Published: Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010 8:09 p.m. MST

By: Lois M. Collins

OREM — The recession is clearly bad news for some, but if you’ve got imagination, energy and the right business approach, it can spell opportunity, five successful Utah entrepreneurs agreed during a panel discussion at the two-day Big Business and Technology Expo.

“It’s not a recession for good ideas and innovation,” said Michael Alvarez of Avantar.

Recession is part of the American business cycle, said Brian Ford, entrepreneur and author. His company, 8 Pillars, has done fine, he noted. “My guess is we’re all going to do just fine. … The best years are ahead of us if we learn from our mistakes.”

That view was echoed by the other panelists, including Ryan Caldwell of Entice Labs, Kris Krohn of Real Estate Investors Club and Garrett B. Gunderson, entrepreneur and coauthor of “Killing Sacred Cows.”

While Caldwell noted the “huge benefit” his company has reaped from the recession, Krohn characterized the economic downturn as a “beautiful opportunity to clean up” businesses and practices that perhaps shouldn’t survive but sometimes do in good economic times.

They also answered questions about their very different styles of corporate communication. Gunderson, for instance, shuns e-mail, while Krohn and Caldwell embrace it. Alvarez said he has trouble setting boundaries.

“You have to use technology to your advantage,” said Ford, who breaks action into “doables” and “deliverables.” With the former, “I’m checking e-mail, (so) I think I’m busy,” while the latter actually delivers results, he said.

The expo, which ran Tuesday and Wednesday at Utah Valley University’s event center, drew hundreds of participants and dozens of exhibitors who networked, looked at products and ideas, and listened to discussions related to business success. And they capped off the event Wednesday afternoon with a rock-paper-scissors battle that had 16 combatants and a sweet prize: The winner of the single-elimination tournament got to haul away a baby grand piano.

To see the article online, click here.

REIC is currently “exploding” as the young founder put it because “the worse the economy is, the better it is for real estate. We have an opportunity that we haven’t experienced in real estate since the Great Depression.”

With so many banks going out of business the current market is ideal for individuals interested in successful real estate investment if you know what you are doing.  Krohn is founder of REIC (Real Estate Investment Companies); an organization which teaches people how to invest successfully in real estate over a 10 year period of time to maximize realistic retirement.

Krohn was recently featured in Utah Business Q’s Top 10 Coolest Entrepreneurs, December 2009.

This past Saturday (February 20th), The New York Times published an article titled, “The New Poor: Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs.” Peter Goodman wrote that “Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits. Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed…Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.”

Man! Those are some heavy stats. Heavy, negative-sounding stats.

Now where does REIC comes in? Well, we’ve just launched our Business Developer program. This program is a great way for build a side business or serve as a replacement career like stay-at-home parents who want to help earn income for their families can or individuals who have recently lost their jobs. REIC has provided lots of tools (including personal websites, access to REIC resources, etc)  for each business developer. Now, this program isn’t going to solve the nation’s unemployment statistics overnight, over 100 nights or probably over 10,000 nights! However, it is a proactive step to helping improve the current economy and putting hard-working Americans back in the workforce.

If you would like to know more about our Business Developer program, please contact Rod Walgamott at rod@reicutah.com.

“…It’s not just investments that are the problem: Social Security needs financial resuscitation, and the bursting of the housing bubble that helped spark the financial crisis vaporized the home equity many people were counting on to fund their golden years. Corporations are curtailing traditional pensions, and older Americans are being forced to work longer to make up the difference…Ask a middle-class American when he plans to retire, and more often than not you’ll get a wry chuckle and “I’ll be working until I die.” The attempt at humor masks what may be close to reality for some people.”

And then the key question comes up. “Where does this leave our retirement plans?” Really. Where does this leave our retirement plans? A collective $2.8 TRILLION disappeared from 401K and IRA assets in 2008 alone. Those of us who were little by little putting money away into 401K’s and IRA’s have lost faith in the system and are now trying to scramble to find ways to make up for that substantial loss. If you know any of us at REIC, we don’t believe in the traditional retirement methods so popularly advertised around the country (ex: 401K’s and IRA’s) . In fact, most of us don’t have one. And if we did, we liquidated that sucker and put it in real estate, but not just any real estate. The Strait Path Program. The proven system takes the least time, effort, and risk, creates the most value for society, and generates the greatest profits than any other strategy. It’s proven to work in every market, especially down markets. 

The purpose of the first step to real estate investing – planning – is three-fold:

1) Identify your existing resources.
2) Outline a 10-year million-dollar game plan for leveraging those resources.
3) Stay disciplined.

Identify Existing Resources

Millionaires are typically keenly aware of their finances, but most middle- to upper-class individuals are unaware of the assets and resources they can leverage to produce greater wealth in real estate.  These assets lay dormant and unutilized, resulting in a failure to act and lost opportunity costs. For some individuals, they may have enough assets to create a stable retirement in just a few years.

Use a net worth worksheet to analyze your assets and liabilities, and then seek professional help to use what you already have, or work to improve your net worth.

10-Year Portfolio Game Plan

Once your assets are clearly identified, the next step is to create a 10-year million-dollar game plan that maximizes the assets through real estate investing. The goal is to shift unproductive resources into areas of higher productivity. A typical, achievable plan results in an investor purchasing about twenty properties and making over $2 million within ten years.

However, since everyone’s situation, abilities, and desires are different, each plan should be customized.  The important thing to note is the timeframe – 10 years.  Many investors think they can time the market just right, buy and sell for a few years and make a million.  The fact is true real estate investment requires commitment, planning, and long-term focus.

Long-Term Discipline

Any real estate investment system (ours is called Strait Path Investing) is significantly hindered when investors are unable to stay disciplined over the course of 10 years or more. When applied in its most pure form, real estate investing builds on itself to provide exponential growth. When all profits are consumed, especially in the initial stages, only linear and sporadic growth is possible.

Whatever real estate investment strategy you adopt, plan to stick with it for the long-haul.  There is no way to get rich quick in just one year (unless you win the lottery).  Also, you must reinvest your profits rather than spend them, especially in the beginning of the process.