The Small Business Professor

Teaching Others Pays Off

Eva Rosenberg president of GifTech Corporation of Las Vegas, Nevada is finally doing what she has wanted to do since she joined the business world. Known to millions throughout the nation as “TaxMama” she provides free tax related advice to individuals and corporations alike though articles and various columns. How she got to this point is a lesson in American entrepreneurship and how determination sometimes makes the man, or in this case, woman.

In 1995, Ms. Rosenberg was running a successful business as a tax consultant, but she wanted more, a chance to do other things. She had an idea to create a web-based business that provided a universal online gift registry, patterned after wedding registries, for adults and children alike. Plowing into it full steam, she learned a lot about the Internet and making web sites work. To help her fledgling business and others get answers to tough questions about Internet hosting, design, coding and many other issues, she started reviewing websites and eventually started another site, HelpDeskWebReview.com, which answers Internet questions of all kinds. Within 5 years, she sold her gift registry site and used the knowledge she gained from it and HelpDesk to launch TaxMama.com, a place for free tax advice. She invited her own tax clients and HelpDesk subscribers to join. Now, TaxMama.com is the only individually owned website that is partnered with IRS, listed in the Journalist Toolbox, and listed in top10 lists of online resources. Through the site, Ms. Rosenberg publishes a weekly e-zine to thousands of subscribers. Yet she still wasn’t satisfied. Though the site was very successful, it wasn’t making enough money to allow her to do what she wanted to do, which was to spread her knowledge through a national column.

One little change on her web site and steely determination changed all of that. As TaxMama.com was already successful, she was in position to take advantage of AdSense, an advertising opportunity provided by Google. It allows web sites to be paid for ads Google sells for you. This created a reasonable income stream, which gave Ms. Rosenberg additional time to write. At that point in 2003, she decided it was time to change her life and go after the dream she had always carried. So, she sold her tax practice and stopped taking any new personal clients. Soon after she made her decision, McGraw Hill called and asked her to write a book. Helping a friend get another article published, she contacted CBS.Marketwatch.com. It turned out that they needed a fill-in for an article in a half-hour deadline timeframe. She got it to them within 45 minutes and they offered to let her complete the rest of a contract for six more articles in six weeks. Suddenly, after all these years and hundreds of free articles, she was a paid national columnist. Soon she had another contract for a weekly column, and later, a monthly column, which has now been extended long-term. Although Ms. Rosenberg keeps a base of tax clients to keep her tax code knowledge base up to date, she is finally doing what she dreamed of so many years ago.

The Small Business Professors' Words of Wisdom

Although Eva Rosenberg has always been able to pay the bills for herself and her staff, money has never been her main goal. For years, she wrote articles for free and helped others as well, building over time the reputation as an expert which would eventually allow her to fulfill her dream of becoming a paid national columnist. By teaching to others, she managed to parlay what she learned from the web and other people into what she wanted all along. She believes that by helping others, she gets it all back plus much more. As long as you don’t give up, one day you will be in the right place at the right time with the right item. What Eva Rosenberg has done took years, but just because you haven’t achieved your goals doesn’t mean you can’t. How old will you be if you don’t do it? - Just as old as you’ll be anyway.

Case History: GifTech Corporation
www.taxmama.com

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Known to millions throughout the nation as “TaxMama” she provides free tax related advice to individuals and corporations alike ...