I’ve spent the last few days getting ready for the seminar this weekend (Loopholes of the Rich Charity Weekend) and in meetings, meetings, meetings.

We’re refining and expanding our TaxLoopholes brand.  That will probably be a 3 month project that I’ll keep you posted on.

For BusinessToInvestment (B-I), the Million Dollar Journey, I’ve gotten side-tracked with all the changes in the tax world and with launching my tax practice last month.  Even though, this isn’t a B-I subject, it is an interesting sidenote. Typically I’ve found that my CPA practice grows in times of recession. When people are making money too fast, they don’t care about tax savings.

It happened during the dot com days and it happened again during the crazy real estate appreciation days.  I actually had one lady tell me that she was so busy making money that she didn’t have time for a one hour appt with me so we could finalize her plan to save $150,000 per year.  She said she made more than that per hour and she’d just go make more money.  She didn’t care about paying taxes.  Not sure where she is now…..  So typically recessions are very good for me.  June was a horrible month.  It’s the slowest month I’ve EVER had in my entire career.  I think people were just plain shocked by what was happened and they just froze.  July, though, is more than making up for June.  That seems to be happening across the boards.  Megan Hughes, Business First Formations, told me last night that last week was her best month ever.  LOL  I love that.

That’s part of why B-I has been stuck.  I’ve been focussing on keeping the earned income stream coming in.  It’s back on track and I’m back here now.  My two projects are:

(1)  Launching some affiliate marketing sites.  I have been doing intensive study on search words, SEO, buying traffic, picking trends, you name it.   I’ll keep you posted, but there is definitely a learning curve on this for me.  I hope to have the first sites up within a month.  

(2)  This is the one that I am most excited about.  My husband and I have started a new “High Touch” philosophy in our business.  One of the things I did was give out my personal email account.  I hope I can keep it spam free.  That was the one drawback that I see to posting it.  That email, if you don’t have it, is Diane@TaxLoopholes.com.  One suggestion I got was to send people to Facebook instead, that would at least slow down the spammers.  But it does give me one more place to check everyday.  

The other part of the High Touch philosophy is creating a relationship with our clients, customers and prospects.  In fact, I don’t even like using the term “prospect”.  These are really just visitors who are deciding what level of involvement they want with us.   Richard and I have started a challenge between us to send out 2 cards per each per day, 5 days a week.  We’ve seen in study after study, that if you do this for 6 months, you will increase your business by a minimum of 20%!  That’s the power of relationship marketing. Instead of looking for more customers, create better relationships with people who already know you.  They’ll send you better prospects and people more in line with who you and your business are.

Figure a card costs about $3.50 to buy and mail.  So, we’d be looking at a cost of about $35/week.  This is the cool part - we’ve found a way to do it for $10/week.  And at the same time there is an opportunity to get paid for referrals so that you don’t even end up paying the $10/week and actually make money.  

I’m going to do a webinar about this probably within the next month.  But rather than making you wait that long, I have an offer for any of you that read this blog.  You can go to www.SendOutCards.com/DK  and see how easy it is to send a card.  It’s my gift to you.  Click through on “send a card” and select from over 10,000 designs, customize your message and make someone’s day when they receive the card that gets mailed from the printing presses in Salt Lake City that very day. By the way, this works in 9 other English speaking countries as well - including Australia, UK, Canada and Singapore.

If you’d like to do what I’m doing, you can either sign up on that same page (www.SendOutCards.com/DK) at Sign Up or drop me an email at Diane@TaxLoopholes.com and I can walk you through the process.

It will cost you $398 for the initial package (and that lets you send 100 cards), but then after that it is just a little over a dollar, with postage, out the door.  You can also send postcards, invitations and gifts.  But more on that later.

Here’s the unexpected bonus that just happened for us.  I gave our teenage son David his own account.  He sent out Thank You cards without any prompting at all.  In fact, he sent me a beautiful card (with personal inscription) that I got yesterday.  He says it’s just like sending a text message, but of course, the impact is much greater  

Check it out and let me know what you think.  By the way, when I get the webinar done, I’m going to have some bonuses that include the 4 card, 6 card and 12 card programs that we’re using to increase our relationship with our clients and I’ll even give you a pretty amazing money-back guarantee.  

There is something wonderful that happens when you reach out and just say “thank you” or “nice meeting you” or even “I’m sorry” to the people in your personal and business life.  Take a second and send out a free card on me - it could be for personal or it could be for business.  Either way, getting a card with a personal message is a great way to just spread a little happiness.