Doctor Khanh Tran, Optometrist in Anaheim, Orange County, CA

There will be a Business Mixer at Dr. Khanh Tran’s office on June 13th, 2013 at 6 PM. Come out, bring your spouse, see Dr. Tran’s cutting edge facility, eat, drink and be merry!

Attentive Eye Care Optometry
3010 W Orange Ave Ste 110
Anaheim, CA 92804

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Dr Michael Valentine – Chiropracty in Orange Count

Dr. Valentine: Where I started was in Michigan. As a young kid growing up, my dad had these buildings and I had to go to work because he never wanted me to sit my butt down. We’re building sheds and doing all kinds of things, and I’m scraping the stones having to reroof one of these flat-roof buildings. I’m going these rocks with a shovel, and I hurt my back. Then I say, “Jeez. What am I going to do?” I went ahead, at 15 years of age, looked up in the Yellow Pages, a chiropractor; didn’t know anything about it. Went to a chiropractor and had a great experience. I go, “Wow. This is pretty neat.” Of course the receptionist was cute too, so that helped.
During that time, the mistake that he made, he never educated my parents, at all, to understand what, really, chiropractic is about. Our focus is all about education. The only way you can really get healthy is to be educated, to understand this whole complexity of what really, true health is about. Because today in this world, these kids . . . and you probably have heard this before, this is the first generation that will not outlive their parents, as far as age-wise. This is a sicker generation than ever. You hear me talking about gluten, being gluten-free. That’s a start. It doesn’t mean it’s going to fix you, but it is a start. The reason being is to understand the whole genetic engineering; it’s a modification of the food. How are they getting that genetic engineering? How they modifying them is with a transportation of a virus. Did you know that? They have to do it; you have to use a virus. This virus is able to replicate over 24,000 times in a 24-hour period of time.

We’ve noticed over the years the big thing that got me in this adventure is I’ve always been into health, always been into wellness and nutrition and that. I had a cousin that ended up with multiple sclerosis at a young age. Had a young family; 2 kids and a beautiful wife. As soon as he develops multiple sclerosis, after a period of time, she left him. He never went through remission, as many multiple sclerosis patients will go through. He just ended up dying at a young age, at about late 40′s.

When I was doing my undergraduate studies in Michigan, I went to one of the best pharmaceutical schools in the country, and all my roommates were going to become pharmacists. They said, “Mike, you study your butt off. Why don’t you become a pharmacist?” I said, “I really don’t want to push pills for the rest of my life.” That was my big thing.

When I got into chiropractic, I was like, “Whoa. Natural healing; this is kind of cool. It’s all about getting the body to heal itself. It’s not about enhancing the body with these chemicals. You got this chemical imbalance.” The reality is, is your body is the best pharmacy that exists. It’s manufacturing every chemical that there is. Why is there a chemical deficiency going on? It’s a lot to do with, are you digesting? Are you absorbing? Are you manufacturing? That’s what’s happening. Nobody is really having a great job of digesting and absorbing.

We see people that, medically, they’re running the B-12. B-12′s important for nerve function. These people have numbness, tingling, they got burning in their feet; they’ve got plantar fascitis, which they think is just a foot problem. No, it’s an inflammatory process, the body’s attacking itself. That’s what’s going on. When you just go ahead and you look at the B12 levels, they might be high. The doctor says, “Your B-12 levels are great.” No, they’re not great. You know what’s happening? You’re not digesting, you’re not absorbing. That’s what’s happening.

We got to look at what’s really causing the problem? We do special testing. We see chronic patients. My gosh, I got a gal that’s had vertigo, dizziness for a year. She’s seen 12 medical specialists. She’s been at the Balance Institute down in Dare Ranch, twice a week for a whole year. Not getting well. I did some work with her yesterday. I do brain therapy.

It’s interesting because she was telling people at the Balance Institute, “What is this guy doing?” They looked me up, Googled me. They said, “Wow. He’s doing this type of treatment. Whoa. We never thought about doing that.” They said, “That’s cool. Because if you’re going to get results here, now we’re going to refer our difficult cases to him,” to us. Which is awesome, we love that. That’s one individual that’s in there. What I find out, she’s got a history of auto-immune diseases, all major inflammation, she’s had 3 heart attacks at the age of 48. Is she inflamed?

Let me tell you something; you don’t want to have a heart attack, you don’t want to have a stroke, you don’t have diabetes, you don’t have these chronic illnesses unless you have underlying inflammation. That’s the way it is. It spreads like a wildfire because it attacks everything. You end up with all kinds of chronic conditions.

Got another gal; she was 10-years gluten-free, thought she was doing everything well. Why’d she come in? She came to one of my seminars. Her dad had ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is Lou Gehrig’s disease. Man, you go downhill fast. She didn’t want to have it. I ran tests on her. Food sensitivities; she was buying Costco supplements. Oh, my gosh. If you’re buying Costco supplements, please, don’t even go that route because there’s soy, there’s corn, there’s all these different things. She’s got sensitivities to everything. Why is that important? Because that’s ramping up the inflammation. Her body’s reacting to it. What is that doing? Boy, you know what the most sensitive organ in the body is?

LeTip Member: Thyroid.

LeTip Member: Your stomach.

Dr. Valentine: Brain. Everything attacks the brain. Everything that you look at from an inflammatory process is going to attack that brain. Dizziness, light-headedness; it doesn’t matter. Thyroid is another sensitive area, because your thyroid’s real critical to function properly because what it does, it helps fight against cancers. Did you know that? Think about that.
Mercurochrome; you remember Mercurochrome, growing up? That iodine? Iodine is a powerful antiseptic. What happens is the chlorine in the water, the fluoride in the water, the bromide in the water; all this crap is displacing the iodine in the thyroid. The thyroid is now, ‘boom’, open up for attack.

One gal comes to my office; she’s 22-years-of-age, been gluten- free for a year. I see she’s got a goiter. I said, “You’ve got a goiter. You’ve got a thyroid problem.” She goes, “No. That’s why I’m here, because the doctors have said I don’t have a thyroid problem.” I said, “You got a thyroid problem, girl. You don’t have a goiter without having a thyroid problem.” Sure enough, she started the program, we went ahead. 8 weeks later, “I got more energy. I’ve got clarity of thought back. I’m losing weight.” You’re going to, because you’re getting rid of the inflammation. You’re reducing inflammation.

That’s what our practice has evolved to. I love this type of work. I study with a lot of PhDs, MDs, other chiropractors, naturopaths. It doesn’t matter, I want to learn from the best in the world, so that’s why I’m on the phone talking to these people, these different labs, because I want to know how to fix a person. I don’t want to just patch people up. I tell them, “I’m not in here to just deal with your symptoms.” You know what; it’s easy to help you with your symptoms, but really, you want to get to the cause of the problem and get your body doing well, long-term-wise.

I’ll open up to questions. I don’t know how much time I used. Yeah. Go ahead.

Male 2: Do you use Light Force technology?

Dr. Valentine: Light force. We use whatever it takes; laser, we use infrared. We do different things with different individuals.

LeTip Member: What do you think about taking a low-dose Tylenol every day?

Dr. Valentine: No. It’s really tough on the liver, recirculates within the liver. I know a lot about drugs, because in 30 years, I’ve seen everybody on so many different drugs. Remember, a drug wouldn’t be a drug without side effects. They’ll tell you that. Low-dose Tylenol just keeps on recirculating. Nurses will tell you that’s bad news. You’re creating a real toxic load, eventually.
I had a gal; she was in a car accident so she started downing 4 Tylenol. Then she has a skin reaction and she got swelling on her legs. She tells me that. She goes, “I don’t know what’s happened.” I said, “Look, girl, you’re having a reaction to Tylenol. Go see your medical doctor.” I’m going to refer out to a medical doctor when it’s necessary. Heck, yeah. Go ahead.

LeTip Member: What do you think about statins for reducing cholesterol from heart disease?

Dr. Valentine: Don’t like them because there was just a little research. People that . . . when you start lowering cholesterol, you’re messing with your hormones, because cholesterol’s necessary to manufacture hormones, enzymes, energy source, as well as brain function. What they’re finding out now, research-wise . . . understand that traditional medicine is about 10 years behind research. Research has shown the higher the cholesterol, the longevity increases. Exactly the opposite of what you think. You’ve got to look at the ratios; cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL, LDL, VLDL. Then you’ve got to look at other different enzymatic activities that are going on in the body to find out what’s really happening.

LeTip Member: Can you help somebody get off those type of drugs, like Prozac; the antidepressants.

Dr. Valentine: What’s really cool, yesterday . . . yes. The neat thing was yesterday, a patient comes in and we sat down, because I do the nutritional consultations on the patient. She’s been going through the whole program and she hasn’t really been on top of it as much as she needed to, so we sat down and we talked. Her doctor took her off thyroid medication. She had the total removal of her thyroid. Took her off thyroid medication because her numbers were going . . . she was going into a hyperthyroid state. Understand that thyroid replacement hormones like levothyroxin, like Synthroid, have all these binders and excipients in it that your body might be reacting to. When we have this, where is your hormones manufactured? Anybody know?

LeTip Member: Your thyroid.

Dr. Valentine: Where is the hormones manufactured?

LeTip Member: Thyroid.

Dr. Valentine: In your gut. Hormones are manufactured in your gut, as well as brain chemistry, which is called your neurotransmitters. What are you going to look at? You’re going to look at the brain; let’s giving you these SSRIs. You better fix things; that’s what we do. That’s the last thing I mess with, because biodentical hormones that people are so hip on, that’ll really screw you up big time. Go ahead.

LeTip Member: What’s not recommended to be on; no sugar, no gluten?

Dr. Valentine: No dairy, no soy, no corn. Over 90% of the corn is genetically modified. Soy’s genetically modified. Pardon me? Similar to that. Again, those are real critical, and that’s why I don’t eat a lot of the breads and things like that. I don’t eat that. I just eat all protein, pretty much, and vegetables. The cooking classes . . . we do cooking classes, because it’s hard to understand this. You can actually cook good food and you can still get your cravings, like that sweet tooth.

LeTip Member: Right.

Dr. Valentine: Dark chocolate. No grain type of product.

LeTip Member: Or cheeseburgers.

Check our site at www.valentinechiropractic.com for more information.

Info@ValentineChiropractic.com

Chiropractor Fountain Valley – Valentine Chiropractic
714-964-9566
Fax: 714-963-1726
17955 Magnolia
Huntington Beach CA

Plumber Orange County – Chris Swenson of Clean Plumbing in Huntington Beach

Chris Swenson: This week, pretty exciting for my business. Ordered a brand new sewer camera, top of the line. Unfortunately, in life, sometimes the most expensive things are the best things. It’s about $10,000 worth of equipment I got on order. This is kind of going through an ideal of what it does and as far as looking inside of your sewer lines and all of that kind of good stuff. So let’s get this started.

LeTip Member: This here’s a cleanout access.

Chris Swenson: It’s buried in the front yard, and it’s under the dirt or a bush. Pipe down over there!

LeTip Member: What’s this?

Chris Swenson: This is the flat surface of the light of the camera shining on it. It’s a smaller pipe size and there’s a . . . well it looks like a half-inch to a 1-inch lip down at the bottom of it, and you can see the water puddling on it.

LeTip Member: That looks like it could really stop something. It would cause big problems. Is that a problem, or is that typical?

Chris Swenson: No, this is not typical. This is really a bad installation here. You would never go from a larger pipe to a smaller pipe and have a lip like that. It creates clogs actually.

LeTip Member: So how does a camera move?

Chris Swenson: You can see it jumping over the lip . . .

Chris Swenson: Like a sewer cable. . . which means anything could catch on that bottom lip.

LeTip Member: So probably our clog was like right there before you cleaned it out with a snake, right?

Chris Swenson: No. This looks like your main clog.

LeTip Member: Oh no, it’s still there.

LeTip Member: I thought you cleaned it out?

Chris Swenson: Well, we cabled through it, and you can see off to the right- hand side that the water is flowing around it, but the clog is completely there.

LeTip Member: So if you didn’t have the camera, we [inaudible 1:53] thought it was coming out, right?

Chris Swenson: Oh, yeah. This is where most plumbers . . .

LeTip Member: What are you doing?

Chris Swenson: I’m hitting it with the camera head trying, like a battering ram, to push it or see kind of what it is or if it will move. But it looks pretty tough. There’s probably something growing in from the side. So that’s going to be the clog right there. It shows you the line can be clogged up.

LeTip Member: Yeah, because we had the water was running pretty. . .

Chris Swenson: . . . halfway with the water still going around the clog.  Yeah, that’s the deceiving part of drain clearing is if you really don’t go looking down in the sewer, the assumption is that it’s working because you’ve got flow, and you can clearly see that I got flow, but the obstruction was still there. Running a little more water to wash the camera head down and see if I can’t kind of flush it down by me pushing on it with the camera.

LeTip Member: So this will be likely to clog again pretty quick. It looks like you got it. It’s clear now.

Chris Swenson: Well, what I did is I pushed through the right-hand side of it.

LeTip Member: So it’s still back there.

Chris Swenson: And I’m going to go down and see if there’s any more. Before I go get my equipment, I’m going to go down and see what’s farther down the line.

LeTip Member: How many feet down is it?

Chris Swenson: Those are more connections, more pipe joints. It goes down about 60 feet. You can see how important it is that the pipes are lined up together and that they’re not . . . So he’s gotten one problem. Now he’s just going down to check for additional problems.

LeTip Member: How bad is this pipe? Is this typical?

Chris Swenson: No, this one’s pretty bad. You can see it’s actually where the pipe comes together. You have a lot of small intrusions which might not clog, but they will eventually. You can see the pipe is not really . . . If you had a different pipe size and you had a large object moving in there. So this one’s pretty bad. My recommendation would be is I could remove the things in the front yard from vegetation to cement, put your front yard back together as if we were never there. This is your city sewer main. This is what’s out in the middle of the street. So we’re out about 53 feet. That what connects to the sewer. All right. We’re coming down with the snake, and I have the camera head right behind the head of the snake and there I go. I can’t even get it through the little lip.

LeTip Member: Yeah, you can see how that really could snag a lot of stuff.

Chris Swenson: Now we’re going to basically . . . without the camera being right here, there’s no way for any plumbing technician to find this exact location and really work this problem. So you notice the cutter on this cable is kind of small. This plumber doesn’t have a good sewer machine. This cutter is not big enough to [tear that done]. So [inaudible 5:00].

LeTip Member: Okay. So you’ve been working this clog for like six minutes, and it’s still there. Is that pretty difficult?

Chris Swenson: This one’s a real tough one. You know, we had an improper installation. We have root intrusions everywhere, and this one was the worst. You can actually see the whole side of this pipe was right there. There’s no pipe right there. You know, we can dig up your front yard, pull your plants out, remove concrete, put in a new pipe, and put your front yard back together as if we were never there. That would be my recommendation for this sewer line.

LeTip Member: So if you were to replace the sewer line, what would it be replaced with?

Chris Swenson: So this is another issue I’m always talking about is the fact that this plumber, that’s probably an $800 sewer machine. In life, 80 percent of the time, it all depends on how much money you spend on what kind of quality you get, unfortunately. So that’s really crappy. That’s probably a $600 sewer machine. The best sewer machine’s about $3,500. That’s the one I have. So you can actually change the cutters. You can go to 6-inch, a 3-inch, all the way down to a 2-inch. See, he just had some kind of crappy wire. Or I can do something like this. This one, on a 4- inch will actually scratch the pipe. I’ll put that in, and it will scratch the pipe and I’ll clean it totally. See, I can power right through that because I have the better machine. Now, I’m going to have the perfect camera. Basically, if you have any problems, like this one was clogging up, he said, every three months. Normally, you don’t want to go ahead and do a camera. If your line’s only clogging up maybe only once every two or three years, we wouldn’t do the camera, because the camera’s about a $275 service, just to put that in there.
But if you are consistently having problems, we can put the camera in, actually see that this pipe is broken right here. You can see this big hole, and so the roots are growing in and then that was toilet paper, and actually debris is clogging up from the kitchen sink, building down. You can have just a small hole in the pipe, and it’ll continually run, but eventually it’ll close up all the way.

So we can go in with the camera, put it there, set my camera right here and go, “Okay, that’s in the front yard somewhere.” Where is it in the front yard? Who knows?

I have another part of the three things I bought is a locator too. So I hit a button on my camera, which is all going to be on my computer. My computer is going to hook up to this camera that’s going to go in there. Hit a button on that, and then I have a wand and I can go in the front yard and go in, and it’ll actually show me where that is. I can walk over, put it down on the ground, “Okay, it’s right here.” It’ll actually test how deep it is too.

So it’s pretty exciting stuff. Definitely want to be a plumber for at least the next 10 years buying this expensive stuff. So, any questions?

LeTip Member: So the really expensive camera helps show that it’s a really expensive job to replace the pipe?

Chris Swenson: You’re right on the dot. Hopefully, that camera over 10 years will me make a couple hundred thousand. So it’s going to be great. Next question.

LeTip Member: What about that stuff you [inaudible 8:31] sewer [inaudible 8:33]? It’s that [inaudible 8:35] plumbing?

Chris Swenson: They actually have that. What they do is push it in there and they blow it up like a tube. But, anything, it’s a patch. The right way to do things is actually, just like, it’s like a stent in your heart. You then go stent it. It’s going to work, but the best way sometimes is to go in there and cut out the problem and put in a new piece in.

LeTip Member: What about your machine? [inaudible 9:00] has that plastic liner. When somebody [inaudible 9:05] is that harming the liner?

Chris Swenson: Yeah, that’s the problem. The machine will go in there and actually cut the liner up or the city will come by. They go out to the city and they push it against the wall. It’s just not a good idea. You know? It almost cost just about as much to replace a sewer as it is to reline a sewer. I can probably replace a sewer for about $5,000. You’re probably looking at about $8,000 to $10,000 to put a liner in. Doesn’t make a lot of sense cost-wise. You’re not saving any money. Any more questions? Perfect. I did my job.

Clean Plumbing
Chris Swenson
226 20th St.
Huntington Beach 92648
714-374-4353
Fax 714-374-4353
CleanPlumbingOC.com
cleanplumbing@yahoo.com

It centers around our district office’s local military veteran hiring initiative called Ready Vet Hire. While this column appears in the OC Register Metro magazine, the initiative encompasses our entire tri-county territory (Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties)!

http://digital.ocmetro.com/gallery/view.asp?seq=217502&path=130427153922&page=26

If you’d like more information about Ready Vet Hire, email readyvethire@sba.gov.

We’d love to hear about any employment opportunities, resources and ideas you might have that will help this initiative be as successful as possible.

CHRISTOPHER A. LORENZANA
christopher.lorenzana@sba.gov
Lead Economic Development Specialist
U.S. Small Business Administration
200 W Santa Ana Blvd, Santa Ana CA 92701
714.560.7453 | efax 202.741.7043

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Landscape Designer Orange County – Jesus Arizaga Landcape Design

Jesus Arizaga: We do landscape, everything that can be landscaped from sprinkler systems to water features, to concrete work, stone work, you name it. We would like to work more with your ideas, because the homeowner will be in the house all the time. The way I like to work with the customers is, usually when I am going to see a client for a koi pond, and we were talking and he said, “You know what? You will do my pond. This is what I want, and you are not trying to sell me what you want.

” I’m never like, “You will have this, and it is the best.” No, it is what you like. You don’t like some kinds of plants, so we can work with what you like. We’ll find what you like, and then we put it all together. I have my personal choice and personal opinions on some things, but it doesn’t mean it has to be like that, just because I’m doing it this time.

To this time, I have been working in landscaping for a long time, and I probably can say 100% of my customers are satisfied. Some people, some contractors, “I have 98% customer satisfaction” and blah, blah, blah. Mine is 100%. All these years I haven’t had even just one call for a complaint. I have phone calls because they want something else, because they found something different, or another job, another work up here all these years.

In house, it’s how it works, too. I got a phone call from a lady about her front yard, when I first started this group, almost seven years ago. I got this call, “Oh, remember me?” “Oh yeah, I remember you.” “So now I want you to work on the back yard,” after all these years, so that’s how it works, too. And that’s because of our quality. We are not the cheapest one; that’s true. But our future-teller says, “You get what you pay.” And we do more. We do a little more, not just get paid for something and that’s all we get.

We always get a little more. You know, I can say this for all of us, because I’ve been using some other services from here, and I do the same thing with my business, landscaping. So, like I say, if you are happy, I am happy. If, as a customer, you are not happy with something that we’re doing, I will do it again. Even if I have to – I know it sounds crazy, like, “I don’t believe that” – even if I have to put money from my pocket, but you will be happy with it.

I am not a big company. I don’t have a big crew working for me, and 70 people, like, “OK, you go there, you go there, you go there, you go there,”
and then I’m still at home. No, I do the work. I only have two guys most of the time to help me, because I do, at least, 80% of the work. I don’t like to do something, and then we have to do it again. So I do it once, and it’s done. I don’t have to redo it. That’s why I do it myself. I’m extremely picky in my work. I say picky, and my wife says obsessed. “You’re obsessed with this! If it’s not straight, you have to redo it again and again!”

When I do work on my house, she is like, “Hmm, you’re not done yet? It looks fine.” Well, for you it looks OK, but for me it’s not straight. There is a way I like to do my work, because I really enjoy it. When I talk to customers, I work with their ideas, with what they want, and I enjoy doing it. I’m not just like, “I have to work.” No, I like to go. I get to their houses and we have fun together, because at the end, you’re paying, so let’s have fun. Not just, “Do I have to pay you again?” No, have fun with what we’re doing from the beginning to the end of the work, and then you can still have fun. So that’s the main thing on my business that I’m doing to get their satisfaction. My main concern is satisfaction. If you’re happy, I’m happy.

We work with, like I said, with your ideas, and any part of the job, and I enjoy doing that. I enjoy doing our unique side small jobs, big ones, enjoy all of them. My favorites are the ones that are challenging, different because I don’t like just, “OK, one, two, three, and one rose, and one this, and one this,” and then they’re saying the same thing again. Something different. They are the ones I really enjoy. When I suggest something, some kind of sprinkler system, I have already tried it in my house.

My house is like a laboratory, and I have pipes here and there, and try new things. When something new comes to the market, I try it in my house first. Then they’re like, “Are you trying something different? Are you taking off again?” Well, no let’s have some fun. And I have fun with my son too, he’s next to me. So now we’re two against one in my house. But I really enjoy what I do, and then I want my customers to enjoy the same. Like I said, my favorites are something different. Something that is unusual, not totally in a traditional style.

We did a Japanese garden months ago. When you see it, you’re like, “Yes, that’s Japanese, but it’s something different.” The whole composition looked Japanese, but it was something different. So in this house, we did different colors than traditional, more Japanese. So we did browns, yellows, and reds, totally different shapes, colors, textures – we went totally different. So I told this guy the idea, he says, “Oh, I want a Japanese garden, but not really traditional. I don’t really know how to explain, but I want this.” So we went a little bit crazy in it, but it looked really cool. It looked really nice. At the end it looked really nice, and they you can say, “Wow, look at this. Isn’t that something?” But it’s different. So that’s what we like. So any questions? Yes?

Audience: Yes. Are you doing a lot of the drop resistant designs? I noticed in my neighborhood a couple of people are doing that, and they’re using a lot of stone, and then desert-looking products.

Jesus Arizaga: Yes.

Audience: Are you doing a lot of that, too?

Jesus Arizaga: Yeah, we are doing native California plants, all dry tolerance, or we can have a mix. Not just California native plants, but we can use plants from another part, from South Africa, for example. Then it is very similar to native California, or from Australia. They are very similar to our weather, too. So we do dry tones. We did at Robelle’s house, when you go to her house, it’s like metal. When you get into the High Sierra’s. We used native plants. You go there, and it’s like getting to Yosemite or something like that. That was the main idea, when we designed her house. Another question? Yeah?

Audience: So, you were talking about water features. Water features are like fountains, or waterfalls…

Jesus Arizaga: Fountains, waterfalls…

Audience: … bird baths?

Jesus Arizaga: Anywhere where water moves, we can do that.

Audience: So, what is the biggest kind of water feature project that you’ve done?

Jesus Arizaga: We did a big waterfall, and that was one of the last permits then at Huntington Beach before they got all these new restrictions. It was 20, 30 feet wide by 12 feet high…

Audience: Oh my God.

Jesus Arizaga: … and now 6’6″ is the highest. But it was the very last waterfall approved for that high, but sometimes it is not a very big property. But we do all sizes.

Audience: So does it flow into a pool, or…

Jesus Arizaga: Into a koi pond.

Audience: Into a koi pond, wow. Sound amazing.

Jesus Arizaga: And then we’re doing another koi pond that will be 27,000 gallons… That’s a big one. I just signed it yesterday.

If you need landscape design in Orange County, California call

Arizaga Landscape Design
Jesus Arizaga
562-858-7416
jyjarizaga@verizon.net

Eric P. Evans: Well, I want to talk today about; because everybody here has some form of insurance, or you’re breaking the law. Because unless you walked here or took the bus, you drove. So I’m going to talk about what everybody’s going to face at some point in time in their lives as a driver, homeowner or business owner is a claim. Talking about the claim. So here’s some questions I want to just to throw out. These are rhetorical, so please don’t answer them. That’s what rhetorical means, for those of you who don’t know. I know. R-H-E-T-O-R-I-C-A-L. Quinn.

LeTip Member: Spellcheck.

Eric P. Evans: OK. That’s good. Claims, when should I file them? I should file anything, any time, for any amount. Correct?

LeTip Member: No.

Eric P. Evans: Do claims impact you the same, depending on the line of business? You know, home, auto, or business? And that’s why we have insurance, right? OK. I want to throw this because we’re going to talk about the home first; because that’s usually the biggest area of impact. Because, regardless of the claim, the risk is an act of God. So, and that is loosely defined, depending on the carrier, the company, and the policy you have, but, in general, any claim you file with your home. Regardless of how it happened, who did it to you, whatever Barbie was flushed down the toilet, you will be charged for that claim, regardless of the amount. The exception is, I’m sorry, anything over, generally over $1000 you will be charged for.

Eric Evans – Insurance Agent Orange County handling Property & Casualty Insurance

If they can’t make it on earning, if they can’t make it on keeping the losses low, guess what the third thing is. Premiums, you got it. So the point is when someone calls me and says, “Hey, something happened in my house. What should I do?” I usually ask them, “Well, what happened, how much is it, and what can you personally do to impact fixing it yourself?” And they kind of go, “Whoa, isn’t that what I have insurance for?” I am like, “Sure. You can file a claim. I’m not going to tell you not to, it’s illegal for me to do so.

But if you can impact that and just take care of it yourself; and I’m not saying a $10,000 claim. I’m not implying that, but if you have a $1000 deductible and a $1200 claim, I’d say, “All right. Can you suck the water up yourself. Is this carpet in your closet really that valuable to you? Can you pull it up and throw it away and put new carpet down?” And I try to say, “Let’s work through this. Is this something you really want to file?” And usually I don’t hear back from them because they take care of it themselves, and say, “Eric, thank you for that suggestion. That’s going to save us” because 30% for three years generally costs more than that claim. If you don’t get non-renewed, then you’re good.

If you do get non-renewed, suddenly you are black-balled in the market, and a lot of carriers are not taking people with prior claims, so home claims, make sure that they are good, and they’re going to sting. That’s usually my thing. If it’s going to sting, file the claim. If it’s not, just see what you can do to take care of it yourself. On the auto side it’s a little bit different. Everyone always says, “Hey, I have full coverage.” Most people don’t know what that means. Comprehensive and Collision. Comprehensive is anything but collision. What the heck’s that mean? Collision, you collide into something, something collides into you. The exception is a moving object.

You’re driving to the mountains, going to your ski thing, and a deer out of the blue. Ah! You hit the deer. That’s a moving object. You couldn’t avoid it. That’s not going to be a chargeable collision. Generally, that falls under collision. A dog, etc. Anything that’s moving. A rolling rock grows no moss. Rolling stone.

But anyhow, so everything else is comprehensive because comprehensive means anything and everything. So comprehensive is theft, vandalism, fire tree falls down and hits your car, etc., etc. Those are all comprehensive. OK? So comprehensive claims, doesn’t matter what happens, to what extent, how much the money is, it is not chargeable at all to you. OK. So that’s the thing. Collision, you hit something. Those pesky yellow poles that are just below your fender, and if you don’t have a sweet 360-degree camera in your car that most people don’t have, and you hit them, that will be chargeable. So, depending on your deductible, that’s what I tell people, how much is it going to cost you. And what’s your deductible? Oh, $1000 deductible, with a $1200 claim, you don’t want to file that claim. DMV says you have to file anything over $1000 with the DMV, SR-1.

Most of us are 100% honest with our taxes, right? So you be as honest with the DMV about those $1000 plus claims. You don’t have to file. I mean, you do legally. It’s the law. But there’s some grace there, depending on your favorite body mechanic, who will generally make sure that you’re good. Just FYI, when you’re filing claims, think about “how this is going to impact me?” Because if you do hit those pesky yellow poles, $1001, and then you get that nice little red light camera, and he goes, “Oh, those jerks in Santa Anna. I’m just going to pay for that. I’m not going to traffic school.” And little do you realize, one accident that follows a point.

Guess what, when that ticket comes around, that second point, and your insurance rates go up by $600 a year, and you’re going, “What? Whoa, these jerks raised my rates,” well, you lost your good driving discount, because you have two points on your record. Oh, wonderful. Now you are in a bind because you just got non- renewed by your carrier. So now you’re going to the non- standard world. Most carriers won’t carry you if you have two points. So, big picture. You guys have the big picture in talking about claim stuff.

All right, so moving on to business stuff. Business stuff. So I’m dealing with this a lot lately. Especially in the worker’s compensation world, is when someone gets a little cut in their finger and they say, “Oh, just go to Urgent Care, file the claim.” “Oh, I think I sprained my ankle.” “Just go to Urgent Care.” Oh, my back hurts.” “Just go to Urgent Care.” What happens is there’s a frequency and severity in the world of worker’s compensation. Frequency: it’s all those little $1200 claims that add up, and they just add up, and they stack up. And they may not add up to a lot, especially for a business that, say, may have a five- figure plus premium on worker’s compensation. But, what happens is the carrier says, “There’s a problem in this business. They are not taking care of things. They’re not giving oversight. They are not offering adequate safety training, or management, or supervision, etc.

That will ding a business and cause them to be non-renewed. No, I have 2 1/2 minutes. It will cause them to be non- renewed, and what happens is if you do have a high enough worker’s compensation premium, you get on what’s called the experience modification. I know I’m getting technical for some of you going “Whoa.” But anyhow, that’s a factor. That’s a factor that’s either a discount or it’s a multiplier up. It’s up or down. Alright. So frequency, you get a 1.2% experience mod. It means you’re paying 120% of the normal premium.
But there’s a way you can pay for the smaller claims, with the Urgent Care people, there’s a way you can pay those.

They are still on your record, but they’re paid for, and the insurance companies look on you favorably. And if you’re on the little X-mod zone, you know if you are or not, then, that’s something to be aware of. And the severity is just really the shock losses. The shock loss when somebody falls from that ladder because they’re getting that box up on the shelf, and now they have a broken leg. It’s surgery. It’s pins. They’re limping for the rest of their life. You’ve got problems on your hands.

So, most importantly, when it comes to claims like that in the work comp land, make sure you’re doing exit interviews when the worker’s leave, so that they aren’t trying to file something frivolous. And also make sure you have cameras in your business. If you’re a high-manufacturing kind of business, where a lot of people can be injured, a lot of cameras can help you in a bad claim. Like, Monday morning I really blew my knee out playing soccer, but I’m going to say I slipped and fell on this floor. So that’s the scoop on that. I’ve got basically a minute, so I’m going to see if there are any questions anybody has. Stunned into silence. Yes, sir. Mister Lively.

LeTip Member: I believe it was when you were talking about the homeowner’s policy claim.

Eric P. Evans: Yes.

LeTip Member: And then for the next three years it was 30%. Is that 10% per year?

Eric P. Evans: No.

LeTip Member: It was 30. It is 30% each year?

Eric P. Evans: 30% each year.

LeTip Member: It would cover 90% of your loss.

Eric P. Evans: No, no, no. 30% of your premium.

LeTip Member: I got you.

Eric P. Evans: So it’s a surcharge. It’s a surcharge. And companies are tightening that up. Some companies are saying “no losses at all.” My former Farmer’s place, it used to take someone four claims. Now they narrowed it down to two claims. Anyway, it’s an interesting insurance world out there, and it’s getting interesting for me because I’m having to rewrite a lot of people, because rates are up, there down. There just all over the place, so if you see your renewals, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Yes, sir.

LeTip Member: Because of that issue with claiming one file. If [SS] insure elsewhere when they bought their homeowner’s policy, would that be better?

Eric P. Evans: I’m sorry. What?

LeTip Member: Take for example, not insuring jewelry with your homeowner’s policy, but separately.

Eric P. Evans: Oh. That . . .

LeTip Member: Or any other property, like valuables, artwork?

Eric P. Evans: Yeah, you can do that. And that’s, yeah, you can do that. There are floaters out there that are independent of your homeowner’s floaters. Yes.
LeTip Member: And you can buy those separately.

Eric P. Evans: Yeah. They’re a little more expensive, because it’s outside the package, but yes. But generally, you got to have a certain dollar amount too, so they don’t take your $8000 wedding ring. It’s usually that they want to six-figure ring or $50,000 ring, you know. So I’m done. I’m out of time.

Eric donates a lot of his time to AYSO – refereeing soccer, Boy Scouts of America – Assistant Scoutmaster, and his church – playing guitar, bass, singing, and just making noise in general.

Chrysalis Insurance Company
2701 Harbor Blvd. E-2 42
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Bus: 714-464-8080
Cell: 949-633-5501
Fax: 949-271-5002
www.ciaforinsurance.com
eric@ciaforins.com

Gil Yurly: I offer the safest, fastest weight loss program available anywhere; and a solution for anyone who has anywhere from a stubborn 5 pounds up to 100 pounds. I’ve placed about 190 people on this system in the last 20 months. And I can honestly say that 95% of everybody has gotten significant, satisfied results. This product is truly amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it, and Jim Duncan gave me a nice tip 2 weeks ago. Jim, just very briefly, just comment on your person and her results.

LeTip Member: Sure, Gil was trying to get me on the program for a long time, but instead I got my employee on the program. She had gone to Australia for a year and gained a few pounds over there partying. And it’s not been just a little over a week and she’s lost 14 pounds.

Gil Yurly: Well, it’s probably been about 12 days. She’s getting into clothes she couldn’t fit into before and she’s happy, and things like that. As you know, I pay a fifty dollar referral fee to anybody who refers to me. Keep those referrals coming, Jim. Also, a little about me, I’ve been a very good fitness trainer for the last 30 years helping people of all ages look and feel good. My wife and I are the proud owners of BodyWise fitness, which is located close to Mesa in the vicinity of 17th Street and Newport Boulevard. And we offer a clean and friendly place to get fit. Some of our programs include gym membership, personal training, partner training, and nutritional counseling.

Gil Yurly – Weight Loss Program

What I want to just throw out to you today is just some general information on health and exercise, so just take this in and hopefully you’ll get a few pearls of wisdom out of it. Why should we exercise? Number one is biblically based, the Book of Sirach in the old testament tells us that there’s no greater treasure than a healthy body. If you don’t exercise, you’re violating a law of nature that simply says that all living organisms need stimulation or we end up dying a little bit every day. A good friend of mine, Dr. Vincent Fortanasce, who’s a world renown neurologist, or an Alzheimer’s doctor if you’d put it. Dr. Vince says that the best thing a person can do after the age of 50 to prevent the onset of dementia is to strength train, to exercise. Because it increases brain connections and also brain cells. So it’s very, very important.

LeTip Member: So I can get smarter.

Gil Yurly: I can’t guarantee that. This is Gil’s top 5 benefits to why you should exercise. You will enjoy increased health, which is priceless. You will look and feel better than a person who doesn’t exercise. You will sleep better. You will get sick less often, and you will have a more positive outlook on life. And when you feel good about yourself, you can take on the world, right Eric? There’s basically two types of exercise when you get down to it, aerobic and anaerobic, or for the simple sake is cardio exercise and strength training.

OK, cardio exercise’s main benefits are for the heart and lungs. And examples of these would be walking, jogging, and swimming. Things that are continuous. Benefits of cardio exercise is it increases circulation, oxygen to the blood and heart, gives you a lower resting heart rate, and it burns calories in regards to weight loss. The general rule is to get a cardio benefit, you have to exercise for 20 consecutive minutes. You know, walking, running, swimming, maybe playing racquetball continuously. Twenty straight minutes to get a cardio benefit.

Some people say well I do 10 minutes here and there, you need to go 20 to get the cardio benefit. Anything beyond 20 minutes, that’s when you go into the fat burning zone. So the longer you can do something continuously, the better. So keep that in mind if you’re exercising, you know, build up to 40 minutes over time if you can. Strength training, that’s my forte. OK, it is the quickest, most effective way to get the shape and body you want. It’s really the only effective means to tone and shape the body. Great benefits of strength training is you’re adding lean body mass. OK, that’s muscle. The more muscle you have, the higher your metabolic rate is going to be. That means the rate that you burn calories, even while you sleep, you’ll burn calories with a higher percentage of lean body mass on your frame.

If we take, let’s just say a woman for example, a nice, shapely woman. You know, that’s a degree of lean body mass or muscle because fat is just there. Fat you can’t flex, fat has no shape to it. So you see someone who has curve and shape, that’s a degree of lean body mass. And a lot of women say, “I don’t want muscle.” Yes, you do want muscle, because that gives your body form. And believe me, it doesn’t happen overnight, you’ve got to work hard at it. And women are a little more disadvantaged than men for putting on muscle, because they have higher body fat percentage. They don’t work quite as hard at it as far as in the gym, as generally, a man does.

LeTip Member: It’s a mine field out there. You might want to move onto the benefits of the libido area.

Gil Yurly: That goes without saying. When those hormones are in balance, everything is functioning well, you feel good and all that. Also, some other benefits with strength training is it increases your bone density. You know, the thickness of your bones, it keeps those. A lot of people have fractures when they’re older, actually the bone breaks and then they fall, it’s not the fall that breaks the bone. So, by strength training, you keep your bones stronger and healthier. Oh, the weight loss factor with strength training is the higher your metabolic rate means that it takes more calories to sustain muscles and fat. So actually, you’re going to be burning more calories and that’s good for your weight loss. And of course your strength muscular endurance. A stronger athlete is a better athlete.

We all need a good degree of strength that keeps away those needless injuries. A little wrenching of the back, a pulled hammy. Things that we take for granted once we are strong and don’t feel things, but if we’re weak and not exercising, we’ll feel those pains, those tweaks and everything like that. So, you know, I just encourage you, if you’re not on a exercise program currently, please start one, come see me I’ll give you some tips. Come down to the gym, get a free workout or something. But we all need to do something, you know? And I’d like to say a little more than just walking. You’ve got to exercise until it hurts a little bit, OK. You know, I just want to touch on water. OK, I spoke about this last time. I can’t repeat too much about water. Next to oxygen, there’s nothing more important than water. It flushes out bacteria, toxins, chemicals that cause infections. It carries nutrients to the cells. It keeps the body cool through perspiration. It helps metabolize your fats, etc.

It also helps keep cravings away. You won’t be as hungry during the day if you drink a lot of water. And also it helps build muscle. You know, we need to drink at least, maybe 64 ounces of water or more a day. They say if you’re 10 pounds overweight, every 10 pounds is another 8 ounce glass of water you should drink. But, just through daily activities, we lose about 8 ounces of water through perspiration. We lose about 8 ounces just through breathing, exhaling, things like that. And they say 48 ounces of water is used up during the day through bodily functions. So it’s very important to drink your water. I just want to open up, anybody have any questions?

LeTip Member: You know I remember you when you were show boating, you were talking about you had some stuff that deals with cortisol, and it’s a supplement.  And so I kind of want to know will I still be able to drink coffee if I take this stuff or will coffee, like, offset it, neutralize it?

Gil Yurly: Do you have to have coffee?

LeTip Member: I like coffee. I know it stimulates cortisol and it makes it hard to lose weight, you know. So I was wondering, you know, like how powerful it is or if it would offset.

Gil Yurly: I’m sure if you still have cravings for coffee, it’s not going to be an issue. But a little thing about cortisol, if you don’t know what cortisol is, Google it. God put it in our bodies to do some great things, but there’s also a couple negative things associated with it. Generally, cortisol is a hormone in men and women that’s released when you’re under stress. OK, and it does two negative things. One is that it promotes the aging process. We all know people who are stressed that look older than they actually are.

Two, it promotes the cravings to eat. We all know people who eat when they’re stressed. I think I’m looking at a few here today. But anyway, it does those two things. We have a product called Cortitrol that’s part of the system here that balances out the cortisol levels naturally. So, a lot of people are not hungry on the program to eat more than they’re supposed to. It just helps balance out the cortisol levels and promotes relaxation. I tell people take the two in the evening if you happen to have trouble sleeping at night, because it helps. [Inaudible 10:10] out, but it’ll help relax you where when it’s time to go to bed, you can probably sleep.

As far as, you know, I don’t think it’s really going to take away. We have another product that actually balances out blood sugar level that people are weening off the coffees with that too. But people go to a green tea or caffeine free drink on the program and they seem to be fine with that. OK, if you have any other questions, please see me after, and thank you for your time.

Gil Yurly
40 Terminal Way, Costa Mesa, 92627
714-206-0443
Body Wise Fitness
healthysuccess2@aol.com

Cheri Boone- offering Gift Baskets in Orange County, California

Cherri Boone: Good morning. Now everybody knows me, but there are a few new people in here, not many, but I do gift baskets for individuals and corporations. And you can go anywhere and have somebody make you a gift basket, but I’ve got to tell you. When you get one of mine, you’re getting a gift basket.

We really like large orders, but we really have fun with individuals. I’ve helped more than one person out of the dog house – oh my wife’s birthday is tomorrow, and I forgot. What can you do for me? And we’ve actually pulled it off. I’ll get a call the next day she was so happy, thank you, thank you, thank you. So we can do that for you, you’ve got an in here.

I wanted to tell you a little about some of the food that you can put in things. As you know, food makes the difference in how you feel and how you act. So if you want to give somebody a gift basket and have them be happy, you can put oatmeal in it. Not so good, but you could get them pistachios, you can put avocado in it, if you want. We have a lot of things that have some avocado. Not fresh ones, but avocado stuff, or if you give me the bottle, I’ll be glad to put wine in.

That will make them happy. Not too much, just a little. If you want me to be a little bit sharper, I don’t know, maybe a colleague is sort of lagging and you want to push him a little. We can give him something with whole grains. Maybe some turkey jerky, because turkey gives you enough of something to make you a little bit sharper. Coffee, coffee works, too, and we have several different kinds of coffee, and if you want Peet’s coffee we’ll go buy you Peet’s coffee, and eggs.

The breakfast this morning was good, eggs and coffee. Now if you want to rev up, and a lot of times we do amenity baskets for conventions or for weddings or something. Water, water is good, and we put a couple of bottles of water in a box with some other things, so that people will refresh themselves and keep going.

Pineapple is also good to rev up, and almonds, so keep that in mind, just in case you need to get the morning going. Now, if you want to have somebody have bliss, you know, romantic baskets and all that stuff. A mood lifter, chocolate. It’s a given fact, I found it on the internet, chocolate works. And we all know that, anyway. Or you can give them walnuts, and that works, too, or you can give them spinach. Now I mean come on, spinach, chocolate. There’s just…

Now I passed some samples out. The ones over here are gone, but if you want to pass those on down, there’s some chocolate covered caramel Oreos, which Dr. Mike is probably having a heart attack over.

LeTip Member: He ate three of them.

Cherri Boone: And there’s some cranberry almonds, chocolate caramel. Not that table, the other table.

LeTip Member: We’ve already got our share.

Cherri Boone: I wanted to show you a few things. I’m going to pass these around. I think it’s just easier to hold something in your hand, but we do all sorts of seasons. Here’s a fall gift basket. Here’s a gift basket that’s custom for someone that had a teacher in the family and wanted to give them to a teacher.

And this is just something that we’ve done always, and it’s really good. They’re really good products, but it’s a dinner, ready to go. It has a pasta sauce, it has risotto, it has some balsamic vinaigrette, a little bit of an H’ordoerves, so if you’re looking for something for a hostess, this is a really nice gift.

Now we all sorts of occasions, and we get some really strange requests. This person in particular really liked cats. So the recipient was a cat person. Now I’m not a cat person, but I will become a cat person for you. So we put some little cat things in it, and I always have a little bit of a problem putting animal food in with real food. So we have some paw bags and we put all the animal food in the paw bag, just so they don’t eat the cat food. That just sort of worked there because you’d be surprised. Good pate right. Okay… Whole grain crackers even.

We do 40, 50, 60, 70 year old baskets, that’s not the age of the basket. This is just an example of basket for a 50th birthday. And we do put special things in them. If you do have somebody that really likes to garden, or is really into books and things, we’ll put in a Barnes and Noble gift card, we’ll put in a book for them. Whatever you think that person is going to want, I’d be glad to do that.

Here’s another example of a healthy basket, sort of. It has some dark chocolate in here. It has some nuts, and it has some things that are not GMO. Natural chocolate chip cookies, organic chocolate chip cookies, and when you ask for these things, it means that it’s going to be more expensive. I’m sorry, I’m not a charity, but those things are available, and we do keep some of them on hand. If you want fresh fruit and stuff, we go out and buy that fresh.

And now, our favorite time of the year, Christmas. Here we go, we’ve all seen this little puppy. I love this mug. I really thought he was just saying Christmas. We do a lot of Christmas. We increased our orders this year at Christmas. Get off your phone.

LeTip Member: It’s called business. I’m responding to Mark’s calls.

Cherri Boone: Tell him he needs to be here. I’m old, and I don’t put up with anything. I don’t care if he is tall. Remember, I have kids that are 6′-
6″, so…

We can do fun themes that are not really Christmas oriented, but winter oriented. We have everything from cocoas, and cookies to chocolates, to salty and snacky foods. I have a particular company, they’re out on the East Coast, but they have a really great line of snack foods in a tin. The shelf life on that is a couple years, but they never last more than three months on my shelf because they’re good. Some of them are spicy, some of them aren’t. They have some red peanuts which are sort of hard to find. I wanted to point out this. This just looks like some white innocuous box. That’s a $30 box of brownies. This is a $150 basket.

LeTip Member: Special brownies.

Cherri Boone: Not special enough. OK, moving on. Well, I suppose if you wanted to slip something in you could. We do Hanukah, we do all sorts of fun things. Some of my favorites, are people like Mark Winger, and Termite Terry. Mark loves Kona coffee, and his clients like Kona coffee, and so four or five years he’s been ordering Kona coffee, and we put it in his holiday baskets. If he doesn’t bring his Kona coffee holiday basket, he’s probably going to lose the business.

We specialize in doing large orders. We can do a convention. So if you know somebody that’s in an association, and they have a hotel site, say, hey, I’ve got a girl for 30 bucks, she’ll put together a basket for everybody that’s going to check into a hotel room. Then they don’t have to hit the minibar, and we can give them something that’s semi-edible because if they come in at 9, 10, 11:00 at night, and need something to settle the alcohol we can do that.

We also do candy bars, or candy buffets. That’s what this is. When I said I did a candy bar, it doesn’t mean I made a candy bar. I’ll just pass this on. So if you have somebody that’s having a wedding or a bar mitzvah, something like that, this is what they are. One more note. We do do naughty baskets. Sorry, Bruce, this is just a romantic basket, but we have some strange things that we can put in if you really want them. Any questions?

LeTip Member: For example…

Cherri Boone: Handcuffs, and stuff like that. And we do that discreetly, too.

LeTip Member: Customer client.

Cherri Boone: Customer client privilege, absolutely, just like a lawyer. Any questions? Thank you.

(714) 968-3681
Fax: 714-963-9405
20122 Imperial Cove
Huntington Beach,CA 92646
cboone6476@aol.com
www.grandgourmet.com

Kim W. Hansen: Anyway, what I thought I’d do today is maybe just drop some free legal advise, some tips of how you can stay out of trouble and avoid having to call me on a few things. These are some things off the top of my head, some things that have happened. Cases I’ve had in the past.

I’m sure we’ve all gone to the doctor and we’ve been given a prescription. Maybe we went to Dr. Mark, had had are teeth pulled or something, and he gave us a prescription for Vicodin for the pain, and we don’t want to take that whole prescription bottle with us to work, so what do we do.

Kim W. Hansen Criminal Defense Attorne

We just put out our dose for the day in a double baggie. We put it in our purse if we’re a lady, pocket if you’re a guy, and maybe get pulled over for a traffic ticket or something. You’re fumbling to get your license out and low and behold, this little baggie of pills stumble out or see on the front seat. You have no prescription for that, so what are you facing, now you have a charge of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription. That happens, so, what’s the…

LeTip Member: Take the prescription.

Kim W. Hansen: Take the prescription, thank you Andy. He’s not even an attorney and he’s figured that out. Just keep that in mind. And people try to help the friends or family, they say, oh, you’re out of that prescription, here I’ll put some in a baggie, it’s the same thing, you know, I give it to him, and you’ve got the same problem. So just kind of avoid those things. That’ll keep you out of a lot of trouble with some of the drug laws.

How many of you have teenage drivers at home with you? Anybody?

LeTip Member: They keep coming back.

Kim W. Hansen: Yes, they keep coming back. One of the things, when your teenager gets their license. They’re so excited to drive, of course, what is more fun than to drive, than sharing it with your friends. It’s no fun to drive by yourself. Get all your pals, and drive them around. Hey, I got my license, and low and behold, you go to pick them up and one of them might have a beer with them. And you think, well, I’m not going to touch this stuff. I don’t want to get a DUI at an early age.

So you say, hop in, but stay in the back. Well as the driver of t he vehicle, you’re responsible for that. Get a traffic stop for just a regular traffic violation, you’re going to have an open container charge with a minor in possession of alcohol, and that’s an automatic one year suspension on the license.

So we’re going to have those teenage drivers coming up, just give them the little lesson. If you’re friends want to ride with you, fine. If they want their beer to go with them, give them the choice, they can either stay with their beer, or you can come without the beer, because you’re going to be the one who pays the price on that.

Lets talk about the DUI’s for a little minute. If you get stopped on a DUI, California has what’s called implied consent law, where when you sign up to get your drivers license, you’re giving consent to a blood alcohol test, either a breath or a blood test.

When the officer stops you, maybe you’re going the wrong way on a one way street, or maybe you forgot your headlights, or whatever they stop you for. They want to make sure that conviction sticks so they’re going to try to bolster their case by doing what are called, field sobriety tests.

You don’t have to do those. You can say, I don’t want to them. You aren’t required to do them. They might want to have you blow into a little, they might have a little machine you can blow into right there in the field in their car. Here, take this, just to clear you to make sure you aren’t DUI, so we can let you go.

You don’t have to blow in that, again, that doesn’t come under that implied consent law. If they arrest you and take you down to the station, then you have to do one of the blood or breath tests down there, or you’re going to get what’s called a refusal enhancement which has additional penalties to a DUI. You’re going to be facing a one year suspension for a first offense on that.

So don’t feel compelled to help them build their case by giving them a field sobriety test. People all think, I can pass that, I haven’t had that much. Those tests are subjective. If you ask the officer how do I pass the test, he’s not going to tell you, because there is no standard objective pass line.

All it is, is their getting evidence to put in a report. If they have to go to trial in a court, they can testify. This is what he did, he closed his eyes, with his head back, he was swaying two or four inches, it’s all the same on the police reports. I don’t have to read them anymore.

It’s going to be two to four inches of head sway, it is. It’s never six, or eight, or ten. It’s always two or four inches, and if I had you put your head back, close your eyes, put your hands out and estimate 30 seconds. Is 28 seconds passing, is 29, does it have to be 30. No, there is no standard on that.

Like I said, it’s just a way for them to gather evidence to make their case stronger against you. So you don’t need to give those pass tests. You don’t need to do those field sobriety tests.

If you’re ever detained by an officer in an investigation, and you’re not sure what it’s about, you can just ask them. Am I under arrest? He’ll say yes or no. He’ll probably tell you no, he’s just doing an investigation. Then you can say, am I free to go? If he’s investigating he’ll say no or not. The reason I say ask those questions is because, if later on it comes out that it was an unlawful detention, you’ve asked those questions, and their on the record. Sometimes they have their digital recording devices. And they’ll have your conversation on there. Those can all be used as a defense for you, whether you had given a consent or not to being questioned by them.

The other thing I mentioned a couple weeks ago when I was here. You don’t ever want to give consent to a search. You mind if I just check your vehicle before I let you go? No. I don’t want you to do that. Would it be okay, if I did that? No, unless you have a warrant. If they really have a reason to arrest you, they’re going to arrest you on the spot. Sometimes they’ll say, if you do this, I’m not going to arrest you.

If they’ve got enough information, they’re going to arrest you whether you’ve cooperated or not with them. So just tell them no if they want to search, and have them get a warrant.

A lot of times it’s just a fishing expedition, maybe they’ll get lucky. Not necessarily you, or somebody else they’re doing that with to have drugs, or whatever with a car or a gun or something.

Police officers aren’t perfect. Police officers, believe it or not, sometimes they don’t tell the truth. Sometimes, I’m not saying all, because I have a brother-in-law who’s a police officer. I have a brother-in-law who’s a DA, but sometimes there’s bad apples in there. If they aren’t going in on a search, there’s no way they can plant anything in there to make it look like they’ve got a good arrest.

So, you just don’t want to give them that opportunity. 99% of the time you’re going to be fine, but you don’t want to be the one bad apple that it happens to. Just about out of time, they gave me my two minute warning there. So, I’ve already got questions, so we’ll start back there. Go ahead.

LeTip Member: Can you challenge their accuracy or calibration of their equipment, for example (?) those radar guns they got?

Kim W. Hansen: Defense attorney’s always request those records, calibration records and see. Some times they haven’t been calibrated correctly or recently within the time frame, and so that’s a great defense. So we’re always in discovery are asking for those types of records, the calibration and how the testing was done. See if the officers been trained. That’s another thing we check for, to see if they had their post training on that.

LeTip Member: Which is more accurate, the blow thing or blood?

Kim W. Hansen: Well, different defense attorneys, some like their clients to do the breath, some like the blood. It kind of depends on what you’re doing. If it’s a low blood alcohol, you think you’re just on the border, I like them to do the blood because it’s preserved and you can have it re-tested by an independent lab. There’s a sample on the end, perhaps it will come out under the limit of .08. If you think it would be way high the breath might be a way to go, because their a little easier to (?). I just heard the little gong so I think my times up. Thank you everyone. I appreciate it very much.

The Law Offices of Kim W. Hansen emphasizes the following areas of Criminal Defense law:

• DUIs
• Domestic Violence
• Thefts
• Drugs
• Juvenile
• Record Clearing
• Warrants

714-289-2662
714-744-4079
1700 W. Katella Ave., Suite 200
Orange, CA 92867
www.kimwhansen.com

Are coyotes attacking your communities?

Termite Terry: In Orange County, it is common to hear stories about coyotes attacking or killing pets. Coyotes have adapted very well to the southern California suburban areas, and they seem to have lost their fear of humans. They prey on wild animals, pets, and will stalk and attack people as well. Many people call government agencies for help, but these agencies usually recommend hiring a professional trapper. The coyote population is growing, and homeowners cannot count on help from the government, so that is why it is so important for you to learn how to protect your family and pets from these predators. What should you know about coyotes? Well, coyotes are a medium-sized members of the dog family.

You’ll see they look similar to a small German Shepherd, except they have a longer, narrower snout and a bushy black tipped tail. They stand about 18 inches high at the shoulders, weigh about 18 – 35 pounds. Good picture there. Coyotes mate in January and February. Before giving birth they will excavate one or more dens in the soil. You will see sometimes they will expand the burrows of other animals such as rabbits, ground squirrels, or they will use hollow logs or drain pipes and set up their nest.

Coyotes typically select areas with minimal human activity. Pups are born during March and April, so we’re right in the thick of things here. Litter size is about 4 – 7 pups, and parents and offspring will continue to live as a family together for about six months. Juveniles move out late fall to live on their own, and start their own families. Now where do coyotes live? You’ll see that they can live in almost any habitat in California. They can be found out in the desert, I know they’ve chased me while my wife and I are riding our dirt bike out in the desert.

You’ll see them in the wet meadows, foggy coastal regions in the north, but southern California suburban areas are where you’re going to find the highest densities on record. They really like this climate and all the good food and water that we provide for them. What do they eat? Their diets are diverse and adaptable. They can live on almost anything. You’ll see here that they eat insects, fruits, berries, songbirds, dead animals, and will attack, kill full grown animals such as deer. Out in the farm country poultry, sheep, goats, and calves are easy targets because they don’t have any natural defenses against wild predators.

Now back in the 20th century, livestock owners and government agencies suppressed coyote populations. They were using toxins, traps, shooting, and other techniques. But here’s a really important point for you. Studies have shown that in order to control coyotes through removal, you would have to kill more than three-quarters of them every single year to maintain control. And as a homeowner, that’s not going to happen. It’s way too expensive and labor intensive. Today, we have an increasing number of regulations. Every day there’s a new law passed. And of course, society’s attitude has changed too. If you go out and kill a coyote, you may end up on the front page of the register with an unfavorable article.

These factors along with government’s lack of effort are making controls of coyotes increasingly difficult. So what can you do to help solve problems with coyotes? Well here are 10 things you can to to protect your family and pets. Number one, you need to build a fence. The fence is going to have to be at least six feet high. Now you have to remember too that coyotes like digging under fences, so you’re going to have to put some galvanized wire mesh buried under the ground four or six inches. Make sure it extends out about 15 inches so that, again, they can’t dig under it. And you’re also going to have to put a wire mesh overhang on top of the fence to keep the animals from jumping over.

Your house will look like Chino prison. And of course, besides not being attractive it can be expensive. Here’s a photograph of how a fence would be built. Here you can see the wire mesh underground. There’s the overhang that sticks up. Of course the good news is that we have a new alternative that was just introduced, and they’re called coyote rollers. These rollers can be installed on top of the fence. Just about any type of fence by the way. If a coyote were to jump on top, and grab a hold it would roll off and fall to the ground. They might try two or three times before they give up, but again, fairly attractive and a lot less expensive.

Number two. When you walk around your house, look for areas under your home, decks, porches and sheds where coyotes can build nests. You need to close them off to keep them from setting up a colony right in your own backyard. Number three. Now this is another thing that you can do, you can frighten them with hazing techniques. In other words, if you do have a coyote in your backyard or approaching your family and pets, shout at them, throw rocks, spray them with a garden hose, use an air horn, or sometimes just acting aggressively will help in a lot of cases. The worst thing you could do is just stand there and freeze.

Motion sensitive lights on your home or buildings also could be a good idea. Number four. This is another good thing you can do at your own house. Clear or thin thick vegetation. On your plants and trees, shrubs. Prune them up about two feet from the ground. Clear out that area so that there is no room for them to hide out and set up a family there. And of course another thing too is that if you have trees that produce seeds and fruits, you need to keep the ground picked up and clean so that you won’t have them coming by every night for dinner. Number five. Eliminate water sources. Ponds and fountains are very attractive to coyotes. If you have these you will have to put a fence around them to keep the coyotes out. Number six. Feed your pets indoors. If you do feed your pets outdoors, put the food bowls and all the food away every night.

Don’t leave it out, because again, that’s very attractive. If you store food, make sure it’s stored indoors. Or if you store it outdoors, make sure you keep it in a good tight sealed container so that the coyotes can’t break into it. Number seven. Keep your garbage cans covered and sealed. Open trash cans of course are like a diner. They will very attractive to come by. Number eight. This is another really important thing. Keep your pets, especially the small ones, indoors. Cats, rabbits, and small dogs are very easy prey. If you keep them outdoors, keep them in an enclosed kennel. Large dogs should also be brought in at night. Coyotes won’t have any hesitation to attacking a dog like that. And last but not least, don’t let your cats or dogs run free. My next door neighbor just lost two of her cats. They were free roaming every night, and one night they came back…

or actually they didn’t come back. Number nine. When you’re walking your dog make sure that you use a leash. And it’s also a good idea to bring a cane or a walking stick with you too just in case you have some way to defend yourself and your pet. Avoid walking your dog near dense vegetation or cover. If you see heavy shrubs or plants, don’t walk in that area walk on the other side of the street because there might be some hiding out in there. Another thing that’s important is don’t walk your dog at the same time every day because they’ll learn your routine and may stalk you and be ready to come out. And last but not least, number ten. Don’t ever feed or provide water to coyotes.

Feeding may cause them to lose their fear of people, and make them more aggressive than they already are. And anyone that does feed or give them water is putting the entire neighborhood’s children and pets at risk. Please be safe and let’s all work together to solve this problem. And last but not least, you’re my sales staff. If you would like to share this information with some of your clients, please feel free call our office and we can provide all of these documents on a word file for you. It’s especially good if you’re in a homeowner’s association you can put this in your newsletter. A lot of your friends and neighbors would really appreciate learning more about this. Thank you. Any questions? Hi Sally.

Sally: Mine is not a question, but my girlfriend’s granddaughter was riding her bike down the riverbed there, and three coyotes came out with her, and she had her dog out on a leash and she stopped and put the dog in the basket. But the three of them, if they come in a pack, they will surround you. And that’s what you need to be aware of. And she just turned around immediately and went the other way, and fortunately they did not come after her. But each one of the three of them, they ran on the side of her and one in the front of her and started to stalk her. So you have to be really careful when you’re riding on the riverbed and when you’re walking. Like he said bring a stick because we are in bad shape in Huntington Beach. There’s a lot a lot of them.

LeTip Member: … I know, excuse me one second. My parents live in Landmark, a big community. They actually have a flag up now, green or red, to let people know if coyotes are there because there are so many. There are dead animals all the time. My mother takes her early morning walks with a stick and usually comes out with two or three elderly people watching people walk small dogs. There are coyotes throughout that entire division. It’s insane how much they have. So that is a very relevant issue.

Termite Terry: Well, thank you.

LeTip Member: Just wanted to clarify, you’re authorized to do removal.

Termite Terry: Well, no. Actually I’m not.

LeTip Member: Then why are we supposed to call you about the damn coyotes then?

Termite Terry: Well this is part of a public service. We are concerned about our clients and their needs. If you do have a problem with coyotes we would be glad to stop by, look at your home, and give you some hot tips on how you can control it. On other overlapping factor is that rodent activity can be a reason why they are attracted to your area. So sometimes we will recommend trying to reduce the rodent population. Maybe you’ve got a pigeon problem, their attracted to that. Et cetera. And of course, last but not least, we can put the coyote rollers on top of your fence for you if you need that. So, any other questions. All right, I appreciate it. You guys have a great day.

Pest Control Service by Termite Terry Singleton – TermiteTerry.com

Here are just a few of the reasons why you should call “Termite” Terry:

Over FOURTEEN YEARS of doing termite inspections on residential and commercial properties. Real estate inspection expert – Over 400 MILLION DOLLARS worth of real estate has been sold using “Termite” Terry’s inspections, treatments and repairs. California State Branch 1 Field Rep California State Branch 2 Operator’s license California State Branch 3 Operator’s license Department of Agriculture QAL licenses #A & B We service Orange County, California. Our company provides a full line of termite treatments and fumigations. We also have carpenters on staff to do your wood repairs (no subcontractors).

• Full line of Pest Control services
• Green and Organic Pest Control
• Rodent Control services
• Termite Inspection
• Escrow Reports
• Termite Treatments
• Termite Fumigations
• Termite/Fungus Damage repair/replacement
• Patio & Deck Repair
• EPA Certified Renovator (Pre 1978 Home repairs)
• Subarea/Attic Rodent/Bird feces clean/sanitize
• Dead animal removal

949.378.4128
www.termiteterry.com
e-mail@termiteterry.com

Berc Cerah of Lucky Cleaners

We drove all the way around Europe in three weeks. We had a great time. The second experience was, first came into this country, we spend five years in Virginia. East Coast. In 1985, we moved here in California. So, I drove, as a family we drove from East Coast to West Coast. It was another good experience that I enjoyed very much.

Anyway, after we spent five years in Virginia, we came here to California. In this month, actually, March, it’s been a very special month for us, because March 10th, which was a Monday, we started in dry cleaning business. It’s been 27 years. Yes, 1986, March 10th, it was very memorable day, and it’s been a turning point for our family. After I worked for minimum wage in Virginia for four years. I mean, it was very big. I was so excited, I was so nervous, but by the time ever year we started making progress. Just little by little. Finally, we ended up in this level that I never imagined.

I am very thankful for everything. We had very loyal customers, because we dedicated this business. We gave all our life, our youth I choose to say, because I’m almost an old man now.Yeah. Don’t laugh. Probably, I am one of the oldest members in this group. You wouldn’t believe that.

LeTip Member: Are we having a contest?

Berc Cerah: I’ll be 66 this summer.

LeTip Member: I’ll be 70.

Berc Cerah: Is there anybody?

LeTip Member: 70.

Berc Cerah: Oh my, I feel better now.

LeTip Member: You’re just a baby. You’re just a young [inaudible 03:58].

Berc Cerah: But this work is very hard. Long hours. I start 6:30 in the morning, and I really feel tired and I really want to be retired in the near future.
Yeah, because in this business you can’t go on vacation. You have to be on the job.

LeTip Member: That’s right.

Berc Cerah: Plus, even if you are sick, you can’t call in sick and don’t come in to work. There are customers that left their cleaning and they want it the same day or next day. I remember coming to work with a high fever, flu, cold, any kind. Hopefully I’ll be retired soon.

LeTip Member: Keep taking a juice glass.

Berc Cerah: I’m taking a juice glass, now I feel better. Yeah, I feel younger. Okay. I want to mention something that actually my speech was supposed to be next week, but I’m filling in for [Jean] anyway. I was going to explain about my situation. If you try to put away your winter cleaning, please make sure they are clean and spot-free. Because especially colorless soft drinks, if you spill. After it dries out, it’s invisible. You can’t notice that the stain’s still all there. You don’t see, and if you put away before you clean it. By the time, sugar turns brownish, dark yellow and brownish spots. They call this caramelized sugar.

Even after you see that the spot, and bring it to the cleaner. There is almost no way to get the stains out. In this situation, I even lost one of my very good customers. She brought back one white skirt telling me that she cleaned this skirt a while ago. Now, she’s taking it off from the back, and seeing a large stain. By the way, sugary stain, by dry cleaning, won’t take it out. Dry cleaning process won’t take the sugary or spill out. These kinds of stains are water-soluble, it’s not chemical. That’s why. Dry cleaning only takes the oily type of stains.

That’s why customers have to tell us. Oh, I spilled something here. But unfortunately, he or she has to know that he or she spilled something. He has to know and notify us. We have to work on the spots before we do dry cleaning. I started explaining, but I couldn’t unfortunately. She got angry and I lost a customer. Salt or oily type. Oil gets oxidized and gets yellow, bright yellow. But, sugar gets brownish. Please notify us before you get it cleaned. If you have some questions, I’ll be happy. About my personal life and my business. Sure, go ahead.

LeTip Member: What made you choose the dry cleaning business when you [inaudible 08:55]?

Berc Cerah: If I remember, I told you this before. If I am immigrant in this country, you don’t have good education. I came here. I was 20 years old, 28 years old. So, next day I started working because I had to work. My son was one years old. My wife, she couldn’t work. Fortunately, I had business. I came here and my business was ready. But, I worked for minimum wage. I didn’t have time to get education or something, and my language problem, money problem. I had too many problems.

As an immigrant, in this business, you don’t have too much choice. You have to do gas station business, restaurant business, or dry cleaning business. So, I choose dry cleaning, because I like working with the chemicals.

LeTip Member: You could’ve been a cab driver.

Berc Cerah: I could’ve, but you need language. I mean [inaudible 10:00] cab drivers. So, thank you everybody. Thank you everybody.

Lucky Cleaners
9039 Atlanta at Magnolia
Huntington Beach, CA 92646
(714) 962-2230
anitavukcu@aol.com
DryCleanerHuntingtonBeach.com

Jean: I wasn’t here last week, and I appreciate Berc taking my speaking time, but I had an opportunity to host my high school friend who had never been to California for the very first time she came out to visit. And talk about happy hour, I think we hit everyone. But what brought up was nostalgia because if ever get together with an old friend you haven’t seen for a while and go through year books and things like that it brings up a lot of things that tell you about who you became. Where you came from and who you are today.

Part of that is, I think about being home too. I think Natural Association for Realtors is doing a campaign on nostalgia and what home ownership means to, not only to family and neighborhoods, but business, so we know how important real estate is to the community. And it also brings up another nostalgia part for me is that since 1984 the strength of my business has been those have been those people that have trusted me, like me enough to think I was smart enough help them get through the transaction, and to refer me to their friends.

I was just telling Gill, that one of the best things that I get; I don’t even really do it for the money anymore. Let’s face it; I had to make a living to get my kids through college, but a business and a career that you really love that much, the money just comes because that’s what the end result is, but the passion.
I got an e-mail from a client who said, “Jean, today is the anniversary of the closing of our house last year, March 13.” I sold the home for his mother, who was 95, and she wanted to congratulate me again and thank me for a wonderful job that I had done so we ended up going out for breakfast this last Saturday and I got to spend a leisurely two hours with this woman, talking to her and learning from her.

And that part of the business is not just the statistics, it’s not all about what’s happening in the market, what are interest rates, are prices going up or down, it’s a part about the business the I love the most that’s about the people. So I want to just take that moment and take all of you for being able to share that nostalgia with you.

My girlfriend from high ended up marrying the boyfriend in high school, but she divorced him 20 years later, so maybe I was lucky, so we obviously had a few laughs about that, talk about nostalgia. Every month I get a service that is emailed to me and it’s all about the Arch County Housing Reform and it’s one of the tools that I forward to clients to keep them up to date, and if they’re statistics people they really, really love this.

But there’s enough information in there that if you’re not statistics. If you would like for me to mail that to you if you have any interests or e-mail that to you on a monthly basis let me now, I can do that. I’m just going to talk about a few things, I could have brought a PowerPoint, and we could just sit here and look at houses inside next time too. That would be fun, maybe that’s what we’ll do next time.

One of the things I think is important to realize in business, because we are affected by the housing market, is short sales and foreclosures now that are being placed on the market are 63% down from the same just last year. Which I suppose what we have to understand is a good thing for our business in the economy.

Compared to 943 additional home owners that have equity over just last month, that doesn’t seem like a lot, but that’s actually 18% more than they had last year. Obviously having to gain equity into your home is a good thing for the economy and people to feel comfortable about going out and perhaps hiring, spending a little money at your business, and it all makes the economy stronger.

One of the things that happens to be in this particular report that just came out last week is an article or a whole paragraph or two, about how buyers should approach the current market. And I’m sending this to some of my buyers because they don’t quite get it yet because sometimes they’re a few steps behind what’s really, really happening and some will listen to me and some will have to learn the hard way, which is fine. Sometimes that’s how people need to learn.

But one thing I want to share is, and [Janis] can attest to this as well as being in lending part, there’s a lot of cash in the marketplace now. Currently, one third of all transactions are cash sales, some buyers are borrowing cash, like reserves or from their parents or maybe from their retirement fund and then obtaining the finance later and putting it back. That’s because everything that I’ve read so far in offers, they’re all multiple offers. Every transaction, whether it’s a condo or house, at almost at every price range, there are multiple offers.

So you really have to be a little creative and how you present. You have to be creative in how you present your offers to the potential sellers because if you’re a buyer and don’t have all cash then you’re almost at a disadvantage. I know I’ve been losing a few because of that. So some of the things I think are important for us to understand is that the buyers haven’t caught up with that whole idea yet, so very hard on the realtor.

You don’t want to tell them, but you really advise them, but sometimes there are buyers that just don’t get it. They have to experience it three or four transactions or writing several offers. They’re saying now that the average buyer actually writing up where from 15 to 20 offers before they get a house. So it makes the job of the realtor really challenging, but again, you have to be on top of it.

I’ve been, obviously, as you can tell, been doing this for a while and I have a few tricks up my sleeve that always kind of work for the buyers and, not that I go knock on the doors, but I’ve done that too. If there’s a neighborhood that my client really wants, I’ll write letters, place phone calls, and knock on doors no matter what it takes to maybe perhaps get them into a home.

I have a lot more statistics that I did bring out a few. It’s about headlines in real estate that’s from the LA Times. If anyone wants some of this information, I made a few copies if you want to take home and read later. But the thing about buying without cash is getting a loan, and Janis and I can attest to this, right now nearly half of all California households can now afford a medium priced home in the state. But that’s no help if they can’t get a mortgage, right? Six years after the sub-prime mortgage meltdown banks remain really tightfisted, even with solid buyers. The fact that they attribute this to shifts in the government regulations and demands that they have to buy back bad loans, so obviously the pendulum has gone so far to the other side that getting a loan is very hard.

Mortgage credit has not eased much since 2007, according to the Federal Reserve surveys. While interest rate and housing recovery buyers are just lined up trying to seek financing. First time buyers or self-employed borrowers, like a lot of us are, must jump through especially complex hoops to get a loan. Even if they’re gold plated applicants they must justify the smallest works in their finances, so it can be an excruciating process. So with that I’m just going to stop and if you have any questions . . . if you want any of this, I did make a few copies of this Orange County Report and some of the things that’s called Beyond the Headlines, and it kind of gives details about what the market.

Does anyone have any questions? I’d be happy to answer any of them if you have any. Oh, Bruce?

Bruce: How difficult is it to purchase a new home if you first have to sell your existing home? Is that a possibility?

Residential Real Estate Agent Orange County – Jean Tietgen

Jean: It’s not easy. If you’re buying all cash and your home has been through the process of removing all contingencies and that sort of thing, you can probably convince the other agent, perhaps or the seller of the property that you are trying to buy that you’re solid gold. But a lot of people are not even making their home . . . they’ll make it non-contingent on that house selling. I mean, if it’s through the process far enough along that you feel comfortable that you’re pretty solid I would say make a non- contingent offer, if you’re pretty sure that you’re going to get your money out of it. You’ll be at a somewhat disadvantage because a lot of people . . . so many of our transactions are all cash right now.

I had a Fountain Valley transaction just recently, the family was selling it through the trust and we had 15 offers on it, and this was in Fountain Valley and in mid-range of the $500,000 and it sold for 10% higher than the list price. And the seller did not accept the all cash ones, believe it or not, but they did have 45% down, so it’s challenging now.

LeTip Member: Do you also sell manufactured homes?

Jean: That is a specialty I don’t . . . I would refer that to someone that specializes in that type of product, because if it doesn’t involve real estate underneath and if you don’t own the land underneath then it’s a different type of sale that you go through the state. But oh absolutely refer someone that who’s a mobile home broker, or a manufactured home broker.
Thank you. Well thank you.
Oh Bruce?

Bruce: Is inventory still way down?

Jean: Way down, way down. So if you really want to sell your home please call. I’ll probably have a buyer for you.

Bruce: Why is the inventory way down?

Jean: What I think people are experiencing is the fact that there is depreciation and because of interest rates being so low there’s really more flooding of buyers in the market and the fact that many, many sellers had short sales and that’s now been reduced because every single time a home sells the prices are going up and the appraisers are have a hard time keeping up with the appraising the property for what buyers are willing to pay for. So it’s difficult.

LeTip Member: My question is are the cash buyers from outside of this area?

Jean: Not necessarily, no, they’re not. We are seeing a lot of influx of foreign money, of course, coming in to it, but a lot of the investors and homeowners are living and working and have businesses here in the community. And he’s telling me my time is up. Thank you so much.

Jean Tietgen, REALTOR, PMN, SFR, SRES
Direct: 714.514.0011
Office: 714.540.5379
Evergreen Realty & Associates, Inc.
18682 Beach Blvd. Suite# 165
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
2011 President, Orange County Association of REALTORS
Director, California Association of REALTORS
CA DRE License #00476784
Jean@JeanTietgen.com
JeanTietgen.com

Marc: I think I kind of preface this speech by letting you guys know I wasn’t going to do the doom and gloom about security, and viruses, and China hacking in. I kind of want to give you guys a little idea of the focus of our business, and this little pyramid kind of describes the whole thing.
Actually, I kind of want to say, showing up after the time change and everything, I thought there would be a lesser quantity of people here today. So I’m proud of everyone for making it here and, yeah, I want to give you guys a hand.

Computer Repair Orange County – Marc Winger of Zephyr Networks

So the focus of computers from the very beginning was to make you more productive, right? Are they making you more productive or are they becoming like a speed bump in getting things done? Come on, give me some feedback. It’s hard to know anymore because they’re in everything that we do. We can’t do anything without them.But the whole focus was to be at the top of the pyramid, productive. Right? That was the whole idea. The whole problem of it was that first we had to make the computers stable. We had to make the network stable. Then we had to move up to the pyramid and you wanted to make sure everything was backed up because sooner or later electronics break down. They’re not like Volkswagen bugs. Then security became an issue because there’s a lot of people with way too much free time, all over the world, who decided that they would make your life miserable.

But really the whole goal is to make you productive. And making you productive is what we focus on. We want you to be more productive. And if we’re not making you more productive we’re not doing our job. And basically the whole point of our job is to make it so you can do your job.The way that you do that is you start off with your computer and you have your professional line of business application. Everyone of you guys has probably a program that’s really just designed for your business, that you use on a daily basis. What’s gone on now and what the big change is now is these little mobile devices here. And they’re changing everything from our perspective, because you want to be able to take this thing out, if you’re a painter, you want to take this thing out and take a picture of that house you’re doing it on, and having the client work on here and sign off on their contract right on this, and you immediately email that into your supplier, or whatever, and you have all of the answers you need right here.

So you can do it. You have a little thing that does calculations for you right here. And then, you’re not carrying around a laptop with you. You don’t have to print out everything 25 times. And that’s basically why this is changing the game. I’ve spoken with a client of ours who goes out to supermarkets and makes changes in the facing of product to sell candy and things like that, and they’re using all iPads now. It’s all they use. They don’t have anything else.
Every business has what I call a professional services automation program. What we use, as some of you may have seen, already, is a professional services automation program, which is just a Web designed page. And so I just made this up last night. Let’s say I’m doing some work for [Don Sharda]. Well, I can put everything I need to about this problem. It’s a critical priority. It needs to be done. It’s scheduled in here and everything else.

And then, when I’m done with it, I have my handy, handy, invoice built right on here. I give this invoice directly to the client and I hit this little sign button on the top right corner here. And I’ll sign Don’s name for him here. With my handy, handy Zephyr Networks stylus. Don Sharda.By doing this I’ve done a lot of things here. Online we have our terms and conditions right here. And there’s a link to it right here. That’s something that [Mark Holmes] did for me, so they’re basically admitting that we did great work every time. And also they’re also saying that we’re going to go to arbitration, etc., etc. Those are the things that you kind of want to do, and they’re signing it right then and there. It’s saved online. It’s saved on your iPad as well. It works perfectly for legal situations. I can verify that with the legal powers that be here.

There are professional services automation tools for every industry that we have there. I looked it up last night. There’s a painting one, there’s one for plumbing, there’s practice management stuff for attorneys, and they’re all online.

Even for the healthcare world, and we’ve dealt with this a lot, more and more they’re integrating all this stuff into iPads. We have one doctor who goes around and carries an iPad with him. This is a current client of ours, who goes from room to room to room to room, when he’s doing his client visits and does the electronic health record directly on his iPad.
I keep thinking about insurance. I don’t know for sure about insurance. I signed, when I did life insurance, I signed like a gazillion documents. It would be so much easier to take a stylus and go, bam, bam, bam, put it right on the iPad. That’s the whole goal. And I’m not sure if it’s there yet.Your vendors will help you do that. But if you have those documents in a PDF format we can help you do that as well and I don’t have it on [Shawn's], but you can sign a PDF format and we can help you build PDF’s that you can actually sign and fill out as you go in there. And the other thing that we can do is if you need to add or subtract numbers we can build it right into that PDF so that on your iPad it’s saying, okay, quantity of two cans of white paint and two cans of yellow paint and it adds up and puts a total on the bottom so you don’t even have to do math. Works out really good for everybody.

If you sit down and think about how your business can benefit from being able to be more mobile, I think you’ll find that one of the big advantages of being more mobile is that you don’t have to go home and put the data back into the same document. Like you right it out on a piece of paper and at some point in time you’re typing it into QuickBooks, or whatever it happened to be.

If your time is valuable, which is the most important thing in my mind. I got two kids. I am involved in the Y Princesses, and soccer practice, everything else, and trying to balance that with a business. That’s the most important thing for me is to save time, to make myself more productive.
So if there’s anyway that you can make yourself more productive, this is one way to start. Start thinking about it. Start thinking about how we can help you, and I’m sure there’s a way to do it. We’ve already applied it in four or five different locations and I’m sure it’s going to help for you.
So if there’s any questions, now is a good time. Dennis?

Dennis: When you’re looking at building that work order, invoice, tool, is this something that’s got to be an online environment at the time?

Marc: Not at all. I can’t really show you on this one, but we have it on this one right here. The PDF file, and I’m using Google Docs, which is obviously on of my favorite things to work with. But Google Docs will allow me to save that PDF file locally, on the iPad. So you don’t even have to be connected to the internet. You could be in Timbuktu where there’s no connectivity to anything, and you would just have that PDF on your iPad, and they can sign right on there. Not only can they sign it, you can do all that mathematics built right into it. All the forms filled in about. You can also do that through Dropbox and a number of other tools that make you more productive.

Dennis: So now the next step in that is if you get a new call from a client that says, “Help. Help. All my computers are down.” I have to run right over here and fix it. Now you don’t have the document prepared as you have it this example, is there blank documents that you can do locally that . . .

Marc: You mean start a whole blank document?

Dennis: Yes.

Marc: Of course. You can keep a template on here and have them fill out the template and it stays locally.

Dennis: And then that might . . .

Marc: Google Docs will let you choose off line docs. So you can basically save something so that it stays locally. And if it’s a template, you can just choose ‘Save as’ as a saved document.

With an iPad you’re still going to have a risk of people going out and playing games on the iPad. I mean it’s a risk. You can lock it down to some extent. On the Android you have far more risk of virus, etc., because of the open platform. Then, with the Kindle Fire, which is also very usable in all these kind of things, there’s some risk as well. So you have to judge those risks before you buy.

You can do restrictions on the firewall, inside your office, in your case, at least, to make sure that they don’t get out to websites that you don’t want them to go to. You can turn off Facebook. You can turn off all those kind of things. And they can just focus on the work that they need to do.

A lot of that really comes down to the Internet usage agreement that you do with your clients. And if you see them on Facebook and you say, “Don’t go to Facebook.” Then you can let them go. But there are certain restrictions that you can’t really do on the iPad or the Androids, as far as restricting usage. On a security level I would encourage people to use the iPad. It’s been shown to be more secure. Anything else? All right.

1000 North Bristol Street #17-129
Newport Beach, CA 92660
Phone: 800.884.7559
Fax: 949-544-2901
www.zephyrnetworks.com

Dr. Mark Yamamoto – Dentist Huntington Beach, Orange County California

714-847-9900
drmzy7@gmail.com
www.markyamamotodental-tmj.com

Business Attorney Mark D. Holmes – based in Newport Beach but serving all of Orange County & Los Angeles

What I do, as you probably know, maybe if I can give you a little background. What I do is I talk to people about their businesses and I come from basically a background that’s pretty diverse. I started out as a chemistry major in college. Then I switched over to drama, which was really a big leap for me. Then I went into the English major business for awhile. I studied English literature. I actually did graduate work in English literature. That got me over to Germany where I taught American literature at a German university.

I ultimately wanted to stay in Europe because it’s fun when you’re 23 and you’re a single male and know the language and the folks. You just want to stay. So I did. I got a job at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service and I started managing retail outlets. Started out in a store that was about the size of a 7 Eleven and when I left Germany I was managing a store that sold more electronics then any other store in Europe. We actually accounted for ten percent of the profit of the entire European Theater.

I was also troubleshooting because I troubleshot operations for the director because while I was managing these stores they had this great program where they would actually pay you to get a Masters degree in Business. I said, “I’m in. They’re paying, I’m playing.” I went to, basically, the European version of Boston University and got a Masters degree in Business. As soon as I got a Masters degree in Business they transferred me from Europe to Dallas. I went around and basically taught and troubleshot operations in the United States for a year before I went to law school.

I Went to the University of Texas School of Law in Austin. That was really a lot of fun, I got to tell you. After law school I came out here to California and I had the extreme honor of being mentored by a guy who is now 85 and plays golf. He walks the course everyday. An amazing man. His mentor was the managing partner of Graham and James in San Francisco at the turn of the century. I’m talking about 1900. This is the provenance of the folks that I had mentoring me. I was really honored to be able to work with him. He’s still a good friend today. We still talk.

What I bring to the party is basically a lot of business experience. A lot of legal experience. I’ll give you an example. Got a phone call yesterday. Some guy said, “I’m buying this yacht.” I said, “Oh, yeah?” He said, “I need to know whether I should just buy the shares of the LLC or I should buy the asset itself.” I said, “Well, where is the LLC located?” He said, “Oregon.” I said, “Well, where’s the yacht located?” He goes,”California.” I said, “You need to buy the boat. Do not buy those shares under any circumstances.” He goes, “Why not?” He said that was the easiest way to do the transaction.

I said, “Anybody who shows up and tells you they have a major asset in an out of state LLC or corporation has been dodging taxes in the state of California for some time.” I said, “When was the boat put in the LLC?” He said, “Oh, 2006.” I said, “You might be looking at as much as $100,000 in taxes, penalties, interest, dealer prep and other options.” He goes, “Why didn’t they tell me this?” I said, “The yacht brokers? The yacht brokers. They’re extremely reputable people. They have all kinds of incentive to tell you this because they don’t want to sell you any boats?” Basically the question is, “How do you get this type of experience?” This is what I do everyday. I see this stuff and when I talk to people about what they’re businesses are about, this is what I see. I see a lot of stuff that they might not see.

Let me tell you something about contracts. How many people love contracts? Those long contracts with all kinds of language? Let me tell you something. When I was in college I took a business law class where they talk about contracts. I just about, I just couldn’t get it. I said, “Forget it. This is stupid.” Then I actually hated my contracts class when I was in law school. This is what I’d do everyday. Here’s what I’ve learned. You do not learn how to work with contracts just intellectually. You have to work with them practically everyday. I’ve learned more from people who’ve been in business for 50 years, who aren’t lawyers really but they know a lot about contracts because they’ve been dealing with them all of their lives. Those people actually know how they work. They actually have a sort of visceral understanding of what the language is about. Somebody who just came out of law school may be very intellectually smart but really doesn’t understand how they work.

What I have had the benefit of, because I really hated contracts when I first started, is that years of experience working with contracts. I can tell you right now every time somebody comes and starts talking to me about a contract that’s either been foisted on them or they entered into or they want to enter into with somebody else, you can usually tell right away whether or not they’ve had any actual practical experience with contracts. This is the sad truth. Most of the people who deal with contracts have no real experience with how they work. They usually are experiencing the consequences of a contract which are somebody suing them, or they’re trying to get paid and they can’t figure out how to get paid.

What I do when I lure you into my lair to talk about your business is that’s what I’m really going to talk to you about is how we can put these mechanical little components in place. So that you can do more successful things with your business through contracts and other things rather than sitting there going, “I can’t believe I got that in the mail.” Because when you say, “I can’t believe I got that in the mail.” that means you’re thinking about that stuff instead of your business. That means you’re not making money from your business. It means you’re basically bogging down your business with all of this crap. You don’t want to bog it down with crap. You want to make money. You want to make more money.

What we do is put things in place so that essentially you can focus on your business and not have to deal with these things. In the process, this is the cool part, you will learn through experience how contracts work better. How contracts can work for you instead of you working for them. That’s pretty much all I’ve got to tell you today. Got any questions, any thoughts? Tom.

LeTip Member: If you’re in a contract and they breach the contract, let’s say you sue and win. When they file bankruptcy. Is there any recourse for any of that?

Speaker: Usually no. Unless they’ve committed fraud. If they’ve obtained your money by fraudulent means then you can pursue them past bankruptcy. I actually have a huge judgment against some people who did that. They breached the contract and they committed fraud and we ended up basically having that debt, not be discharged in the bankruptcy. That’s the equivalent of having a huge A stamped on you for “A hole”.
Yes Mark.

Mark D. Holmes: You could do the same thing I did last year, work on a retainer thing or just replacing that?

LeTip Member: I don’t do retainers. I don’t like that. I never did like that. I can’t understand why somebody would have to send you money every month just for you to continue breathing and pick up the phone. Most of the time I pick up the phone and talk to people for free and if they need something done then we ascertain that they need it done and then I charge them a flat fee for it because I don’t see why I should gouge you with something that I see as a routine thing. Sort of like, if you’re getting your oil changed, why do you need to pay $5000 to have your oil changed? That’s the way I look at it.

Most people don’t understand that that’s what’s happening but it’s really quite a routine thing. We’re just setting you up right. Yes, sir. Oh, okay, you didn’t have a question.  Thank you.
A lot of questions I get and it’s good that Eric raised his hand. A lot of questions I get are interpretations of insurance policies, whether or not there’s coverage. Most people don’t realize, and Eric knows this probably better than anybody, they don’t have any idea what’s covered or not because they never read their insurance policies. At the very least when you get your free advice with me, I’ll give you the rudimentary basics of how to interpret an insurance policy. Usually when people walk out, they’re a lot wiser, so when they got talk to Eric about what kind of insurance they want they end up asking better questions and getting better answers. Anything else I can talk to you about before I sit down? Thank you. You’ve been lovely this morning.

The Law Offices of Mark D. Holmes, APC specialize in the following areas of business law:

• Business Litigation
• Bankruptcy
• Contract Law
• Corporate Law
• Real Estate Law
• Commercial and Maritime Law
• Business Transactions: contracts, buy-sell agreements, asset sales, incorporations, LLCs, employee handbooks

I offer free consultations; communicate often and in detail; accessible by email and cell phone; twenty years experience in business transactions and litigation; and I have actual business experience!

949-645-0450
949-645-0451
714-345-9993
4 San Joaquin Plaza
Newport Beach, CA 92660
www.mdholmeslaw.com
mark@mdholmeslaw.com

Auto Broker Orange County – Mike Maxwell

It started in February, 1969. My dad took me out to the Winter Nationals, and I saw the drag races for the first time; it was all over. My love affair with cars had begun. It’s lasted this long, and it’s showing no sign of waning. The faster, the better. I ended up getting into the automotive business when I was a young man. About 16, I got into the tire business. I was in the tire business for 30 years, when I sold Best Value Tire, which is in Huntington Beach. Then, I went to work selling cars with Danny. Danny was one of my customers. He brought me in and showed me the ropes of the car business. A lot of you know Danny, some of you newer members don’t. He’s the one that I took over for when he moved out of the state.

That’s a little bit about how I got into the car business. Ironically, I kind of got back into the tire business. I’m working two businesses: My car business and my tire business. I opened up in [inaudible: 01:25]; it’s right next to the auction, so it works really nice to check out cars and service cars that I buy for customers. With that, I want to start talking a little bit about the industry in general, because it is tough out there right now.

The last couple years, new car sales have been down. They’re starting to show some numbers now, but the quality used cars just aren’t there. The danger of buying a $5,000 car right now, you might as well buy a lottery ticket. Mike, I think, can second that. When things get tough, what’s the first thing they quit doing? Their maintenance. They stretch it out until they have to. Even some of the higher-mile cars there, you got to be very, very careful. When you’re going through that quagmire, you really need someone you can trust to check the car out to make sure it is what it says it is.

I do new and used. If you are looking for a new car, what I do is look for the best deal through my dealers, which are high- volume dealers that move a lot of cars. Typically, my fee is covered with the flooring money that they have because they’re moving a lot of cars. Flooring money is money set aside to pay the interest on that car while it sits on the lot. If it sits on the lot too long, they’re losing money, and you’re not going to get the deal.

When you go to a dealer, you are at a tremendous disadvantage. Some people love to negotiate car deals; they like it. They like going to the dealership. They like the whole experience. There’s only a few of those; most everyone else doesn’t. They have a lot of tricks to try and get all your information before they even let you drive the car. They want to have a credit app and all of that filled out before they get you in the car. With me, that’s not the case. If you’re interested in a vehicle, I go out, price that vehicle. If you want to drive it, I’ll set up a test drive. You’ll meet me at the dealership. You won’t have to talk to a salesman; the pricing has already been established. It’s typically the low deal that you’re going to get if you walked in there and spent half the day grinding on them, that’s where you’re going to be with me upfront.

When you go to buy the car, they deliver it to my office, not the dealership. You spend half hour or 40 minutes signing the paperwork. We go through all the buttons, make sure you know everything works, and you are on your way. You’re not being pushed for any add-on warranties; that’s really a hustle. When you’re at a dealership, and they want to sell you an extended warranty on a new car, you say, “Are you out of your mind? You got the factory warranty right now.” Buy that after the warranty’s expired, if at all, because most of these new cars now, I think the whole warranty thing is way overblown, but some people like that blanket of security. If you want that, I offer it, but I say, “Buy it after the factory warranty has expired.”

When you’re buying a new car, you have to decide whether, “Do I want to lease or do I want to buy?” My answer is, if you know the miles that you’re going to be driving on a consistent basis and you’d like to drive a new car every 3 years, leasing is a nice alternative. Where people get into trouble with leasing is they know I’m going to drive 15,000 miles this year, but all of a sudden their job changes, or their story changes, and they start putting 25,000 miles a year on it, and now you’re forced into buying that car for payment; gross mileage overage. There’s a few hooks too, as far as when you go to turn the thing in, you have to have a certain amount of tread on the tires. Some brands like to lease it for a period, they know about 30,000 where the tires are dust. You have to put new tires on for it when you turn it in, or they charge you their overage. I know ways around that. That’s why you use me instead of just going to the dealer and believing what they say.

If you’re going to buy, factory financing, hands-down, is the best way to go, unless you’re buying a truck; they are putting the real low financing on the cars they want to sell: The higher- profit, smaller engine, high fuel-efficient cars typically get the 0.9% the 1.9%. We use all the factory programs if that’s the best deal. Sometimes, you’re better off to go to a credit union. If they don’t take the financing deal, there’s usually a rebate in either/or. You might take their financing and take the rebate, and really drop your buying cost considerably.

Any questions on new cars, call me before you go shopping. Once you go into the dealership, typically, it takes you at best ½ day to buy a car; at best. Sometimes 8 hours, and that’s by design. They want to drag it out, wear you down, and get you to agree to some of the extras after you’ve agreed on a price; that’s just the way they operate.

Talking a little bit about used cars: The used car market has really changed for what we’re seeing. Good used cars are still out there. Typically, they’re in the high-end range; the BMW’s, Mercedes. Those are primarily leased anyway, so there’s a lot of good lease returns coming back; good supply. That’s when you get the best price. With some of the other brands, you really got to be cautious. There are some rental car agencies that turn their fleets, and sometimes, that’s not a bad option. If I’m buying that at auction, I will check it out before we buy it: Run the Carfax, look at the car, make sure it’s a good car. You could buy a late model car with usually around 30,000 miles on it at a pretty good price, and they have a lot of inventory. The more inventory the better price you get if you’re going to go to auction.

Some of the used car dealerships have gotten kind of desperate. The supply of cars getting thinner, so they are trying to sell higher-mileage cars for more money. The market is really kind of in tough shape. Something else I do is I sell your car for you. Selling a car can be kind of dangerous: People coming to your house, they know where you live. I can do it on a consignment basis, either taking it to auction or selling it for you. I typically would keep the car at the shop if someone calls and wants to see it; my tire shop, there 8:00 to 5:00. They come in; I make a copy of their license and insurance, make sure if they’re going to road test the car that I have their keys and their information. It’s a much safer way to sell a car.

If I go to auction, there’s a couple of ways to do it. There’s an online vehicle exchange where I post it, and it goes out nationwide. If you have an older, high-mileage car, probably go to auction and just do a live auction and be done with it. If you have something that’s a little bit unique, you’ll get a little more money for it, and you’ll market it to a much wider audience with the [inaudible: 09:22].

One car I have that’s taking in this afternoon, that’s an absolute gem for anyone looking for it. It’s a ’09 Lincoln MKZ. You want to look that up on the internet. This is a beautiful car. I sold it to the customer new. He had passed away, and his family is selling the car. It’s got 11,000 miles on it: $21,000. It was a $38,000 new car. It is perfect. Anyone looking for something in that price range, it is spectacular. I’ll have it on my website by the weekend.

With that, I’d just like to open it up if there’s any questions. Everyone has a car question.

When you’re talking about you carry the factory financing, you help people . . .

We use their financing.

You use their financing?

Right.

You could help the person apply for factory financing. 

I do everything, yeah. Basically, I would email you a credit app. Then I would send that back into them, have everything setup, the paperwork all setup. When you come into my office to buy a car, you’re going to sign all the documents in order, done.

What are the best small SUVs out there for gas mileage? 

A lot of it depends on how you’re going to use it. When you’re talking about smaller SUV’s, gas mileage is all about size; moving the mass. If you’re talking about a Highlander, RAV-4, there’s a couple different sizes of SUVs. If you’re going to tow, you might want a rear-wheel drive, like a Toyota 4Runner. It depends on how you’re going to use it as to which one may be the best. They’re all pretty good. Most new cars today are built pretty well. If you’re going to use it with a specific application . . .

Just for around town and small trips. 

I like the Highlander, if you want a little bit more room. Smaller, you’ve got the RAV-4, the Honda CRV. Each of those also has their Lexus, have the high-ends too. It depends what you want to spend and how many goodies you want on it.

25 

There you go. That’s not bad, yeah. That’s a pretty nice little ride [inaudible: 11:45].

The Highlander’s on a car chassis.

Yeah. I guess that’s it. All right. Thank you.

Just call Mike Maxwell at (714) 925-3472 or email him at mike@mycarguyoc.com

www.mycarguyoc.com

It’s a really good value to have Bruce introduce you; that only cost me $20. This is going to be an unusual speech for me because I have no projector, no laptop; I’m not going to show anything fancy because I think that will underscore my message about the way technology is going, in regards to websites and search engine optimization. The point is that people get caught up in number of visits, ranking, online marketing, and all of the specifics, social media and how all these things play in together. It’s really missing the point, because what that is all about is in connecting people and driving new business. In that regard, the more technical aspects of search engine optimization, while important to learn, should not be discounted, in terms of their value to your business.

Online Marketing – Sean Sloan – Open-Interactive.com

It’s becoming more of a game where messaging, branding, and connection between people and institutions is growing in importance. Those are very nebulous terms and I don’t want to leave you with that as a ‘Okay. What do I do? How do I brand myself?’ It’s a huge question, and there’s a lot of room for interpretation out there. I wanted to give you guys some really practical methods that you can apply to your own businesses and use in, not just the web, but in collateral material, print material, and also in how you approach business as individuals going forward. It comes down to a few staple ideas that will allow you to move forward in a healthy way.

The first thing: When I first ran across mission statements, I thought they were baloney; I thought they were bull crap. Mission statements, our mission statement is to make a lot of money; that’s what we’re here for, right? I was raised by an entrepreneur and he has slowly made some inroads in me; I’m a slow learner, with a concept called ethical persuasion. This was the mechanism that allowed him as a businessperson to pursue sales in the real world and do it with honor, integrity, and dignity. The idea of mission statements and ethical persuasion fit hand-in-glove. This is a statement of how you intend to do business, what your goals are as a business, and what you really want people to be able to take away from having an encounter with you as a businessperson.

Actually the exercise of putting this in writing and putting it on your website is a very healthy thing. It forces you to sit down and think about what does my business mean to me and what do I want my business to mean to other people? This is one of the great opportunities for you to find out what it is you really believe in and how you need to communicate that because that’s a value proposition. A value proposition, every company has their own unique value proposition. It’s the thing that differentiates them in the marketplace. There’s more than one auto shop out there. Mike’s Auto has succeeded in defining themselves in a way that brings in a certain clientele. They’ve been able to do it for years, and it really comes from everything they do. Every one of our businesses has this to offer. It’s what differentiates us from the huge corporations. Let me tell you, the huge corporations have mission statements. They’re following a path that is clearly defined and that they have made great efforts to elucidate.

The next thing I want to talk about is personas. These are the classes of people that could be your potential customers, and this also includes people that can be referral sources as opposed to direct customers. It’s important to sit down and think about, these are the kinds of clientele that I want to go for. You write what’s essentially a biography of who this person is, what their values are, and how the message that you need in order to connect to them. It’s like I’m looking for homeowners of a specific price range of home and you can then determine geographically where those people are and you can craft a message that speaks to them, and start using that in all of your advertisement, in all of your online presence in your efforts to market even in a networking group.

The next point is that search engine algorithms are getting so sophisticated that they can detect synonyms for words, so the use of, or forcing the use of, keywords into your website copy is no longer necessary. It can even theoretically in the long- term harm you. You should write a naturalistic language. You write for human beings and people, not for search engines. You should write in a way that is emotional, evocative, and that really follows your mission statement and addresses the personas that you have identified as valuable to your businesses.

Then my next point is, don’t be afraid to ask for testimonials. It’s still about people and human beings. People need to feel that if they’re doing business with your business, that they are part of a larger community in which they can see people like themselves, or maybe at an even higher station, have made the decision to interact with your company and have been willing to talk about it. Mike’s Auto is another good example of this. We work with them on a monthly basis is why I can use them as an example; I’m very familiar with what they do. They essentially do an outtake interview with their clients when they’re done with the work. They ask them if this was a positive experience. If the people agree to it, they take their picture, they take a quotation from each client as they finish, and work that, integrate that into their website in a search engine optimized way, as we’ve trained them to do. It’s led to great success for them and for their most valuable keywords, they’ve been locked in 1 or 2 ranking position for quite a while now, and I think it’s been beneficial for them.

Another thing is that among the technological tools, there are some very interesting and worthwhile things to look at like call tracking. This is where the person who comes to your site, whether they come through a print advertisement, a search engine result, or a pay-per-click ad. Call tracking gives them an individualized number that they then call in on. The call is recorded so that you can go back and listen to your sales process. You can listen to your front desk; you can listen to your sales people. We have a big client in Beverly Hills who does drug and alcohol treatment center. They changed their whole phone queue based on what they started hearing on the recorded calls. They realized that it was too many layers between human beings connecting to human beings, so they essentially chopped down their phone tree to make it much more direct and easy process for human beings to connect with human beings.

Then the last point is that everyone should look at their website as their own personal television station. The web is going incredibly video-oriented. People are sitting in the DMV killing time. They’re not reading stuff on a small device, but they are watching videos on small devices. It’s becoming more video-centric as time goes on, and it’s affordable now to do video more than it ever has been.

Those are the points that I wanted to make today. Of course, we can help you with all of those things. The website is really a great central gathering point for all of these technologies and ideas. We would love to help your business thrive in the coming year. Are there questions?

Marc Winger of Zephyr Networks: Just a shout-out, I guess. If you have trouble coming up with content, he’s got a program that’ll help you build your content, and it’s worked pretty well for me. I find myself lacking for words sometimes and that makes him amazing. It’s definitely worthwhile to contract that part of thing out and you can update stuff. I’m not as good as John Lavitt over there, who’s come up with some great ideas.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

Check out my website, open-interactive.com, for samples of my work or give me a call at 949.722.6119.

sean@open-interactive.com

Val & Mike Schepens – Mike’s Auto Repair, serving Fountain Valley, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach & Irvine

First I need to clarify that the DMV determines how vehicles are directed and so when you get your renewals notice for your registration on your car, it will tell you whether you can go to test only or to a Star Program. These are called “directed vehicles” the ones that have to go the Star Program. And these vehicles are actually DMV flagged cars, with high emissions profiles.

So yes, if you have an older car your car is being profiled, or cars that have pattern of failure. So if you look at your paperwork and you see your renewal notice and it says “Smog test required”, you can actually, out of the five designations, you can go to any four of them. So the first option would be a “Test & Repair”, and that would be just simple. You get your car smogged, they test it, it’s certified, and you’re on you way.

The second one is the “Test & Repair” facility. If your car did, by chance, fail smog, they’re able to repair it for you, re- test it, certify it, and get you on your way. But if you are renewal notice states that you are a “Star Station Test Only”, then you’re car is marked. It has the possibility of high emissions. They have a history of it. You probably have failed smog before so you can only go to a Star only test facility and with that they can take care of your test for directed vehicles, or a Star test facility that also can repair it and they are the ones that can handle it if you’re a gross polluter.

With the Star “Test & Repair” facility, they also assist with the CAP Program which is the Consumer Assistance Program. So if you know of someone who is low income that needs assistance in getting their car passed smog, the state will contribute up to $500 towards that.
Now where Mike and I get involved in this huge thing is that we are actually a “Repair Only” station. And our facility is licensed and authorized, through the BAR, to repair all failed smogs and that’s including anything in regards to the “check engine light” , gross polluters.
We do not perform the smog test and certifications, but where we work is with the “Test Only”, or we can work with the Star “Test Only”. So it works nice. We can send our customer to a smog place that we use, and if they fail smog they bring them back to us.

The reason why the BAR developed this repair only facility is that they were getting a lot of complaints, because, you build relationships with your auto mechanic. It’s kinds a like your doctor. You have a history, they have a history of your vehicle. They know your vehicle, so that was an opportunity for the shops to take care of their consumer.
So with that, what Mike and I had to do is send our ASE Master Certified Technician, we actually sent him to get his Smog Technician License renewal. And after that the Bureau of Automotive Repair had to come into our shop and make sure we had all the equipment, the manuals and everything to be able to provide this service to our consumers.
So that’s a little bit about the smog program. I thought what I’d do is share some other smog related auto recommendations and hopefully it will save you some time and some worry. So this first rule is that if your “Check Engine” light is on, do not go and try and get it smogged. You will automatically fail. And it just depends, sometimes it can be very severe, the “Check Engine” light, sometimes it’s very simple.

For example, it could be something like an O2 sensor. You want to get it checked out as soon as possible because you can actually do more damage to your car. If you can fix the O2 sensor first, it won’t do other damage, like, to the catalytic converter, because it’s destroying other parts of your car. It can be something as simple as your gas cap isn’t tight enough. So let me make a recommendation if you’ve just recently got gas and you check the gas cap and make sure it’s tight. Inspect it. Possibly the rubber around the gas cap is worn, so you might want to replace it. I would recommend using, most of the time, a factory gas cap from the dealer. It seems that the aftermarket ones do not keep it sealed as tightly. So it’s good to do that.

I thought I would talk about when it’s required for you to get a smog and that’s, of course, when the DMV tells you it’s time to get your smog, depending on the make and model of your car, that’s every two years. It’s also when you’re selling a vehicle. If you’re selling a vehicle, it’s the seller’s responsibility, and you have 90 days for that smog test, before it won’t be good. The only exception is if you sell your car to a relative.

If the seller does not do the smog, please have it in writing and make sure that it’s understood that the person purchasing the vehicle knows that the seller did not smog test the vehicle, and they will take responsibility for the smog, because that can actually backfire on the seller. Okay. Hopefully I haven’t bored you too much with all this talk about smog and everything. Mike and I are very pleased that we are a repair station and we’re licensed and we’d like to continue to serve our customers for all their repair and maintenance needs.

Just a little bit about Mike and I. We’re going on our 19th year of business. We have three auto technicians. We have one ASE Master Technician, of course with his Smog License. We’re open five days a week, Monday through Friday, from 7:30 to 5:30. We’re AAA approved. We’re ASE certified. We’re licensed for brake and lamp inspection. So that’s just a little bit about us. We’re located on Metzler, our cross streets are Gothard and Slater. Well, I’m just about done. I just want to thank those who have used our services and know that you are the heart of our business.

If I have a classic car, are those exempt from smog? Is there a certain year cut-off?

I’m just going to refer you to the BAR website. In my research, there is a whole section on classic cars and, like I said, I didn’t want to spend 10 days on this thing.

I think it’s 1974.

Is there still a maximum dollar amount that you have to spend trying to repair it so that you can pass the smog test?

I’m not aware of that.

I thought there was.

I’m not aware of it.

I thought you only had to attempt to do it for, like, $500 worth of repairs, and if it’s still not passing . . .

No. I tell you, it’s over $500.

I know the answer. 714-375-3145, and talk to Ralph.

Talk to Ralph. Actually, yes. Ralph is our Smog Technician. I’m telling you what we’re seeing a lot of are failed catalytic converters. Okay. I’m going to take one more question from Sally, because I don’t want her to think that I’m . . .

I had my car smogged with a, quote, unquote, “deal”, and the guy said. “Well, it didn’t pass your smog exam.” And I said, “Okay. So how much is it going to cost me?” He said, “It’s going to cost you $200.” I said, “Okay. I’ll have to talk to my husband about that.” So I immediately called Val and I said, “They said that my car doesn’t pass smog. Can you check it for me?” So they checked it. My car did pass smog. But it cost me what Val had to charge me to do that, and then I had to get it resmogged, so it cost me, like, $300, because the person the person that I went to was not reputable.

Exactly. You’ve got to be real careful with those deals. Especially the test and repair. Especially if they’re advertising that $29.95 smog test. You’re usually going to have some kind of repair, and what was sad with Sally, as an example, there was nothing wrong with her car. What they said, there was nothing wrong with it. We were able to get it smogged, but it took so much inspection that we had to pay our technician to come to that conclusion. And it was baffling. What are they talking about? So, yeah.

714-375-3145
Fax: 714-375-3160
17662 Metzler Lane #A
Huntington Beach, CA 92647
val@mikesautohb.com
www.mikesautohb.com

Our Painting Contractor John Thomas serving Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach and all of Orange County, CA

I’ve done a bunch of different speeches. The last few, you get the screen up there. We’re running pictures, and it may or may not work, and so I did something different this time. I’ve gone to the hand out speech. I have some handouts, and we’ll talk about a few things when it comes to painting. Let’s see if I can get organized here.

What color is that spill right there?

I don’t know what color that spill is. I like to move around. I’m a move around kind of guy.

Why are there so many whites? Why are they not in color?

When we get to the questions part, we’ll address that. Anyway, during this last four years, during the recession, we had a cash cow. That was following around contractors who were remodeling homes. That cash cow kind of died so we’ve had to kind of reinvent ourselves, and one of the avenues is. One of our members, Ken with BC Flooring does a lot of work for hospitals. We’ve been doing a lot of work in the hospitals Saint Mary’s in Long Beach. We painted labor and delivery.

We painted labor and delivery, and we’ve had to kind of get behind this whole safety program. At one site we had a soffit on the exterior of the place that looked like Swiss cheese, we had to tear that all out. We don’t like doing a lot of wood repair, but, Ken’s been encouraging me to just go and take that kind of stuff on.

So we tore all this stuff out and we rebuilt it, and we painted it all up and it came out really, really cool. Mark Holmes had the exterior of his house and then he asked me if I could do some other repairs and he pointed out some wood work and some window trims. We could do those okay, but, then he had this really neat looking garden bay window thing right there at the kitchen. He said that it leaked every time for about how long?

Two years.

Two years, and it had some flimsy tape up there and everything. Anyway, I asked the guys if they could do that and they said, sure Mr. John, we could do that. So I get over there and they’ve got like this whole giant window off, and set over here and then there it is. Mrs. Holmes’ kitchen, just God and country and clouds over here. Anyway. Long story short, what happened at the end of that repair with these last few rains?

It doesn’t leak anymore.

Is that cool? That’s really cool. So anyway, we’ve taken on some different things so you might want to think about that. You can go ahead and tip us and be confident that we’re going to get the job done correctly. I remember when that rain came, I was like, I sure hope that window doesn’t leak.

That’s really important, because with that bay window, when the water comes down it’s just like a waterfall. I mean if there’s any leak at all, it comes right through. They did a great job. 

So you know that we’ve worked with Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner, we’ve worked with contractors, we work with facility managers, but what’s new in painting is that they’ve come out with this home on the first page of your handout, is this recycling program that you can go ahead and take your paint that you haven’t used, and I know that everybody has probably 12 gallons in their garage or underneath the sink or in the laundry room. Those are the three places that we [hear]. I don’t think we have any paint of the same color. Let’s go take a look in the garage, the laundry room…

You can take your paint now, and go down to Vista, or Dunn Edwards, and turn it in and they will get it recycled, and it’s pretty cool. The down side is that we’re all paying for it, for less than a gallon a [quart] is $0.35, $0.75 for a gallon, and 1 buck 60 for 5 gallons, for up to 5 gallons that’s not bad.

It’s kind of neat that we kind of come together instead of having it mandated from the federal level. Another thing that is kind of neat is are these little samples. I don’t know, I think my showboat, I talked about the samples, and here, take a pen.

When you’re thinking about getting a color for your project, it’s always better to go ahead instead of taking it, unless you’re really trained and really good at it. Like these interior designers can do, or color analyst, is to get some of the color that you want, and now you don’t have to buy a quart. So this is like 5 bucks and you can go ahead and put it up and take a look at it, because it always looks a little different then it’s shipped to me.

There are some people that can look at the chip, and they know, and they’re really confident about it, but, 90% of us know, me included. We’re applicators, we do, we can prep, we can get it ready, but, when it comes to the right coloring, I look at those chips and say what do you think. I think we should get samples, and get three.

When you get three of them, then you get a little bit of a learning curve where you saw it, and say, I see what the sample looks like and that’s how it came out. So then when you go back you can take a look at that. I’ve got two minutes.

Onto lead, lead has been in paint up until 1976, and they don’t put lead in paint anymore. They’ve been reducing that point from about 1920 all the way up to, I don’t know, it’s just been less and less and less lead. The bad thing about lead is that for children it affects their mental development and you might have a lower IQ if you’re exposed to large amounts of lead.

One of the sources of lead has been paint, and it’s when you’re sanding it disperses or chips or they eat it or ingest it, but, we have this article here from Mother Jones, and it’s about lead and violent crimes. I just think it was really neat on this second page of that, it says right here the biggest source of lead in the Post War era, turns out it wasn’t paint, it was leaded gasoline.

Wow, is that kind of interesting. I never heard about that, this speaks to how strong the lobby is of the oil companies. I never even thought about that. So there’s lots of lead out there, but they haven’t done that anymore. But now there is a lead safe practices for painting and you have to take a certificate course in it.

If we go to a site and we test it for lead and there’s lead, we have a certificate that allows us to work on the site there. So we are EPA approved lead safe practice painters. So we can go ahead. We’re almost there here, but, I just want to say the last page here. There was a study that paint fumes are an aphrodisiac, so it is Valentines day, and don’t get out a bunch of paint and start painting.

It’s kind of like perfume. You can open up that little sample, wherever it went. You can open up that little sample and just kind of put it, don’t put it in the main bathroom. Put it like in the kitchen, and just kind of let it waft through, and then close it up. This is for guys and gals.

They come home and go, you started the painting, and you’re like. Yeah, I’m just getting around to it. We’ll just have to see how it goes. I appreciate everything [LeTip] has done for me over the past untold years, and all the tips I’ve gotten from it. And if you do have any questions, I can take them at this time.

Thank you so much for your time.

Check out examples of house painting in Newport Beach,  Laguna Beach, Long Beach and Fullerton.

John Thomas
Thomas Painting
714-343-6132
www.johnthomaspainting.com
j.thomas59@verizon.net