Gary North recently began answering financial questions posed by his newsletter readers. He publishes a "Questions & Answers" section every Friday. The questions and answers below deal with career choices, entrepreneurship, budgeting (both time and money), and legal tax avoidance.

Q & A With Gary North
Career Questions

Age: 34; occupation, commercial sales manager for an auto parts store; location: Boise, ID. Income: $34,000 per year; net worth: almost zero (divorce). In college: second year, going after an accounting degree.

Is accounting an occupation with a future, and which part of the profession?

Accounting has a great future. The government will see to that. Accountants are agents of the government, paid for by the government's victims.

I know only one happy accountant. His nickname is Spike. He is a great poker player. He dropped his CPA years ago, so that the government cannot threaten him with de-credentialing. He specializes in getting settlements from the IRS at 10 cents on the dollar for very rich clients who owe big tabs.

He loves confrontation, loves to go into tax court, and he lives in the #1 city of the U.S. where IRS agents are ready to settle. (No, I won't tell anyone where he lives.) He does very, very well. He will not take on a new client who doesn't have a net worth (not counting his home) of $1,000,000.

Be like Spike.

You must become aggressive. You must gain victories in tax court. You must become the Gerry Spence of accountants. You must know every loophole in the tax code. Then you must find rich people who will pay you handsomely to take them through these loopholes.

Don't count beans. Nobody gets rich counting beans. Your future depends on locating an accountant like Spike and apprenticing under him.

If you don't have the stomach for risk and confrontation, then you should focus on becoming the best auto parts regional manager in Idaho. Take your inner drive and invest it in your present occupation. Work 12 hours a day, six days a week. Master that profession.

[My comments: I think this is excellent advice. If more people worked 12 hours a day, six days a week to master a subject/skill/profession, we would have more rich people. Truly mastering a subject/skill/business takes a significant amount of time and effort, and very few people are willing to put in the effort.

Regarding the tax accountant…I would like to meet Spike. Gary's comment that "Nobody gets rich counting beans" is very true. Too many people think that technical knowledge (or specialized knowledge) is all they need. Not true. There are many talented "technicians" working for entrepreneurs. If you're going into business for yourself, you must learn how to market your products/services and convert leads into sales. You must know how to sell (or hire people who do).

Gary's comment: "If you don't have the stomach for risk and confrontation, then you should focus on becoming the best auto parts regional manager in Idaho," really means…."If you don't have the stomach for risk and confrontation, then you're not cut out to be an entrepreneur." If this is the case, Gary advises the man to become indispensible to his current employer.]

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Age: 36, occupation: university non-academic (State) employee; location: Broomfield, CO; annual income: $46K/yr (+$63K/yr wife's); net worth; $42K

I'm making the move from employee to entrepreneur mentally and contextually. Your thoughts on what is critical to change and concentrate on?

You are pulling in over $100,000 a year, and all you have in savings is $46,000. You have a problem. You cannot budget. If there is a single skill that an entrepreneur needs, it is the ability to budget. Otherwise, he will go off the rails. His confidence in his venture will overcome his ability to finance it. This is why most new businesses fail.

You must start saving $20,000 a year. You must do this for three consecutive years. You must get your wife's cooperation. She is the primary breadwinner. If she isn't willing to tolerate the deal, don't do it.

You must increase your time spent on developing a side business. You must work 12 hours a day, six days a week. You must do your day job and then invest at least three hours in developing the business. You must not waste time. You must budget your time as maniacally as you will budget your money.

The key is not what you feel. Feelings can change. Read Michael Gerber's great book, "The E-Myth." Gerber calls your condition an "entrepreneurial spasm." It will probably go away, once you have worked 12 hours a day for six months. Maybe two months.

The key is to find an area of service that nobody locally is providing. Why isn't anyone providing it? Could you provide it, provisionally, to test the market and to test your abilities?

You will need capital to grow the business. Save it. But don't use it to launch the business. Maybe $5,000 after two years of research. Do something that will not take a lot of money to bootstrap.

You could start by buying stuff at garage sales and selling it on eBay. There is nothing like the University of eBay to get budding entrepreneurs going . . . or flaming out. Let eBay tell you if it's just a spasm that has afflicted you.

CONCLUSION

I am getting a lot of questions about careers. This is good. This is one of the big questions that men ask. The thing about career decisions is that they shape
everything else. These are high-risk decisions. Most people are risk-averse, so they stick with careers they hate. Show me a man who hates his career at age 50, and I'll show you someone in the middle ranks of his profession. He should have quit at age 30.