The Wealth Spa

Ep #50 How to Get TV Smart

Posted on 30. Jul, 2008 by Elizabeth Potts Weinstein in Marketing, Radio Show

Elizabeth invites Alice Collier, The TV Image Coach, who shares her 7 insider secrets to being a competent and compelling guest on television. Elizabeth answers a listener question about Personal Finance and Saving for Retirement as well as shares her Entrepreneur’s Success Tip of the Week: Time Perception Series #2, Stopping Aggressive Deadlines.

Click Here to Download the Show!

Click here to access Ms. Alice’s free eBook and podcasts chalked full of TV Tips.

Transcript: Elizabeth Potts Weinstein welcomes small business owners, entrepreneurs and anyone who dreams of opening a business someday to this empowering hour of the Wealth Spa Radio Show where you’ll find answers to your most pressing financial and legal questions.  Now here is your host, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth:      Welcome everyone, this is Elizabeth Potts Weinstein and I’m your host for the wealth spa radio show, want to welcome you all to the show this week.  This is episode 50 of the show.  We’re coming up with our one-year anniversary.  So I feel like I’m doing the show forever.  I guess It’s not that long but it seems a long time.

So I wanted to give you a little heads up on what we’re doing today.  First, I’m going to have our guest on, Alice Collier, who is also known as Miss Alice.  And we’re going to be talking about how to get TV smart, the 7 insider secrets to being a confident compelling guest on television.  And in the next half an hour, I’ll be answering a question from one of you all.  And this question is actually about a personal finance question, which could apply to both business owners and people who are still employed or if you’re in between being employed.  And this question is what’s the best way to invest money for retirement.  Of course, we can talk about this for, you know, 3 solid days but let me give you some quick little tips that you can start applying right now.  And then, as we get close to the top of the hour, I’ll be sharing with you my entrepreneur success tip for the week.  This is continuing what we talked about last week about time perception and this is the second time perception tip which is stop making aggressive, also know as, crazy deadline for yourself.

Now before get into today’s stuff I just want to remind you if you’re going to miss any part of the show or if you don’t want to have to remember when the show’s on and want to get it delivered to you automatically, you can always go to thewealthsparadioshow.com, that’s thewealthsparadioshow.com where you sign up to get the show delivered to you automatically by e-mail, by RSS Feed, don’t worry if you don’t know what that is, just sign up for the e-mail or if you have an iPhone or an iPod or just a plain old computer you can get the show delivered to you through I-tunes also.

All right, so again that’s thewealthsparadioshow.com.  We’re also having transcripts made there up there so if you want to read the show instead of listen to it, you always have that available or just referencing something we talked about it in the past show.

Okay, so now I want to introduce our guest for today, Alice, Alice Collier who I know also as Miss Alice is a multi-talented individual who’s fame and success over the years transcends a variety of areas from television journalism to motivational speaking to non-profit charity work.  So she’s a former award-winning news anchor and talk show host, she has interviewed 3 presidents, 3 vice-presidents, numerous celebrities and now she has established herself as a premier television coach and media trainer.  And just for everyone know when I first met her, I know Alice and I met her in person, when I first met her, I think I saw her across the room and I immediately was like, that woman must be on television.  I think people know what I mean and I’ve run in to other people who have television shows or who do network news who you can see across the room, they’re very put together and you know, it has a different kind of an aura.  So thank you for being on the show today, Miss Alice.

Alice:              Thanks Elizabeth and Happy Anniversary.  A year on the radio, that’s amazing.

Elizabeth:      Yeah.  So Yeah, I just realized it when I was calculating wow we’re on 50.  Oh, I need to do an anniversary show or something.

Alice:              yeah.

Elizabeth.      That was kind of fun.  So talking about getting TV smart, like for the first time I was ever on television, was just this past January I’ve been, obviously I have a radio show, I’ve been on other people’s radio show,  have been quoted in the press media and also on websites for years and years but television is a very different world.

Alice:              It is Elizabeth and I saw you on TV and you did a great job coz’ that’s quite a conversion to go from print to radio and then to TV.  It is totally different.

Elizabeth:      Yeah.  It really is and I think, I mean, people instinctively know that to a certain extent because television is obviously visual, the timing is different.  Here we’re on a radio show for an hour. No one gets to be on TV for an hour.  They’re on for 30 seconds and 2 minutes and some very short amount of time.  But it also, it’s very different,  it’s, you know, you’re on TV, theoretically, millions of people can see there.  It’s has a lot of scary factors for a lot of people.

Alice:              You know, I think the biggest misconception, Elizabeth, is that television, when you’re on television that you’re so aware that there are possible millions and millions of people watching.  And, you know, as when you’re, as oppose to like newspaper or when you give a newspaper report or a quote, you’re not conscious of the fact that thing distributed to, you know, millions of people.  But TV suddenly you’re aware that you’re like on.  And that is not bad at all.  It’s not like you’re on stage in the theatre or even speaking, making a presentation.  Television is really a one on one communication and when you understand that, I think it takes some of that nervousness and anxiousness out of it because you’re literally communicating with one person, perhaps 2 or if you’re fortunate to be on the view, you’ll going to be with four other people.  But again, it’s that conversation, one to one. 

Elizabeth:      Yeah.  And I think that’s one of the reason that was, that idea was helpful for me when I did the television spot back in January.  That’s kind of how I approach my radio show it’s that is the conversation between me and the guest.  And sometimes I don’t have a guest and that’s a conversation between me and one listener even though I know there are, you know, thousands of people listening I think of one listener in my head.  And that helps me out a lot. 

Alice:              Yeah and there are some media trainers who will disagree with me and say that it’s all but a conversation.  You know, I have been on air for more than 15 years, literally on air.  And in that time I’ve also produced some but I was talent and so I feel like I know better than most people and literally what you do as a reporter and anchor you try to get people comfortable beforehand, talking to them, asking them what they had for breakfast, what they did yesterday, how many kids they have, you know, where do they like to vacation.  You get them really comfortable so they kind of trust you quickly and then you start talking to them on air, on camera.  And then you build up this report.  Now remember, it’s a short conversation but it’s still a conversation and television reports are real adept at cutting you off.  So you’ll know when, you know, you’re sound bite is over.  They’ve gotten what they need but absolutely you should approach it if you get a call to be on TV and you’re willing to talk.  Make sure you understand that you’re just talking to one person.

Elizabeth:      And it makes it a lot easier.  You don’t have to think of the camera.  It’s someone else’s job to think about the camera.  It’s someone else’s job to put it on, you know, the television.  All you have to talk to someone in an intelligent way just like they would talk to them if you have met them in another capacity.

Alice:              Oh! I’m sure you’ve found this out.  Just ignore the camera.

Elizabeth:      Yeah.

Alice:              Now I know…

Elizabeth:      They tell you to.

Alice:              I know that’s easier said than done because, you know, it is totally intimidating but remember the camera is just eavesdropping on your conversation and it’s a good thing an you want them to pick up, you know, all your information and how great you are.  And, you know, get your message out there.  So just kind of ignore the camera, pay attention to the reporter or the anchor person who ever is interviewing you and even, Elizabeth, I’m going a step forward and tell you to ignore the crew.  Now that’s really hard as I put in get TV smart.  I had an author once and she was this amazing sociologist and bless her heart.  You can imagine this.  I’m interviewing her, she is just so brilliant and she has just so much to share and she kept looking at me and my camera man and so I try to like position myself, like you know, move my chair a little and so she would not, and we were on live.  We were on live and so I’m dying right and so afterwards I said, you know, tell me what was, tell me what was going on, you know.  I mean, you kind of look shifty when you’re eyes are going back.  And she said, well Alice I didn’t want to ignore him.  He’s so sweet.  And I’m like ignore him.  Please ignore him.

Elizabeth:      Well yeah coz’ we’re trained to that.  We’re on the networking group.  We have three people we’re talking to who are all listening. We’ve connect our eyes to each of them but yeah, the person behind the camera or the sound person whoever else is there, you have to, you know, they’re invisible people to you.

Alice:              Yeah, sweetheart, they don’t care.  That’s what I told her.  They don’t care.  They don’t care about you.   It’s for them, it’s just a job.  For the anchorperson this is journalism at its finest but the camera, they don’t care.

Elizabeth:      Yeah.

Alice:              They don’t care.

Elizabeth:      If someone gets a call andlet’s say, we have about 3 minutes till our first break.  If someone gets a call from a producer or maybe even the reporter themselves saying I’d like you to do, you know, I’d like to interview you.  I want to talk about interviewing you for this.  What do you see obviously besides yes or no?  What kind of questions should you ask?  What information do you need?

Alice:              First of all, don’t say yes.  Find out, you’re very interested, you’re very flattered, tell me what you’re story is.  Tell me what you’re story is, tell me what you’re doing, what’s this about. I just had a situation where I did a story for a business program and I called a used card dealer and asked him if he would do an interview with me.  He immediately said yes, not smart.  He did not know if I was an investigative reporter or if I was really doing an economic peace, which I was.  So first of all, find out what it’s about.  What it is. What are, and ask him what kind of information do you feel I can provide you. And then you go on to say, is this live?  Lived to tape or is it going to be taped? Are you coming up to me?  Or do I need to come to you?  And then how long is this going to be on? You know, maybe you can ask him, are you interviewing anybody else?  Find the stuff out and see what they say.  Are you one of many people or are you the story?

Elizabeth:      Right.

Alice:              And then, of course, you know, base upon those answers, you can feel ask them when is their deadline.  When do they need this information by?  It may be an hour.  I mean, sometimes, Elizabeth, I call people and go I got to have this interview and you’ve got to do it for me in an hour or I’ll find somebody else.

Elizabeth:      Right.

Alice:              And that may not might be suitable for your schedule.  I mean, you know, you’re very busy.  And so you really have to juggle. Is it today, tomorrow or next week?  And then determine whether you can do it.  And if you can’t do it for some reasons, ask to please to keep you in mind for the next time.

Elizabeth:      Right.  Right.  Yeah. And it’s interesting when you get that call coz’ it sounds like yes I want to be on TV. That’s the coolest thing ever.  But you want to get this information coz’ it may not be the right fit for you.

Alice:              No, you know, in fact, I have so many colleagues around the country.  I interviewed and if you go to website you’ll see I’ve interviewed KNBC’s Joel Grubber who is a, you know, a premier investigative reporter.  I mean, he has shut down many businesses and done so many good things for the state of California.  And he, when he called  you need to be concerned. 

Elizabeth:      Yeah.

Alice:              You don’t just want to say yes.  And of the things, he said is that people really need to know what the story is about.  What is the angle you are looking for, the reporter’s looking for before you say yes.

Elizabeth:      All right everyone, we’re about ready to go on our first break and we will have Alice back after the break to talk more about what you need to think about, what you need to do before and when you get that big TV interview.  So stay in tune for that after the break.

BREAK

Elizabeth:      Welcome back everyone.  This is Elizabeth Potts Weinstein your host for The Wealth Spa Radio Show.  And welcome back after the break.  We have Alice on, Miss Alice who we’re talking to her about being on TV.  She’s been on TV for a very long time.  If you get that call from the reporter or the producer to be on TV what question do, you need to ask, what information do you need to give and what you do when you actually get on TV. So we talked a little bit about what questions to ask if you get that call.  So now, you know, what happens, let’s say they’re going to come out to you and interview you on site, wherever you are in your office or your home.  What do you need to do there?

Alice:              Well if they come out to your location, like to your office, it’s probably either going to be live or it’s going to be taped.  And what that means is if it’s live, they’re going to probably set up for, let’s say a new show like your six o’clock evening news.  Or they’re going to tape it maybe at one o’clock in the afternoon and then go back and edit it.  And you need to have that information because if they’re going to go live, they’re not just coming with two people.

Elizabeth:      They’re going to have a staff.

Alice:              They’re coming with a huge satellite truck and probably between 3 and 4 people.

Elizabeth:      Yeah.

Alice:              So you need to know that information and also you know there’s a different energy when it’s live and when it’s taped.  Let’s say it’s live.  Okay so when they come live, they’ll come probably an hour and a half, 2 hours prior to the six o’clock news and then they’ll set up.  And they may just speak to you really briefly and then you go back to work and do your thing and then literally they’ll count down with the reporter and say you know, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you’re on.  And then the segment, probably, if you’re live is probably a minute or 2.  and so whatever you say, you have to really say very fast.  You would have to, what I say, come out of the blocks, smoking.  You can’t wait to build up to your message.  You really have to come out and give your message, your pointy tips right away.  Now, sometimes, the reporter is really good at getting you to that place quickly, sometimes, they’re really green reporters or not good reporters.  There are a lot of really poor reporters and so you have to kind of take the ball and run with it.  Because it’s you, it’s your face, your image that’s up there.

Elizabeth:      So let’s say you’re in the situation that’s live and the reporter asks you a question that you kind of hadn’t thought about before.  When people ask me, sometimes I talk out loud, you know what I mean.  How do you come up with a concise, precise when you didn’t think that that question is going to be asked or something that is in a less field.

Alice:              Oh, that’s a great question.  Because what everybody does is this, they say what are you going to ask me?  Now, you notice, Elizabeth, I didn’t ask you that prior to the show.

Elizabeth:      Right.

Alice:              Because that is a really an awful question.  You don’t ask people that.  You don’t ask reporters that.   Well, what are you going to ask me?  Because you know what I usually do because I’m a veteran, I usually don’t tell them.  I usually say, I’m not going to tell you.  And I mean, I do that polite, I’m not mean.  I don’t want to tell them and guess why.  Because then their answers sounds so canned. 

Elizabeth:      Like they wrote it out and read it.

Alice:              Yeah and that’s not good TV.  We want you to be authentic and real.  Okay I talked to some of my colleagues about this and like let’s say one of my really good friends here in Orlando, she’s an anchor and a reporter and I asked her what she did and she said that what she does is usually tell them the topic.  Of course, of course, you’re going to tell them the topic but generally, kind of, she gives generally questions to them.  I mean, she’s very generous coz’ I don’t do that.  And then, she goes in, you know, I call for the jugular, really picky.  And so if they ask you something you’re not prepared to answer, it’s okay to say, even if you’re on live, Oh, you know, huh I don’t know that or that’s a really good question.  And kind of stall until you think about something to say.  I don’t have an immediate answer for that and it’s okay.  And then you’ve got to do, what we call the politicians are really good at, you’ve got to spin it.  That means you can say, you know what, I’m going to break in and say you know who is really good at that is Senator Hilary Clinton, where you know well, huh, let me get back to you on that but I can talk to you about such as… That’s brilliant because nobody expects you to know everything.

Elizabeth:      Oh yeah.

Alice:              Now keep in mind, okay, keep in mind this does not happen all the time.  It is not in the reporter’s best interest to trip you out.  It really is not.  But there are some bad reporters who will ask you questions that you didn’t expect or trick you and it’s okay to say, you know what?  I don’t know. 

Elizabeth:      And the thing is, yeah, no one knows everything so that’s a perfectly legitimate answer than to, you know, make something up or something that will catch you on later.

Alice:              Yeah, you know Elizabeth, I have interviewed lots of people like you said, Presidents and Vice-Presidents.  I’ve also interviewed criminals.  I’ve interviewed school board members who were on trial for huge embezzlement schemes.  And I can tell you that I’ve asked very difficult questions to them.  I’m a hard news reporter.  I asked serious stuff.  People say watch out for Alice.  She smiles and looks really nice but, you know.  But I’m always polite but I ask tough questions and I really never have somebody say wow, I didn’t know you were going to ask that, even on live TV. They also come up with an answer and I can’t remember a time when somebody was really embarrassed.

Elizabeth:      And one thing that people should remember most of the time you’re being an expert.  You’re not being interviewed because you did a horrible thing, hopefully.

Alice:              Exactly.

Elizabeth:      And so when they came out, for me, he just, he had a topic and the reporter had a topic that he wanted to talk about and asked me what were the three things that we should talk about in the topic, you know.

Alice:              Right.

Elizabeth:      And coz’ you know part of it was he wasn’t the expert.  He wanted to use me as the expert so he wanted the information from me.

Alice:              Right. And there’s no problem in saying no comment.  In fact, a great example, I was just interviewed about this, in fact, yesterday and I blogged about it, a Senator Brocko Bumma, the New Yorker cover that just come out.  And I asked him being portrayed as a Muslim with his wife kind of like a terrorist.  I loved his response.  I loved his response and I thought it was, again, brilliant.  It was this I have no response at all.  That’s it.  So if somebody gets you, backs you in a corner, it’s okay to say, you know, I have no comment.  So what else can we talk about?  But that doesn’t always happen and I’m sure your listeners have lots to talk about in their subjects.  Okay now that’s a live situation. Let’s say the situation is taped.  So that means they’re going to come at one o’clock for the six o’clock news.  And they’re literally going to be there for a half hour or so.  And totally rearrange your office.

Elizabeth:      they write on my walls.

Alice:              Exactly.  Move your pictures and everything like that coz’ they want to get you in a perfect setting, a perfect lighting, and all that.  And then they’re going to interview you for a half hour and probably use, what 30 seconds?

Elizabeth:      Yeah.

Alice:              Those are kind of fun.  At least for you because you really get to have that conversation. Okay here’s a complain I hear all the time.  Well, Alice they take, they took everything I said out of context. Okay you know why that is?  Because you never get to the meat of your subject quickly.  I mean, you gave them a hour of garbage.  You have to come out of the block smoking and give a real short, concise, compelling answer. 

Elizabeth:      There’s something that they can pull out coz’ you know they’re going to edit it.  So they can take a paragraph of what you’ve said. Coz’ it could be a little phrase or a sentence that’s a concise answer just as you have on live. 

Alice:              Right and we don’t like chopping up what you have to say and we don’t like that.  You know, one of the reasons we don’t like it is because you know television is about pictures.  It’s about video and so when you chop something up you have like a disconnect in the video and we call it on TV a jump cut because you go to from one piece of video to the next and looks like a fold in the video kind of thing.  And then we have to cover it up with another picture.  It’s more work if that makes sense to you.

Elizabeth:      Yeah. Yeah.  It totally makes sense.  You have to cut to some other scene or something like that.  Otherwise, you’re in some certain different positions in the chair.

Alice:              Right. Right.  That looks really bad. And that sends news directors through the roof and that’s not a good thing.  One of the things that I tell people to do is really kind of think about your message. Once you’ve got the call and you’ve agreed that this is going to be a great thing for you and your business and you love to be on TV and you arrange your time to me then start sitting down and thinking really quickly about like five distinct point, something that you can articulate and then you really feel.  And then just kind of, you know, what would interest people about what you have to say, kind of what is your message if you can say it in one sentence, try to do that; kind of try to time yourself so you say it.  I know 30 seconds is what, you know, you may get.   My sound bite is usually 15 seconds.  Unless you’re like a real dignitary then it may be 30 seconds because usually the reports are given maybe a minute and a half for a story and reporters likes to save time too. 

Elizabeth:      Yeah.  And they have to set it up.  They do their little, you know, setting up at the beginning and they have some other pictures and stuff like that.  So yeah, you’re time is relatively small as of that minute.

Alice:              Yeah so, what you can do is do your 5 points and try to get them all under 20 seconds.  You know, you’ll have time to do this before the reporter gets there and do not start your sentences with I believe or I think or I have found, that is so boring.  Start with declarative statements that’s what sells.  That’s the sound bite that somebody’s going to choose. I always give the example of Patrick Henry’s quote give me liberty or give me death.  I mean, that’s profound.  I mean, it’s to the point and it gets your attention and that’s what you want to do.  Get their attention really quickly.

Elizabeth:      So we only got a really short amount of time before our next break, I wanted to give you a chance to tell everyone about your website where they can get more information about you.

Alice:              Well they can go to www.tvimagecoach.com and get some information and I have a free E-book for them and some mini audio Podcasts that talk about, you know, TV tips that explain about whether what is live TV and what is taped TV and the difference and how you prepare for all that. And also, they can hear more about the E-book I just wrote about getting TV smart.  And those, that is for people who really are serious about wanting to be on TV.  Coz’ it’s not really that difficult to get interviewed as you think.  Well you know Elizabeth.

Elizabeth:      Yeah.

Alice:              The issue is getting invited back again and again.

Elizabeth:      Right.  Right.

Alice:              And it’s not as hard and as scary as you think coz’ this little, it’s a lot of little different words that people used.  It’s not tricks.  It’s more you know, it’s a different language.  It’s a different little world.

Elizabeth:      Right.  Just knowing all that stuff.  Okay so everyone it’s tvimagecoach.com.  So thank you so much for being on the show today Alice.

Alice:              Thank you Elizabeth and again Happy Anniversary.

Elizabeth:      Thank you.

Alice:              And I wish you many many more years to come.  Thank you very much.

Elizabeth:      So everyone we’re about ready to go to our next break.  After the break, I’ll be answering a question from one of you all about the best way invest money for retirement and as we get close to the top of the hour we will be doing our entrepreneur success tip for the week.  So stay in tune for that after the break.

BREAK

Elizabeth:      Welcome back everyone.  This is Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, your host for the Wealth Spa Radio Show.  And the first half of the show, we had Alice on, Miss Alice and we were talking about the being TV Smart.  I want to give her website to you one more time that’s tvimagecoach.com.   We’ve got free stuff.  She has a great advice and also a lot of practical things.   We didn’t have a chance to talk about like what to wear, what not to wear and that kind of stuff too.  So great place to go tvimagecoach.com.

All right so I’m going to get into the question for the week.  And this question is really actually about personal finance but you know, it applies to us business owners as well as those of you are still employed of if you’re in between employment.  This is about saving for retirement.  And the question is a simple question with a complicated answer of course, and that question what’s the best way to invest money for retirement?

Now this is something we can obviously spend 3 days talking about what’s the best way to invest for retirement.  But I wanted to give you some clear, concise tips and strategies that you can use right now.  If you’re at a point where you’re ready to do this in a serious way.

Now, it’s common if you do have a small business, especially if your in the building phase, you may not be in the saving for retirement place.  And I know what you mean and I have been there.  I still do save for my retirement even since the beginning of my business when I was in the building phase because my husband, even my business wasn’t making money, my husband was making money so I’ll tell you a little bit on how you can do that.  But once you get to a point in your business where you are paying the bills, you’re not paying stuff on credit cars, things are just starting to flow, you do want to start saving for retirement or continue to save for retirement and of course if you are still employed. 

There are to two different issues I want to think about.  One is what’s the best vehicle to save for retirement, what I mean is, what is the best kind of account.  What’s the best holding tank for your retirement money?   The second question is how do you actually invest the money?  And it’s really important to think about because before you can talk about which mutual fund or which stock or any of that kind of stuff you need to figure out where are we going to hold this money?  What genre, what type of account should it be in?  And I’m going to give this advice primarily to business to owners but this applies to people who are employed also. So first, let’s talk about the vehicle.  Now I do want to give a caveat this is about the United States.  This is the US rules and laws.  Other countries retirement plans are radically different coz’ a lot of them are much more regulated and tend to be more about the government’s plans versus individual plans.  I mean, that’s an over exaggeration but that’s generally true.  So here, I’m talking about the US, so the first place I recommend that people put money for retirement, here we’re talking about specific retirement accounts, not real estate or business or anything. 

The first place is in a Roth IRA. Now you may not be eligible for a Roth IRA if you’re business is making a lot of money, if you’re family is making a lot of money.  You may make too much money to be allowed to put money into a Roth so that’s true.  But especially if you’re in the beginning of your business, I highly recommend doing a Roth IRA.  Why do I recommend that?  What is a Roth IRA?  The idea of a Roth is that you don’t get a tax deduction now.  This isn’t a tax strategy, the Roth IRA. You don’t get a tax deduction now but the money you put into this Roth IRA, the 4000 dollars or whatever that is that you put in there.  It can grow to be a whatever; it can grow to be a million dollars whatever it grows to be.  When you take it out, you don’t pay any taxes on it.  Not on the 4000 dollars, you put or the 1,000,000 dollars that it grew to 50 years from now.  The idea is you don’t get a tax deduction now and you never have to pay taxes on it ever again.  If you’re eligible to use, to have your container for your money, be a Roth IRA, I highly recommend doing that.  For that very reason when you’re 65 or 80 or whatever it is when you’re taking money you don’t want to have to pay taxes on every dime that comes out of your retirement account coz’ don’t forget for other taxing retirement plans like an IRA like a 410K, when you take money out of it when you’re 65 or 80 or whatever you pay ordinary income tax on it.   That could be potentially expensive depending upon what are the tax rates at that time so it’s great to have some of your retirement funds being in an account where there’s no taxes on when you take the money out.  So in the particular year when you retire you can choose whether or not you are going to taxes.  It’s very powerful.

The second thing, if you’re in a business and you’re in the beginning of your business and you’re not making that much money, you’re not making  a profit, you can’t really do a business retirement plan on a business 401K, a set birate or any of that stuff because you have no profit.  There’s no profit in the business to put the money away. However if you have a spouse who has or makes money or you have a day job where you make money, you could open up, here we’re talking about the spouse, you’re the spouse that makes money and you have the extra 1000 or 4000 dollars or whatever to put in to your retirement fund. You can have a spousal IRA that’s in your name where you take the money from spouse’s salary or other savings that you have and put it in your spousal IRA.  You may be able to take deduction on it depends on how much money you make and the great thing about this is you’re still investing for retirement.  So the first year of my business was in business, the first full year where my business didn’t make a profit.  I still saved for retirement because we were able to take money from my husband’s salary, actually, we might have taken it from our savings account and put 4000 dollars at that time into an IRA for me but even though my business was not making a profit I was still saving for retirement.  And in this case, this was a regular IRA; we made too much money to be eligible for a Roth.  But you still get a tax deduction and the money grows tax deferred so you don’t pay taxes on it until the money comes out. 

After you’ve done that or if you’re not eligible to do that, next I recommend for someone who is a solo entrepreneur, you have no employees is a solo 401K.  It works really just like a 401K that you had when you were employed except there’s just one of you.  Okay, it’s pretty easy. You can go to Suave or one of this major discount privileges and open up the 401K, you fill up two sets of forms coz’ you’re both the employer and the employee.  I mean, you’re not really the employee coz’ you’re necessarily 40:38.  In a lot of ways, you’re an employer and an employee for the purposes of the 401K but you’ve put money into just like you would for 41K.  The neat thing is that you just don’t put in the amount of money for the year 15 grand or 1500; you also can put in up to 20% of your self-employment income up to the cap for the year.  I can’t remember what this year’s is.  It changes every year. I think it’s 40 something thousand dollars.  I actually just changed it in my book, I shouldn’t.  But I always look those things up because those rules always change.  So you have potentially put in huge amount of money for retirement if your business is making a profit but if your business just barely makes a profit.  Let’s say, perhaps, you’re living off your spouse’s income and this year’s the first year your business makes a profit and it’s only makes 10 grand and you don’t want to have to pay taxes on that 10 000. You can open up a 401K and put the entire 10 grand in the 401K and pay zero taxes.

So it’s a great thing to use especially if you’re business first starts out.  You can also use it as your business growth.  Now if you have employees, the answer gets much more complicated and beyond the scope of answering this question here today.  Really there, it depends on how old your employees are, how old you are, how much money they make, how much money you make.  There’s a lot more factors on how you should set up a retirement plan coz’ you can do everything from a 401K for you company all the way to your set bitrate, all the way to your traditional pension plan.  You know those old fashion pension plan where you put in money and it does a calculation formula that says how much money you get paid in retirement so it really depends there.

Now we only have 2 minutes till’ our next break, I didn’t want to give you some tips about how you’re going to invest some money.  Now, if you’re a business owner, you’re taking a lot of risks in your business and I know a lot of business owners are also investing in real estate and they do all kinds of other stuff and you’re investing in other businesses and you’re putting money into a restaurant, etc.  what I recommend for your retirement account is to have a core part of the money, at least relatively conservative and I don’t mean conservative like it’s on cash.  What I mean is that it’s all easy to manage well diversified.  I’m like your business, which is, you know, all your eggs in one basket.  So I recommend with going with index funds, very well diversified.  You may want to be completely index funds for instance, I recommend a vanguard target retirement funds, so you’re retirement date is 2020 or 2040 or 2010 or whatever it is.  You get one mutual fund, that mutual fund invests in index of US stock markets, international, actually euro and pacific and invests in bond index.  Changes base upon when your retirement year is so it becomes more and more conservative of a portfolio as you get older so you don’t have to pay attention to it.  Incredibly low fees.

So if you’re a business owner and your taking a lot of risks in your non-retirement investments, I recommend with your retirement invests, or at least the core of them, you become very well diversified, you make it totally hands off, you don’t blow it on buying individual stocks and do craziness like that.  You make it very easy, very low cost, very low maintenance.  And that’s why I recommend you have four mutual funds or even have something as simple as one index fund that is very well diversified like the vanguard target retirement funds.  And if you’re going to do the vanguard retirement fund, you actually would just go to vanguard and open up your account there and there you can open up a Roth IRA, open up a regular IRA, etc and invest  it in that fund. It’s a great place if you want it to be completely hands off.  Otherwise, I’ll have people go to Suave or some other fidelity or somewhere like that and pick 4 or 5 mutual funds, one of the each major active classes like large caps, small caps, international span.

            All right, so that’s a few bullet points on the best way to invest money for retirement.  We’re about ready to go to our next break. After the break, I’ll be covering the entrepreneur success tip of the week.  And this is the second in our series about time perception. So stay in tuned for that after the break.

BREAK

Elizabeth:      Welcome back everyone.  This is Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, your host for the Wealth Spa Radio Show and we are now after this break, last break I was talking to you about retirement plans, now I’m going to share with you the entrepreneur success tip for the week.  This is the second of our series of time perception, last week we were talking about, the first time perception tip, which was about doing the number one first, doing your most important thing first in your day.  This is the second in our time perception series and this tip is about stopping with aggressive, also know as crazy, deadlines.  It’s actually funny, you know, writing down what I was going to talk about coz’ in a lot of ways this goes against some of the things I recommend or it may seem to go against some of the things I recommend.  If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you’ve heard me say things like, you know, pick a date six weeks from now, do your first teleclass or you get aggressive with yourself. 

Pick a deadline, tell everyone you’re going to start selling the e-book, tell everyone the day you’re going to open your business.  I do advocate setting deadlines for yourself and now we’re going to start selling something new or when you’re website is going to be up or whatever big thing is that you’re going to be doing.  However, there may be some of you listening who are like me, who it could be we are crazy entrepreneurs, that we’re type A personalities that we’re very ambitious.  However you may want to call it, there’s a good and bad word to describe it but you may be setting deadlines that are setting yourself up to have absolute craziness and insanity in your life.  And what I mean is, picking deadlines, and I’m not talking about whether or not it’s realistic or not but a deadline that doesn’t have room that things that come up.  So what do I mean?  So let me give you a specific example, as you know, if you have listened to the show for a while, I have a book Grow Up Strategies, the 7 legal and financial strategies you need to up level your small business and this book I wrote last year and thought it would be out in like November, I thought it would be out in February, I thought it would be in May and here we are in July and the book is finally at the printers being printed.  Well let me tell you I’ve announced this book that it’s coming, I didn’t know how many times.  I start talking about it in September of last year.  Oh, this book will be out in a couple of months.  Then January, this book will be out in a couple of months. And I started pre-selling it, when people could actually buy the book in June and here we are in July.  When I pre sold it I told people, I’m pre-selling it.  I said it out so that people could download the e-book so they were getting something of value immediately.  But I thought the book could be shipped in like a week or two.

Here was some couple of the issues with me setting these deadlines, with me making these announcements.  Number 1, I didn’t leave room for life to occur.  Yes, it is powerful to set aggressive deadlines for yourself so you get stuffed on.  You know, to trick yourself so you don’t procrastinate.  Because you know, you’re not going to fail people, so you’ll pull out an all-nighter to get the thing off the door.  That can be a very powerful tool especially if you’re having a problem with procrastination but the thing is, life happens.  So here back in May, I had the last, what I thought at least at that time, was the last version of the book that I had to go through and read through one last time before it went to the printers.  And during the time I was supposed to be reading through it, I had a vacation that was pre-planned and they didn’t send me the draft until I was reading through it.  And then on my vacation and I talked about this before, I think on the show, my husband threw his back out and so we had to come back early, take him to the doctor and he was home.  So a zillion doctor trip having to take care of him.  He had physical issues and we’re still going through that.  So what happens is, I didn’t get to go through the edit of this book. 

So there were a couple of issues that happened, number 1, the people who were working on it at the publisher took longer that they had thought to get it to me.  And number 2, when they got it to me, life happened in my life and I wasn’t able to get on it, as such the delay of the book going back to publisher, going to the printers, etc.  So the lesson that I’m taking away from that, from myself, what I’m recommending to you is it’s all well and good to set aggressive deadlines for yourself.  Announce when you’re selling something, announce when you’re launching a new program. Set a date for a teleclass even though you hadn’t gotten all the materials together.  However, you do want to leave room for life to happen.  For me, a lot of times that happens, my daughter gets sick.  And you know, we don’t have childcare solution for the day I was supposed to do something or supposed to do on a project.  And or something that was out of my control.  So if there’s something where, there’s someone else, a member of your staff, the publisher, the web people, your client there could be something where you’re waiting for someone else to do your job or they do it in an incompetent way and they have to get fixed.  If part of the schedule of that project is up to somebody else, you need to leave room for that in your schedule. 

So what am I doing differently?  One thing I’m doing differently is that if there’s something that I’m going to be selling or doing, before I announce it, before I start promising it to anyone, before I put the date on my calendar, I look at it to see is this within my control or not.  Now, of course, there is always a calamity could happen.  But is this someone else’s job, someone who I totally have limited amount of control over like my book publisher or is this completely within my control.  Within my control, then I can put on the calendar.  If it’s not then I’m going to put in a buffer zone and plan it out and give them an extra 20% of the time to work on it.

Same kind of thing with setting something that’s even within my control, if I’m putting an aggressive deadline, am I leaving room for something to happen?  Am I going to have to do everything at the last minute which is a really bad idea coz’ what if the kid gets sick the night before?  So that’s what I recommend for you is that it’s nice and good to set powerful deadlines but you want to look at your deadlines and see have you left room for life to occur and is that deadline within your control before you go ahead and set an aggressive deadline.

Okay so that’s the show for this week, if you miss any part of the show, you want to listen to it again, you want to get the copy of the transcript, you want to read it online or you want to listen to future shows, you can always go to thewealthsparadioshow.com.  That’s thewealthsparadioshow.com where you can listen to past shows, sign up for future shows to be delivered to you automatically or read copies of the transcripts of the shows.

Next week, we have Martha Heck on and she’s going to be talking about, let me put the exact title, the three mistakes you’re making with your employees that are costing you money and how to stop making those mistakes.  So that’s going to be next week’s show.  For those of you who have employees now or you know, you may be needing to get employees in the future, let us not make mistakes with that so that’s going to be a big scary thing to be doing.

So again if you want to listen to today’s show again, sign up to get future shows, you don’t want to have to remember where and when to be, you can always go to thewealthsparadioshow.com.  That’s thewealthsparadioshow.com. Also on there will have the link that we talked about in any show.  So like today, I wanted to get more information from Alice with the website for that is tvimagecoach.com.  You can also go to thewealthsparadioshow.com and that link will be there once the show gets uploaded.

So thank you all for listening to today’s show and again next week’s show with Martha Heck on and we’re talking about the three mistakes business owner’s make with employees.  So I look forward to speaking with you then. Bye bye. 

Related posts

• Why more clients may NOT be the missing piece of the puzzle (0)
• Viral Marketing: Can You Help Find Bride 2.0? (0)
• Top 11 Reasons Teleclasses Are a Great Way to Build Your List (1)
• Three Alternatives to eZines (that take MUCH less time) (0)
• The MUST HAVE Success Team for Entrepreneurs & Small Business Owners to Break Six Figures and Shoot for Seven (2)

Tags: Marketing