I’m a fan of best-selling personal finance authors Suze Orman and Robert Kiyosaki. Both have an affinity for South Africa – Suze had a home in Northcliff with she shared with her former SA life-partner; Kiyosaki loves rugby, Super 15 and the Springboks. Over the years it’s been a pleasure to have them as regular visitors in my radio studio. Critics dismiss their advice as simplistic. But how can you be too basic when your audience’s knowledge of moneycraft is zero? This week I met another American who has sold millions of financial self-help books. Loral Langemeier grew up on a farm a few miles from Warren Buffett’s home in Omaha, and shares his common sense approach to money. Whereas Orman and Kiyosaki focus on traditional investments, Langemeier guides us toward the better returns available through entrepreneurship and turning around failing businesses. She is delightful in person, full of sensible ideas and quickly dispelled my scepticism. Â – AH Â
To watch this video on CNBC’s Power Lunch click here.
ALEC HOGG: Everyone dreams of being a millionaire and one woman who markets herself as the millionaire-maker is Loral Langemeier. Sheâs from the United States â in fact, from Nebraska to be more specific where Piet (Viljoen) and I go every year to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway AGM in Omaha.
LORAL LANGEMEIER:Â Do you, really?
ALEC HOGG:Â Indeed we do.
LORAL LANGEMEIER: Thatâs within miles of where I grew up. Thatâs brilliant.
ALEC HOGG: Do you have the same approach as Warren Buffett? I donât think heâd ever tell us heâs a millionaire maker, but heâs made many…
LORAL LANGEMEIER:  Heâs made billionaires, so he is much bigger. It was interesting to hear Piet. I do a lot of alternative investing as well, so I donât do as much in the (stock) market, I do a lot of smaller private investments. .As he was mentioning, the real estate market has just been a gold mine for us. I have an office in Sydney as well. I have more Australian clients becoming millionaires, buying also in America. And not just the broken-down houses. Itâs ridiculous. You can buy $40,000/$50,000 houses cash flow in for $1 500, it’s very, very good. Also businesses that have gone bankrupt are easy to pick up. Probably my favourite thing in fastest millionaire moves is picking up broken little business, fixing marketing, sales, mostly fixing the leadership and management, and then flipping them. From pizzerias to hair salons. Thereâs a whole group of franchises called Legacy Franchise and a lot of them are really, really low in cash flow and we picked them up for pennies on the dollar. America is quite the place right now.  You can invest in all these different things, which is what I love.
ALEC HOGG: Itâs fascinating talking to you – Iâve also met Suze Orman, who is more of a personal finance person.  Of course also, Robert Kiyosaki, who wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad â he also loves real estate
LORAL LANGEMEIER: Heâs heavily into real estate and then in mining. The beginning part of my financial coaching career, in learning to make millionaires, was with Robert. I was the master distributor of his game, the Cash Flow game. When I wrote the Millionaire Maker book, I got a game because thereâs something profound about learning to do a P&L and Balance Sheet. Most people have no education of looking at it, seeing it. They donât understand that one real estate transaction affects all categories from assets, liabilities, income and expenses, so the movement of that is just brilliant learning. The learning is so critical for people who really want to be millionaires. The biggest mistake is that people want a lifestyle before they buy their assets. I would say if you want to go shopping, you want to shop for assets first and then your lifestyle. Do it in the right order.
ALEC HOGG:Â Delayed gratification â thatâs what we were talking about this morning.
LORAL LANGEMEIER:Â Thatâs the Nebraska values, I think.
ALEC HOGG: IndeedâŚÂ When the studio crew heard that you were coming in, they wanted me to ask , âWell, how much is she worth if sheâs going to teach us how to be millionaires?â
LORAL LANGEMEIER:Â Oh, Iâm upward of eight figures â about $12 million.
ALEC HOGG: Iâm sure the crew will now listen even more attentively. How are you going to take someone who operates a camera by day into a millionaire in the future?
LORAL LANGEMEIER: Itâs a great question. The first thing is to become an entrepreneur. I did a show last night where we had about 600 people. The beginning education that I do is about creating more cash and a better tax plan have the money to put towards the assets that I was speaking of. It was interesting watching your insert on the Wedding Photographers. I’ve helped several wedding planners and photographers. Really expanding an offer: I would just say, âDo videography on businessesâ as they already have great camera skills. They could go do videography on a lot of businesses If you think about YouTube, itâs owned by Google, the number one search engine in the world. Most people, especially outside of America, are missing the video component of the search engine optimisation and how to really get their website. A lot of what Iâm doing with the South African Business, is to get global and get online. I know connectivity is an issue with many of them Iâve been talking to, Iâve said pre-record. Pre-record eight to ten minute clips on different parts of content. Put it on YouTube. Youâre going to have clients from all over the world because it is such a highly searched and highly stimulating business.
ALEC HOGG: Itâs just thinking differently â is that what youâre saying? How do you get the creative juices flowing?
LORAL LANGEMEIER:  Thinking differently and creatively. You just hang out with other millionaires and I think hanging out with millionaires and just other entrepreneurs who are really seeking growth in their business.  A lot of the strategies that I teach are much more about marketing. I would love to coach those people â the wedding photographers â because they could do the videography. They could do the website. In America the big thing now is, the minute you get engaged, you have to have a website. The photography is later on. They’d be making heaps of money just by expanding more offers and I think many people that are in business â and I find it here locally – is that theyâre offering too few things. If youâre going to work that hard to get a client to buy one thing, offer them four, five, six things that are in that same category â not random things, not different businesses â and letâs grow a R1 million company â minimum, and then letâs grow from there. I think too many entrepreneurs scatter in the beginning and they have too many interests that are not alike. This jewellery all comes from Australia. I have a client, they were two stay-at-home mums that met now have $2.8 million in jewellery sales. They opened, which they never thought was possible, but they opened in all of the major airports around Australia. That was just beyond their wildest dreams. They partnered with good investors that were willing to put money in to help capitalise. It works.
ALEC HOGG:Â Your books have sold well.
LORAL LANGEMEIER:Â Theyâve sold really well.
ALEC HOGG:Â What got you into deciding to write in the first place?
LORAL LANGEMEIER: McGraw-Hill actually came to me. After my time with Robert Kiyosaki, Sharon Lechter, and the Rich Dad groupâŚin about 2001 I started âLive out Loudâ, and I was making millionaires. I was doing mostly real estate, so at one point I was fixing and flipping 30 to 40 homes per month with investor money. It was my biggest run, and then many people said, âWell, teach me how to do itâ. I thought, âIâm not going to teach you how to do itâ and then one day I said, âAlright. It’s $5000â and it just started. Then in 2006 McGraw-Hill said, âYou need to write this formula on how to create millionairesâ. That started the game. My second book was on the alternative investing strategies that I do. The third book was on how to build a six-figure business and a seven-figure business. Then I tucked one in: it was really about recession-proofing Americans. During the heart of the Depression in America, each family home only needed â get this number, youâre going to be shocked, I was shocked when I found this statistic – $782 per family would have saved the homes that went into foreclosure. I was thinking, âHow do you make an extra $1000.00â. Itâs $50 per day, and so I wrote a book called âPut more cash in your pocketâ just for the all-American homes. Whereâs the lemonade stand in your family to put an extra $50 in your pocket so you donât have to lose your home? Then get back to making money and save your family. Then the last book was âMind Energyâ which is just the mindset of âyouâve got to say yesâ and figure things out. Itâs been a fun run.
ALEC HOGG: Ja, and I think youâre going to have many people not only buying your books, but looking at your website and learning more. What is it about Nebraska, though? What do they put in the water that produces people who think this way about business?
LORAL LANGEMEIER: Think this way.  Obviously very sturdy. I donât know. I think itâs corn-fed. We always say itâs the cornhusk because I played basketball at the university and my brothers played. Itâs the farm culture or the farm ethic. It must be in our water.
ALEC HOGG: ValuesâŚ
LORAL LANGEMEIER: Many valuesâŚmany family values. We grew up in our big German family, there were hundreds and hundreds of us.  Theyâre still there on a fourth-generation farm â thousands of acres. My grandfather used to say, âIf the animals donât eat and do chores in the morning, you donât eat, so letâs get it in the right orderâ. I donât know. Itâs been interesting.
ALEC HOGG: Well thanks for coming to our studio. Thanks for visiting our country. We look forward to picking up with you in the future as well.
