A friend of mine asked me a question a few days that keeps rattling around in my brain.  I’ve talked on this blog and at the First Class Lounge Forum at TaxLoopholes about my million dollar mistake.  Basically, I got caught up in the glamour of writing a book and doing interviews, that I let my core business go while I hopped around the country.  I built a good database, and did it quickly, so I kept telling myself that that was the purpose of it all.

But then I took time a few months ago and looked at how my clientbase had grown in the past versus what I changed to and how much it cost me.  If I had kept doing what I had been doing back in the early 1990’s and grown at HALF the pace as I was, I would have had 97,000 names.  Now, after spending $1 million and letting go of my core business, I was at 82,000 names.  That’s my million dollar mistake.

So, then 11 months ago when I had a partnership dissolve I was left sitting with a big database and no core business.  So, I started that up because I knew I could grow that fast, re-invigorated TaxLoopholes and started BusinessToInvestment.  BTW, that’s what I did, but none of it was quite that simple.  It took months to figure out a direction and to be honest, to recover from the emotional blow.  Still not over that, my husband tells me I hang on to trauma for a very long time. He’s right.  Not sure how to change that, but I know tools to not let it stop me.  ANYWAY - here’s where I am.

I am going in a lot of directions.  I’ll probably announce my new book next week.  (Oops, did I just leak that? hehehe)  And I need to figure out how I’ll handle the marketing this time.  BusinessToInvestment has been like a Master’s Program in Internet Marketing, all condensed.  I think we’ve got a couple of models now that are working and will continue to work - affiliate marketing and SendOutCards (MLM).   And I’m still playing with the idea of creating a less edgy tax education brand.  Meanwhile DKTaxServices is growing well.  We’re right at the edge of growing too fast, but all will be well once we’re past the 10/15 final tax deadline.  

In my mind, these things are all linked under the general heading of “tax advisor.”  There were a couple of reasons for the BusinessToInvestment project:  (1) Make some additional revenue ala Long Tail.  Get 20 sites paying $5K/mo each.  (2) Bigger goal - Earn the right to be an advisor to the new generation of wealth makers.  One of the reasons I succeeded as a real estate CPA was that I personally invested.  I knew the game.  That’s what I want to do with the Internet.  And along the way I realized there was one more huge market in which I could make money and “earn the right” - MLM.  And that’s why I joined SendOutCards.

So, am I losing focus?  Is there truly a conflict between Long Tail business building and the need to focus on one thing and do it well?    In my head, it feels like there is a conflict between industrial age and information age on this subject.  

I’d LOVE to get some comments and perspective on this.