I have a congratulatory announcement to make regarding my real estate business partner, Wes Weaver. Last week, Wes passed his exam and attained his license as a Full-fledged Real Estate Broker. For the three years prior, he was a real estate agent. For two years prior, he was both a real estate investor and property manager.

Becoming a real estate broker, Wes elevates his professional status, knowledge, and experience to a higher level. I am happy to say that we remain good business partners to this day and I am excited to see what he will do as takes his business career and business to a new level with a real estate brokerage company.

Wes and I have had private meetings and brainstorm sessions regarding which direction he should go. I am his advisor but ultimately he will be running this new ship his way.

Wes has chosen to maintain his relationship with me on “The TurnKey Investor” educational series but I suspect he will one day launch his own “Real Estate Agent” educational series on the publishing side.

Again, congratulations to my friend and business partner, Wes Weaver, on his new found achievement and status.

Two weeks ago, during my blog hiatus, my friend Tony Calloway and my business partner Wes Weaver joined me in hosting and conducting a brand-new seminar, “The Turnkey Investor’s Seller-Financing Short Seminar”.

Essentially, this is a more advanced seminar that builds upon and expands the content of “The TurnKey Investor’s ‘Subject-To’ Mortgage Crash Course”.  The “subject to” mortgage is only one form of seller-financing.  While it is a great way of financing investment property, there are many instances that technique is simply not practical, nor desired in some transactions.

Wrap-around mortgages, land contracts, contracts for deed, and lease-options are also legitimate ways of financing investment properties.  Each of these financing techniques have their own pros and cons as well as the circumstances of when you should use them.

Wes Weaver and I share our real life experiences and comments on the other forms of seller-financing techniques that we have used (and those we have chosen NOT to use!).

Originally conceived as an additional “audio crash course” in the spirit of “The TurnKey Investor’s ‘Subject To’ Mortgage Crash Course, Tony talked me into making the Seller-financing presentation into a seminar in front of a live and experienced real estate investor audience.

Essentially, the raw unedited recordings come to over 4 hours of audio content.  I expect to edit it down to less than 3 hours however that is a very rough estimate.  I am trying to pare it down to a 2-CD audio course set but it may end up being a full 3-CD audio course set.

Once the audio course has been completed, I plan on taking that content and creating an all-new manual called “The TurnKey Investor’s Seller-Financing Handbook” which will be similar in format and a companion manual to the “The TurnKey Investor’s ‘Subject To’ Mortgage Handbook”.

There is no precise timeline for when the Seller-Financing products will be available except that I expect it will be released in 2008.

I will be putting a warning label on the products that beginning investors or students should not buy either of these products.  The discussions were advanced level.  The one beginning student we had was a bright person but clearly did not have the background to keep pace with the seminar presentation.  She served as a barometer for me to warn off beginning investors and students.

I would like to comment that all the students in the audience (with one exception) were prior students of ours and had actually done at least a couple of real estate transactions.  Gauging from the feedback from students, they greatly appreciated the fact much of material that Wes and I presented had not presented in such depth and sophistication.

As I get more news on the progress of the Seller-Financing products, I will post them here.

In my prior article, I wrote about my larger role and responsibilities as a Publisher for Ascend Beyond Publishing. I continue on that article by sharing the educational model I am employing in my publishing business.

Many years ago, when I was a Technical Trainer and Technical Instructor of advanced networking, technologies, and network operating systems, I became indoctrinated to the idea of customized education and modular learning.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of modular learning, it is simply the concept of giving the student the ability to custom create and design their own learning curriculum no matter what the subject matter is.

The fact of the matter is, we live in a society where time is precious and adult education is something we pay for. It takes time and costs money to learn any new subject but each of us have a different view of what we should learn and how much time we should take. The determination of success from our learning comes from the results that come from the execution of our action plans. If we execute and manage our affairs well, we should yield successful results. If we don’t, we have poor results. In other words, we no longer get grades as we did in school. We simply measure results.

As a publisher, I believe in providing tight, singular topics my readership and students can choose from. Comprehensive learners prefer to buy “an entire set”, many others prefer to buy their educational materials “a la carte” or “piecemeal”.

In the TurnKey Investor Series, readers and students can immerse themselves in the TurnKey Investing Philosophy that we created and practice ourselves. Or they can simply pick the individual pieces they want to learn about. Either way, the customer comes away happy.

I have had customers that I have never heard from and swoop in buy entire learning sets in one purchase. I have had many more customers who bought one or two titles and come back to purchase a few more. Clearly, repeat customers are a sign they are happy with what they have read or heard.

There is this myth that most readers or students want a monolothic approach to their learning. I believe that represents a small minority of readers and students. This is why encyclopedias, tomes, and other thick reference books don’t sell as well as smaller, tightly-focused titles. This is why Audio Titles have gained so much ground in recent years co-existing with their print versions.

Outside of the walls of Academia, people want to choose to learn in their own way at their own pace. And so, unlike so many of my fellow authors and educators, I don’t try to create a high-priced “monster master course” that tries to cover everything and anything regarding a subject.

I say to my readers and students, “Choose and create your own education” from our suggested set of offerings.

Customized education and modular learning is the new paradigm. Publishers, authors, and educators had best understand this new learning paradigm.

This article is one I have long thought I needed to write and clearly express my “official position” as to why I regard and identify myself as a Publisher more than I do as an Author.

First off, I have no negative feelings attached to the title of being an Author because it is something I have done many times. In fact, I am quite proud that I can include the title “Author” on my resume (or CV). I have obviously written, co-written, and edited many books and audio programs with several more in various stages of development.

However, I identify myself more as a Publisher because it is a larger scope of responsibility I take on than “simply” authoring books. In some ways, the Publisher title is less glamorous. I have to oversee the creation of a body of work whether or not I am the primary author or not. Up to this point, it so happens that I am the most prolific author in my publishing company simply because I have a lot to say and communicate, not because I am not willing to accept more titles from other authors.

I believe it is my responsibility to ensure that the body of work I bring into reality fit in consistently and congruently to the greater whole that represents Ascend Beyond Publishing. Every title must be congruent and synergistic to the greater whole. There is a “greater message and theme” that Ascend Beyond Publishing (ABP) represents. Ascend Beyond Publishing represents optimism, independence, entrepreneurism, strength, decisiveness, unedited truth, and personal responsibility.

Any author or work that does not fit in congruently with these attributes will not be able to be published under the ABP banner.

In the last 4.5 years Ascend Beyond Publishing has been in existence, 19 titles were created and developed. I expect the the number of titles will double in lesser time. As each title comes out, the body of work ABP stands for will continue to evolve and updated with the times.

My responsibility will continue to grow as Publisher. If I do my job well, I hope to make a larger positive impact in the world we live by serving my readership and students well.

In an earlier post, I said that Matt Lombardi (Managing Director of Marketing & Sales) was going to do something “extra special” for me since he knew Wes and I was attending the 2007 NAR Convention.

Matt placed and displayed 4 of the “TurnKey Investor” book titles in the Main NAR Exhibit Booth at the center of the Expo:  3 paperback books and 1 audiobook.

I have to admit I was a bit stoked that the books would get some good exposure at the NAR Expo.

Wes Weaver (a leading contributor of the “TurnKey Investor” book series) and I managed a pose next to the books on the display area.

My newest audio program, “The TurnKey Investor’s Real Estate Portfolio Success Secrets” has just been released.  It outlines the crucial areas professional real estate portfolio builders focus on.  This 62-minute audio program was hosted by my friend, Tony Calloway.

It is now available on Amazon.com, AscendBeyond.com, and TurnKeyInvesting.com.

My real estate partner, Wes Weaver and I have just released our newest Audio Program, “Inside Secrets of a Profitable Real Estate Partnership & Alliance”.

This program was a result of an interview conducted by our mutual friend, Tony Calloway.  Tony has become of our biggest fans in our local area and felt strongly about interviewing us to better understand the origins, inner workings, insights, and philosophy of how we created our Real Estate Partnership & Alliance.

I have to admit I did enjoy that interview and it was one of the few audio programs in our library which has the interaction of 3 individuals on the microphone.

The program is now available on Amazon.com, AscendBeyond.com, and TurnKeyInvesting.com.

Today, I was approached by Scott, an Internet marketer, to participate in a DVD project he was putting together of various real estate gurus.  He said he was looking for someone that was an “expert” in “subject to investing”.  I asked how he found me.  He said he had heard of me from the Internet presumably based on titles I have written and recorded on the subject.

He was polite and pleasant but, once again, my guard was up.  I told him I was very careful on who I would associate with or attach my name to.  He offered to send me an email detailing his project.  I saw some of the names on his list.  A few I recognized, a few I didn’t.

I did some investigating into Scott’s related projects on the Internet.  The term “real estate guru” came up.  The first thing I thought to myself is I am not a “real estate guru”.  Another thing I realized is I don’t even want the title of being a “real estate guru” because of the image it conjures up in recent years.

A lot of what I have seen in the real estate information business is sleazy, hyped, and unprofessional and caters to the poor man’s mindset and priorities in life.

My books and audio programs are steady sellers and income-generators but nowhere near “best-selling” status where I am “getting rich” off of the information business (at least not yet…)

In any case, one of the reasons I started Ascend Beyond Publishing was to create the credibility, platform, and distribution channel to publish my own works whatever interests that might be.  In the last few years, I have focused on my entrepreneurial and real estate investing experiences and research.  Sure, I write some promotional descriptions for my titles but I would not consider them overly-hyped up and they are certainly not over-priced.  If anything, most of my products are probably under-priced compared to most of the real estate information industry.

Being approached by an Internet information marketer is, of course, flattering.  But at the same time, I realized I probably did not want to participate in his or most other people’s projects because I cannot control what my name or “The TurnKey Investor” brand would be attached to.

I went to a website which provided a list of reputable and not-so-reputable real estate gurus.  My name was not on that list.  And I thought to myself, that was fine with me.  Because on that list of 40 or so names, there was only a small handful of those people I would want my name associated with.  The rest of the names I could do without for one reason or another.  Some are not necessarily sleazy or don’t provide useful information.  Some I simply do not know, don’t care to know, or don’t agree with what they say or promote.

 At the end of the day, I regard myself more as an entrepreneur/businessman who happens to be knowledgeable (and perhaps “expert” occasionally) in what I do.  But I hate and refuse the “guru” title to the degree I have avoided participating in those activities that might reinforce that notion.

I speak and teach locally, sometimes nationally.  However, I don’t get invited a lot because I don’t “work” or promote myself in the the seminar or “guru” circuit at all.  And I have no plans to ever do so in that arena.  I don’t do a lot of hype and I don’t have a lot of high-end, pricey products that I could easily split with most promoters.  Basically, promoters would not make that much money off of me because I am not a “guru player”.

I am actually the product of many high-end seminar products but I also had to deal with some of the sleaze along the way.  Being a customer is one thing because I can choose to spend my money the way I want to.  But that doesn’t mean I want to play that game.

For now, I feel good about having the title of “real estate investor”, “real estate author”, or “real estate entrepreneur”.  But keep the “guru” title away from me at all costs.  I am 40 years old.  There are other things I want to become and be known for but it is certainly not being some real estate or seminar “guru”.

That means, I will have to politely turn Scott down.  I could probably get my name and my titles out in a much bigger way but I just don’t think I can stand my name sitting next to any sleazy guru’s name.  No way.