A Review of the Cash Machine Workshop

On Feb. 20-22 I attended Loral Langmeier and the Live Out Loud team's "Cash Machine Workshop" in Dallas. If you don't know Loral, she has written the series of Millionaire Maker books and she recently appeared on "Dr. Phil" as a financial expert. I have been recommending her books to coaching clients who were considering starting their own businesses and because of that, I have wanted to attend one of her workshops and see for myself that she is her product. On that front I was not disappointed.

The workshop takes the principles laid out in her book, The Millionaire Maker's Guide to Creating a Cash Machine for Life and drives the points home on an expanded, more personal level. The primary principle of creating a cash machine is that you create a business that will earn you new cash within a fairly short time. If you have a dream or a business idea that you can't translate into income within about a six week time frame then she calls it a hobby instead of a cash machine. Loral is a very dynamic speaker and drives these points home with humor and solid know-how. She will tell you that she grew up on a farm in Nebraska and learned how to work hard for money, but wanted to learn a different way. She made her first million by age 34. She is very entertaining and three days of what could have been extremely dry material went by very quickly and sparked a lot of creative thinking.

I like the principle of creating a cash machine because it helps quickly focus whether your idea is a dream or a solid business proposition. You systematically evaluate your idea on the basis of how quickly it can generate cash and remove emotion from the equation, but of course do not compromise your values. My favorite quote that Loral uses a lot is "If you want a $3 latte, go earn the $3 and buy yourself a latte!" In this scary economy when the instinct tends to be to fret and worry and deny yourself anything that costs money, it is refreshing to be offered another option to get creative and go out and make your personal economy better!

Now, I will say that the environment of the workshop was a little rah-rah for my taste. After every break there was a warmup emcee that yelled, "Fired up?" We had to respond by yelling back, "Fired up!", followed by "Are you ready to go?" "Ready to go!" For us introverts in the room that was a little exhausting. But the great thing about this experience was that Loral herself presented the course material. I have noticed that a lot of these programs are sold for thousands of dollars because there is a big name attached, but when you get there the big name is nowhere in sight. Not so here. It is made very clear that when you sign up for a Loral Langmeier course, you get Loral Langmeier.

Overall the course met my expectations. As a coach I like to envision the future and all the possibilities attached, but find it harder personally to bring it down to the details of what must be done immediately and in what order to bring it to logical fruition. That was my primary reason for being there and I got that and then some. The lecture portions of the program covered basics like the germination of the idea, evaluating its potential for earning cash, designing services around it, creating a business entity (federal i.d. number and company structure), revenue modeling (great exercise!), and your sales pitch or "talk track" as they call it. A small expo of previous independent cash machine builders was also offered in the next room offering many of the services entrepreneurs need.

In addition, we roamed around the room at all breaks and in dedicated selling time with a sign on our back with a slogan of sorts, and made actual cash sales to each other. By the end of the weekend, something like $56,000 had been exchanged in the room. And whether or not you made sales (some products didn't lend themselves to being sold in that environment) you still benefited from critique on your talk track. That alone was probably worth the price of admission!

And speaking of price, the workshop retails for $3750. I personally paid $1995 because I attended her free lecture in Dallas in January and they offered a deep discount to anyone who signed up that day. They also provided two tickets for me to sell to any Cash Machine workshop in the U.S. this year (contact me if you would like to buy one; a spouse or business partner can attend with you on the same ticket) at the same discount. Please note: though the Live Out Loud organization offers affiliate opportunities, I am not currently an affiliate and am not receiving anything for this review. I mention the tickets only because I have them and would like to make them available to anyone who might already be interested in attending the workshop.

Of course, the whole weekend they are continually upselling you, making it sound imperative that you continue your momentum by signing up either for six months of individual coaching with one of their coaches or the big one, "Loral's Big Table." Both have big sticker prices. The coaching was going for around $7,000 and the big table (one year of access to their team and three in-person weekend meetings with Loral and other Big Table members building and critiquing your businesses) that was going for around $12,000. And these were the 2009 "Economic Stimulus" prices. While these prices are comparable to the going rates for a lot of these programs (actually a little less and you get the real speaker herself) I did not sign on for any of these continued services but I do think that if you're extremely serious and focused on a business you want to create and have a good idea that has real profit potential, these additional services could accelerate your earnings and save you a lot of money in early mistakes.

I am glad I paid the tuition to attend this weekend workshop and would definitely recommend it to anyone planning to start a business or who has one that isn't making enough cash. I will also be incorporating a lot more of the information into my coaching practice and feel better equipped to help entrepreneurs focus on the bottom line.

The Live Out Loud organization has also started a membership community that will provide lots of small business services including several kinds of insurance. That is something I'm going to look into for myself as well. The annual membership is currently $218 which would be well worth it for the networking but more for the health insurance if you have no other group options. If you want to read more about the workshops and other offerings, you may visit their website at http://www.liveoutloud.com.

In summary:

A few of the points I took away from the workshop:

• Know what you must do yourself and create a team to assist with the rest.
• Look hard at the numbers. Decide on the magic monthly number you need right away and create a revenue model for the immediate 90 days.
• The first step is to create your entity. Pay the money for a reputable CPA and/or attorney to get you set up correctly from the beginning.
• If you do the numbers and realistically can't generate sufficient cash within six months or less, you need to table that idea and look at another cash machine. You can pursue the dream later after you have made cash.
• Enlist every resource you can to support your business; this include services you can pay for, information you can gather for free (it's all over the place!), positive friends who encourage and inspire you.
• Don't wait for everything to be organized in detail. Go out today and begin selling; take orders and deliver the product in a reasonable time!