What is your legacy?
by Jeanette Cates
A friend of mine died this week - Jeff Mayer of Succeeding In Business. I've known Jeff for over eight years through our work in the National Speakers Association and online. Of course my first thought was "he was younger than I am!" (That's a common thought as you get older.)
But then I began to think about Jeff's life and what he left behind. Jeff was a super-salesman. If you'd ever talked to him one-on-one or heard him speak, he just naturally sold.
He was a hard worker. He built a tremendous business - not by talking about it, but by doing it.
He was a networker who touched a lot of lives. Just the pictures on his site read like a who's who of Americana.
He was generous - with his friendship and his information. We've exchanged many ideas over the years.
And he was a successful online business man. His website generated a handsome income for him.
So what does Jeff leave behind? Certainly an ongoing revenue source for his family. And a legacy of genosity, success, and friendship.
Now ask yourself - if something happened to me tomorrow, what would I leave behind? What would someone write about me? How secure would my family be?
While I can't address the personal issues, I can speak to the family security. There are two ways in which you want to ensure ongoing security - build a business that will survive you and structure it so that it lasts.
Let's talk about the structure first. I was first introduced to the concept of Nevada corporations by C.W. Allen (Sage International and Inc & Grow Rich). Since then you've heard about them from Rich Dad, Poor Dad and other best-selling books. There are two people I recommend you listen to when it comes to these corporations:
J.J. Childers, who speaks frequently at Internet marketing seminars as well as other seminars. JJ spoke at the recent Big Seminar, so get a copy of the CDs and listen to his speech.
Loral Langemeier is another friend of mine who talks a lot about structuring your wealth. Check her site at LiveOutLoud.com - and sign up for some of her teleseminars on the topic. She is passionate on this topic and has a great system for both building and protecting wealth.
And on the second topic - building a business that will survive you. That is exactly the beauty of our work online. If we build it right, it continues to pump out profits whether we're here - or not. Of course, you want to be sure you have the systems and support in place so that someone else can take over from you. That's why your procedures manual is important. That's why you want to outsource some of your work - so that someone else can do it in place of you.
But are we planning for death? No, I know I certainly am not! However it turns out that if you structure things properly now, you can enjoy the benefits for the rest of your life. In fact, just think of it as a "test period" - when you test to be sure everything is structured for ongoing profits.
Take a few minutes right now, to write a short description of how you want your business to work and what you want to leave as a legacy. That vision combined with some timely work will give you peace of mind - and a nice lifestyle to enjoy right now.
A friend of mine died this week - Jeff Mayer of Succeeding In Business. I've known Jeff for over eight years through our work in the National Speakers Association and online. Of course my first thought was "he was younger than I am!" (That's a common thought as you get older.)
But then I began to think about Jeff's life and what he left behind. Jeff was a super-salesman. If you'd ever talked to him one-on-one or heard him speak, he just naturally sold.
He was a hard worker. He built a tremendous business - not by talking about it, but by doing it.
He was a networker who touched a lot of lives. Just the pictures on his site read like a who's who of Americana.
He was generous - with his friendship and his information. We've exchanged many ideas over the years.
And he was a successful online business man. His website generated a handsome income for him.
So what does Jeff leave behind? Certainly an ongoing revenue source for his family. And a legacy of genosity, success, and friendship.
Now ask yourself - if something happened to me tomorrow, what would I leave behind? What would someone write about me? How secure would my family be?
While I can't address the personal issues, I can speak to the family security. There are two ways in which you want to ensure ongoing security - build a business that will survive you and structure it so that it lasts.
Let's talk about the structure first. I was first introduced to the concept of Nevada corporations by C.W. Allen (Sage International and Inc & Grow Rich). Since then you've heard about them from Rich Dad, Poor Dad and other best-selling books. There are two people I recommend you listen to when it comes to these corporations:
J.J. Childers, who speaks frequently at Internet marketing seminars as well as other seminars. JJ spoke at the recent Big Seminar, so get a copy of the CDs and listen to his speech.
Loral Langemeier is another friend of mine who talks a lot about structuring your wealth. Check her site at LiveOutLoud.com - and sign up for some of her teleseminars on the topic. She is passionate on this topic and has a great system for both building and protecting wealth.
And on the second topic - building a business that will survive you. That is exactly the beauty of our work online. If we build it right, it continues to pump out profits whether we're here - or not. Of course, you want to be sure you have the systems and support in place so that someone else can take over from you. That's why your procedures manual is important. That's why you want to outsource some of your work - so that someone else can do it in place of you.
But are we planning for death? No, I know I certainly am not! However it turns out that if you structure things properly now, you can enjoy the benefits for the rest of your life. In fact, just think of it as a "test period" - when you test to be sure everything is structured for ongoing profits.
Take a few minutes right now, to write a short description of how you want your business to work and what you want to leave as a legacy. That vision combined with some timely work will give you peace of mind - and a nice lifestyle to enjoy right now.
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