Loans

Sao Paulo, Brazil (AHN) – Brazil’s largest newspaper has sued an independent blog that had parodied the newspaper.

Folha de S. Paulo sued the blog “Falha de S. Paulo,” which was created last September by brothers Lino and Mário Ito Bocchini. Lino is a journalist while Mário is a graphic artist.

In Portuguese, “Folha” is similar to the English word for “Journal” and the word “Folha” sounds similar to the word “Falha,” which means “failure.” In addition, the blog’s logo was inspired by that of the newspaper.

The blog has published photos, stories and jokes that poked fun at the newspaper.

With its patience worn, newspaper Folha de S. Paulo sued blog Falha de S. Paulo alleging improper use of trademark because of the similarities.

Lawyers have reportedly told the brothers that they will likely lose the case, not necessarily because of the merits of the suit, but rather because the newspaper has deep pockets to hire lawyers and fight a protracted court battle and the brothers have limited funds.

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A Saudi Arabian newspaper has revealed that the Kenyan grandmother of US President Barack Obama wanted him to become a Muslim.

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photo credit: Graffiti By Numbers

I recently wrote an article about the the best ways to raise private money for real estate Investors where I laid out the top 4 ways to raise private money to grow and develop your real estate investing business. One of the top 4 ways we use and teach to our students is to use group presentations.

A private lending group presentation involves getting 5 to 20 people into a room and doing a presentation where you lay out the details and benefits of your private lending program. This may not be for everyone depending on your comfort level of talking in front of groups, but the advantages of group meetings are very powerful. When people start to ask questions and tell positive stories, a certain level of group think starts to take effect and can be very powerful on the attendees.

We teach our students to focus on the preplanning and marketing, presentation materials and post-meeting follow up as the key to conducting a successful meeting and getting people to invest in your business.

Preplanning and Marketing – We put preplanning and marketing together because they must be done together. (more…)

photo credit: badjonni

One of my newsletter members recently asked if using a list broker was a good source of marketing leads to attract private lenders and, if so, how is it done. The answer is yes but with several precautions.

Precautions

It is important to understand that I strongly recommend that marketing for private lenders is done on a local and low key way. I do not recommend any sort of website advertising or newspaper advertising because it can be viewed as a solicitation to an unsophisticated investor and attract calls from your state’s SEC. You do not want one of these calls!

The SEC and state authorities monitor Craig’s List and other similar bulletin boards for people doing unauthorized advertising for private lenders. (more…)