September 16, 2007
My blog has seen some idleness, but my mind has not. I am very busy teaching H&R Block’s Basic Building Blocks class. This is the beginning tax class that H&R Block uses to recruit new preparers.
I’ve only been a preparer for a year, but I worked 12 tax seasons for my mom’s franchise in Alabama taking care of back office stuff. I decided to take the plunge to tax pro here in St. Louis because things have become more automated and my mom really doesn’t need me.
What I gained was an opportunity in financial education. One of H&R Blocks great strengths is in the area of expertise. We have to have 69 hours of tax training and pass an exam just to be able to be considered for an interview. After that, beginning tax pros have to take another 60 hours before and at the beginning of tax season.
Each year we have to have a minimum of 24 hours just to get rehired. Raise that to 30 to go to another level of certification (which involves more pay). Plus, you can’t get certification hours for a course you took in the last 3 years.
What’s my point? Well, in order to keep this level of expertise with all of the tax pros, they offer a gazillion courses in all different tax and business subjects. The best part is we get to choose as many as we want, in a classroom or online, for $20 a year. Add to that all of the on the job experience and it’s a grand education in taxes and in business and marketing.
Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad fame says that for those who think like rich people the main reason to get a job is for the financial education it can provide you. If you are familiar with the Rich Dad principles, you know that rich people think in terms of assets - businesses and investments.
Apart from the fact that taxes are fun (yes, you hear tax pros say it all the time) and H&R Block is a great company to work for with lots of advancement opportunities, working for H&R Block gives a great financial education.
Tax attorney Drew Miles (Tax Tips - Asset Protection - Pathfinder Business Strategies ) tells the story of watching Bill Gates being interviewed on a national news channel. He was asked what was the key to his success. He said having a “working knowledge of the tax code.” Not the answer you would expect, is it?
You hear a lot of people complain about how the rich get all of these tax breaks while the poor and middle class keep paying higher taxes. The reality is that they make an effort to know about their money and how it works. A huge part of that is knowing how taxes work for and against them.
The poor and middle class have so many more opportunities available to them that they don’t take. Many times because they are afraid to take them. If you are rethinking wealth in your own mind, consider how you can make better decisions in the area of taxes. It will help you overall financially.
Deborah
Posted in General, H&R Block, Rich Dad, Uncategorized, education, financial, financial education, taxes 
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August 12, 2007
I’ve heard of Stephen Pierce before, but the 7 Figure Code DVD is the first time I’ve heard him really give a presentation. Talk about meaty. I had a hard time keeping up with all of the great things he was saying and I will have to study that segment in much more depth.
Everything he was saying boiled down to one main point - “The sales process is the profit nervous system of your business.” He started it all off with the statement that nothing moves without a sale.
It’s funny how many people, myself included, cringe at the word sales. It does generate a lot of thoughts of insincere people using high pressure tactics to get you to buy something you don’t want or need.
I’m quite free with the buying, though. When I look at things from that angle, I realize that most of the time I’m willing and happy to buy the things I want or need and there was no pressure involved.
I’m very excited about this segment of the course. Stephen really lays out how to create this sales process even though it will take some deciphering.
Another thing he said is the value is not in the product it’s in the process - specifically the sales process. It makes sense. You can have the best product in the world that everybody needs, but without a great way to sell it you really have nothing.
In my MLM experience, you hear a lot of people say “the products sells itself.” NOT. A product can go only go on it’s own strength so far. If you don’t have a good way to produce and promote the product or to service and retain customers then your product is going to sit there.
The ones who are successful in MLM didn’t ride the coat tail of a product that sold itself, they built a business around the product. This is true for all types of businesses and products.
He also said that actions that don’t contribute to success in some way are wasted. He gave analogy of some of his coaching clients. They have a business that is not working, they call him in and talk about all of their efforts to automate what they are doing.
What do you think he tells them? You don’t automate something that doesn’t work. It does seem silly to take an action that doesn’t bring anything valuable to you or your business and to put it on autopilot in order to multiply it. Multiply anything by zero and you still get zero - that’s pretty elementary.
But, how often do we do this without realizing it. We may not be consciously creating an automated system, but we keep doing the same things, in the same way, getting the same results.
Both Stephen and Mike have pushed home that you have to have a way to measure what is going on. This helps you find out what’s not working so you can focus on fixing the weakest link. It also tells you what’s working so you can duplicate and learn from it.
Again, this makes senses, but it is going to involve a different set of skills to learn and a system/process of doing it. It’s one of those things I’ve got to get lined up in the system. There’s a little bit of framework for this so far, but I’m hoping for something more indepth later in te course.
He did give a great guideline. He said “Don’t do what you can’t measure, and don’t measure what you can’t change.” It such common sense, but I wouldn’t have thought of it on my own.
He also had a point about information overload. He said no one goes into the bookstore and gasps “Too many books!!!” and passes out on the floor from the stress of it. He says it’s because a person goes into a bookstore knowing what they want and knowing what you want helps you to discern what is going to be beneficial to you. That’s a true point.
I would like to add to that part of the reason you don’t get information overload in a bookstore is that is has a system and everything is nicely categorized for you. Also, they are not always throwing free stuff at you ith huge bonus packages of more free information…………
and emails for their other products……with free stuff…
…… and yet more from their JV partners
…. with all of their free stuff……….ad infinitum
It’s really a huge flaw in the system, but that’s for another post.
I wish I could better communicate with you all of the jewels of this presentation, but I’ve just barely scratched the surface on it. I guess there’s a reason why people pay him $10,000 for a one-on-one strategy session.
To your best,
Deborah
Posted in 7 Figure Code 1 Comment »
August 12, 2007
OK, there’s no one reason, but I do know a main reason that I have not seen the success that I’ve been looking for. It’s not lack of knowledge, lack of a vision, or lack of a plan - it’s really the lack of a system. Not to say I have the first 3 mastered, but its the lack of a system that drives my fear of success which is rooted in my fear of maintaining success.
So it’s simple, right? Get a system. Maybe for some people it comes easy, but not for me. People roll their eyes at me about saying this all of the time, but it is true– I am a creative, right brained person.
Right brained people are great with things like brainstorming and idea generating because we think in patterns - seemingly random. Left brained people think in straight lines.
Guess who creates most of the systems? Yu-huh - the lefties. So I try to avoid reinventing the wheel and I find these systems and none of them make any sense to me. They are not things I can maintain.
Plus, a lot of them leave gaps. They assume you understand something or, because they think in lines, they don’t take into account all of the variables.
Worst of all, most really don’t have a system. They just have a bunch of methods or tools. That is the most overwhelming - fishing through a truckload of elements trying to join them together into a workable whole.
And to top it all off, there’s the guilt that these system creators lay on you. They don’t mean to, but it works that way for me. They say things like “don’t recreate the wheel” and “just get something going and figure it out as you go”.
It’s not really bad advice, but it really doesn’t solve the problem, does it? I’ve put lots of things up to figure out as I go, but they don’t go anywhere because I don’t have a system working behind it. So my thing now is to get my system up and figure the system out as I go.
Sometimes it’s right and good to recreate the wheel. I guess I’m a custom model because I haven’t been able to find a wheel to fit my particular car . I know that’s a shock to some of those systems creators out there who don’t understand that the system that is so simple for them doesn’t work for everyone.
My Little Rant about Left Brainers
I must admit, I’ve got a lot of hurt feelings in this area. It’s really hard when people look at the way you think and do then they tell you how you need to “do right”– like your way is wrong rather than different. It’s frustrating to see many, many perspectives while people around you tell you that they are far fetched or nonexistent because they only see the one in front of them.
I shouldn’t let it bother me so much, but I have a lot of old wounds. I have been put down by many people because I don’t act and think “normally”. For much of my life I thought there was something wrong with me and that I was less than others. It wasn’t until adulthood that I understood that I was creative and probably my 30’s before I started understanding the value of that and how that shapes me.
OK, those are my issues. I’m working on them. I’ll move on now.
What am I doing about it?
The first thing I did was look back at systems I have created that worked. It was a good experience for me.
I have systems that I set up for business that worked for me. This includes Amazon, EBay, vending, and teaching music lessons.
I really created some great things working at my Mom’s H&R Block franchise and now I’m building new ones working in a company owned office. It’s easier at a job than at home because I don’t have home disorganization clashing with office disorganization.
I’ve tried for years to find a working system for my Shaklee business. A lot of my rant above was frustration with the Shaklee systems- both from the company and from the field. (I’m starting to see some glimmers of cohesion in that area, thankfully.)
Other systems I’ve created have to do with my personal life. It was a real eye opener when I went to a conference when my son was a few months old. I was writing down instructions on how to care for him. It was very detailed and I realized how I had really created all of the systems about how his day went and how to handle situations that come up.
When I started to think about these things, everything else came into perspective. It seemed doable because I had already done it. I’ve just got to do it bigger and more deliberately.
It really seems much more possible to me now.
To your best,
Deborah
Posted in 7 Figure Code, General 3 Comments »
August 6, 2007
Since my husband was laid off I’ve been in what Jim Collins calls the Doom Loop. This entails a desire to skip build-up and go straight to breakthrough. It usually involves fads, no plan, no system, and reaction as opposed to action.
It has a paralyzing way to live. The sad thing is that that was over two years ago. If I had worked the flywheel instead of the doom loop I would have had something going by now. I knew the concepts because I listened to Good to Great around that time.
That’s one of my patterns. I hear a concept and get an intellectual understanding, then it might become part of my language. It takes even longer, if ever, before it becomes a part of how I do things…how I am. It usually takes life experiences that solidify that idea. Then when I revisit the concept it starts to take root.
I guess it fits with the idea of planting the seed, watering it, making sure it gets sun, and then it starts to root, to grow, and over time it puts out fruit.
Maybe that’s the way it is supposed to be. In this instant everything culture you start to feel like your broken if things don’t work out immediately for you.
Just today I was talking with my husband about the beets in the garden. It seemed like they were late this year. He said “No, they are ready 60 days from planting.” I realized that a farmer can’t really be an impulsive kind of person.
It sure explains some things about the differences in our families. His family is into delayed gratification and mine is less so. Farmers have their daily tasks and see the fulfillment of it at the end of the season depending on the circumstances.
Blue collar workers, like my family, get a job, go to work, and get a paycheck every two weeks or so. It’s hard work, but there’s no waiting, no building and little risk of losing it compared to the vulnerabilities a farmer faces.
It’s interesting to think how the industrial revolution has changed our culture. How is the information age changing us? It sounds like an interesting study.
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August 6, 2007
Another analogy on the first DVD of the 7 Figure Code is the flywheel. It’s basically about how momentum works. You start, then you push, you keep pushing, you get pushed back a little, but you keep pushing and the momentum builds.
The thing about momentum is that it starts to take on a lot of the work for you. When this really kicks in then you experience a kind of tipping point. Then that flywheel is really going strong.
This is also the point when people start calling you an “overnight success”. It doesn’t matter how long it took to get there, it seems like overnight to everyone else.
I’m still pushing at the flywheel, but being reminded of this concept is an encouragement to me especially as I look back over the last couple of years. I’ve made mistakes, lost money, wasted money, flitted about from one thing to the next, overloaded myself with too much free and paid information, etc.
The great thing is to see how I have been pushing at that wheel. All of these experiences have built me and I do see some momentum building. I am able to pare down so much better than before. I still get overwhelmed with information, but I’ve noticed some internal changes.
Now I can look at things and make quicker decisions about whether it is going to bring me value or weigh me down. This is even stronger now that I have started identifying my hedgehog.
Of course, taking direction in itself is not the way. It’s about taking appropriate action steps in a consistent direction with a working process in place. It’s really easy to take the wrong kind of action and do it consistently. That’s really frustrating - lots of work and no fruit. Do you know what that’s like? I sure do.
To your best,
Deborah
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August 4, 2007
One of the most well known of the analogies from Good to Great is that of the fox and the hedgehog.
The gist of it is that the fox is really smart. He can hunt… he can strategize… he can dominate with his physical prowess and intellect.
What can the hedgehog do? He basically can curl up completely in a ball where only his spines stick out . That is his only and best protection.
The reference goes back to a poem from ancient Greece which states “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”
In business and in life you can see these general patterns playing out. You hear about people who knew what their career would be in elementary school and people who work in a field for decades.
Then there’s people like me. I’m creative and curious. My sister said to me when I was talking about one of the new hobbies I had just discovered, ”You never just stick your toe in the water to see what it is like. You always jump all of the way in.”
There are aspects I love about being a fox, but the reality is that I’m unproductive. I can’t get projects finished, I can’t focus, and I have a cluttered mind. Hence, my pursuit of my inner hedgehog.
I have other things to add to my distracted mind such as diabetes, sleep disorders, and a 3 year-old underfoot, but the struggles I have get their roots in my do-it-yourself, know everything, perfectionistic approach to life. Couple that with a fear of working with other people and I’m pretty much shot.
One thing about foxes is they are very intelligent. In many ways intelligence can be a barrier to success. I’m not saying intelligent people aren’t capable of being successful, but there are several struggles that intelligent people face.
One is overthinking things. I do this all of the time. When I was in seminary, I had to take the bus for a couple of weeks while my car was being repaired. Before my initial trip I agonized over how to ride the bus. How do you know where it’s going? How do I let them know I want off? Where do I put the money/ticket? and on and on.
Then I realized. Why am I making this so hard? It’s the city bus for goodness sake. I did figure it out and always made it to class and home without incident.
In the 6th book of the Harry Potter series, Dumbledore told Harry that since he was “cleverer” than most he made much bigger mistakes that were harder to get over.
That is the plight of the fox. The more complicated things get, the greater chance they have to crash and burn. Simplicity and focus with an eye on developing workable systems is the way to go. I can see that future even though I’m not there yet.
I never want to completely quit being “foxy”. I just want to nurture that little hedgehog so I can actually enjoy the fruit of some of these great ideas I have.
To your best,
Deborah
Posted in 7 Figure Code 1 Comment »
July 31, 2007
I’ve watched the first DVD in The 7 Figure Code. The basis of the first DVD is to get you in the right mental framework.
It started with the general conference administrative stuff that really didn’t apply to me and then went into some concepts from Jim Collins author of Good to Great.
Some of it reminded me of Stephen Covey. Covey is best known for his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and his time/life management empire FranklinCovey
. His name wasn’t mentioned, so it was probably overlap especially in regard to holding to your values.
I am fans of both of these mens’ work, so the concepts were not new to me. It was helpful to hear them laid out in this context though.
Mike Filsaime and his friend/business partner Tom Beal began the discussion with the concept of a vision statement which is future focused as opposed to a mission statement which is more about identity and practices.
Writing these statements has always been difficult for me because it is so hard for me to narrow things down. This presentation of the idea was a pretty short and simple overview, so it wasn’t a life changing “Oh, now I can write a vision statement!” It’s still going to be a work in progress for me.
The next thing he talked about was BHAGs. That stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goals. These are goals that are bigger than you can imagine, but they are still attainable. I’ve tried to set these before, but I never can get the right focus.
Even though I’m familiar with these concepts, it is helpful to address them in the context of a course where I am working toward something. So many of the things I have learned kind of float out there in the ether only to materialize in a thought or conversation. They are rarely part of a cohesive whole.
That is really what I am searching for…a unity, a system, a focus. That’s why I keep working at it.
I will tell you more about the first DVD in the next post. Some of Jim Collins’ concepts are very encouraging to me when I think about the path I’m on.
To Your Best,
Deborah
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July 30, 2007
A few nights ago I came home from one of my H&R Block classes and found that the 7 Figure Code had finally arrived. It was later than they had said it would be. They say they expected to sell 1000 and sold three times that amount. It was frustrating waiting, but I’m still going to give it a go.
It has been difficult to focus on this because of all of the distractions at home. It is the plight of the work-at-home mom to find a way to balance work, family, church, personal life, etc. when you are the sole creator of the schedule.
About the course, I came in a very large box with two huge binders and 16 DVD’s in their own cases. The binders have tabs for each DVD, copies of the PowerPoint slides and a transcripts of each presentation. They recommend using a composition book for notes.
I’ve been pulling out the section for the DVD I am watching and put it in a smaller binder so I can handle it easier.
So far the quality is good, even though I would make serious improvements on the packaging including a DVD binder instead of cases or at least putting titles on the DVDs instead of DVD 1, DVD 2, etc., and making the slides with a light background so I could write notes on them.
I’m processing the information and my report on the first DVD is coming soon - hopefully today. Keep in touch.
To Your Best,
Deborah
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July 27, 2007
For those of you who have signed up to receive my blog by email. I am grateful especially for you patience in the process.
I’ve been frustrated by the fact that the blog text isn’t being sent in the email. I don’t like emails with only links and no information.
I just migrated everything from Blogger to WordPress and I am going to try Aweber’s automatic blog broadcast again. If this goes in as before, then I will manually send in the future.
I’ve set the email blog to just a plain white page. I would appreciate any feedback while I am in the process of setting these things up and learning to use all of these tools.
OK, here goes. Let’s see if this works.
To Your Best,
Deborah
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July 19, 2007
I’m still waiting on my course to come. In the meantime, I am busy with getting ready for my son’s third birthday and cluttering my mind with all kinds of business information.
This happens to me periodically. I start listening to a person and they lead me through their “funnel”. Then I get sucked into their joint venture (JV) partners’ funnels.
The worst is when someone is promoting their new book and if you go and buy it on Amazon, etc. you get all of these free things from JV partners. The deal is you have to opt in to their mailing lists.
It really becomes so much information that you end up not using any of it.
A lot of this may be due to the fact that most of it has an Internet marketing focus. It really is a glutted topic on the Internet.
I recently responded to a similar promotion to help a needy family. The family runs an online homeschooling business and they have a sick child. A group of people who also have online homechooling businesses got together and ran one of these freebie promotional campaigns.
For a suggested donation of $27 I got a ton of homeschooling resources. I found that promotion to be very helpful for me and not as much of a mental clutter problem. I also learned some new techniques called notebooking and lapbooking that I am really excited about.
The promotion was a success and they earned over $85,000 for the family with a two-week promotion.
You hear a lot about people making fast money like that online. Although, it’s not really fast, because all of those people had build up their businesses enough where they had large mailing lists to work with.
For me, it’s hard to stick with one product idea because I have so many of them. It’s also easy to get bogged down in the details and never get the idea developed in depth.
This is the time when I start opting out of things, making mind maps, and work to find my focus. I’m trying to create my system, and for me it is a difficult process.
Best to You,
Deborah
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