good mood like a great testimonial

2010-09-12T13:50:00.000-04:00

I sent a client a draft article the other day, and the first feedback I got was, "I wish I had your command of the written word." It makes me feel great to receive that kind of praise, but I get even more of a charge writing good things about other people.

When you first looked at our electrical system two or three years ago, you told me how much it would cost to replace the old fuse boxes – and went on to tell me why you didn't think it was necessary yet. That's why when you advised my wife and I that it was time to upgrade our service due to the condition of the wiring, we knew you were serious.

That's what I wrote to my electrician, Dave Stewart of DS Electric. Successful small business owners can't compete on price in most cases, leaving service and integrity as the best ways to set one's business apart. I like to find something specific to say about the experience; when it's specific it's going to be a more useful marketing tool for that business owner. For my veterinarian I highlighted her ability to deal with challenging animals, whether they walk on two legs or four:

Every time you have treated Myrlyn you have shown amazing flexibility in working with this difficult, agitated fellow . . . and you've done a great job with the cat, too. I'm tremendously grateful for all the patience and professionalism you have shown, and I'd like to particularly single out Dr. Friedman and Jamie for praise. They both take the time to listen to concerns and accommodate any reasonable requests they can.

I know how good it feels to get told you've done a good job. It's a relatively easy way to make someone's day, and possibly contribute to the success of a local business you want to see stick around. It's only relatively easy, because not everyone can write even a short paragraph or two without stress. That's why I price my testimonials so low - writer's block shouldn't prevent people from helping each other. Twenty-five dollars and a ten-minute phone conversation is enough for me to draft a letter, and it doesn't get signed until it says everything your customer wants it to.

In the meantime, I've got a letter to write to my oil company.

Are you digestable?

2010-08-18T10:06:00.000-04:00

Scott Ginsberg, better known online as Hello, my name is Scott, issued an interesting challenge: explain your philosophy in terms of an "-able" word. It didn't take me long to hit upon the right word, either:

digestable.

If you're digestable, it means that your brilliance can be broken up into smaller bits that others can process. Someone who has spent years of his or her life mastering a particular craft, technique, or discipline can discover that the people who need their services don't realize it, because they simply can't digest it. A digestable entrepreneur is one who can break down those years of mastery into the key points a potential client needs to understand.

There is one important concept to remember when trying to bring an idea to market:

Jargon is not digestable.

Jargon is the fiber of your business diet. It's extremely important because it allows ideas to flow and develop. It is incredibly precise; a shorthand that minimizes misunderstandings and allows for clear communication among trained professionals. There are situations that would quickly become disasters in the absence of jargon, for example:

Moving a piano. Movers have particular terms they use to communicate which way a piece of furniture should be turned. Misunderstandings can lead to breakage of both valuable furniture and valuable people.
Performing surgery. Would you really want your surgical team to use terms like "the squishy round thing" during your open heart surgery?
Writing contracts. Legal terminology has been tested and defined in the courts, and attorneys must use very precise language to protect their clients' interests.

Just like fiber, though, too much jargon can bind things up. Try asking that attorney to explain to you a word like "laches." Without a law degree you may find your mind wandering and your eyes glazing over. The explanation may be accurate, but you lack the context to understand it.

This happens to varying degrees in every business. Jargon is a necessary part of developing a set of skills, but if your clients don't share your training it become an indigestable mass of information. It's difficult to let it go, because it means sacrificing the precision that it brings.

The secret to detechnical writing, as I call it, is to strike a balance. Your clients need digestable ideas in order to understand what you have to offer. Your work requires jargon in order for you to provide the quality they expect. The diet you feed your prospects and clients needs some of that jargon-fiber, but it's almost certainly less than you think. Ask yourself:

Do my target clients have the same education I do?
Which technical terms must I use to avoid creating liability?
Am I spending more time explaining my words than I am explaining my services?

Digestability will allow your potential and existing clients to see the value in what you have to offer. You're offering a taste of your skills so that they can decide if they want more. Not every client wants or needs to understand every aspect of what you do; they have their own expertise to focus on. If your client wants to understand the meat of your offering, awesome! Until you know what they're hungry for, though, you'll do a lot better by not forcing them to bite off more than they can chew.

Check out Scott's book for more "-able" ideas for business.

Disclosure: sometimes I get paid to blog

2010-05-01T09:39:00.002-04:00

Longtime readers of my articles will recall me exploring the idea of paid blog posts some time back. At the time none of the services would have me because I simply didn't have a good enough PageRank to justify paying me to write good things about their products, so my opportunity to review any of the services never manifested. Because of this I wasn't even planning on mentioning the possibility to my stepson in my tips for him to become a better blogger.

What a difference just a year makes! Paid blogging takes many different forms, and I'm up to my eyeballs in more than one now. Let's take a look:

Easily the most exciting blogging development for me recently is a solid system for increasing blog traffic that I've developed in partnership with Aim One Marketing. The service resolves the problems of bad writing, no writing, and undisclosed ghost blogging with a dash of journalistic blogging - blog posts are written based on interviews with the business owner but by a professional writer with editorial oversight.
My collection of online columns on issues local to my community is sometimes seen as "blogging" by many people. The technology behind the New Paltz Examiner and NY Lottery Examiner columns are similar to blogs, but I have been trained to recognize which of my content should be submitted to Google News, something I can't do with a blog. Google loves blogs, but generally doesn't consider what's in them to be "news."
Finally, after I-can't-say-how-long I finally got a couple of my own blogs approved by LoudLaunch, one of the sites that will pay me for posts right here. I'm very excited to try this service out and write about it.

In fact, this post's point is to be a disclosure. Unlike when I first wrote about blogging for money, people care about ethics and disclosure now. Be aware that I may very well write a post for which I have been paid - but that I will not write about anything that I don't believe in or change my opinion for money.

Revisiting local businesses

2010-04-09T09:46:00.000-04:00

I have been a proponent of doing business locally for years now, even before there was a short-lived Hudson Valley loyalty card. A few months ago I became a fan of The 3/50 Project's Facebook page, because the group's heart is in the right place. They push for people to pick three businesses in town they would miss if closed, and commit to spreading 50 bucks a month among those three. From what I've read on their web site, the media often get confused and think it's 50 in each business, but they're very clear it's just fifty dollars and three businesses.

The idea came back when I found RecycleBill's green certification program. The program is completely free and verifiable, and a welcome relief in the midst of the greenwashing out there. My writing business is mostly virtual and uses very few resources (I think), but support the 3/50 Project is a step that I can take without much difficulty. I went so far as to put the logo on my website and list their page as a favorite on my own Facebook page.

I don't know if I will be able to complete the Green Enough for RecycleBill program, but I will continue to encourage people to spend some of their money in their own downtowns.

Blog advice for young and old

2010-04-07T12:39:00.000-04:00

My stepson recently started his own blog, and has been asking me my advice. Rather than share my thoughts with him alone I decided that I'm overdue for metablogging anyway.

To get him started, I recommended he set up a free blog at Blogger. All else being equal, if you don't want to focus on the details of blog SEO right off, why not get one with the service owned by the largest search engine? (Even if he decides he wants get his blog found by Google more quickly, I tend to think Blogger still offers a leg up.)

I'm also a big fan of NetworkedBlogs, because it offers a very easy way to find readers through Facebook. I've seen over the years that a good chunk of internet users prefer to get all of their information from a small number of sites. I used to used Livejournal to read Dilbert and the rest of the funnies, for example. Facebook is one of the most-used sites for information aggregation right now, and it only takes a few minutes to set up a blog on this handy application.

The legend of TeacherLady

2010-03-30T21:09:00.000-04:00

There is a whisper that echoes the clacking keys of The Professional Wordsmith.

TeacherLady.

She is just a username and some edits, but she is so much more.

TeacherLady.

My clients sometimes see the mark that she leaves upon documents . . . replacing a homonym here, inserting a prepositional phrase there . . . but little is known about the person behind the name.

TeacherLady.

Every writer needs a second set of eyes to look over his words, but not every writer is fortunate enough to have those eyes belong to a high school English and journalism teacher. My clients can see when she's passed through, tidying up behind me, as I work on a project.

TeacherLady.

One more level of quality brought to any project by The Professional Wordsmith.

Do you proofread your writer?

2010-01-13T12:31:00.003-05:00

Should you proofread your business writer's work? You'd better believe it.

There are a few reasons why looking over your writer's work makes a terrific amount of sense. Here are some advantages:

You will know if he was listening. A good writer has an amazing memory, a notebook, or an electronic device that he uses to keep track of all the information you give him. Does it say what you wanted it to say?
Did he understand it better than you do? Sometimes complex topics aren't easy to translate into common language, because the jargon (which most people don't understand) does a much better job explaining the topic. Simplified terms aren't as precise, but if your clients don't have the same training that you do, they might do the job better. Show your writer's work to an existing client and ask them to explain it to you. If the answer is near the mark and the client thinks it's a good product, the writing may be just precise enough.
Second set of eyes. Writers train themselves to catch most of their own mistakes, and some proofreading tips make this job easier. However, even the most perfectionist of writers may have some error which slips through the cracks. If you're not sure if the usage is correct or not, ask anyway: a good writer will explain it if it's correct instead of getting defensive.
It's called a draft! Just as a contractor will create a punch list, a writer doesn't expect that the first draft is going to be exactly what you're looking for. If you don't comment, not only won't you get what you're paying for, you also will deny your writer the opportunity to learn more about your business philosophy.

The longer you work with a business writer, the better the results should be. I really working with regular clients whose "voice" I have captured in my head. Even then, though, I appreciate the occasional proofreading questions I receive, because they either give me a chance to correct a misteak or they allow me a chance to talk more about the rules of writing.

Intuitive Keywording

2009-06-04T05:48:00.002-04:00

I continue to watch and read about the latest SEO trends, and what the industry is doing to keep up with Google's changes, and it hasn't changed my view on keyword density quite yet. All Google really wants to do is get people the exact information that they're looking for as quickly as possible, and the secrecy behind their algorithms is to keep them ahead of the black hat SEO people. Those unethical practices have actually been good for Google, since the company has risen to the challenge and still does a pretty decent job.

The most sought-after search engine traffic for any website is the organic traffic - those people that arrive at a site because the keywords they typed into a search engine matched the content of the site. This is the basis for the entire SEO (search engine optimization) industry: trying to align a site with what people will be looking for. The "white hat" branch is the one doing analysis of keyword density and various Google trends to get a site picked up for a specific phrase, while the "black hat" firms try to find loopholes. For example, an IT company I am familiar with is currently battling it out to be the top result for the keyword Hudson Valley Computer Support. If a black hat firm was handling the SEO, the site may be jammed with various tricks, such as putting the keyword several times on each page in a font so tiny that only Google could read it.

Intuitive Keywording Explained

There's nothing quite so trendy as taking a noun which is minding its own business and turning into a verb, like "keywording." I use the phrase intuitive keywording to describe my writing process, which is based on combining a real understanding of the English language, a smattering of game theory, and an in-depth analysis of the subject matter.

I can never have the level of knowledge that my clients do, but I take the time to understand the experts that I am writing for. If there are specific target keywords in mind, such as in the example above, I am mindful of them as I write, but I don't count the words to see if I have reached the optimal density of keywords. Those targets are always changing, but the goal is still the same: give the readers the information they want, so that they will search for and find it on Google.

Good writing about useful information is, ultimately, what Google wants to give its users, and there's always going to be a place for writers who understand the concept of intuitive keywording.

Twitterleak distracts from other social networking platforms

2009-05-16T09:21:00.003-04:00

I get it in Facebook, but I know Twitterleak has probably made incursions elsewhere, too. The microblogging platform is open-source, which makes it eminently easy to duplicate postings elsewhere. In itself, that's a convenient and efficient use of time. Where it fails, though, is when Twitterspeak is used in those posts.

To each social network its own audience
Facebook positioned itself early on as being for an older crowd than MySpace (grownups rather than kids), and I think it continues to project a certain level of maturity with its simple white-and-blue layout and lack of really sleazy content. MySpace was a natural repository for blog posts written in 133t or chatspeak, but Facebook has always tended towards fully-written sentences that use real language. MySpace started out as a place to promote music, but Facebook pages helped the service find a niche in promoting all manner of professional services - which helped shape its audience and the language used to reach them.

Twitter is an amalgam, because the 140 character limit challenges people to get to the point quickly, but businesses use Twitter in ways they never used instant messaging. This can be done by learning to write more efficiently, or by using abbreviations. Both the commands and conventions in Twitter automatically add a level of jargon to the feed; people refer to me as @TPWard so I can know who tweets about me, and posts are frequently organized with #hashtags. It's easy to mix chatspeak in with that, and although I try to avoid it myself I understand it's what I'm going to be reading when I use that service.

When Twitter leaks
So the problem of Twitterleak results from Twitter-focused posts showing up on other services. It may be hard to imagine, but millions of Facebook users are barely able to understand how that site functions, and when they read status updates that r rly short #updates which RT @everyone they dont lol, they scratch their heads. Why? Because twitter updates are reaching the wrong audience.

Ways to prevent Twitterleak

Learn to post concisely on Twitter so any mirrored posts are in English (or whatever language your audience expects to communicate in, be it Swahili, Cantonese, Southern Drawl, chatspeak, Engineer, or binary).
Consider your Twitter habits, and how they relate to your contacts on other sites. Don't indiscriminately cross-post if your posts aren't in the best language for both sites.
Facebook has a selective Twitter update application that only posts tweets that include the hashtag #fb. Use it to weed out the @replies, #hashtags, and 133t tweets.
It might be pointless to cross-post at all if your contacts have more than a 50% overlap - your message might become more distraction than information.

Opinions Sought from Web Content Writers

2009-03-26T16:28:00.003-04:00

In a debate on About.com about the merits of content writing for residual income,
Angela England makes some excellent points about content ownership and how much they're really worth. In a follow-up conversation with Angela via ever-reliable Facebook I asked her a related question: how much income share does she expect from a site if she's going to contribute to it? I'm hoping I can convince a few people to weigh in on my own questions here, but first I'd like to lay out what I've learned and want to know.
Writer's Rights to Content
What Angela said about rights at About.com and restated on her own writing blog was, "To me, the only way I would participate in a site that takes all my rights completely is if they pay quite a bit upfront. Otherwise, I’m loosing [sic] the ability to make money off that content in other ways, for no guaranteed return!" When I asked Angela about this again, she said she would agree to a "guaranteed payout amount of at least $40-50 per article" or the aforementioned hefty advance.
How Much Should Content Sites Pay?
I also asked Angela about content sites and their pay rates. She and I both are feature writers for Suite101.com, Angela writing for Plants and Bulbs while I handle Technical/Business Writing. Feature Writers get a higher percentage of ad revenue in return for more frequent contributions, but since the exact percentage isn't disclosed in our contract I have no basis for comparison. Angela has cast a wider content web net than I, and told me that "most of the sites that split revenue that I am aware of are 50% splits (TypeAMom, Xomba, etc). Hubpages is 60/40."
Questions for Content Writers
I respect Angela's experience but I am also curious about the experiences and views of other content writers online. Would you care to answer a couple of questions in the comments?

What would it take for you to give up all rights to your content? Would you need a guaranteed payment of some type? Would you do it for less than Angela? Would you do it for a higher cut of revenue share?
What is a reasonable percentage of revenue? Do the sites you write for even disclose the percentage? How high would the rate have to be for your mouth to water? How low for you to just laugh and click "Stumble?"

Thanks for adding your two cents, and please share this post in any way you know that will get it in front of online content writers.

Microsoft Word 2007 Creates Business Roadblocks

2009-03-07T10:01:00.003-05:00

I saved a document in Microsoft Word the other day, and sent it to a client who uses the program. He was unable to open it, because the 2007 version of Word defaults to saving files with the .docx format, which cannot be read by earlier versions of the software without a converter. This is apparently Microsoft's idea of backwards compatible software.

Disclosure: I've never been a huge fan of Microsoft Word, because most Microsoft products bend so far over backwards trying to make things look pretty that they forget to make it easy to just perform core tasks - for example, writing. I prefer Open Office, because the software is easy to understand and use. It's also free.

I keep Word available because sometimes heavily-formatted documents don't translate well into other programs. I don't know if Microsoft does that to try to keep a lock on the software market or if it's a side effect of their business model of adding bells and whistles instead of simple, clear commands; whatever the reason, there are times when just converting a file into the .doc format in Open Office isn't enough. A first glance at the documentation for Office 2007 suggests that Microsoft has seen the light and is ready to be compatible with the rest of the open-source world.

Office Open XML File Formats
How exciting! Open formats must be good, right? Well . . . not exactly. They might use the word "open" but the MS use of the word seems to be, "open the door to more people buying new versions of Microsoft products." Office Open XML files are not:

Open source
Openable by earlier versions of the same software without a converter
Convertable in both directions - once a .docx file is converted to a .doc, it will be again rendered unreadable if it's open and saved in the newest version again
Obviously incompatible - Word 2007 defaults to saving in the .docx format and doesn't indicate that users of earlier versions will need a converter to open them.

I'm getting more and more clients that are sending me .docx files, and no doubt they are unaware of how other Microsoft users can't open them easily. I thought "backwards compatible" meant the files could be opened in earlier versions of the same software, and I think most people would prefer that. Do you want to spend your days tracking down converters and patches for your software, or would you prefer to be able to do productive work?

I prefer not spending a lot of time thinking about my software, which is why I like Open Office so much. I doubt it's just writers and scientists that sometimes feel Microsoft hate us by forcing extra steps into our already-busy days; and I'm hoping that frustrations with Office 2007 will lead to more people adopting free, easy-to-understand word processing software.

Thanks, Microsoft!

Writing Sites I've Left Behind in 2009

2009-03-02T12:03:00.003-05:00

Not all writing opportunities are equal, and some are a better fit for some writers than others. I've decided to cut back on or completely eliminate my work on a few writing sites this year because either they're not able to match me with my target audience or I've just outgrown them. However, take a look at the reasons, because these sites are perfectly fine at what they do, and what they do may be just what you're looking for.

Helium. The first site I ever wrote for. Write an article about a preexisting topic and then comparison-rate articles in other topics. The best-voted articles rise to the top of the list - hence the name of the site. My early articles got great ratings and were frequently featured on the front page, but after two years I had made about twelve dollars. I would have kept them around, but they made the bad decision to require users to rate articles in order to continue earning. I'm not fond of the rating system anyway, because there's no way to tell if ratings are done on content, layout, or just "pick the one on the left."
Epinions. Write opinions on products which are rated by other users. Earnings are "based on how often their reviews were used in making a decision (whether or not the reader actually made a purchase)." Presumably this is somehow related to the user's network on the site, page exposures for reviews, and user ratings of the reviews; I can't see how they know if the user used the review to make a decision otherwise. It may very well be a great way to create a new income stream, but it's a big vague for me to include in my business plan. I'd rather stick with reviewing business books. It's a niche that Epinions doesn't cater to.
Anywhere that requires me to rate a dating site. I've seen this a lot in job postings on freelancing sites. In response to a bid, an email is sent requesting that you sign up for an adult dating site, check it out, and write an email back with a 50-100 word review of the site. Frequently the email address for contact is right in the job proposal as a means to encourage contact outside of the freelancing site's system. I suspect it's a strange way to drive traffic to adult dating sites.
Elance. Well I haven't entirely given up on Elance, but their feedback system has its flaws. My first successful bid on the site turned into a bit of a nightmare, as the buyer didn't log onto the site for weeks after the project due date. He finally released the escrow funds to pay me, but then left some rather poor feedback including suggestions that I didn't communicate well. The experience made me a bit more cautious about freelancing sites in general, since acting in a professional manner and delivering on time isn't always enough to please. My Elance feedback isn't that hot, but at least my LinkedIn recommendations are dazzling!
Squidoo. Okay, even two weeks ago Squidoo would have topped this list, but I've started finding interesting ways to repurpose my content on this page creation site. It will take a learning curve, but at least I understand how I earn money - people click on ads, I get a share, that makes sense to me. I'm going to give this site a pass for now.

Do you have any sites that haven't worked for you, but you think could be a big break for the right person? Feel free to comment.

The Hourglass Conversation

2009-02-23T13:45:00.004-05:00

The one concept that I found most stunning in Competitive Intelligence: Fast, Cheap & Ethical by Rob Duncan was that of the hourglass conversation. It absolutely fascinated me that researchers have quantified what we do and do not pay attention to in minute detail.

The hourglass conversation is a model for subtle interrogation that is used by competitive intelligence professionals, police investigators, and others in the business of asking questions. It's based on the idea that what people recall about a conversation follows a predictable pattern; if you know how to word your questions and when to ask them, you walk away with answers and your subject doesn't recall telling you anything important.

The entire chapter on human intelligence is packed full of concepts like the hourglass conversation. It's a great area for him to focus on, because there's no better place to learn about ethics than in the gray areas. My full review of Duncan's book delves more into the "Fast and Cheap" aspects of the book.

More Hired Blogging Insights

2009-02-15T18:48:00.006-05:00

I'm continuing to research an article to revisit my earlier story on blogging for money. I regret not having detailed my experiences with reviewing ReviewMe and PayPerPost at the time, but suffice it to say they were focused on how much "Google cred" I could give them, which wasn't much at the time. Now I find that being hired to blog can finally be based on writing skills as well as PageRank, a trend I find promising. The aptly-named HiredtoBlog.com hires bloggers based on quality of posts, not popularity of the blogs.

Benefits for Business Owners
Keyword-specific links to a business web page always increase that site's visibility. Links in blog posts have the additional advantage of being new; frequently updated content is picked up by RSS ("really simple syndication") readers soon after it is published. If a company opts for website marketing via paid blogging, they are not paying the blogger for his or her opinion; it's the links that make the post valuable.

So why is HiredtoBlog.com's model of focusing on quality writers over other criteria so valuable? Because well-written blogs bear up under scrutiny over the long haul. When all the algorithms are calculated, all Google wants to do is give web surfers what they're looking for. Simply put, quality writing gains a following over time, while sites whose popularity is based on link farms and keyword chasing will fall by the wayside. A business that decides to hire bloggers based on skill over PageRank will gain greater returns in the long run.

What to Expect from an Interview

2009-01-21T14:48:00.003-05:00

If you've agreed to let me interview you, what should you expect? Here's a guide to how I gather information about your area of expertise.

Pick your subject

Writing is my skill, but you're going to have to direct me a bit to get the most value out of an interview. What is your expertise? Is there a particular focus you would like the interview to have? A new service or concept, perhaps, or maybe you've been working on a book? Let me know what you're looking for and I will formulate appropriate questions.

I'm more than happy to send you a list of likely questions ahead of time if you prefer. I'm not an investigative reporter looking for a Pulitzer-winning "gotcha!" That doesn't mean that our conversation might not suggest follow-up questions; interviews often take on a life of their own and my initial questions are only meant to be a guide.

Pick your medium

Do you prefer talking in person as I do? That's perfectly fine, but if I'm not planning on being in your area and an in-person interview is important, then please understand that travel isn't included. Being able to observe body language and communicate such in my writing are high among my reasons for preferring to interview in person.
Phone interviews can be a bit frustrating for the subject, but only because you can't see me writing down your response and you may be wondering what all the silence is about. Phone interviews still allow me to take note of inflection and other cues that suggest your passion for the subject.
Online interviews can be conducted via email or Twitter. No nonverbal communication occurs over the internet, but recording of the interview occurs as it's happening, which is a real time-saver.

Pick your schedule

We can always work out a time that is convenient for both of us. If you're in a distant time zone, online interviews may work best. For subjects in the Hudson Valley I certainly prefer a time and place where we can meet in person. Writing involves deadlines, but I often can move things around in a pinch.

What you won't get

I don't provide advance copies of articles I write which stem from my interviews, although I will provide you with a link or, if possible, a copy of the finished product once it's published. Whether or not you will have the rights to reproduce the finished work will depend upon the agreement that we have reached.

Business Book Reviews

2009-01-21T13:03:00.006-05:00

One of the toughest tasks to accomplish as a business writer is getting exposure for one's book. Even if a publisher is backing your work with its massive marketing, it's easy for your well-researched tome to get lost in a sea of other offerings vying for the limited attention of entrepreneurs and executives. The task redoubles if you've opted to self-publish.

Finding the nugget in your book

When I read a business book, I do so as both a business owner and a business writer. I summarize and analyze a business book to find that valuable nugget of wisdom which makes your work so valuable. In short, I'm just as interested in sharing your idea with the world as I am in benefitting from it myself. That's part of the reason why I'm willing to review your business book like I did The 29% Solution and Truth or Delusion for Dr. Ivan Misner.

What do I have to do to get my business book reviewed, Terence?

Just contact me and let me know you'd like to send me a review copy of your book. I will provide you with a mailing address for your book. Some things you ought to know about the process:

I take the time to read a book before I review it, so the reviews won't happen the day I receive the copy. I appreciate the effort it takes to write a book and want to make sure I understand it before I review it.
My reviews on Suite101 are 400-600 words. I will provide a link to your web site or an online retailer that sells your book.
As with any review, I'm going to be honest - just because I agree to review your book doesn't mean that I will like it.

Will you publish the review on Amazon or elsewhere?

Redistribution of my review isn't included in this free offer, although you certainly may feel free to link to the review as often as you like. Other options are negotiable.

Interviewing the Expert

2009-01-19T20:03:00.004-05:00

Problem: people with knowledge don't always know how to share it.

Anyone who has taken a class in college knows the type: professors that know their subject cold, but have absolutely no skill at education or communication. Students have to cut through overly technical jargon to find the core of knowledge hidden within. It happens because colleges want some of the finest minds teaching in their classrooms, and having a fine mind is not the same as being a gifted teacher.

The same can be said of writing. Experts of all types are expected to be able to write down their ideas with ease - in fact, it's much easier to be considered an expert if you can boil down what you know to a few bullet points. But a lifetime of training in heart surgery, financial planning, IT support or organic cooking isn't going to leave a lot of time for learning how to write really well.

Solution: be the expert in your field; let me be the expert on writing about it.

Many experts don't know how to explain what they know to other people. When I interview an expert like I did with Dr. Terrence Fox, I get as much information as I can out of each question, and then sift through the information to find the gems. I tailor an interview to the needs of my subject, and I focus on bringing out all the interesting bits I can about it. I have to listen to the answers intently, because they often lead me to even better questions.

Free interview available

I frequently interview my clients as I work on writing projects, but I am also willing to conduct interviews for free from time to time. If you are an expert in a field but just don't know how to explain what you do, I might be interested in interviewing you. I will use my interview to develop articles and blog posts about your specialty, and I will give you credit where it is due. Contact me if you'd like to have your knowledge put to the test.

Gender-Neutral Pronouns: the Writer's Dilemma

2009-01-11T22:59:00.003-05:00

What's the best way to deal with gender in written English? I've tried a few different strategies over my life and career, with varying types of success.

Traditional approach. This is what I was taught, and I stuck with it stubbornly for quite some time: if you're not sure of the gender, use the masculine as it implies both. Sounds reasonable enough to me, but I'm a man so I don't know that the 51% who are not would agree. When this technique is turned on its ear and the feminine pronouns are used as generic, I feel a bit left out, so this probably isn't very useful. I still use it sometimes, but it makes me feel self-conscious.
Inclusionist. Using "his or her" and "he/she" in every instance. I don't know how said it, but "slashing isn't the answer, violence never is." This technique is grammatically correct but stylistically ungainly.
Switch-hitting. This is the technique of deliberately alternating between the two genders throughout a document. As a reader it gives me the sense that the writer is talking about a new person; I find it distracting.
Singular they. This used to be my absolute favorite solution to the gender-in-writing question; it's used informally quite widely and I believe it is the most likely form to become standard for the next generation. However, I share my life with an English teacher, and she's done an excellent job of making it tough for me to write formally with this informal style.
Made-up words. There have been a couple of different gender-neutral pronoun sets proposed. I don't think the one that uses "ze" and such will ever make much headway, but the Spivak pronouns may have a shot. They're based on the singular they, and are formed by dropping the "th" from the plural pronoun. Since they're close to an existing informal usage, and are easy to understand, I wouldn't be upset if they gained traction.
Neutralizing words. Having someone address the "chair" instead of the "chairman" really is quite silly. Converting other -man words into -person words is quite common, but it adds to the clumsiness of the language.

It's interesting that the many of the Romance languages ascribe a gender to every noun. I wonder how that particular practice got related to the word "gender" at all, being that most nouns don't describe things that could be tied to any masculine or feminine traits. Some blog comments I've read indicate that Hungarian doesn't use gender at all, so clearly the use of gender in language is all over the map.

Language is both a mold for and a reflection of culture. I want my writing to be articulate, smooth, and appropriate for its intended audience. I can't just default to "he" in the 21st century if I want to achieve those goals, and most of the available alternatives only replace one problem with another. I'm sure a gender-neutral standard will emerge, but language evolves based on the collective will of hundreds of millions of people, so that standard isn't going to be quick, and it isn't going to be forced. My fellow writers and I are just going to have to do our best until the fog clears.

Clicking through ClickBank

2009-01-08T06:42:00.003-05:00

Word on the blogosphere is that ClickBank is a place where lots of business is being conducted, so I decided to sign up and test the service out. I hope using it is a bit less frustrating than the signup process, which includes more security steps than celebrating New Year's Eve in Times Square. The steps, thus far, have included:

Fill out the signup form, including personal data for payment.
Correct my phone number, which wasn't formatted correctly because no guidelines were provided.
Click the verification link in the email which was sent to me.
Enter the confirmation code from the email.
Solve a captcha code.

Usually one either must click a verification link or enter a confirmation code; I was a little surprised at ClickBank requiring both steps. Entering a captcha (words or characters set up as a graphic so automated programs can't read them) seemed especially excessive, being that I had completed the two prior steps. And after all that, I still had to log in.

Here's hoping that the world of affiliate marketing doesn't have as many barriers to success as it does to entry!

Paid Blogging and Microblogging

2008-12-30T03:28:00.004-05:00

A year and a half ago I wrote about the paid blogging trend which was just hitting a peak. The landscape has changed significantly since then, with Google pressuring PayPerPost into requiring disclosure. Now microblogging platform has provided a new, easier way to monetize - the service Be-a-Magpie will send posts in your name, so you don't even have to write them. Clearly I'm overdue to write about paid blogging again. I wasn't able to successfully test any of the paid blogging sites myself when I wrote the first article, since I didn't have a sufficiently popular blog, but being a magpie is easy enough to try.

I signed up for Be-a-magpie with a newly-minted Twitter account which has zero followers. The website was frank with me, telling me, “You’ve got potential!” and that I should expect to earn as much as nothing a month.

I am given the chance to change the tweet-to-ad ratio – the default is ten tweets to the magpie, but I can crank it up as high as one-to-one or bring it down as low as 300 to one. I am also given the option to insert a custom disclaimer before or after the magpie tweets. The default in this case is “none.” I leave both settings on default.

The last setting of note is for pre-approval. In its default position I am supposed to get an email so that I may approve each new magpie tweet before it’s sent out in my name. Interesting, since I haven’t been asked for an email address yet. I suppose that since I’ve given up my Twitter password, they can just look it up.

The settings page invites me to add personal details (no pressure, they have all that they need) and the account page is where I’ll go to provide PayPal information if and when I earn enough money to cash out. I’ve been a member of Helium for two years and haven’t earned the minimum to cash out there – I wonder if the fifty-euro goal is as insurmountable. Certainly is if I get no followers, but I’m not doing this to get rich, I’m doing it to try out the system. I want to see how it works, and how people react to it. Signing up before I have any followers was intentional – if magpie is a standard part of my mix from day one, will it discourage potential followers, or will they know what they’re getting into and not mind? Will the magpie tweets be obvious ads, the way paid stumbles are, even though I didn’t elect to mark them as such? (I wonder how long before the magpie is forced to require this like PayPerPost was?)

Magpie is not quiet. I’m offered badges, an affiliate program for signing up advertisers, and even the option of a magpie tweet promoting my affiliate link ("Reach up to 600,000 followers with your message - http://be-a-magpie.com/ld1tb9" can be sent out automatically every other day, daily, or even every eight or four hours). I’m not going to be aggressive like that, since this isn’t my plan for riches. The tweets on this account are all going to be automated, paid or not, but I only want to test the system at its default levels for the moment.

My focus is finding out what kind of ads I'm going to get for my non-effort. Luckily the account has no followers to offend.

For tweets that continue to be ad-free, follow me on Twitter.

Free Article Offer

2008-12-28T20:58:00.003-05:00

I will write an article on a topic of your choice. If you already have useful information on the topic I will link to your blog or web page from my article to give you credit. The free article will not be a sales or promotional piece, it will be a balanced article on the subject.

Why do I want you to write an article?
Exposure, mostly. I am the Business Writing Feature Writer for Suite101.com, a site whose articles routinely place well in search engine results. If you give me a good keyword or two and I reference your web page or blog post with it, it's bound to send some traffic to your site.

But my business isn't about writing.
No, but it's a business, and I'm writing about it, so it really is business writing, see? Suite101 does allow me to write about a variety of topics, so don't worry that I'll be breaking some kind of rule to do this.

Why won't you write a promotional piece?
I will, but not for free. Suite101.com compensates me with a share of ad revenue (from those text ads visible alongside my articles and blog posts), but they don't accept "recycled press releases, self-promotion, thinly veiled sales pitches, fiction, propaganda or personal memoirs." If you have an idea you want to get out there, I will be happy to write about it and send people your way. However, if you want a sales letter or brochure that I can't publish on Suite101, we'll have to make separate arrangements.

So how does this help you, Terence?
I get new ideas that I may not have come up with myself. I learn about a new topic that I may want to write about more in the future. I get to show you how I represent a topic you're interested in with words. In short: writing for you makes me a better writer.

How do I get a free article written?
Use my contact form to send me a message. Please include your name, an email address to reach you at, the topic of the article you'd like me to write and at least one link to a page where I can learn more. I will follow up with you with any questions I have, and if I use the idea I will send you the link to the completed article as well.

Twitter tips and tricks

2008-12-20T13:32:00.003-05:00

Jeff Korhan is a national green industry expert with extensive marketing and sales experience. He was good enough to agree to be my second twitterview subject, explaining to me the different ways that he uses Twitter for his business.

Jeff's blog tells us that he helps people "grow a sustainable business and have a life too," something that is no doubt easier since the advent of social networking technologies like Twitter. He shared how he uses it to gather information, and I got to show him a way to organize that information in return.

I was caught in mid-tweet by Jeff needing to end our twitterview, because the more he shared the more questions I wanted to ask him. We had been tweeting about how he uses Google alerts and Twilert to get regular updates emailed to him about keywords he cares about. Twilert searches only Twitter, while Google searches, well, the Googlesphere, so my mind was racing about how to test and compare the two while I composed the clarifying question, "Can you give examples of the terms that you search for?"

I think we nearly fell into a telepathy trap, with neither of us realizing we had knowledge to share about Twitter.

otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw . . . So I just learned about hashtags for this twitterview. Can you offer any Twitter tricks to me?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw - First tell me about the hashtags. Never understood why those worked. Asked to use them on another "event" like this.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw It's about searching. If you search for #tpw on search.twitter.com you will quickly find this entire twitterview.

Of course, I only really figured out how to use them after Dennis Stevenson commented on my last twitterview with a little primer on hashtag use. Sharing that with Jeff led him to show me how he sorts twitter data, which he might just have assumed is elementary! He agrees that the search functionality is only as good as the content that goes into it, which is why he strives to tweet using relevant keywords himself - a challenge in 140 characters.

Jeff dangled quite a bit more about Twitter applications he's tried and heard about, but I'll save those tidbits for a time when I know more about them myself. Read the full twitterview with Jeff while I try to figure out these new ideas.

Twitterview @jeffkorhan re Twitter for Learning

2008-12-20T12:07:00.003-05:00

Text of twitterview with Jeff Korhan about his uses of Twitter. The blog post can be found here.

otherlleft starting a twitterview: @jeffkorhan on how he uses twitter in business - follow both for the full conversation
otherlleft @jeffkorhan Jeff let me thank you for taking the time today. Can you tell me how you use Twitter in general? #tpw
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw Using Twitter to connect with folks involved w/Green - which is a topic I speak on. Also, using Twitter to learn.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw by Green do you mean green technologies, environmental, that sort of thing?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw pretty much all of those things - anything affecting the environment.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw So Twitter is a networking tool for you. Do you connect with more colleagues or clients this way?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw Its just about 50/50. Lately I'm getting more traction with potential clients. Both= business partners is my view
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw A good philosophy. So Twitter has a pretty sparse profile page. How do you let followers know how else to find you?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw Key are the words - location, topic, subject, etc. have to embed in message to get noticed. How I find them too.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw How long a learning curve was it for you to master that kind of dense writing? Do you think you're there yet?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw Never get there. Game changes. I'm much better. Key is awareness + Knowledge + action = results. Like anything else.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw How different does your business look with Twitter than without?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft
#tpw Confident I have larger platform. 1 day I got DM Tweets on a topic
from 3 countries. Pretty cool to think of the "reach"!
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw That is a long reach! So I just learned about hashtags for this twitterview. Can you offer any Twitter tricks to me?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw - First tell me about the hashtags. Never understood why those worked. Asked to use them on another "event" like this.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw It's about searching. If you search for #tpw on search.twitter.com you will quickly find this entire twitterview.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw However you have to read it backwards, and if someone else uses the same tag it can get confused, but it works somewhat.
jeffkorhan @otherlleft
#tpw I'll look. Video I think is huge w/SMM and Twitter. Engages
people. Just learned of Twitsay.com = audio. Not sure of that.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw So do you tweet mostly from the web?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw Just checked it out. Very cool. It does work. So you should set Google alert for @otherlleft and #tpw
jeffkorhan @otherlleft
#tpw Mostly. I'm stuck w/Q phone for another 4 mos. Twitter works w/it,
but just o.k. I mostly Tweet concurrent with other work
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw Well I've never used Google alerts but I'm going to try that out. Is that one of the ways you use Twitter to learn?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw You'll see where your presence "lands." Then up to you to follow up. All SM is great for research. For Green - very big.
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw Another good tool is Twilert.com. Same as Google but for Twitter only. Great for networking.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw Ah, I just discovered that if you search and then show conversation you can read it in order! Only with replies of course.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw so these are readers that scan for your search parameters, but with tweeting it happens much faster.
jeffkorhan @otherlleft#tpw Yeah, same on my end. Hey, gotta get to work. We've connected now and can stay in touch on Twitter. Anything else?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw I'm going to experiment with it. Background in Chemistry you know. :)
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw I have more questions than when I began, but this is more than enough for starters. Do you have a web site you can share?
jeffkorhan @otherlleft#tpw Thanks for askin! www.truenature.com and blog is www.therightwayworks.com. Both being upgraded in next 30 days.
otherlleft @jeffkorhan #tpw Look forward to reading them. Thanks for all your helpful information, Jeff!
jeffkorhan @otherlleft #tpw You bet. Be well and don't hesitate to Tweet me. Jeff Korhan

Early Twitter Lessons

2008-12-18T21:32:00.002-05:00

After conducting my first Twitterview I learned some lessons and got some great feedback. Things I will keep in mind in the future:

twhirl is a great Twitter client, but it slows down a real-time conversation something fierce.
#hashtags are easy to use and can organize tweets nicely.
Make sure the start and end times of the twitterview are established so everyone knows when to be available.

In the interest of keeping this respectful of microblogging, this post shall stay short.

Twittering about Twitter

2008-12-17T19:43:00.004-05:00

I feel like I'm arriving on the Twitter scene a little too late, but @meltdown disagrees.

As a writer about business writing I like to learn about the different ways people write for and about their businesses, so I decided I ought to Twitter about Twitter. Twitter is a pretty basic concept in theory: it's just a string of messages, 140 characters maximum, by which people inform one another about all manner of things. Twitter is searchable and quick, so it exists somewhere between a blog and an instant message.

Patrick Tobin is a management consultant who agreed to be my first twitterview subject. I've only just started using the service, so I wanted to find out how others are using and viewing it. I've picked up some of the shortcuts and lingo ("@meltdown" is what I would type to reply directly to Patrick's (meltdown's) message, and typing that string automatically links to his Twitter page), and I tried out a couple of Facebook applications and the Twitter client called Twhirl. I wanted to be ready so I wouldn't be over my head when discussing Twitter.

I was pleased to discover that he feels that we're all just early adopters as yet. Mostly his business uses thus far are for sending out mass messages to his followers regarding his whereabouts and moods. He stressed that the 140 character limit forces one to be relevant - and as I noted, he doesn't tend to use chatspeak to get around that limit. Twitter has made the TinyURL service a lot more handy as a way to get a lot of bang for the 140-character buck.

Regarding twitterviews (and I don't know if that should be capitalized or not), I'm already seeing disadvantages others have discovered but I'm not ready to give up on the concept. I have one scheduled for this weekend and two more in the works before I will be finished with gathering information on Twitter itself, but you'll have to follow me if you want to read them as they unfold.

Twitterview @meltdown re Twitter

2008-12-17T19:37:00.005-05:00

The raw text of my first twitterview; be sure to read the writeup of the interview with Patrick Tobin.

otherlleft starting a twitterview with @meltdown about how he uses twitter . . . follow us both for the rest of the story!
otherlleft @meltdown
Thanks for being willing to be interviewed. For starters I have a techl
question: is there a way for people to find this later?
meltdown @otherlleft I'm actually not sure if the full interview thread can be captured separately.
meltdown @otherleft So I can start by "talking" about some of the ways I've been playing around with Twitter.
otherlleft @meltdown Well I will be pasting it into a document just to be sure. So do you use twitter for business, fun, or both?
meltdown @otherlift I would say both. To start, I work in management consulting and travel a lot.
otherlleft @meltdown Yes, please do! What are the main ways you use Twitter?
meltdown @otherlift
I use Twitter to ping my network (work and friends) with a "I'm @
O'Hare" or "I'm in NYC" update, which is much easier than email
meltdown @otherlift
I also use it for business to express a "point of view" on business
issues e.g. "this Madoff deal is getting worse by the minute"
otherlleft @meltdown (watch the spelling, it's otherlleft, kinda tricky ;) ) - so quick texts to individuals mostly, or the world at large?
meltdown @otherlift I also use Twitter for "fun", especially related to old or new music that I am listening to...example
meltdown @otherlift e.g. I will tweet "The Clash - Something About England" to "tell" my "network" that I'm listening to a particular tune.
meltdown @otherlift I'm not sure if the functionality is out there, but it would be cool if I could have my Ipod tweet "the current song playing".
meltdown @otherlift ..and finally I am a distance runner and trying to think of opportunities to invent twitter apps for use by a runner or team.
otherlleft @meltdown would you say twitter has changed how you do business?
meltdown @otherleft
not yet. I still think we are in the early adopter phase for Twitter.
It may need a 'killer app' or two to reach the next level.
meltdown @otherleft I have been impressed by apps such as StockTwits, and also the Election Day setup they used to see real time comments
otherlleft @meltdown Hmm, I know a few triathletes that might be interested in those kinds of apps! Sounds like that one is business AND pleasure
otherlleft @meltdown
fair enough, should be fun to watch Twitter grow! So do you find people
use more chatspeak on Twitter because of the 140 limit?
meltdown @otherleft any other questions? I have 5 minutes left to tweet.

meltdown @otherlift Yes, the 140 char limit does force one to be concise..and relevant!
otherlleft @meltdown i'm sure you'll answer my last momentarily. Finally, what is the biggest thing you wish you could do with Twitter?
otherlleft @meltdown
Well I find you to be both concise and relevant without using chatspeak
abbreviations. Seems most tweeters don't take that route.
meltdown @otherlift OK, I need to "run". Thanks for setting up the interview, and let's do a follow up in February.
otherlleft @meltdown I know we're about out of time, Patrick, so I want to thank you for your input and encourage my followers to follow @meltdown.
otherlleft @meltdown Sure thing. Have a good night and tweet to you then!

2008-06-05T15:51:00.000-04:00

Suite101.com Media Inc.

350-1122 Mainland Street,

Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 5L1, Canada

Phone: +1-604.682.1400

Fax: +1-604.682.3277

Media Contact: Julie Burtinshaw

Reading & Writing Editor

Suite101.com

Email: readingandwriting@suite101.com

Phone: +1-604.682.1400

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Suite101.com Hires Business Writer Terence P Ward to Launch their New Technical/Business Writing Site

Suite101.com, an online magazine with more 10 years on the Web and attracting more than 4.5 million readers monthly, adds business writer Terence P Ward to the site’s Reading & Writing section with the launch of the new Technical/Business Writing site at http://technicalbusinesswriting.suite101.com/.

May 29, 2008 – Vancouver, BC – Suite101.com proudly announces the addition of a new Business Writing resource site in their Reading & Writing section, managed by business writer Terence P Ward, one of the latest additions to the Suite101 team.

The new Technical/Business Writing site located at http://technicalbusinesswriting.suite101.com/ offers entrepreneurs and freelance writers comprehensive articles, resources, and a blog providing:

thoughtful and honest reviews of the hottest business books;
commentary about emerging trends in business writing;
step-by-step articles on preparing documents from business cards to business plans;
product and service reviews that support the writing needs of business;
tips & tricks for writing keynote addresses and other speeches;
information on how to keep a newsletter full and interesting;
an evolving manual of how to write manuals and sets of instructions;
and discussion of the themes that are relevant to writing for and about business.

Readers of Suite101’s new Technical/Business Writing site are provided with the opportunity to share their own reviews and feedback, ask business writing-related questions, and interact with site author Terence P Ward directly through commentary on the site.

Terence P Ward is a freelance writer and editor living in New Paltz, New York. His writing experience ranges from legal and technical documents to several forays into novels and short works of fiction.

About Suite101

Suite101.com is an authoritative online magazine attracting 4.5 million curious browsers monthly in search of answers, commentary, a good read, or a chat with like-minded enthusiasts. Suite101 offers visitors quality content per click from entertainment to home and gardening, travel and sports to world affairs. Visit now. Visit often.

For more information about the new Technical/Business Writing site at Suite101.com, or the addition of publishing expert Terence P Ward to the Suite101 team, please visit http://technicalbusinesswriting.suite101.com/ or contact the Reading & Writing Editor, Julie Burtinshaw, at +1-604.682.1400 or via email at mailto:readingandwriting@suite101.com.

###

Swordfighting as Gateway Drug

2008-05-29T05:47:00.007-04:00

Previously: On Boffers and Knighthood

The Order of the Roc was originally conceived to be a chapter of the Royal Order of Chivalry, a ministry of the Assemblies of God church, as the Order of the Rock. After the minister who founded the Kingston, NY group moved to a different area and made Arnold Tompkins its director, they chose a new direction.

"Our group was founded with the idea of teaching honor and chivalry," Tompkins explained over coffee after the sparring was done for the evening, "and we wanted to continue that. But we were concerned that the ties to a religious organization might put off kids of different faiths, despite our best intentions. Since that link was all but severed when [Founder Pastor] James left the area, we decided to become completely secular." They decided to drop the ending "K" off the name, changing it from a symbol of Christianity to a mythical bird of immense proportions. "We had some name recognition as Order of the Rock, and it was an easy switch to something that focused on the medieval flair instead."

The medieval flair fit perfectly, since the Royal Order of Chivalry is structured like a feudal society, with knights being vassals to barons, while having squires and pages in their own service. And, according to head instructor Lance Meyer, honor is more commonly associated with that period of history by most people. "When we think of knights, we think of chivalry and honor," he explained between bouts. "What I want to teach is how to accept defeat graciously, because it's a learning opportunity, not a setback. We grow more from our mistakes than we ever will by winning all the time."

Kids + Swords = Good Time
There's nothing quite as predictable as what will happen when you put a sword (even a padded one) in a boy's hand, say the instructors: they're going to swing it at anyone who comes near. The Order of the Roc has an excellent safety record because of the training system Meyer and Tompkins have developed in conjunction with the other instructors, and so they are able to let the kids have fun without fear of real injury. "The couple of times someone has gotten hurt it's been a freak accident," Tompkins explained. "It didn't happen because someone didn't understand how to safely use the weapons."

Even while the participants learn how to effectively use the various weapons forms, the values of honor, fair play, chivalry, and honesty are reinforced. "These are values that are vanishing in our society, and we would like to see them become more common again," said Tompkins.

The Order of the Roc maintains pages on both Facebook and MySpace.

On Boffers and Knighthood

2008-05-26T08:54:00.004-04:00

The boy stepped back, sizing up his opponent, a man nearly twice his size and well protected by a solid wooden shield and fast-moving sword. He watched and waiting for that shield to move, to grant him access to something he could strike. After a moment, the man swung his sword at the boy's head, and the youngster saw his opportunity. By swinging his blade, the man had to remove his forearm from the cover provided by his shield, and in that instant the boy lashed out with his polearm (essentially a hooked blade atop a staff) and bit into the exposed wrist. The sword fell to the ground with a clatter from lifeless fingers. The bout was over.

Of course the clattering was imagined, because the sword, being made of thick foam wrapped around PVC piping and held together with duct tape, was too soft to make that much sound. Boffers might sting when they strike bare skin, but they're designed with functionality taking the back seat to safety.

The bout just completed is between one of the instructors of the Order of the Roc, Arnold Tompkins, and a 13-year-old student. Tompkins says, "Let's take a break," and heads to the side of the room in the Everett Hodge Center in midtown Kingston, New York. The sweat on his shaven head shines brightly in the fluorescent glow of the multi-purpose room as he grabs a bottle of Mountain and sits down for a spell. "It's not easy being one of only two instructors," he says. "Every one of these kids, and the parents that fight, want to get some time with me, because you have to fight the instructors in order to be cleared on a weapon."

To clear on a weapon, explains head instructor Lance Meyer, is to demonstrate to two different instructors that you understand how the weapon works and how to handle it safely. "Boffers may be padded, but they're modeled on real weapons and real fighting principles apply. Until you're cleared on a weapon's use, you aren't permitted to use it in tourneys, team fighting exercises, or while facing novice fighters."

The Order of the Roc is a group that teaches boffer fighting skills to kids, but it has an interesting history and a large mandate. In Swordfighting as Gateway Drug, learn how medieval weapons are used to draw kids in to a better purpose.

Learning About Reviewing

2008-05-22T05:42:00.004-04:00

I'm reading "Truth or Delusion?" by Ivan Misner and decided it was a book worth reviewing. Being that I'm already a student of Dr. Misner's and have built up my professional network over the years, I am connected to him via LinkedIn, the social network for networkers.
I sent him a thank-you note for writing the book, and I got a response back just a few hours later:

Thanks Terence, I appreciate your comments.

I have a new book that is being released in late August. If you’d like an advance copy to review, I’d be glad to send it to you. I’m headed out of the country but, you can email my assistant, Ann, with your mailing address and she’ll send it to you next week.

All the best.

Ivan

Please don't think me childish, but I think being sent an advance copy of a book to review is really exciting.

Interview with Dr. Terrence Fox

2008-04-07T20:43:00.008-04:00

Dr. Terrence S. Fox, Terry to his friends, is the man behind the herbal drug Neoplasene^®, the cancer treatment that has been taking the pet world by storm. His business, Buck Mountain Botanicals, has over forty products in its catalog, as well as items whose market is too specialized to market them widely.

Fox's family has been using botanical medicine for generations, and among his earliest memories of their applications he can trace back to around 1949. "My grandfather had a horse with cancer, and was putting a salve on it. I asked what it was, and he told me it was bloodroot salve that grandma made." It was some fifty years later, after he had obtained a degree in engineering and already retired from his own business, that he applied his scientific knowledge and practical experience to the problem of developing a drug that took advantages of the properties of bloodroot.

The problem with bloodroot is that it's indiscriminate in its destruction. "Bloodroot is an escharotic," Fox explains, " it kills cells on contact by burning them." This is the reason why the herb had been used on tumors, warts, and other growths for many years, but the fact that it would burn healthy flesh as easily as the disease posed a problem. It took Fox a couple of years to refine what he saw as a child into an actual medicine. That work led to his development of Neoplasene, a drug sometimes referred to casually as 'black salve,' a term Fox bristles at.

"People talk a lot about 'black salve,'" he explained, "and some of the things that people call black salve contain bloodroot. It's an umbrella term for a whole host of things, mostly to treat cancer, wounds, and dermatitis. Black salves are almost always escharotic, and the effectively kill tissue by cauterizing it. Some of them include ingredients like zinc oxide, which is quite caustic. To say Neoplasene is black salve is like saying that iron ore is surgical steel. It's just not the same thing."

Neoplasene, Fox explains, does not burn tissue. Instead, it induces apoptosis, what he refers to as "cell suicide." "All cells will multiply a given number of times before they die," he said. "This death is by apoptosis." As we age, this process breaks down, and more of our cells become neoplastic, not dying when they're due. "Neoplasene is preferential, inducing apoptosis in the neoplasm," those cells that are cancerous and precancerous. "It can harm healthy tissue with a very strong concentration, but it does not burn flesh like bloodroot does."

The drug can be applied topically to external masses, or internally by mouth, injection directly into a tumor, or by irrigation. Fox's company, Buck Mountain Botanicals, will only sell to this drug to those with a DEA license, such as physicians, veterinarians, pharmacists and researchers. "Neoplasene is herbal, but so is penicillin," Fox said, going on to explain that proper monitoring and oversight are necessary to safely administer any drug. The Food and Drug Administration has the right to regulate Neoplasene as a drug, but has not elected to do so - at least not yet.

Having been introduced to the market in 2003, Neoplasene's uses are still being experimented with. The injectable form, NeoplaseneX, came about when a Canadian veterinarian couldn't reach a tumor for a topical application, and Fox helped him devise a means to deliver it by needle. And stranger uses have also been tried, Fox admitted. "A vet here in Montana was using it on his patients, and when his father got rectal cancer, he gave it to him orally. He kept the cancer in check for a year, but it was aggressive, and the family decided to use radiation. The oral concentration just wasn't high enough to beat the cancer. Well after the radiation the cancer started growing very fast, which sometimes happens, and they scheduled surgery to excise it. What nobody knew was that the patient, of his own volition, started giving himself a 4cc enema of the oral Neoplasene 300 twice a day. On the operating table, all the surgeon could find was scar tissue."

So is this a drug that is ready for widespread use on people? "It will be sooner than you think," Fox is proud to say. "There are clinical trials planned." These trials, according to Fox, compare the results of a new drug to a known one, or a placebo. "It just needs to be tested on people and compared to known data. I know what the results on people will be, because I've used it on myself."

When asked if he had an opinion about what was causing the increase in cancer, he was thoughtful. "We all have some neoplasm in our bodies, cells that should be self-destructing but aren't." The first cause of that neoplasm is cosmic radiation, which "drives evolution through mutation." Add to that the aging process, hormonal changes, and unnatural factors such as diet, preservatives, carcinogens and toxins, and there's a recipe for prevalent cancer.

So is there anything exciting on the horizon for Terry Fox and Buck Mountain Botanicals? "I've been considering developing a pain management product," he told me, "but it's a quandary for me." Pain is the natural warning of problems in the body, and Fox is concerned that if he comes up with a better way to manage pain it will be misused. "If a dog has a broken leg, he should be lying down and letting it heal. If he doesn't feel pain and he goes out to play catch, he could hurt himself even more. I could make an excellent herbal pain killer. I just don't know if I should."

The Telepathy Trap

2007-10-01T07:22:00.000-04:00

It's what separates the eager managers from the good ones. Bad managers sometimes fall into it as well, but most bad managers are a lost cause anyway. It is perhaps the most widely-believed, and thus most broadly undiscussed, assumption in the business world. I call it the telepathy trap.

If you asked a hundred people who oversee others in their business if they believed in telepathy (that it's possible to read the thoughts in another's mind), you probably wouldn't get a single affirmative answer. You may find that some managers have studied non-verbal communication (body language), and others can anticipate problems seemingly by instinct, but not one of those managers is going to tell you that they or their charges can read minds - even if they secretly believe it.

So why do so many managers act as if their employees can read their minds?

Okay, I must be falling into the telepathy trap myself, I imagine you're thinking. You're reading this and you don't have a clue what I'm getting at. An illustration is in order.

You've just picked up the newest Ken Blanchard book on managing your employees. You've been a fan of Ken's ever since he coauthored The One Minute Manager, and his newest book makes as much sense to you as any of his previous offerings. You drink up his wisdom like a desert traveler consumes water, eager to become that ideal manager you see in those pages. When you're done, you immediately begin implementing his ideas . . . and nothing changes. What happened?

Some people think they're just not good at managing when they reach this stage. Others might blame the author of the book they just read, or the facilitator of that seminar which excited them so much when they attended it last week. But I don't think those professionals are off-base; they're just missing the obvious. The reason why these authors and speakers have had more success managing their people than you have is because they don't fall into the telepathy trap. And the reason they haven't ever warned you about it is because they don't even know it exists.

The telepathy trap is the assumption that your employees will buy into your newest management strategy without knowing what it is. If you were reading The One Minute Manager, you might try to catch somebody doing something right but never explain the concept to them. Of course, explaining the strategy of the One Minute Manager is actually pretty important to making it work, but that doesn't mean most readers of that book have done so.

What causes the telepathy trap? A few things come to mind. First and most obvious is self-consciousness. We all desire approval, and we all fear failure to some extent. It's like quitting smoking . . . if you don't tell anyone that you're trying, no one is going to hold you accountable if you fail. The business world also lends itself to secrecy in general. Interviews, salary negotiations, board meetings, and strategy sessions are all held behind closed doors. Our business culture in general is one of mistrust between management and worker. Being open to your employees about a strategy for dealing with them goes against a very deeply-held set of beliefs.

It doesn't matter much that good management advice often includes more transparency; secrets abound and egos remain fragile. It's easier to assume everybody knows what you're doing and why; after all, you can blame poor employees if the new strategy fails, and never put yourself at risk. No one will ever blame you for falling into the telepathy trap.

Thank you, Mahalo

2007-07-04T17:40:00.000-04:00

I was just accepted as a part-time guide for Mahalo. In case you're unaware, Mahalo is a human-written search engine, with the intention of being useful to users. Yes, they want a search that doesn't include gibberish or spam, and avoids all but the most necessary commercial links.

Writing for people that expect me to think like a person . . . my father did that as a technical writer. He always said that it was better to write "flip the switch" than "invert the toggle." He felt that being understood was more important than having it understood that you're important. If I were to find another way to put that I would say that a writer's job isn't to trumpet himself, it's to trumpet his subject. Pretentious language is all about trumpeting yourself.

So thank you, Mahalo, for giving me another chance to write as transparently as possible.

Sample My Writing

2007-06-08T06:55:00.000-04:00

I'm a professional freelance writer, and as such I'm never going to get any work by sending a resume of where I've worked, or ever by interviewing. What sells me to my clients is my writing.

Business writing has its own feel, different from other nonfiction writing. I've taken a look at past posts to this blog, and have tagged appropriate ones writing sample so that my words can speak for me, so to speak.

Searching for the Perfect SEO Formula

2007-06-04T20:08:00.000-04:00

I'm subscribed to any number of feeds about search engine optimization and keyword density. Of course all of us are quite interested in Google, that eight-hundred-pound gorilla, and what it's up to these days. Getting good marks from Google is bound to drive traffic to your website or blog.

What I find most amusing about Google in particular, and search engine optimization in general, is that the fanatic watchers of the technology seem to miss the key point: search engines want to find results that mean something to their users. It's what the algorithms and the sandboxes and the blacklists are really all about, isn't it?

I didn't use search engines for a couple of years after I found the internet. I didn't like putting in a term and getting seventeen million results (this was awhile ago, keep in mind, when the numbers were still pretty small). Too much information is a whole lot like noise, and I found it overwhelming. I can't imagine what it must be like now, when it's possible to find the first couple of pages of results are absolute garbage, designed by little SEO monkeys that are trying to increase hits for a page that only serves up ads.

So when I read between the lines of any SEO ezine, what I see is, "write something people will want to read." They couch it all in terms like"keyword density" (which must be, like Goldilocks' tastes, not to hot and not too cold), but if you write a good story or article and make it actually say something, your web page is going to be served up more by search engines.

It's really not rocket science, and it's not a formula that needs to be cracked. What a good web page needs is something good to say, and a writer good enough to say it.

Proofreading and Editing

2007-06-03T11:18:00.000-04:00

My fourth-grade teacher told my class that I was a natural speller. In tenth grade I learned the concept of parallel structure in grammar, and thought to myself, "I know this stuff already." As the son of technical writer, I think I came by that talent honestly.

I've heard tales of people like me who would correct copies of the New York Times in red ink and send them to the publisher, back when newspapers were still on paper. I hope I never become that bad, but when I'm reading something online that has misplaced commas and apostrophes, incorrect tenses and dangling participles, the errors leap out at me like hungry fleas.

I'm grateful that I live with an English teacher, because I don't always know why something is wrong; I just see a mistake and correct it. Learning the subtle rules that make English such a rich language is valuable for me, and makes my writing more effective.

I actually considered becoming either a proofreader or an editor professionally, but the more I learned about those jobs the less I liked them. Beginning proofreaders are assigned tasks such as comparing font size between two identical paragraphs, a task that I'm sure would make my eyes bleed. Editors also have to prove themselves many times over before they are permitted to comment on style and word choice, something I was doing for novelist friends when I was still in high school. Writing is a better choice, because what I create is evaluated on its own merits, not on the experience that I bring to the table. It's much easier to provide writing samples than proofreading samples.

Nevertheless, I really enjoy proofing and editing the copy of other writers, and the web is full of examples of people that could use those services. I'm especially amazed at the number of errors in professionally-designed, commercial web pages. One would think that professional web developers would recognize the value of having their pages reviewed for professionalism and polish.

How a Home Business Succeeds

2007-06-01T09:17:00.000-04:00

I've been in business for myself and I've worked for others. My home business ventures have not usually been what you'd expect for a home business (sitting in front of my computer in my pajamas and taking orders for titanium spork covers, feverishly knitting a few more when I'm running low, and scooting to the post office before it closes). My home businesses have always been about communicating and meeting and talking with people, in person. What I do at home is generally read and write, and I do both to educate.

I won't pretend that I've never had any home business failures. Each time I try out new things I learn more, grow more, and get closer to my goal.

My knowledge of real estate and property law, along with my great verbal skills, made becoming a property manager and landlord a good move once upon a time. What I didn't realize is that I didn't want a company with a bunch of employees. Property management needs constant staffing to provide the kind of service I want to give my customers, and so I was married to the job. However, I came away from that with an incorporated home business, and that's a tool I am grateful to have at my disposal.

More recently I feel in love with the idea of tax and expense recovery - working with business to find places where they are overpaying, and getting them refunds. Sounded great, and I still completely support the concept. My job as an independent agent was to find the business owners that would be submitting for audits and sharing in the savings. I was too hasty in getting involved in that enterprise, and here's what I missed:

If you can't explain your business quickly without it sounding like a scam, then it doesn't matter if it's a scam - no one's going to want to do business with you anyway.
No company, no matter how large, can be the provider of all services to all customers. United Business Solutions, as it was called, was continually adding new services, ranging from merchant accounts to home loans to collections to tax return amendments to legal services. The theory, I believe, is that if you throw enough at the wall something will stick. The reality is that if you throw enough at the wall, people will start walking away because the room smells.
No matter their intentions, the head folks a the parent company had some legal issues in the past that seriously harmed credibility. I'm very much focused on ethical and values-driven business.

However, I learned. Helping other businesses succeed is something I enjoy doing. I continue to have excellent communication skills, both verbal and written. And my network of business professionals has been giving me more opportunities to serve them.

So people ask me to write. Business plans, articles, copy of all sorts. It's an amazing way to learn, writing about a new topic. I love stretching my brain that way. So I have changed the URL of this blog to reflect my new focus for my business, writing to serve others.

Discount Medical Plan FAQ

2007-01-11T09:13:00.000-05:00

Discount medical plans are an innovative way to put the control of healthcare decisions back in the hands of the patients themselves. Green and Clean Corporation has a relationship with Ameriplan USA®, the oldest provider of what is often called consumer-driven healthcare.

How do they work? A low monthly membership fee gives you access to a network of providers. The patient would see their doctor, dentist, or other provider as normal, and would pay at the time of the visit. However, the fee for services is discounted anywhere from 25 – 80% off reasonable and customary charges.

Are there eligibility requirements? Since this isn’t insurance we can offer a lot more flexibility. We don’t need to collect social security numbers and health histories before you sign up. The plans also cover “households” instead of “families,” so anybody that shares your address is eligible for the reduced rates.

What kinds of services are included? We have plans for general medical coverage including your usual physician and specialist visits, and plans that focus on dental, chiropractic, and vision care.

What if something really expensive happens? I can’t afford a hospital stay! Discount medical plans are not insurance. If you currently have health insurance you should not change your coverage without consulting with an insurance professional to make sure your needs are met. If you do not have insurance, we recommend obtaining a high-deductible (or catastrophic) policy; the premiums are generally affordable and they are an excellent complement to the regular health care costs that a discount medical plan addresses.

Where can I get more information? You can learn more about Ameriplan USA® through our own website at www.greensteward.com/health.htm. We include links to third-party information about discount medical programs, as well.

Local, Hudson Valley Style

2007-01-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

Last month I started talking about the benefits of doing business locally, and how different groups are starting to focus their efforts on its benefits. At that time I was not aware of Our Hudson Valley Network, which is specifically committed to supporting local businesses in my home area.

I'm becoming more and more aware of the need to cultivate relationships with local businesses and support them through my dollars and actions. One of the benefits I have enjoyed by being a member of the Networking Pioneers of New Paltz, a professional referral organization, is that it gives me the opportunity to develop strong relationships with other area business owners so that I'm confident, should I recommend their services, that they will not risk my credibility by not living up to my expectations. That isn't going to happen if I send someone to Lowe's to buy a hammer.

At the same time, the convenience of, for instance, doing all the grocery shopping in one place sometimes offsets the benefits of shopping locally. If I need to go to three or four small local shops to get all the ingredients for this week's menu, I've set myself up to buy more gasoline, and that is never a local purchase.

Expense Recovery: the Breakdown

2007-01-02T21:12:00.000-05:00

There are several areas we can obtain refunds for businesses, including:

Telecommunications, including land lines, cell phones, internet, faxing and the like.
Worker's Compensation premiums
Waste Disposal Contracts
Accounts Receivable, including uncollected checks and outstanding judgments
Commercial and Business Leases

Each area has professional auditors that look at that specific area to identify the errors that you're paying for on a regular basis. In the coming weeks I will talk about these five areas in detail.

Confidentiality

2006-12-22T06:54:00.000-05:00

I met with a new client this week, a law firm that’s a larger company than I usually work with, and had to convince several people of the value of tax and expense recovery. One of them wanted to know more about the confidentiality agreement I sign, and asked me point-blank, “Will you be talking to our CPA?” The answer to that is NO!

Now why wouldn’t he want me talking to their CPA? Many business owners are very careful about how information about them is presented. I respect that. No one will know any details of my business relationship with you without your express consent. After all, I won’t be able to protect your identity and assets down the line if I can’t keep my mouth shut. Here's an excerpt from the confidentiality agreement I sign with all my clients:

I understand that you will keep my information strictly confidential and that a Tax Professional may contact me in regards to any questions related to my tax information, or an Expense Auditor in response to questions regarding my expenses.

I won't even tell anyone else that you are doing business with me unless I get your express permission. Your competition and your advisors alike will not have access to that information unless you feel it is appropriate. If I were to share information about my clients' business dealings, how could I then talk to them about financial privacy and protection?

Focus on Local

2006-12-14T23:26:00.000-05:00

The Wedge Card shows that the issues of small business survival, and the desire to spend dollars locally, is a global one. The card provides discounts at a wide variety of merchants, none of whom have more than ten locations. The "Think Local First" campaign (left) uses a different approach; widespread media campaigns in the Hudson Valley remind residents that local businesses should take priority.

There are compelling arguments that all businesses are local businesses, in that they employ our neighbors and pay taxes to our municipalities. However, a business that is locally owned is going to reinvest a much higher percentage of profits into its own community, because it is more likely to work with local vendors for its needs, and the owners will spend what they make in the community on food, health care, clothing, and other consumable items. Additionally, smaller businesses are more likely to donate to local charitable causes, select employees based on subjective criteria including community needs (i.e., making jobs for teenagers because a lot of them need work), and participate in other ways in their communities.

I have found that pursuing the "big bucks" of a large, non-local company is not worth my time professionally; it is nearly impossible to locate the proper decision maker(s) for my services, and I spend a tremendous amount of time for very little return. That has taught me that, for my own business, working with local businesses is a much more successful model. It follows that I should focus my own dollars on supporting those businesses that are, and may become, my clients.

Hospital Forced Merger Creates Concern

2006-12-13T13:44:00.000-05:00

Here in the Hudson Valley, as well as in other areas in New York State, the report released by the Commission on Healthcare Facilities in the 21st Century has gotten tongues wagging. Seeking to improve health care overall, the local recommendations call for either a merger of our two area hospitals or the closure of one of them.

I don't know what the end of the road will be for these hospitals, nor can I predict the outcome for individual patients in need of care. There will be many questions about insurance, doctors, and procedures. Whether or not health care will come out better than it is now is on everybody's mind.

The report also says both hospitals are in "precarious" financial situations, as stated in the article linked above. Health care is expensive, and hospitals never seem to be making much of a profit on it. So where is all that money going?

There are a lot of uninsured people out there, and they use the local hospitals for their health care needs, regardless of their ability to pay. What Medicaid does not pay the hospitals must absorb as a cost of doing business. Wouldn't it be better if more people could afford to pay for their care?

A discount medical plan would, for a low monthly fee, allow these honest, hard-working people to see medical professionals for routine care that would be discounted enough that they could actually afford it. More maintenance and checkups means less trips to the hospital for issues that become serious due to lack of care.

When the time for hospitalization does come, as it unfortunately does for many of us, isn't insurance still going to be a problem? Well, perhaps not.

If regular health care is addressed on an ongoing basis, using a high-deductible, or catastrophic, policy makes more sense. These policies are less costly and more people can afford them, given a good reason. If that's not an option, having a discounted health plan membership will cut down the price of the hospital bill regardless. If the patient is still unable to pay, I can assure you that the amount that the hospital is stuck with is going to be far more manageable than what they are forced to deal with currently.

Discount medical plans are available to both individuals and businesses, and provide an important service to the underinsured and cost-conscious. Doctor visits don't involve paperwork and the consumer, not an insurance company, is in charge of his or her own healthcare decisions.

BDP Part Five: Protection

2006-12-05T11:38:00.001-05:00

Well Jim, the Spork King, has become quite successful, as we've followed him through his implementation of his personal Business Defense Plan. And as I hinted at previously in my discussion on privacy, success has its perils.

The Stella Awards chronicle the frivolous lawsuits that happen in our country every day. Some of them are really funny, like the woman who is suing a mall for being attacked by a squirrel in its parking lot. But no lawsuit is funny if you're the target.

If a user of one of Jim's sporks tries to remove a tattoo with it and has to get massive skin grafts as a result, is that Jim's fault? Even if he didn't include a warning about the dangers of performing home surgery with his sporks, right on the packaging? In six languages? Well even if a lawsuit of that nature is ultimately defeated, Jim can find that his personal and business assets can be tied up, frozen, used to pay exorbitant legal bills, and otherwise conscripted in his defense.

How do you avoid that kind of danger, the danger of becoming a target in our litigious society? You put your assets where no one can find them.

I'm not talking about stuffing them in a mattress or finding ways to avoid paying your taxes (ask Al Capone about messing with the IRS), this is about taking your hard-earned assets and moving them out of harm's way. If someone wants to sue you, any attorney is going to check to see what you're worth before he or she decides to go ahead. Somehow the amount of your stuff has a direct correlation to the viability of the suit . . . because it isn't really about right and wrong, it's about someone wanting to get paid. As John D. Rockefeller observed, "Own nothing, control everything."

Lawyers can set up expensive and complicated offshore trusts that cost thirty grand or more to set up and thousands to maintain. But there are cheaper, simpler options. My favorite is the State of Nevada.

Nevada has a corporate code that preserves the concept that a corporation is a separate legal entity. Knowing that it only takes a judge's decree to pierce that corporate veil and go after personal assets, they put into place rules that preserve the privacy of the shareholders. The state itself keeps very little records in this area. Millions of corporations are opened each year by people that want to preserve financial privacy and protect themselves from the possibility of losing everything they've worked for.

It's easy to do if you live in Nevada, but otherwise you need a resident agent. Yes, I work with a company I trust that can set up that kind of arrangement and has done so thousands of times. The cost is insignificant when you compare it to that of those trusts, and managing your money is not any more difficult. The folks I work with in Nevada can walk you through any situation that may come up.

I would give my personal recommendation, but I won't tell you if I have a Nevada corporation or not!

BDP Part Four: Privacy

2006-11-29T15:14:00.000-05:00

Let's talk some more about Jim, our sporksmith.

Jim has a thriving business, manufacturing sporks in three weights of plastic, two kinds of wood, and four metals. He has sixteen different colors and three variations on the tine-to-curve ratio. He has large contracts with two cutlery companies and also sells direct to the public through jimssporks.com, which is growing in its hits every day. He's fine-tuned his expenses and used the extra money to build a customer service center. He has an affordable benefits package that keeps him competitive as he hires.

Could anything be left to trouble our spork king?

Indeed, this fusion-cutlery empire could be in for some headaches.

Jim has become an attractive target, professionally and personally. He doesn't realize it until he goes to renew his driver's license. The address he lives at, and has lived for thirteen years, no longer matches the DMV records. Clerical error? If only . . .

Seems someone got ahold of Jim's name and managed to file a change of address with the DMV. The industrious fellow opened up two credit cards and took out a car loan in Jim's name . . . and the statements were going to a new address. Jim never noticed.

Jim has become an identity theft victim. Luckily there are laws that protect Jim, and he's able to find all the outstanding credit and DMV records and put it all back as it was supposed to be. Like the average ID theft victim (according to the FTC), it takes him about $1,800 and innumerable hours of phone and paperwork time to straighten the mess out.

Credit monitoring, frequently a free service, can reduce identity theft. But it doesn't track your DMV, social security, or medical records. A full Identity Shield is the only way to create peace of mind for Jim.

Of course, that won't help him if someone sticks a spork in their eye and decides that Jim has deep pockets, but that's a story for another day . . .

The FAQ on HSAs

2006-11-21T16:11:00.000-05:00

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) were authorized in 2003 as a way to help individuals pay for health care costs. Eligible participants put pre-tax dollars into their accounts, and use that money to pay for health care expenses, including over-the-counter drugs and a number of alternative benefits that insurance generally does not cover.
I think these accounts are incredibly powerful when used in conjunction with a Discount Health Plan. The required catastrophic health insurance will cover extremely large medical bills, and the money tucked away in the HSA can be stretched much further using the incredible discounts offered by consumer-driven health care. Peace of mind and money in the bank is a powerful one-two punch.

BDP Part Three: Retention

2006-11-20T11:07:00.000-05:00

Do you ever notice that certain businesses in your town seem to have a permanent Help
Wanted sign in the window, while others tend to keep their employees for years? Employee retention rates can vary by business type, management style, working conditions, pay, and benefits. The last factor, benefits, can be critical in hiring and keeping qualified employees.

Because of the rising costs, changing requirements, and complex paperwork, many employers choose not to offer any type of health benefits. However, they still wish to compete for quality help. Many businesses are now offering benefits that include consumer-driven health care from a discount medical plan organization. This exciting alternative provides significant discounts for medical care, and can fill a void where no insurance exists. It also works very well with high-deductible plans or health savings accounts.

Employers are afforded the choice of whether to simply offer the medical plan to their employees, or pay the membership fees themselves. All ongoing dental and medical problems are accepted, and members see instant savings.

If you were a customer of Jim, the spork manufacturer, you'd be doing him a big favor by telling him that he could stop advertising for a tine cutter if he provided some surprisingly affordable benefits. If you were his friend, you would notice how much less stress he'd have if he weren't running those ads continuously. And as his titanium supplier you know that he's cost-conscious; you'd make sure to tell him that a group benefits proposal is free, and that he can decide if he'd prefer to pay for the membership himself or not.

A business with a "Help Wanted" sign in the window needs to be offering these benefits, to attract and keep the best possible employees.

BDP Part Two: Recovery

2006-11-15T13:46:00.000-05:00

One of the real challenges with being in business is that no big business will take the little guy very seriously. Sure, they'll take your money, but you lack the clout of a multinational corporation, so you find yourself being unable to negotiate the rates that are most favorable. Buying groups like True Value understand this - in this case, independent hardware store owners pool their resources to get the best price on merchandise. Not everyone is an in industry that has a buying group like True Value, though, and not every expense is covered by groups like these.

Expense Recovery provides the answer. An free analysis of your expenses will show how much you're paying over the best possible rates, and give you access to improved pricing in areas ranging from cell phone service to merchant accounts. No matter what your business specializes in, an expense auditor with ties to a collective buying group which covers standard expenses will be able to help you out.

Our spork company comes to mind. Being that they do a lot of business through credit cards, they would like to shave a few cents off the transaction cost. Yes, the fellow at the bank can quote them a decent rate, even better if they have a loan and checking account through him. But if he were to come to me, I could get him the same rate the Wal-Mart pays per transaction, and you know that Wal-Mart never pays full price.

Find yourself an expense auditor, or contact me and I'll find one for you in your area. How can free be a bad idea?

BDP Part One: Refund

2006-11-10T09:31:00.000-05:00

You're good at what you do, aren't you? And passionate? These are the two things that drive people to going into business in my experience. You may have fallen in love with the elegance of the spork as a child, and when you grew up you wanted to bring the message to the masses. You are a premiere expert on spork manufacture, and have been asked to speak at cutlery conventions and hotel conferences alike. No one is better at finding new places for sporks than you are . . . you're the Johnny Appleseed of sporks.

Having dedicated your life to this eating utensil, you've discovered that far more time than you'd like is dedicated to really annoying, but important, business considerations, like paying bills. Phone bills. Insurance bills. Rent. And let's not even talk about tax time! It takes up a lot of time and you sometimes wish you were as knowledgeable in these areas as you are in spork valuation.

You need an auditor. Someone who will look at your expenses, analyze the arcane billing codes, and find out if there are mistakes. Someone who will sit down with you and your tax returns, and make sure you've taken all the deductions you are legally entitled to.

Not me, you declare. I'm pretty on top of my expenses!

Would it surprise you to hear the 98% of my clients think so to? And that only about 10% are right?

My company does this kind of review for free, and it's worth it to you to find a specialist in expense analysis that will do the same. You can't make an informed decision unless you have all the information.

Five Aspects of Your Business Defense Plan (BDP)

2006-11-08T06:46:00.000-05:00

Every business should have a defense plan that should be an adjunct to or aspect of its business plan. There are five key areas that should be covered in such a plan: refund, recovery, retention, privacy, and protection.

Businesses inadvertently overpay on expenses regularly. A Refund plan provides for regular audits of taxes and other expenses to ensure that refunds of those overpayments are processed timely.

Additionally, savings Recovery can be maximized through careful analysis and cost comparisons.

Retention of employees is vital to keeping costs down. Affordable medical coverage often is best strategy for retaining key employees.

Privacy is important to protect, for business owners, employees, and clients. A successful business owner may be more of a target. Also, sensitive client information must be safeguarded to improve relations and preserve reputation, and employees must be trained on how to do so.

Protection of business and personal assets goes hand-in-hand with these other areas. Once we have your business running as efficiently as possible, the personal assets of officers or owners should be protected from identity theft and frivolous litigation.

Over the comings days and weeks I will discuss each of these aspects in detail.

Balanced Approach

2006-03-17T21:13:00.000-05:00

Asset protection is a wonderful technique for peace of mind, but it doesn't eliminate the need to hire a lawyer from time to time. Traffic tickets (especially for CDL drivers), wills, contracts, landlord/tenant disputes . . . the list of reasons for legal advice keep getting longer. I always recommend that my clients protect their personal assets, but I'm not blind to the realities of the world.

A prepaid legal service can be an amazingly affordable way to obtain a lawyer's advice - often it costs less than twenty dollars a month to have premiere attorneys at your beck and call. Once you get used to the idea of an attorney on retainer, you'll be amazed at how many uses you have for their services. For example, I never have much luck getting my rebates - the forms somehow manage to have loopholes to keep the money from coming back to me (and since I get money back for people every day, the irony infuriates me). I used to throw up my hands, but now I pick up the phone and have my attorney send a letter. You'd be amazed how much easier it is to get my check!

By all means, if you have significant assets I want to help you keep them out of sight. But for your everyday legal issues, large and small, there's nothing better than a prepaid legal plan.

Lessons Learned

2006-03-10T19:24:00.000-05:00

Walking out of two-and-a-half days of intensive training at the United Business Solutions headquarters, I was distracted on the street by a purple hedgehog. It was an animated stuffed critter, and I did a double-take when I saw it. The young man inside caught my eye and greeted me with a smile. I wandered in, taking in the smell of incense and candles, and looking at the various figurines of dragons and faeries. It could have been any of a number of stores in New Paltz, but this one was in small-town Iowa. I was impressed – who would have thought that such a cool store would be in America’s heartland?

So I learned that John, the young man, was soon to become owner of the establishment at the tender age of twenty. He has considerable experience in sales and has huge plans for the store. Of course, he’s never heard of a corporation and is content running it as a sole proprietorship. He was very interested in knowing more about tax and expense recovery, and I agreed that I would be willing to fly back out to Iowa to show him more once it was his place. I'm already positive that I can save the store thousands of dollars in merchant account fees, phone bills, and commercial lease payments, not to mention how much pain I can prevent for him by getting him on the right track with his taxes from day one. In the meantime I should talk to the present owner about recovering what he’s lost over the years by assuming that the bills he pays are correct without looking.

Later, I spoke with my sister on the phone. She's a vice-president of a United Way in New York State. I asked her if anyone at her organization reviews the phone and utility bills to make sure that taxes aren't being charged, since they're a nonprofit. Nope, she said, she was pretty sure they just assumed the bills were correctly assessed.

I don't know if there are going to be enough hours in the day to help all the people that need helping.

On the Right Track

2006-03-03T12:29:00.000-05:00

I met with a client today that appreciates and understands the need for asset protection, and definitely had some good ideas. For example, although he owns his home, the business owns the land. Great for preventing loss of his home through a lawsuit, but annoying when he wants to pull equity out.

I showed him that it's possible to own your home and prevent it from being the subject of a lawsuit at the same time, allowing him full access to the equity and not forcing him to give up the tax advantages of a home mortgage interest deduction.

Clients like that are great: they know enough to be concerned, but I can show them better, cheaper, and easier ways to sleep peacefully through the night.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

2006-01-31T19:52:00.000-05:00

Michelle Knepper of Vancouver, Wash. Knepper picked a doctor out of the phone book to do her liposuction, and went ahead with the procedure even though the doctor was only a dermatologist, not a plastic surgeon. After having complications, she complained she never would have chosen that doctor had she known he wasn't Board Certified in the procedure. (She relied on the phonebook listing over asking the doctor, or looking for a certificate on his wall?!) So she sued ...the phone company! She won $1.2 million plus $375,000 for her husband for "loss of spousal services and companionship."

Wanita "Renea" Young of Durango, Colo. Two neighborhood teens baked cookies for their neighbors as an anonymous gesture of good will, but Young got scared when she heard them on her front porch. They apologized, in writing, but Young sued them anyway for causing her distress, demanding $3,000. When she won(!!) $900, she crowed about it in the newspaper and on national TV. Now, she's shocked (shocked!) that everyone in town hates her for her spite, and is afraid she may have to move. But hey: she won.

Wacky Warning Labels

2006-01-31T07:04:00.000-05:00

Wacky Warning Labels

This list is bound to get a few chuckles out of anyone, unless it hits a little too close to home.

When you realize that every one of these labels probably represents litigation or the threat of it, it's really chilling. The American Dream, to make something of yourself based on your ideas and hard work, is easily highjacked to opportunists that want nothing better than to benefit from your dreams.

Financial privacy deters 90% of frivolous lawsuits by eliminating the perception of deep pockets. People can't take what they can't touch, which means they won't spend the time and money trying. I love building a bulletproof wall around people's hard-earned life savings, giving them the piece of mind they deserve.

The high price of telephones

2006-01-29T17:33:00.000-05:00

I was amazed to learn that 65% of small business owners overpay on their phone bills. Sixty-five percent. I'm not talking about having the wrong plan for their needs or being scammed by people who steal phone card numbers or employees that make personal calls, although those are all legitimate problems. No, I'm referring to charges that show up on phone bills where they just don't belong. Line charges, FCC charges, and tons of other lines that are represented by groups of initials and are just accepted as legitimate by anyone who doesn't have the time to have their provider explain to them what each of the codes means.

Contingency-based audits of expenses like telephone bills are a win-win situation. Business owners only pay a fee if overages are discovered and refunds owed. They end up with no out-of-pocket expenses if their phone bills are appropriate.

Logo up and running

2006-01-29T17:27:00.000-05:00

The new logo and corporate name are up and running both here and at our corporate site. Jeff Meyer did an excellent job finding imagery that effectively communicates our mission of asset protection and expense audits, with an eye on the additional services we will be adding in the future.

The TRUE Stella Awards -- Exposing Lawsuit Abuse with Real Cases

2006-01-29T17:07:00.000-05:00

The TRUE Stella Awards -- Exposing Lawsuit Abuse with Real Cases

I was very pleased to discover that Stella Liebeck has been immortalized as an icon of a tort system gone wrong. Ironically, the perpetuation of bizarre and brazen litigation that leads people to find ways to protect their assets is really a self-perpetuating system . . . attorneys file lawsuits, and attorneys collect big fees crafting offshore trusts for fearful clients.

I'm proud to be able to offer a low-cost alternative to people that don't want to lie awake at night, wondering when the next Stella Award recipient will be knocking on their door. Asset protection has become almost necessary in today's crazy world, and I'm glad I can bring it to people simply and inexpensively. At the end of the day, we both sleep better at night.

Don't Wait

2006-01-10T06:37:00.000-05:00

I met with a client just yesterday who needs asset protection badly. He's seperated from his wife, facing both divorce and foreclosure, and has two business partners that have interests that don't align perfectly with his own. It's a tough situation, and I wish I had met with him much, much sooner.

Asset protection works much better if it's put into place long before situations arise. Protecting a house or business interest becomes infinitely more complex in a situation like his. The bank that holds the mortgage on his home long since ordered an asset sweep, and knows more about my client than he probably knows about himself. If he had put some plans into place before this began, I could have prevented the bank from learning everything they now know about his financial life.

In a case like this, you can do something or do nothing. I'm hoping that doing something is enough to protect my client. I don't want him to be nothing more than a warning for others not to wait too long to take steps to protect themselves.

New logo in the works

2005-12-31T11:35:00.000-05:00

We're working with a professional designer for a new look based on the company's new direction towards financial privacy services and small business expense recovery. Comments are welcome!

Legalminded

2005-10-26T09:18:00.000-04:00

One of the services we're considering relates closely to tenants saving their security deposits from unscrupulous or ignorant landlords that try to avoid returning the full amount. The worst-case scenario is being forced to go to court. A well-worded demand letter from an attorney will often prevent this necessity - wouldn't you send a check along post-haste, if you hadn't done so yet and had no good reason to hold onto it? Most tenants don't retain attorneys because of the cost. Access to a low-cost way to have an attorney on your side is the service we're considering.

Of course, virtually unlimited access to an attorney has other benefits, such as reviewing leases and other documents, addressing traffic and other minor infractions, and preparing wills. We're in the process of buying this service for the company, and then we'll be able to start offering it to tenants and other interested people. Details to follow.

Reasonable wear and tear?

2005-10-20T10:54:00.000-04:00

Ever leave an apartment, knowing full well that you won't see a dime of your security? Has this happened even though you paid your rent on time, kept the place clean, and always made sure not to break anything?

Some landlords have a reputation for nickle-and-diming security deposits out of existence. Most tenants aren't as smart about the laws and don't always know what's fair and what isn't. Going to court can help, but it's time-consuming and no guarantee of success.

An independent review of the condition of your apartment, by someone who knows how to document and is prepared to be a witness on your behalf, can save a lot of time and headaches later on. Ideally you'll have someone with you from day one, but even if you bring someone in when you're ready to move out it can make life easier. A security deposit preservation consultant will educate you on your responsibilities for keeping the apartment in good condition, so you know what you must pay for and what your landlord must cover.

In the Mid-Hudson Valley such a service is being created right now. If you think you need help saving your hard-earned cash, comment here or watch our web site for announcements. There is help.

For Rent or Lease: On the other side of the fence

2005-10-08T14:21:00.000-04:00

For Rent or Lease: On the other side of the fence

I've personally collected thousands of dollars in security deposits from tenants, and conducted numerous inspections at move-in and move-out. As discussed in the linked entry, I have testified in small claims court on the behalf on tenants seeking their security - security which the court did, on appeal, determine belonged to those tenants. I have been a tenant myself in twelve different apartments, and have learned quite a bit about the law regarding what a landlord's rights are regarding keeping that security when I move out.

How many honest, hard-working people don't get back the security because they have a landlord that illegally retains it? How many people are ignorant of their own rights? I think there are tons of them, especially in a college community like New Paltz, where I live. Is it time to offer my services as a consultant, to teach people what they need to know, be a witness on their behalf, and train them to handle unscrupulous landlords? I think it may be.

A Changing World

2005-09-28T23:00:00.000-04:00

This blog hasn't been used in many months because my company has been making some very big changes to its products and offerings. After much discussion, the property management business was brought to a close. I will be giving more details about that decision in the near future, but right now I'm thinking about the future of this blog.

Even though the business segment I dealt with here is now gone, I won't delete this blog. Like the company, and all of us in the crazy world, it's just going to change and adapt. I might focus on a single business segment, or cover wider aspects if that makes more sense. At the end of a seventeen-hour day like today I'm just not going into the details, but be sure to watch this space. Great things to come.

Can't Rent a Work Zone

2005-05-20T14:07:00.000-04:00

So you’ve picked up your first (or third, or tenth) income property, and it’s a real fixer-upper. You’ve got a great team of contractors, and you know what they need to do and how much time and money it’s going to cost to make it happen. The renovations are going to put you in the red and you’re going to need to get a tenant in there ASAP. So as soon as you have the plan worked out with the contractors you run an ad and start showing the place, right? Not if you don’t want to throw away money, you don’t!

Prospective tenants lack imagination, and this is never so evident as when you’re showing them a place that is missing walls, is covered in construction dust, badly needs a paint job, has a gutted bathroom . . . you get the idea? “Curb appeal” is a concept that refers to the attractiveness of the outside of a house. Equally important is what I call “Foyer Appeal,” which is how the inside looks when you’re standing in the front door. If your curb appeal is poor (which is likely while you’re renovating, since your money is best spent on the inside problems first), half of your appointments will be no-shows because they assume the outside is representative of the inside. On the flip side, poor foyer appeal will turn off the ones that actually walk in the door. No matter how clearly you explain what work you’ve got planned, the best you’re going to get is, “I’d like to see it again when it’s finished,” and you’ll be lucky if a third of them offer that level of commitment.

Let me put it another way: if you’re savvy enough to know the importance of online marketing, you also know that pictures are the most powerful part of your internet ad campaign. Are you going to take pictures of a construction zone, or a place that looks like a tornado hit it, and expect a high response rate? Or maybe you’ll just skip the pictures entirely, so that ninety percent of your potential tenants just scroll on by without a second glance? Having good pictures could cut your advertising time from two or three months to under a week.

If you’re putting money into a property, it stands to reason that you’re going to want to recoup that investment as quickly as possible. Showing an apartment that isn’t ready for a resident wastes your time and advertising dollars, could permanently turn off potential tenants, and might give you an unearned reputation for low-quality housing. Start your marketing when the punch list is cleared, and your prospective tenants will be far more likely to sign on the dotted line.

Pricing your apartments

2005-05-20T13:32:00.000-04:00

How do you fix a price point for an apartment? Take a guess? Figure it based on your carrying costs? Check comps and do a market analysis? Charge whatever the market will bear? If you’re looking to place quality tenants, less is sometimes more.

We all want to make money with income property; the more the better! When you’re looking for a new tenant, however, don’t assume that you’re going to make more money by charging more. If your property is priced high for what you’re offering, you won’t get a lot of calls, and the ones you do get will be either uneducated about your local rental market, desperate, unscrupulous, or a combination of any of these.

What to do? Perform your due diligence: check the advertisements for similar apartments, make appointments to look at them, talk to real estate agents and others in the business, and get a clear idea of how much others are getting – not just charging – for similar rentals. Then, advertise yours to undersell the competition.

Why undersell? It’s a basic rule of economics that price is a great way to compete. If you offer a good product for slightly lower, you’ll get a lot of calls, which means you’ll be able to screen more applicants and get the best possible tenant into the unit. Once you have a quality tenant that likes the place, you’re golden – you can make increases annually that put your unit in line with others. Tenants who don’t have slumlords for landlords won’t go to the trouble of searching for a cheaper place because of the costs associated with moving. Your first-year discount got the best tenant in the door, and providing quality housing will keep them there.

In conclusion, don’t let your greed cloud your judgment when you’re trying to find the right tenant.

Whom can you trust?

2005-04-23T13:24:00.000-04:00

Since I represent independent landlords, and also contact the same kind of people for references, I encounter some oddnesses that not every landlord would notice. These can be instructive.

When you're trying to get rid of a frustrating tenant, you might but less then forthcoming about what type of tenant you have on your hands if you see a chance for them to move. In one such case, I received an acceptable reference for an applicant who I selected as a tenant. I have since started representing that landlord, and it's become clear that the reference wasn't entirely sincere. As it happens, I have not had the problems with this tenant that the prior landlord (now my client) did; it confirms my philosophy of reviewing the whole picture of credit, employment, and references before making a decision. It also validates my strategy of contacting prior landlords when possible, using a database like the one at www.landlordfile.com to track them down. If you're not presently renting you're more likely to be open about your experiences.

Of course, it's also instructive to know how open my clients are. I rather like the chance to see both sides of the coin.

There are limits . . .

2005-04-20T10:40:00.000-04:00

As a property manager, I have a fiscal and ethical responsibility to my clients. This includes going to great lengths to ensure that properties entrusted to me are kept in good condition and that tenants pay all rent which is owed.

As a property manager, I have a fiscal and ethical responsibility to my tenants. This includes ensuring that all maintenance concerns are addressed quickly (no matter who eventually is determined needs to pay for the fix), especially those that endanger residents.

But there are limits.

I received a call this morning from a tenant who had a bumblebee trapped between his front door and storm door. He couldn't leave the apartment.

I explained to him that bumblebees are generally not aggressive unless they are threatened, and that if he leaves quickly without letting the bee fly into his apartment, he'd be doing her a favor, as well.

I'm a property manager, not a beekeeper.

Critical mass

2005-04-10T14:52:00.000-04:00

I've made it possible for people to contact me via AOL Instant Messenger at Greensteward for several months now. and from time to time I get contacted that way. Today, though, interest in that method has really picked up, and I take it as proof that the new web page is getting listed. I'm very excited about being able to reach out and make those connections between the tenant and the owner, and having more tools available to do so. It's like Spring has hit my web page!

Cleanliness is next to costliness

2005-04-09T16:33:00.000-04:00

At least, that's how some of my clients apparently view it.

I have a house I've been readying for tenants, and the final cleanup has been giving me fits. The back yard had a lot of rubbish in it, and a scary old shed. I made some calls and found a guy to take down the shed and clean out the yard. I quoted a price for the client, who decided to have her brother-in-law do it, which is the client's prerogative. He became unavailable, so I got the green light and had the shed taken down. The cleanup needed to wait until more snow melted. The client was still concerned about his cleanup price and suggested another vendor. I called him up and made the arrangements for him to do the cleanup. Over a week went by without him showing up, so my client told me to call it off so the brother-in-law could do it. I left a message (this guy wasn't home very much) and left it at that. Four or five days later I inspect and find that the rubbish was hauled but the yard was still full of broken glass and debris. Turns out the recommended vendor had done it anyway, and did a half-assed job. And he cost more than my guy would have.

I also got a quote from this same cleaner of mine on another property, to clean inside and haul outside. Client on this property also had other things in mind, and decided to go with someone else. Two weeks later the job isn't done and I'm forced to show the place while asking prospective tenants to make a decision based on the condition it will be in - a bad idea. Show it in move-in condition to get the best results. This client has been a landlord for many years, so perhaps I will be proven wrong. Time will tell.

Nitty-gritty

2005-04-05T22:26:00.000-04:00

Been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work ramping up for a big marketing effort. Refined the application we use, and put the finishing touches on our first brochure. The web site is 98% perfect - only hitch is getting functionality for photos to be uploaded to the server by owners who want marketing done.

Added a few refinements to the bookkeeping system, including how security deposits and employee reimbursements are tracked. At this point, I'm completely confident that any qualified bookkeeper could walk in and take over those tasks without asking many questions.

Ever in search of the perfect web site for advertising vacancies in the Hudson Valley.

Outward Bound!

2005-03-29T20:23:00.000-05:00

Here I am, minding my own business (which is managing residential rental property in the Mid-Hudson Valley, in case you didn't know) when I'm hit with a proposal from out of the blue: would I be able to manage a vacation rental property in the Dominican Republic?

Damn.

So I have questions.

What about staffing?
The new owners are in negotations with a cleaner and cook to live on premises.

Accepting payment?
The broker who gave me the lead offered some pointers on what his investor friends do with their long-distance vacation homes.

Advertising?
I located this and a number of other high-ranking web sites dedicated to advertising this kind of home, and I am scheduling myself to meet with a travel agent in the near future.

Will I need a passport?
Yes, I'm going to have to get one right away.

There is a good chance I will be able to branch out in this way. Too bad my Landlord for Hire brand is only registered in three New York counties. I guess Green and Clean may be going international soon!

Credit and Background

2005-03-18T10:41:00.000-05:00

I just completed an agreement between Green and Clean Corporation and Credit Retriever, a subsidiary of TransUnion. They provide full credit and criminal checks, including landlord/tenant court history, for an excellent price because of my affiliation with NARPM. They also report timely and late rent payments to TransUnion so my tenants can improve their credit histories just by paying their rent, which is generally not the case.

I'm also pleased to report that I got all their paperwork right on the first try, which is no easy feat - they need to make sure that a company is legitimate before they start granting that sort of information willy-nilly.

Trash and Filth

2005-03-17T19:18:00.000-05:00

I have spent so much time in the last two weeks deciding how to economically clean out pigsties that I wonder why I bother buying nice clothes.

Two of my clients have houses that were previously occupied by . . . less than fastidious residents. I haven't been hired by anyone whose tenants had forty cats yet, but I have really seen a lot of what the bottom third of humanity considers decent living conditions.

I know that landlords can create horrible conditions, but it takes a resident to willingly live knee-deep in filth.

I just don't get it.

New Website Launched

2005-03-07T15:41:00.000-05:00

New Website Launched
Man, that was a lot of work, but boy am I ever proud of it!
Next step: reenginer the main web page!

So You Want to be a Landlord?

2005-03-03T10:22:00.000-05:00

The residual income from owning rental properties may bring more money into your life than the fast flip in the long term. If nothing else, the stress is reduced because a well-chosen investment will pay for itself until you the market is ready for you to sell. In order to make this idea work, you must plan carefully. Choose your property, choose your management approach, and choose your tenants carefully to make the most of your investment.

Choose your property.
Not every house is going to bring in the money you need each month. Some considerations: Will you be financing? How much you finance is going to have to be factored in to how much you need to cover the monthly expenses. Up to four units is considered a residential loan by most banks; beyond that is commercial, which means that the lender may factor in the rent more easily as income, but other, more stringent requirements must be fulfilled to secure a loan. The more equity you have now, the more able you are to weather periods of vacancy. How many units? Not only is the number of units a factor in lending, it’s also very important for income. More units means less drain when you have a vacancy (a two-family house loses half the income when one tenant leaves!), it’s also just plain easier to get enough rent to at least cover your expenses. What rents can you charge? Find out how much the rents for the current tenants are, if any. If you don’t know the rental market well enough, consult with your real estate broker or a professional property manager to determine what fair market rent for each apartment is. The monthly rent should be at least one percent of the value of the building for it to be a profitable investment. Will major work be needed? If you’re getting a place cheap, you probably are expecting to do some renovations. This has to be budgeted in, because you’re spending money and not getting rent for that period of time. Contractors often break both deadlines and budgets, because hidden problems become apparent as you dig in to the project. Make sure you have a cushion to cover your mortgage, insurance, taxes and other expenses.

Choose your management approach.
Once you’ve found a winner of a property, it’s possible to just sit back and let the money roll in . . . or you could make a part- or full-time job out of being a landlord. If you’re handy, enjoy paperwork, like working with people, and don’t mind being available pretty much all the time, you should be a landlord. Many people have left their old jobs behind to manage their own rental properties full-time. If you envisioned real estate as a more passive investment, consider professional management. Many real estate brokers manage properties as a side business, or you could contact a professional association such as the National Association of Residential Property Managers to find a dedicated property manager in your area. Property managers handle all the tasks of being a landlord on your behalf for a portion of rents, usually around ten percent; this does not include costs of advertising and maintaining the building. They often also charge a placement fee of a month’s rent when the sign a tenant, although whether this fee is the responsibility of the tenant or owner is negotiable. Their job is to keep the property occupied by reliable tenants and in good repair. Minor maintenance is done automatically, while bigger items (like a new roof) are addressed in consultation with the owner.

Choose your tenants.
If you are using a manager, once you pick a reputable one, you don’t need to worry about this. If you’re going it alone, here are some tips: Advertise. Put your place in papers, on bulletin boards, and online. The more visibility you get the more calls you’ll get. Background. Take an application from any prospective tenant which includes their current address, phone, social security number, landlord, employer, and personal references. You want to check references, and run credit and criminal checks; this will cost money so don’t be shy charging an application fee. Personal. Take a look at the condition of the prospective’s car, inside and out. Make it a point to visit them where they live now, to see how they keep it. Meet every person (and animal, if you choose to allow pets) that will be living in your building. Income. You cannot discriminate against someone because of the source of their income. With any applicant you turn down, it’s a good idea to send a letter stating the reason for not renting, even if it’s as simple as the background check came back faster on someone else. Don’t rush. The best way to pick a bad tenant is to rush into it because you’re scared of a vacancy. If you choose poorly, you will likely have far worse than a vacancy on your hands.
If you don’t have the iron constitution for buying properties and flipping them, but agree that real estate is the best investment around, rental properties are likely the way to go.

Stupid Remodeling Tricks

2005-02-21T07:13:00.000-05:00

Some friends of mine rented an apartment a couple of years ago that had a really big kitchen. Double sink, full refrigerator, pantry, and fifteen feet of uninterrupted counter space three feet deep. Those counters topped a line of cabinets that promised to hold every pot and pan they could hope to own.

It wasn't until they were unpacking that they discovered that the cabinets were only eighteen inches deep. It's cheaper to put in the smaller cabinets, after all. Not like tenant retention is at all valuable.

Might as well have dropped in a broken dishwasher - it would have stored more.

Web Development is a tedious process

2005-02-19T20:59:00.000-05:00

I probably should outsource the creation of my new web page, but dammit, I'm smart and it's something I can do at night. I had wonderful visions of letting someone else do it, but I'm a hands-on guy and HTML really isn't rocket science. The really fancy stuff isn't supported by most older browser versions anyway.

It's actually coming together quite nicely, now that I've found a nifty little Microsoft page that actually helps me when FrontPage gives me fits. The home page is done, I'm soliciting testimonials from clients, the press releases are up, and the format is actually helping me come up with additional ideas for my business.

Being slightly perfectionist, I won't allow an "under construction" page to grace the Internet on my behalf. The site will go live when it's complete and professional. I bet you just can't wait!

Out of state does not mean out of mind

2005-02-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

I have a client who has lived primarily in California until recently. She has been remodeling a house that I'll be marketing and managing on her behalf. I did a walkthrough when the construction was in its final stages, and we agreed upon the target rent and likely availability date.

Now being from California, she doesn't have a lot of experience with oil heat. This house is heated by oil, and even as I was updating our agreement to manage this new property the oil ran out. The pipes froze and not only burst, they took out the water meter in the process. It was a big, ugly problem that luckily was not a total disaster.

Now in this case there wasn't much I could have done, since the house wasn't under my care yet. But I can think of no better example of why professional property management is a really, really good idea.

Membership in NARPM

2005-02-11T16:25:00.000-05:00

LOCAL PROPERTY MANAGER JOINS NATIONAL ASSOCIATION

For Immediate Release
February 11, 2005

Contact: Terence P Ward
Green and Clean Corporation
845/489-4903

Terence P Ward, President of Green and Clean Corporation (www.Green-n-Clean.biz), a local leader in the residential property management field, was recently accepted as a member of the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM), joining more than 1,600 property managers throughout the United States. Mr. Ward is the first member serving Ulster and Dutchess Counties.

NARPM is the nation's only professional organization for managers of residential properties, from single family units to 4-plexes. Members represent over $24 billion in residential rental properties nationwide. NARPM members have opportunities to earn designations such as the PPM (Professional Property Manager) and MPM (Master Property Manager). Members travel from across the country to attend NARPM classes. The classes are unique to the real estate industry as they specifically address the needs of the residential property manager. For more information about NARPM visit their website, http://www.Narpm.org or call their National Headquarters 800-782-3452.

Checks and Balances

2005-02-08T05:48:00.000-05:00

I'm signing less checks than I used to. When we opened our current account, I decided that it would be amusing to actually start the check run at number one, rather than a hundred or a thousand like most people and companies do. I could be an old, old man before I see that hundredth check cross my desk. My clients now all are getting their payments directly deposited in their accounts, and more and more of my vendors I can pay with the company credit card.

The small environmental victory this represents is satisfying, but I find even more enjoyable is not having to scrawl my signature on them! It's a really tedious way to spend an afternoon. I get to save those signatures for endorsing the rent deposits received from those tenants that prefer to pay the slow, old-fashioned way, even though there's an additional fee associated with processing their check. C'est la vie.

Late Night Call

2005-02-07T06:42:00.000-05:00

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"Hello?"

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"Hi, my smoke alarm keeps going off."

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"Is there a fire?"

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"No. It does this every time I open the oven."

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"Well have you cleaned the oven?"

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"I've opened the windows and door but it won't stop."

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"Why don't you wave the smoke away with a magazine?"

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"Okay, I've got the fan in the kitchen now. What did you say about the oven?"

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"Have you cleaned it? There's a product you can buy called EZ-Off. It's, well, pretty easy to use."

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"Really? Okay, I guess I'll try that."

*beeeep*
*beeeep*
*beeeep*

"I think it may help."

"Thanks. Have a good night."

"Good night."

You'll notice I didn't suggest disconnecting the battery.

Handy Skills

2005-02-03T05:24:00.000-05:00

I was disappointed when my handyman advised me that she was traveling out-of-state for an indefinite period of time. There wasn't a problem that she wasn't willing to tackle, and she was more than capable of cracking open a book to glimpse into a new trade if she had to to get the job done. I had encountered her entirely by chance, when I was a new landlord, and have used her for everything from installing bathroom safety equipment to repairing garage door openers. But off she went, and I don't know if she'll ever be back.

The advantage of the most northerly properties I manage is that some of them are in a small town. I called up the local hardware store (there's only one) for referrals, and got two. This week I'm finally going to have a chance to see the work of the fellow that called me back. His price was reasonable and the estimate came quickly. If he gets the job done as soon as he claims and it's good quality, he'll meet my expectations. I always look for the long-term in a business relationship, and my gut is that I will have one here.

On the other side of the fence

2005-01-23T17:01:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I became a witness in a court case for the first time. Good friends of mine purchased a home last year, and I had helped them move out of their rented house. Their old landlords had withheld their security, citing a number of incidents of damage. My friends sued in small claims court, and their former landlords requested a jury trial! The Town Justice had never seen such thing in his nine years on the bench.

I was happy to testify on their behalf, since I was at the house on moving day, and did an unsolicited walkthrough to make sure that they took care of everything. My friend did a wonderful job acting as examiner and cross-examiner. I believe I was a credible witness, although I confess that the seven months that had passed did play a trick on me . . . this landlord claimed in other testimony that a window had been broken (while I was out of earshot). When I was asked if there were any broken windows, what came to mind was a window in another friend's rented home that had been broken from day one, so I erroneously testified to its presence. Next time I am asked to help a friend move I will do a full, formal walkthrough complete with checklist, so I don't have to depend on memory alone.

The jury found in my friends' favor, and the landlord said he would appeal. It was an interesting experience overall.

Daily Freeman - News - 01/23/2005 - Winter whopper blows into town

2005-01-23T16:07:00.000-05:00

The first big storm of the year has come and gone, and all is well. Driveways and parking areas plowed, heat working for all tenants, no dangerous ice or conditions. I always tense up a bit when "the big one" first blows into town; then I exhale when I see that everything worked as it was intended.

It's about the finesse

2005-01-21T05:26:00.000-05:00

I expect tenants to be challenging. Well, most tenants just want to be left alone and have "quiet enjoyment of the premises" for the best price they can get. Some tenants will take their quest for value to further extremes, calling for every light bulb that goes out because they want to get their money's worth out of the apartment. I probably shouldn't tip my hat here, but I prefer those pesky communications to the complete silence I usually get.

My building owners are trickier. These are the people who are responsible for Green & Clean having an income. They also want to get value. They'd like me to cut my rates, they'd like me to increase my services, and sometimes they'd like to delay or ignore necessary improvements on their buildings that are going to cost money. It's a tough position to be in, because if the situation is really bad I need to take a stand against an income source.

I've got one building right now with a terrible driveway. It's gravel, uneven, with about as much drainage as Okefenoke Swamp. My calls from tenants have increased to about three times a week about this situation. They have a legitimate beef, but I also know my client is losing money on the house and is seriously considering selling. Tenants shouldn't have to park in ankle-deep water, but they also shouldn't be told that they have to prematurely move. I spent a fair amount of time researching the best quality solution for a good price so that I could get everyone the relief they needed.

This is just another reason why I prefer maintaining a maintenance trust account for each property. If I'm taking a little off the top each month for these problems, I can be much more persuasive about fixing them. "The roof is in bad shape and needs to be replaced, but we've got $5,000 towards it already. Want me to get you some estimates?" That's like five grand I just saved them because they forgot they had it. Forced savings: just one more service provided!

New Domain

2004-12-10T06:51:00.000-05:00

In the interest of cultivating better name recognition on the internet, we bought a new domain name, www.LandlordforHire.com, which will become the front page for all of our property management operations. I'm very excited about working with our web developers to create something really special. The new year is going to be a real e-business experience, as we move into more electronic payments, better software, and more services to provide our clients the ability to get what they need of us, no matter where they are and when they need to contact us. I can't help but being excited!

The Future of the Internet

2004-12-04T09:17:00.000-05:00

How much more will people use the internet in the coming years? I hope a lot! Green & Clean already advertises apartments online (which allows a prospective tenant to get answers to far more questions than a print ad can provide, and to contact me at off-hours and still be guaranteed a response), makes an application available through its web page, accepts payments from tenants and distributes them to clients electronically, and takes inquiries from clients and reports about maintenance problems online. Granted, property management involves some operations in the field - no one's ever going to fix a broken toilet from behind a computer. However, when things are going well, no one really wants to get a visit from the landlord. And my clients are busy people that are more often than not far away from the Hudson Valley and need information at 3AM my time.

The more people have access at home because of falling hardware and connection costs, or through kiosks at libraries and coffee shops, the more smoothly I can run my business and get tenant and clients, both current and future, what they want when they want it. Wireless technology is increasing accessibility, so a tenant may be able to shoot me an email about a downed gutter on the fly and I can get it fixed. A client in Florida will be able to log on and check how many rent payments have come in for January or download the year's reports for their taxes.

This stuff just keeps getting better and better.

Tenant screening the old-fashioned way

2004-12-03T06:33:00.000-05:00

I was at a recent Chamber of Commerce function and fell into a conversation about tenant screening. I, of course, use a combination of credit and criminal checks, landlord and employer references, and personal interviews to determine the prospect's suitability for placement in a unit. The woman I was speaking to, however, knew a man that used a somewhat simpler approach: he looked in their car. Apparently, seeing how they kept the inside of their car had never failed in finding him a good tenant.

Score one for gut instinct.

Forbes: Capitalization Rate -- Sell vs. Rent Out Your House

2004-11-29T20:12:00.000-05:00

Forbes: Capitalization Rate -- Sell vs. Rent Out Your House
A potential client contacted me about managing his present home as rental property when he moves out of state. For me, this is the perfect situation; my services are most valuable for a client that isn't nearby enough to take care of things themselves. This gentleman likely has the right idea, since one of his reasons is to provide flexibility should he decide to return to the area at a later date. He didn't ask me if it would make economic sense for him, and at that moment I couldn't have answered him, since it was a novel question for me. So, I did some research and found this handy online calculator for that very purpose.

How to File For a Review of Your Assessment - A Guide for Property Owners

2004-11-28T10:33:00.000-05:00

How to File For a Review of Your Assessment - A Guide for Property Owners

The idea behind real estate as an investment is that it's going to make some money. If you get hit with a big tax increase, it can screw up all your plans but good! Other than having a mortgage that's too big for the income you bring in (which can happen pretty easily if you don't have 20% to put down when you buy and don't make sure that the monthly rent is equal to or better than 1% of the property value), taxes are the biggest reason why a small real estate investor may throw in the towel.

Don't be afraid to file an appeal or grievance in response to a new assessment or a sharp increase. Paying taxes may be a civic duty, but not paying more than your share is a citizen's right. We can't provide quality housing at affordable rates if the government is going to price us out of the market.

Budgeting for the inevitable

2004-11-27T08:08:00.000-05:00

One of my houses has a twenty-five-year-old furnace. Another has a driveway that could have been imported from wartorn Baghdad. A third is characterized by windows that leak and will only get worse.

All of these problems require money to fix, and all of them will have to be addressed sooner or later. My job is to make the owners aware of these issues so that they don't get blindsided when the tenants have no heat in February because the furnace gasped its last. However, it doesn't end there. I need to be a financial counselor, making sure that the owner knows he needs to set aside some of the rent I send him each month for big-ticket maintenance issues. I even offer the option of maintaining a reserve account for that purpose; a percentage of the net rents each month (I recommend ten percent, but it is ultimately my client's call) get deposited into that account to guard against the inevitable. When the time comes to replace the roof, the owner and I agree upon a contractor and, in a perfect world, there's enough money in reserve to pay for it.

The biggest stumbling block to sound fiscal planning for the future is a large mortgage payment. Sometimes the rents barely cover the mortgage and my fee. I've discovered a program that I'm testing out that can get a mortgage and all other debts paid off without additional income in an average of five to seven years. I've run the numbers and I'm really impressed! I'm researching becoming a licensed presenter for this program so I can show my clients and others how to alleviate crushing debt-loads. The more clients I have the don't have one or more mortgage payments hanging over their heads, the easier we'll all sleep at night.

If I get any responses asking more about this program it will certainly tip me towards getting the training necessary.

Find a Property - What Tenants Want

2004-11-16T06:45:00.000-05:00

Any real estate investor needs to be part psychologist. Understanding what makes an apartment attractive is very important when you're considering making a new investment. My gut on reading this page was that there was no mention of schools, but they really factor in more for resale value of the properties I manage, since only about 20% of the units I have under management are rented to children (they're mostly one- and two-bedroom). Brokers should keep in mind that the value of investment property varies depending on whether you consider income or resale more highly.

Land and Liberty

2004-11-16T06:37:00.000-05:00

Let me just clearly state that my top goal for 2005 is to avoid any tenant land riots. Apparently, none of my clients' insurance policies cover them!

I Was a Slumlord Magnet

2004-11-11T09:03:00.000-05:00

I sometimes get scared when I do research into the legal requirements for property managers and landlords. There are lots and lots of rules, and there isn't a checklist in the world that can ensure that they are all consistently followed. But then I think back to my first experiences as a tenant, when I rented off-campus housing in college. I certainly wasn't aware of the laws in place to protect me. It's really amazing what kind of things I tolerated:

· the rented room whose security was a padlock on the outside of the door
· the room with the nonfunctional fireplace that let in enough cold air in winter to keep my milk chilled
· the landlady that denied me a lease renewal solely based on my ability to pay (I had taken a semester off to work, couldn't find a job, and was forced to apply for welfare)
· the landlord that tried to keep my entire security because the room wasn't swept

Reasonably I could be inspired to assume that my tenants are all as ignorant as I am, but I won't. I make a sincere effort to give my tenants everything that they deserve, because those laws not only protect them, they protect the landlords that I represent. Is it fair that my client is dragged into litigation (even if it's only small claims court) because I tried to take advantage of someone? I've been hired to prevent headaches . . . I'm professional ibuprofen. I look at my own experiences as a tenant as a reminder of what a miserable SOB I could become. I'd rather prevent conflict before it happens, thanks.

Using Consumer Reports: What Landlords Need to Know

2004-11-11T09:02:00.000-05:00

Landlords cannot afford to rent out an apartment based on a good feeling, or even solely on the recommendation of a trusted friend. You've got to check credit, you've got to find out what kind of tenant they've been in the past, you've got to look into their background. Of course, in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave there are rules that must be followed if you're going to protect your own rights, to make sure you don't trample on anyone else's. Forewarned is forearmed . . . don't assume that your prospective tenant is as ignorant of the law as you are.

'Tis the Season

2004-11-10T17:50:00.000-05:00

Yes, the frost is on the cars, and the economists are speculating about the relevance of Black Friday . . . it's time to send out a letter to the tenants reminding them that fire safety is critical in the holiday season. No matter what their religion, no matter how seriously they practice it, I expect that all of my tenants are likely to string lights, light candles, and keep dead bits of shrubbery about more in the next couple of months than at any other time of year. My clients depend upon me to protect their investment, and this time of joy is incredibly dangerous for wood-frame construction. I am not prepared to see a tenant die, or see a client's life destroyed by the destruction that brought about that death. Yes, it's time to write that letter.

Do disabilities scare you?

2004-11-07T22:21:00.000-05:00

It's natural to be attracted to things that are familiar and intimidated by anything different. For the disabled, this means great challenges in finding jobs and housing. Where are you mentally if you interview a prospective tenant with a disability? Do you find yourself looking for excuses to turn them away, or mentally calculating how much it may cost to provide for their needs? Or do you judge each prospective tenant by the same criteria, including creditworthiness, past tenancy, and ability to pay?

This is a tough thing to consider, because if you make excuses for the prospective tenant you probably also make excuses to yourself. Don't. Not only is it illegal, it's just plain wrong. I installed some handrails in the tub for a tenant, and have another that gets assistance from the ARC. I don't have any units with wheelchair lifts or ramps, and I know I can't ask a client to put in that sort of investment. But I know that when I consider a tenant application I don't weigh a person differently because of a limitation they may have, unless it genuinely would prevent them from using the apartment (such as the one quirky apartment I have that has a gigantic pantry with an entrance only two feet wide - perfectly awful for the very heavy or someone in a wheelchair).

Ask yourself the tough questions to make sure you're treating prospective tenants - and yourself - fairly.

Do You Believe in No Money Down?

2004-11-06T10:19:00.000-05:00

Ever since I was a kid I've been fascinated by gaining fabulous wealth on the backs of other people through real estate. No money down? Wow, even better! I can't wait to get started!

College and the usual credit card debt got in the way, so I never became the Carlton Sheets King. Reading this entry on no money down real estate reminds me that as a property manager I need to advise my clients whenever I can on financial decisions. A slick broker can pitch a convincing deal, and sometimes you need a voice of reason to help you figure out if you're on track for tremendous wealth, or just building a house of cards that can tumble from the slightest breeze.