Research Shows 90% Do Not

What customers value most changes constantly, and the pace of change has increased exponentially with the economic recession, says marketing/management expert and best-selling author Jaynie L. Smith.

"The businesses who become relevant by addressing what customers really value at any given time will be the first ones out of the recession," says Smith, whose newest book, Relevant Selling (www.smartadvantage.com), is now available.

"One year ago, people were looking for financial stability in companies they were purchasing from because of all of the business closings," she says, citing surveys conducted by her company, Smart Advantage, Inc. "Now, on-time delivery outranks that because so many businesses cut back their inventory during the worst of the recession. With demand increasing, customers have more difficulty getting what they want on time."

Smith's company analyzed more than 150 customer surveys to learn why customers buy particular products or services from particular companies. It's an essential practice for any business owner during any economic cycle, Smith says, but most don't do it. Her analysis of 10 years of double-blind customer market research for more than 100 businesses revealed that, 90 percent of the time, most businesses do not know their customers' top values. They are often shocked to learn what is at the top of the customers' value list.

Smith offers these tips for getting to know your customers - and potential customers - so you can deliver what they want and adjust your sales and marketing message to become more relevant.

• Customers are usually looking for "how" things are sold, not "what." For most products, there are any number of suppliers. If someone wants to buy a camera, a doorknob, a car, they can drive to the nearest store or order from the first company that pops up on Google. But they don't. Why? Because there's something else they value more than the product itself. It may be product durability, the company's reputation for customer service, or safety features. "If you don't value what you bring to the customer, they won't value it either," is Smith's mantra.  Very few companies know how to effectively articulate what differentiates them, so price often becomes the tiebreaker.

• Understand that existing customers and prospects usually have different values. Smith's company research analysis shows that 70 percent of the time, customers and prospective customers differ in what they most value. When that happens, your message to customers should be different than your message to prospects.  Very few companies make this distinction in sales and marketing messaging. Existing customers may have come to depend on your top-notch help desk. It's what they've grown to value most about your company. Prospective customers haven't yet used your help desk so they don't know how essential this benefit is yet.

• Use what you learn. If you find customers most value speedy responses when they have a problem, and your customer service department is slow, then fix customer service. Make sure to tell the customer service employees that customers have rated fast response time as their top priority. When you've got stats you can brag about - brag away: "98 percent of customer calls are returned within 30 minutes; 2 percent within 1 hour." Now you've used that information in two valuable ways: to make your company more relevant to customers, and to let customers know you've got what they want.

• Invest in disciplined customer research. Research data collection costs have gone down 30 to 35 percent in the past few years and can now be affordable to smaller companies.  Double-blind customer market research is the gold standard and well worth the expense, but it's not feasible for all companies. However, even a small investment in research can reap huge returns. Some less expensive and free alternatives to find out what your customers want include sharing the expense with an industry association; partnering with an organization that needs the same information or a peer that doesn't compete with you; hiring a college intern; or creating an online survey using a free basic service, such as Survey Monkey.

About Jaynie L. Smith

Jaynie L. Smith is CEO of Smart Advantage, Inc., a marketing/management consultancy whose clients range from mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies. She consults nationally and internationally with CEOs and executives to help them define their companies' competitive advantages.  Her first book, "Creating Competitive Advantage" (Doubleday Currency; 2006), is in its 11th printing and is consistently ranked in the top 1-2 percent on Amazon.com for marketing and management books. She holds undergraduate and master's degrees from the New York Institute of Technology.

Author Offers Tips for Getting Adolescents to Turn the Page

Being able to read well is more important than ever for young adults to achieve economic success. But more than 60 percent of middle and high school students score below "proficient" in reading achievement, according to a December 2011 report by the Alliance for Excellent Education.

"Teen literacy is a huge problem in the United States - its 15-year-olds rank 14th among developed nations in reading - behind Poland, Estonia and Iceland," says Rhiannon Paille, 27, an advocate for teen literacy whose new fantasy novel, Flame of Surrender (www.yafantasyauthor.com) targets young adults. (South Korea, Finland and Canada rank 1st, 2nd and 3rd.)

"Kids need strong reading skills if they hope to graduate from high school AND they really need to plan for college - 59 percent of U.S. jobs today require some postsecondary education, compared to 28 percent in 1973."

The best thing parents can do to help boost their 12- to 18-year-olds' literacy is to get them reading - anything.

She offers these suggestions:

• Buy them comic books. Boys persistently lag behind girls in reading, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, Paille says. If your son isn't a reader, try getting him hooked on comic books. "Stephen King started off reading comics, 'Tales from the Crypt.' Hey, if it was good enough for him ...!'' From comic books, they may move into graphic novels, a popular young adult genre. As long as they're reading, they're building comprehension skills and vocabulary, so it needn't be "War and Peace."

• Look for book-to-film novels. Chances are, if it was a great movie, they saw it, and that's often enough to get a non-reader curious. This is another especially good hook for boys, Paille says.

• Tune into what they're interested in. What kinds of video games do they play? Some popular games have spawned novels, including Halo, EverQuest, ElfQuest and Gears of War. Even gaming guides, which players read to unlock new clues to advancing in the game, can motivate a teen to crack a book.

• Read the same book your teen is reading. Book clubs are popular because people like talking to others who've read the same book. Your teen may not be ready for an evening of petit fours and grape juice while discussing the pacing of "Hunger Games," but it can make for some interesting conversation on the way to soccer practice. And you can always nudge them along with comments like, "Oh, you haven't gotten to that part yet? It's really good!"

"People tend to think their young adults aren't reading if they're not reading novels," Paille says. "But novels aren't for everyone, and whether it's a comic book or a gaming guide, all reading helps build comprehension skills and vocabulary."

Good magazines, with shorter articles suited for distractible adolescents, might include Sports Illustrated, People, Seventeen or Mad.

"When you're out shopping, think about what they're interested in and pick up something just for them. Sometimes, it's as simple as putting the right reading materials right into their hands."

About Rhiannon Paille

Rhiannon Paille is an active advocate for youth literacy and an avid reader of young adult novels. Her first book, the non-fiction Integrated Intuition: A Comprehensive Guide to Psychic Development, remains a popular seller on amazon.com. Paille is the founder of the Canadian Metaphysical Foundation. She's married and the mother of two children.

The man who served as NBC-TV's legal counsel for 25 years warns the FCC is poised to resurrect broad censorship rules that were revoked in 1987 because of their chilling effect on both free speech and the television press.

Corydon B. Dunham says the proposed new Localism, Balance and Diversity Doctrine could eventually also affect news on the Internet. The FCC is reportedly planning to transfer the broadcast spectrum used by local television to the Internet to make it the nation's primary communications platform, and the agency has started to regulate the Internet.

In his new book, Government Control of News: A Constitutional Challenge (http://freespeech.authorsxpress.com/), Dunham recounts the evolution of government control of television news and the Fairness Doctrine. The book, the result of a study initiated at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institute, examines the history of the Fairness Doctrine - the rules by which the federal government regulated TV journalism. Similar rules had governed radio news since 1934 and were applied to TV in 1949 by the Federal Communications Commission.

"TV was a powerful new medium and there were only a few broadcast stations in many communities. It was thought that this gave unusual power to station and network owners," Dunham explains. "The government justified the Fairness Doctrine as a way to ensure stations aired opposing viewpoints on issues."

But what was touted as an attempt to encourage robust discourse became a tool for censoring the news, Dunham says.

"If a complaint was made about a view that had been broadcast, the FCC investigated. If it concluded that a view should be changed, it ordered that. If it concluded other views should be presented, or even related issues, it ordered that," Dunham says.

Failure to comply could result in no license renewal, renewal for a shorter period of time, or a "negative record" applied at renewal time.

In 1987, the FCC unanimously revoked the Fairness Doctrine, with court approval, after finding it had deterred news reporting on controversial issues, and had repeatedly been used to suppress viewpoints and help some officials pursue their own political objectives, Dunham says.

After two decades of failed attempts in Congress to revive the Fairness Doctrine, support began building anew. In 2008, the FCC released a new proposed body of rules for TV news - the Localism, Balance and Diversity Doctrine.

"It has many of the same characteristics of the old Fairness Doctrine and can be expected to have similar results," Dunham says. "News broadcast by television stations would have to meet government criteria for 'localism' - local news production and coverage - as well as a regulatory balance and diversity of viewpoints. A three-vote majority of five FCC commissioners at a central government agency would make local news judgments and override those of thousands of independent, local TV reporters and editors."

It would also be enforced by having a local board at each station monitor programming, including news, and recommend against license renewal if the station did not comply with FCC policy.

In 2011, the FCC-sponsored Future of Media Study recommended the localism doctrine proceeding be ended. The present chief of the White House regulatory office has long recommended that the government regulate news to advance its political and social objectives, Dunham says.

"There is unprecedented silence from the FCC about its plans for television news in this country," Dunham says.

TV is not the only medium potentially affected.

"At the end of 2010, the FCC decided to take over regulation of the Internet in this country. It will regulate its traffic and gain some power to review content," Dunham says.

"The president, Congress and the FCC have also agreed to transfer the entire broadcast spectrum (currently used by TV stations) to the Internet over the next 10 years. If the localism doctrine is adopted, it could apply to the Internet and its participants as users of the FCC-controlled spectrum."

Dunham says requiring journalists to comply with a central government agency's policy on how to report the news means those journalists will no longer be free and independent.

"As the Fairness Doctrine broadcast history shows, the threat of loss of license will deter station news coverage, particularly of controversy, and the public will lose news and information.

"If the broadcast press is not free and independent of government, it cannot act as a watchdog for the public, which is its constitutional role."

About Corydon B. Dunham

Corydon B. Dunham is a Harvard Law School graduate. His "Government Control of News" study was expanded and developed for the Corydon B. Dunham Fellowship for the First Amendment at Harvard Law School and the Dunham Open Forum for First Amendment Values at Bowdoin College. Dunham was an executive at NBC from 1965 to 1990. He oversaw legal and government matters and Broadcast Standards. He was on the board of directors of the National Television Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Corporate Counsel Association, and American Arbitration Association among other posts.

Lawyer Offers Tips for Safeguarding Your Assets

In Florida, a man serving 12 years in prison for DUI manslaughter is suing his victims' survivors for his pain, suffering, medical bills and "loss of capacity for enjoying life."

In Illinois last year, siblings aged 20 and 23 sought more than $50,000 in damages from their mom for "bad mothering," including setting a curfew for her then-teenage daughter, "haggling" over clothing prices, and failing to send college care packages.

Lawsuits like these are, unfortunately, more the rule than the exception, says Hillel L. Presser, a lawyer specializing in domestic and international asset protection planning and author of Financial Self-Defense (www.assetprotectionattorneys.com).

"Litigation is America's fastest growing business, and why not? Plaintiffs have everything to gain and nothing but a few hours' time to lose," Presser says. "Even if a case seems utterly ridiculous, like the guy in prison suing his victims' family, defendants are encouraged to settle just to avoid potentially astronomical legal fees."

So where does a person begin? You'll likely need the expertise of an asset protection planner, Presser says, but here are some steps you can take on your own.

• Take stock of your wealth. Inventory your assets - you probably own more than you think. Besides savings and retirement accounts, consider any money owed to you, anticipated inheritances and future assets. Property includes homes, vehicles, jewelry, and land. Don't forget to consider intangible assets, those non-physical but valuable brands, trademarks, patents and intellectual property. Visit www.assetprotectionattorneys.com for an inventory worksheet.

• Put only assets that are exempt from seizure in your name. Federal and state laws protect some personal assets from lawsuits and creditors. Those assets typically include your primary residence; personal items such as furniture and clothing; pensions and retirement funds; and life insurance. State exemption laws vary; federal laws govern exemptions in bankruptcy.

• Protectively title non-exempt assets. Putting the title to valuable assets in the names of corporations, limited partnerships, domestic trusts and other entities offers some protection. You still get to use and enjoy the asset but legal ownership is with an entity that's not subject to your personal creditors' claims. Which entities best shield which assets depends on the asset, your state laws, taxation and your estate plan, to name a few considerations. You can also combine protective entities, for instance, giving ownership of your limited liability company to a limited partnership. It's best to get professional advice when choosing the entity that will best protect an asset.

Whether you're worth millions or a few hundred thousand, it's important to not get caught with your assets showing, Presser says. The more you have exposed, the more enticing a target you become. And the less you have, the more catastrophic the outcome can be.

"If the average person with $200,000 is sued for $1 million, he's wiped out," Presser says. "It's not so horrific for the person with $25 million who gets sued for $5 million.

About Hillel L. Presser

Hillel L. Presser's firm, The Presser Law Firm, P.A., represents individuals and businesses in establishing comprehensive asset protection plans. He is a graduate of Syracuse University's School of Management and Nova Southeastern University's law school, and serves on Nova's President's Advisory Council. He also serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations for his professional athlete clients and is a former adjunct faculty member for law at Lynn University. Hillel has authored several books, including "Asset Protection Secrets" and has been featured in Forbes, Sports Illustrated, the Robb Report, the Houston Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications.

A Chicago physician is recruiting veterans with PTSD for a study of a medical treatment that erases symptoms in 30 minutes.

With $82,000 in funding from the state of Illinois, Dr. Eugene Lipov (www.ChicagoMedicalInnovations.org), author of Exit Strategy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, plans to treat 10 patients and follow up with biological marker tests that would help prove his theory that PTSD is a medical, not a psychological, condition. He's seeking corporate donations to broaden the study in order to hasten the Veterans Administration's acceptance of the procedure, which has been used to treat 95 patients.

"The Veterans Administration's treatment for PTSD involves intensive psychological therapy and psychotropic drugs that works only about half the time and can take months or years," Lipov says. "My treatment, stellate ganglion block (SGB), involves two injections and works very quickly. In 80 to 85 percent of patients, it completely erases symptoms."

Lipov has treated 50 patients with SGB, an injection of anesthesia into a cluster of nerves in the neck. His success stories date back to his first patient, who remains symptom-free after three years. Another 45 or so veterans have undergone the treatment at four military institutions, including a small study still underway at the Naval Medical Center San Diego.

He theorizes that SGB works because it reduces excessive levels of cortisol, nerve growth factor and norepinephrine in the brain, all stimulated as an organic response to stress.

"This study will be the first that includes checking for post-treatment biomarkers," Lipov says. "If I can show there's a biological change, that the treatment's success isn't just a placebo effect, I can get more acceptance. Right now, part of the problem is credulity - people can't believe there's such a simple solution to a complex problem."

Treating PTSD with SGB is a new application for a procedure that's been safely used to treat other conditions since 1925. Lipov has FDA approval for its use for PTSD and recently it was approved for experimental studies by the Institutional Review Board.

But despite congressional support, he has been unable to secure federal funding for a large study that would hasten the treatment's acceptance by the Veterans Administration. So he's seeking private and corporate donors to match Illinois' contribution to his non-profit, Chicago Medical Innovations, so he can expand the biomarker study. People who buy his book Exit Strategy, about the latest PTSD developments, also help fund veterans' treatments; Lipov donates $5 from each book sale toward the two $1,000 injections.

"The more money I raise, the more patients I can treat, and the more veterans who get better, the more I can publish the results," Lipov said. "Basically, the more impressive the numbers, the more lives are saved."

An estimated 300,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan suffered post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, according to a Rand Corp. report. The debilitating condition is characterized by outbursts of rage, terrifying flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety and other issues that lead to substance abuse, violent crimes, joblessness and homelessness.

About Dr. Eugene Lipov

Dr. Lipov graduated from Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and completed two-year residencies in surgery and anesthesiology before receiving advanced training in pain management at Rush University Medical Center, where he worked as an assistant professor of pain management. Today he is the medical director of Advanced Pain Centers in Hoffman Estates, Ill. He has published research articles in several medical journals.
Advocate Offers Tools to End Horrific Practice

In January, MSNBC.com posted a report of its four-month investigation into a slavery network emanating in Eastern Europe. Every year, it says, some 200,000 women and girls are  smuggled out of impoverished former Soviet countries and sent to the Middle East, Western Europe and the United States, where they're held captive.

In Haiti, UNICEF reported thousands of children were illegally trafficked out of the country following the devastating earthquakes two years ago. Selling orphaned children as slaves is a common problem following natural disasters, it says.

"Modern-day slavery is an even bigger problem than it was during the years of legalized slave trade from Africa to the Americas," says Lucia Mann, the daughter of a woman who was held as a sex slave in South Africa in the 1940s. Mann, a former journalist, tells a slightly fictionalized version of her family's story in Rise Above Hate & Anger (www.luciamann.com).

There are ways individuals can help end the suffering and reach out a hand to victims, says Mann, who created the Modern-Day Slave Reporting Centre as a tool to address the problem. Here are details about the reporting center and other resources.

• At The Modern-Day Slave Reporting Centre, www.mdsrc.org, anyone who suspects a person is being held captive, or any person who is being held their will, can file a report. The information will be reported to law enforcement officers and the person filing can request they remain a confidential source. The Web site also includes links to relevant law-enforcement agencies in Canada and the United States.

• At www.slaveryfootprint.org, people can take a short online survey that calculates the number of slaves working for you around the world based on the clothes, cars, electronic items and other consumer goods you own. The number is calculated according to what's known about slave labor in the regions where the raw materials are produced and the goods are manufactured. (Google Chrome is required to take the survey.)

• At www.chainstorereaction.com, are email prepared letters and surveys to any of 1,566 companies asking what steps they're taking to ensure no slave labor is used in their supply chains. Companies who complete the survey and go out of their way to describe ongoing and current efforts are tagged with a "Thank You." Companies that complete the survey are tagged with "View Response." As of mid-January, 70 companies ranging from Fruit of the Loom to Campbell's Soup had earned a "Thank You." Another 25, including Avon and Best Buy, had completed the survey. Most, though, had not responded despite numerous emails. Duracell, for instance, was sent 432 emails and Bounty was sent 221.

• In California, the Transparency in Supply Chains Act became effective Jan. 1. It requires retailers and manufacturers with gross receipts of $100 million to disclose what they've done - or haven't done - to eliminate slavery in their supply chains. While there are no punitive consequences, advocates say the law will raise awareness and allow consumers to reward or punish companies with their shopping choices. Residents of other states can lobby legislators for a similar law.

"There is nowhere in the world now where slavery is legal, and yet more than 27 million people are held captive as forced laborers or sex slaves," Mann says. "That's more than twice the number enslaved during 400 years of trans-Atlantic trading.

Raising Americans' awareness and concern is the first step to ending slavery, Mann says.

"If there is no money to be made from enslaving people, it will end."

About Lucia Mann

Lucia Mann was born in British colonial South Africa in the wake of World War II and lives in British Columbia, Canada. She retired from freelance journalism in 1998 and wrote Rise Above Hate & Anger to give voice to those who suffered brutalities and captivity decades ago.

Move to Privatize Prisons Threatens Genuine Inmate Reform, He Says

The statistics are overwhelming and irrefutable: The less education a person has, the more likely he or she will end up in jail or prison.

Once in prison, the more education an inmate receives, the greater the chance he or she will remain free once released.

"The correlation is so dramatic, I can't understand why we as a nation are more interested in building and filling prisons than in educating people who haven't finished high school or could benefit from post-secondary school," says advocate Adam Young, citing a recent Huffington Post news story about Corrections Corporation of America. The business is attempting to buy prisons across the nation - with the stipulation that states agree to keep them 90 percent full.

Young, www.communityservicehelp.com, partners with charities to help people sentenced to community service get credit for taking classes like algebra and English instead of picking up trash. He says it just makes sense to take advantage of any opportunity to educate people who've already had a brush with the law.

"About 40 percent of all U.S. prison inmates never finished high school, and nearly 44 percent of jail inmates did not complete high school," he says, quoting from a 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report. "More current data shows that hasn't changed. In Washington, D.C., for instance, 44 percent of Department of Corrections inmates are not high school graduates. Less than 2 percent had 16 years or more of schooling.

"Isn't it better for all of us, for both economic and public safety reasons, if we help educate people so they can get jobs?" he asks.

The trend of budget-strapped states looking to economize by selling their prisons to Corrections Corporation worries Young. As the business cuts expenses to boost profits, prison-run GED and college degree programs will likely be among the first on the chopping block, he says.

"If states really want to save money, they should address recidivism through programs that include education," Young says. "There's a 2011 Pew Center study that found the 10 states with the highest recidivism rates could save $470 million a year, each, if they lower those numbers by just 10 percent."

Those states are Alaska, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.

A widely cited 2006 study of two groups of inmates in three states found that those who participated in education programs in prison were less likely to be arrested again within three years of their release, and more likely to be employed. Of the inmates tracked, 31 percent of those who did not take classes were back in prison within three years compared with 21 percent of those who did study.

Arizona, South Carolina and Nevada all have recently passed laws that allow inmates to cut their sentences or shorten their probation by doing things like taking classes, Young noted.

"In early February, there was an interesting conversation about education and crime on Real Time with Bill Maher," he says. "Maher said, 'If you spent the money you were spending to send people to prison on schools, those people wouldn't wind up going to prison.'

"He's 100 percent correct on that."

About Adam Young

Adam Young is a longtime internet marketing professional who launched his educational community service alternative in January 2011. He was inspired by a minor brush with the law when he was an 18-year-old; the community service hours he received cost him his job and nearly caused him to drop out of college. Through his website, offenders have logged more than 300,000 hours of self-scheduled schooling that allows them to remain employed while completing service hours. Young advocates education as the most cost-effective tool for rehabilitating offenders.

Curried Butternut Squash Dip to Join Dave's Gourmet Lineup

A retired recipe developer who never stopped playing with her food won the national Dave's Gourmet Recipe Challenge and a potential $1 million in royalties.

Pat Dugan's Curried Butternut Squash Dip was among the finalists sampled by about 400 food professionals at the Winter Fancy Food Show, Jan. 15-17 in San Francisco, said Dave Hirschkop, owner of Dave's Gourmet (www.davesgourmet.com), which produces award-winning hot sauces, pasta sauces, salsas and dips.

"It was clear cut who the winner was," Hirschkop said of the foodies' votes. "It's a very tasty dip, an unusual combination of flavors with a little kick."

Dugan, 66, got an immediate $2,000 advance on the royalties to be paid when her creation becomes part of the Dave Gourmet line-up later this year. Distribution might be limited, Hirschkop said, because the dip requires store refrigeration, unlike his other products.

That doesn't bother the former newspaper food columnist who worked as a chef and recipe developer for Corning Inc., the company best known for Pyrex casserole dishes. (It now manufactures glass and ceramics for high-tech applications.)

"I love, love, love butternut squash," said Dugan, who teaches cooking and recipe development, and plans to publish a cookbook, "VeggieTizers," featuring her creations.

"It's available 'most all over the United States; home gardeners can grow it; it's affordable. It's low in calories, high in fiber; it has vitamins B and A, beta keratin, and it has a lovely taste."

Dugan puts butternut squash in macaroni and cheese, chili stew and on pizza, the recipe for which came with a jar of Dugan's favorite Dave's Gourmet product: Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce. It's also his best seller.

She had already developed her Curried Butternut Squash Recipe, and got raves from her chief critic, husband Roy Ernst, when she learned of Dave's contest.

"I started going through my A-to-Z files of recipes," she said. "I came to an Artichoke Roasted Red Pepper Salsa that could be a replacement for tomato salsa. Then I got to the end of the B's and I found this recipe that we loved.

"When I made it, I stirred in some Greek yogurt because we live (most of the year) in Tarpon Springs, Fla., which is a Greek town. And I used Dave's chipotle powder sauce, so it has a little zip in there."

She submitted both recipes.

Though this is Dugan's eighth contest win since she retired in 2002, the thrill never gets old, she said.

"It's exciting. This is a passion for me; a creative outlet."

Hirschkop says recipe contests will become either an annual event for his company or an on-going "cash bounty" opportunity. His business is all about innovation and great flavor, and the best place to find both, he said, is in America's kitchens.

"We have thousands of great cooks out there who can come up with some incredible dishes."

About Dave's Gourmet

San Francisco-based Dave's Gourmet was founded by Dave Hirschkop. After graduating from Boston University in the 1980s, he opened a mom-and-pop restaurant called Burrito Madness. There, he began experimenting with hot sauces and later moved into pasta sauces. He started Dave's Gourmet 18 years ago, and has products in major retailers including Safeway, Williams-Sonoma, Whole Foods and Costco.

Daughter's Inheritance Proved More Valuable than Money

Actress and playwright Kim Russell was an adult when she finally got to know her mother, who died when Russell was just 2 months old.

Her father, Bernard Knighten, never spoke of his first wife, Luana.

"He never shared stories, never said I looked like her, unless prompted to by my aunts," says Russell, author of Tuskegee Love Letters (www.tuskegeeloveletters.com).

Eventually, though, he shared with her some letters he and Luana exchanged as young newlyweds during World War II. Bernard had been a Tuskegee Airman, one of the first 15 pilots in the pioneering all-African American flying squadron based in Tuskegee, Ala. Before its creation in 1941, blacks were not allowed to fly in the military.

Bernard was 23. In letters to Luana and his mother-in-law, he's cocky, funny and clearly smitten with his beautiful wife. Luana, 21, was a bright and educated stenotypist from St. Louis, discovering a completely foreign way of life in the Deep South.

"This Tuskegee is the dirtiest place in the country," she wrote to her mother. "You have taught me that everything in the world was nice and clean, or at least being around you, you have made things seem so, and it really hurts to find out that life isn't really like that."

Mostly, though, Luana's letters reveal a kind, brave young bride trying not to worry too much about her handsome husband flying over German artillery in Africa.

"It must be an awful shock to receive a brief telegram telling you the one person you love most is gone and that you will never see them again," she wrote Bernard after learning a friend was missing in action. "Please honey, see that I won't get one of those telegrams."

For his part, Bernard worked to keep his letters light.

"My bed is quite uncomfortable and I can't sleep, thus I dream of you all night long," he wrote to Luana. "I miss the sleep but thinking of you is better than whiskey or vitamin pills. Hmmmm, I'd better change that to just vitamin pills."

Russell compiled the letters her father had shared into a readers theater play. Her dad attended a performance.

"He was tickled," Russell recalls. "He laughed at the right places."

Four years later, after he died in 2000, he had another surprise for her: hundreds more letters he'd saved from his 13-year marriage. It was the best inheritance she could ever have hoped for, Russell says.

"Growing up, I had a wonderful, loving family, but I felt different, like an orphan or an adopted child, because I never knew my mother," she says. "When you lose a parent at an early age, what does that make you?

"I am so grateful my father saved all of those letters and I encourage anyone who's lost a loved one to write their story, save their diaries and letters, blogs or videos. I know my mother now - she was an actress, a photographer, a dreamer - and I absolutely adore her. I see so much of me in her."

About Kim Russell

Kim Russell is an arts administrator, writer, and performance artist best known for her one-woman show, "Sojourner Truth." She has a bachelor's in theater and mass communications and a master's in business. She's currently working on a book incorporating many more of the letters she inherited. To see Bernard's TV debut as a comedian on BET ComicView at about age 70, visit www.jaybernardcomedy.com.

Financial Planner Shares Tips for a 21st-Century Filing System

Jane was not looking forward to going through her parents' belongings to get their house ready to sell. Their health had been failing for some time and they finally agreed to move to a retirement community. Now that they were both comfortably moved into their new apartment, it was up to Jane to get rid of the things they no longer needed.

Her parents had lived in the same house for more than 50 years, so Jane expected to find things that should have been tossed out years ago.  But she was amazed to discover 50 years of tax returns and bank statements carefully stored in boxes in the attic. Her parents had saved all their financial records!

Many people are confused about what records they need to keep and for how long. They hold onto tax returns, bank records, brokerage statements and other financial information simply because they don't know if they'll need it again. Like Jane's parents, the documents get packed in boxes that eventually take over valuable living or storage space.

Financial planner Rick Rodgers, author of The New Three-Legged Stool: A Tax Efficient Approach To Retirement Planning (www.TheNewThreeLeggedStool.com), says tax time is a great time to get organized.

"Most people are going through their records to get ready to file their return," he says. "This is the time to get smart about what you need to keep and then set up a system to store it efficiently going forward."

Rodgers suggests these five steps to help you effectively organize your finances for 2012 and beyond:

1. Out with the old - Discard the records you no longer need: Tax returns older than seven years; bank records and credit card statements that are not related to the tax returns you're keeping; brokerage statements that aren't related to purchases of current holdings. Be sure to shred all your old documents before throwing them out.

2. Go digital - Convert the documents you plan to save into digital images that are stored on your hard drive. Invest in a good scanner and scan as you go through your paperwork, shredding and tossing the hard copies as you go. On your computer, file by tax year, so your 2011 folder will contain your tax return for 2011 and all pertinent bank records and receipts. Organize the previous six years the same way. Next year you can delete the oldest folder when you add the 2012 folder.

3. Save a forest - All of the financial institutions you deal with would prefer to send your statements electronically. Stop receiving paper statements. Instead, download your statements electronically and store them in your new filing system.  Most banks and credit card companies keep at least a year's worth of statements available.  You need to download these files only once a year to complete the year's file.

4. Save backups in case of emergency - Make backup copies of your files on a CD. Choose a CD-R (recordable) as opposed to a CD-RW (rewriteable), because CD-R cannot accidentally be overwritten. Depending on your computer operating system, you may be able to continue adding data to a CD-R each year, until the CD is full. However, some operating systems won't allow that, so you'll need a new CD for each year.

5. Go paperless - Your new electronic filing system can be expanded to include all your financial records, from car maintenance receipts to pay stubs.  Wills and insurance policies can also be scanned and stored but, of course, keep the originals of those in a safe deposit box or fireproof safe.

Gone are the days of saving your financial documents in box and shoving it into the attic.  Technology advances have made organizing your personal finances easier with minimal cost.  Make 2012 the year you get organized by moving your finances into a 21st century filing system.

About Rick Rodgers

Certified Financial Planner Rick Rodgers is president of Rodgers & Associates, "The Retirement Specialists," in Lancaster, Pa. He's a Certified Retirement Counselor and member of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisers. Rodgers has been featured on national radio and TV shows, including "FOX Business News" and "The 700 Club," and is available to speak at conferences and corporate events (www.rodgersspeaks.com).

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