Phil Town

MSNBC's "YOUR BUSINESS"

A few weeks ago I was asked to do a guest spot on a new show at MSNBC called Your Business.  It airs at 7:30 EST Sunday mornings, so TiVo is a nice thing if you party like a rock star. 

This kind of thing is definitely a perk of having a New York Times best selling book. Doing TV interviews is fun, but they tend to be 4 or 5 minutes, in and out.  This show is a blast because we can actually discuss some things. 

The idea of the show is to give small business owners a lot of information in an entertaining way.  The key to that is the host, JJ Ramberg . She is just a cool woman and really easy to work with.  JJ goes on location at interesting small businesses, interviews the founders, and finds issues that are of concern to the owners for us to discuss.

RULE #1 FOR BUSINESS OWNERS: BEFORE YOU GO NATIONAL, KNOW YOUR MOAT

Paul Pellicoro is a terrific dancer and instructor in New York who taught Al Pacino how to dance the tango for Scent of a Woman.  He runs a very successful dance studio in Manhattan called DanceSport. 

I've been interested in learning to dance in general and to tango in particular every since I was in Buenos Aires and saw them do it there.  Wow, what a cool dance. 

A few months ago when I was in New York, I saw his studio across the street from the Trump International Hotel, where I was staying.  I wandered over one evening and signed up for a single class each in Hustle, Tango and Salsa.  I liked the Tango best, so I immediately took something like 20 private lessons at DanceSport over the next couple of months, whenever I was in town. 

Now I've taken something like 40 lessons and am still a beginner, but I'm hooked -- love it and think it's something I'll keep doing the rest of my life.  One of the reasons for that is Paul and his terrific instructors.  He's a great guy and his teachers are simply amazing.  If you are a guy and want a great instructor, look up Jennifer Wesnousky at DanceSport in Manhattan.

It's occurred to Paul that his system of teaching is effective enough to go national.  We got to be friends after he made me be the girl with him for two hours while he was trying to teach me how to lead.  When two guys sweat on each other you get close. 

He read my RULE #1 book and he asked me to look at his business a bit from the point of view of an investor, to see what I think about the idea of franchising nation-wide. 

Rule #1 is about investing.  It isn't just about investing in public companies.  The Rule applies to private businesses and real estate equally well.  If you have your own business or are thinking about starting one, you might read on.  Here is my first email on the subject to him.

The Morality of Investing... Princess Style

About 6 months ago I spoke at Staples Arena in Los Angeles to about 15,000 people.  Two of the people in the audience were Casper Van Dien and Catherine Oxenberg, a married couple who are both wonderful actors.  After my talk, we met through a mutual friend, Marci Shimoff, author of a number of Chicken Soup best sellers, and one of the best motivational speakers in the world.  They asked me if I would teach them something about investing on their new reality show, I Married A Princess.

David Bach and Me

I’ve been on stage with David Bach for the last year at about 20 events around the US. We’ve passed in the hotel lobby but never spent any time together. But we share a common passion. I just read his book, The Automatic Millionaire and strongly recommend you read it. David is at least as interested in helping people find their way to financial security as I am. And we both are interested in seeing others get there with as little effort as possible.