America’s Money Answers Man Jordan Goodman is a nationally-recognized expert on personal and business finance. He appears frequently on The View, Fox News Network, Fox Business Network, CNN, CNBC, CBS Evening News and several other major TV, radio and podcast outlets. For 18 years, Jordan was on the editorial staff of Money Magazine, where he served as its Wall Street correspondent. While at Money, he reported and wrote on virtually every aspect of personal finance. He has also written or co-authored 13 best-selling books on personal finance including Master Your Debt, Fast Profits in Hard Times, and Barron’s Finance and Investment Handbook. He has written six special-focus editions of Everyone’s Money Book on College, Credit, Financial Planning, Real Estate, Retirement Planning and Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds. Jordan also hosts the Money Answers Show on the VoiceAmerica Business Network, which recently crossed 100,000 downloads per month.   Podcast Highlights   Who is Jordan Goodman? Jordan has always had a passion to help people make better financial decisions. At the age of 12, Jordan was writing a youth baseball column for his local newspaper and liked to sell the left over newspaper to tourists. He tries to help people by looking at the financial needs they have and finding a solution for them. Writing has always been a passion for Jordan, his first published book was a dictionary for financial investment terms which sold 3.5 million copies and is in its 10th edition. After 18 years of writing for Money magazine, Jordan was getting more opportunities than he could take and he decided to go out and do his own thing. A lot of entrepreneurs quit their day job before they have anything going, it can work out but it will be much harder. Jordan had been writing on his website for years before venturing out on his own. He now focuses on the money answers that people are looking for everyday. What are the most common money questions? The first challenge people are experiencing is getting a decent yield on their money without having all the volatility of the stock and bond markets. Jordan is on the board of a company called Secured Real Estate Funds that enables people to get an 8% yield by investing in commercial real estate. Inflation is pegged at 2%, but in the real world, the prices of everything are going up much faster than that, especially when compared to income. People lose purchasing power by leaving their money in a bank account. Reinvesting In Your Business You should diversify your money. Even if your business is a great place to invest your money, you should still invest in other areas. Many industries that made huge amounts of money for a long time can still get hit by large market events like a recession, and that could be your business too. For an employee, you can invest outside quite easily. As an entrepreneur, your life typically is your business which can make investing outside quite difficult. Tackling Your Debt The reality of the situation is 70% of people graduate school with some amount of debt and the average debt is $39,000. This is an enormous burden and can delay these people from getting started with their lives. You can refinance your student loan debt by working with a company called Credible, typically at much lower rates. Mortgages are usually the biggest debt people will take on, but there is a process that allows you to pay off your mortgage in 5-7 years without taking on more debt. You use a HELOC to control the flow of your money and drastically reduce the interest rates you pay on your mortgage. The more pressing the need, the bigger the market is. Finding solutions to problems people have is a great way to build a business. Reference: Master Your Debt, Jordan Goodman Jordan’s Takeaway The most important thing is to know there is a demand for what you’re offering. If there is a demand and you’ve got some kind of special edge, you can make it happen but demand can’t be theoretical