Rika booked this a long time ago since she knows I love Sinatra’s work, and it was a great evening. Feinstein is amazing.

The orchestra was a wonderful -

Joint Venture Analogy

Many people see Joint Ventures as an alternative to other income sources.

They compare brokering Joint Venture’s with real estate investment or MLM or having a job, or running a retail business, whereas Joint Ventures is an all-encompassing, overriding, umbrella philosophy that includes all other income creators. Like the orchestra.

The conductor is the Joint Venture philosophy. Each musician is a different moneymaking activity – a different dollarmaker.

1. The drummer could be retail,
2. The saxophonist could be MLM,
3. The violinist could be real estate – you get it.

The Conductor

Notice that the musicians keep their egos in check. They fit in to the bigger scheme of things. They play when it’s appropriate. The strategist would understand this, and the engineer would liken it to a PERT diagram. As a Joint Venture expert, YOU become the conductor, by:

• delegating,
• directing,
• motivating,
• organizing,
• encouraging,
• creating

– you’re the general, as opposed to the broke, self-employed, egotistical salesperson – the soldier.

How Everyone Benefits

Our motto in DollarMakers is “Together, we do amazing things” – it’s a synergistic approach to wealth creation – everybody wins, based on their contribution. Joint Ventures create value. If  a musician refuses to play, shows up late, does a bad job, stops contributing, or let’s his ego get out of hand, he gets fired.

“You can’t serve two orchestras.” Zig Ziglar said, “You can get anything you want out of life, if you help enough other people to get what they want.”

As each musician contributes, produces, hones their skills, and improves, the whole orchestra benefits.

Win/Win Cooperation

The different musicians represent your Joint Venture partners. You are the conductor.

If you’re really smart, you will strive to “keep things in the family” and create “overlap” – Feinstein and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is a case in point. Musicians shouldn’t be in competition with each other. The higher their IQ, the more likely people are to understand the value of overlap, loyalty, vested interest, strategy, and philosophy.

The underlying philosophy in the orchestra is the love and understanding of music, and the way an orchestra works. Common goals, and a common philosophy – the real mastermind in action.

Setting High Standards

Finally, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra has very high standards, as does DollarMakers.

Choose your Joint Venture partners very carefully, and cut non-producers and game players loose quickly.

An Orchestral Joint Venture Analogy

“Four things make 90% of the people poor: taxes, inflation, debt, retirement plans.”

And then he provides solutions. He says,

“America will become a third world nation – rich and poor. That’s it. Tell me something money does not affect. Most guys are just wimps. Pussies. Cowards. They don’t have it. so they should get a job. It takes discipline. Most people would like to have a great body like Charles Atlas, but they’re at Burger King wolfing down a Whopper with fries. I don’t know how you can expect to get anything you want without some degree of long-term commitment. Quitting is the easiest thing to do. That’s why most people don’t make it. Everybody has doubts and fear of failing. But look at Tiger Woods or any great athlete: when the going gets tough, that’s when they turn into geniuses and most people turn into wimps. Get off your butt. If you want to be a mechanic, you go hang out with mechanics. If you want to get rich, hang out with rich people.”

3 Things You Need to Succeess

When it comes down to it, you need three things to succeed in business:

The REAL Reasons for Success or Failure

The One Fear that will Sabotage Your Life

Blocked by your beliefs?

Trashed by your training?

Flummoxed by your philosophy?

Ultimately, your beliefs are your means to justify and organize your behavior, and therefore control your life. So, how are you doing right now? Got a great life? Future bright, or slightly brittle?

Are You Being Buggered by Your Bogus Blueprint?

How to Do Your Due Diligence on Potential Joint Venture Partners

The Story of a Smart Dealmaker

Are You Battling Intrusive Pain?

All the way home, I battled with this intrusive pain. It spoiled the ride home considerably.

I took my shoe off, examined my toe, nothing to see. Mystery. Frustration. All my attention started focusing on my sore toe in the midst of all the natural beauty surrounding me.

Strong Light Reveals the Source of Pain

I got home, took a good look in the strong bathroom light, and found a minute splinter that must have got into my shoe (I wasn’t wearing socks) and stuck in under my toe. I managed to remove the tiny thing with a tweezers. Such a small splinter certainly had a dramatic effect on my journey.

What is Your Splinter?

On your journey through life, what is your splinter? More specifically, WHO is your splinter?

• What e-mails / phone calls / contacts / meetings do you dread?
• Who spoils your day?

Usually someone whom we think we need or someone who has leverage on us, often a family member.

• Who is it that, once removed from your life, would allow the sun would come out from behind the clouds?
• Who is the spoiler, the “stone in your shoe” as the Mafia say, the one who pours cold water on your hopes and dreams and stinks up your life?
• Who is stealing your rainbow?

Removing Splinters

Since most people don’t change, and freedom is my highest value, I have learned to pay the price to remove splinter people from my life, no matter who they are.

1. Generally, they’re negative parasites who don’t care about you (read “Atlas Shrugged” for a great example of this type of family member) or your welfare.
2. Often they’re jealous, resentful, bitter losers who blame you for their bad choices.
3. Many times, they’re passive aggressive.
4. In all cases, you’re better off without them.

You are Entitled to Joy

Ayn Rand said,

“Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”

Stop compromising, and stop sacrificing your own happiness; start living!  It’s your life, and you are entitled to joy, fulfillment and the fruit of your labor, in spite of what the mystics and socialists tell you.

Life is short, and you deserve the consequences of your choices. You are not obliged to pay for the bad choices that other people make. You’re not a slave to anyone, and people who care about you don’t hurt you. It has to work both ways – give and take; leeches, guilt-mongers, and passengers have to pay their way or get off the bus.

Sacrifice and Serving

When you summon the strength and resolve to kick the losers out of your life / remove the splinters, you will be amazed at how fast you can soar to unprecedented heights of success and peace of mind. Ayn Rand said,

“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

I encourage you to take your life back, and to break free from mental and emotional slavery. Ayn Rand again:

“It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.”

The best way to predict the future is to create it, so remove the splinters from your toes and your heart, get on your bike, and enjoy your journey through life. It’s not too late, and there’s a wonderful world out there, waiting for free people to enjoy it!

Battling Intrusive Pain? Remove It!

1. Can I sell this fellow my product or service?
2. Can I get him to refer me business?
3. Let’s just meet and exchange business cards so that we know where to find each other in the future.

There is a much higher, more sophisticated, more lucrative path to take.

My Objective for a Meeting

How to Turn a Meeting with a Winner into a Goldmine

When it comes top cleaning the garage, polishing shoes, cutting the grass, changing the car’s oil, or swimming across the lake, people seem to enjoy the challenge and brag about their accomplishments. “I lost ten pounds!” But when it comes to business, it’s entirely a different deal.

It Doesn’t Make Sense!

Stop Rescuing Those Who Wallow

Seven Solid Guidelines to Taking Advice

Passion Equals Profit

“Picture the typical entrepreneur and Herculean pictures come to mind: a man or woman standing alone, wind-blown against the elements, bravely defying insurmountable odds, climbing sheer faces of treacherous rock–all to realize the dream of creating a business of one’s own. The legend reeks of nobility, of lofty, extra-human efforts, of a prodigious commitment to larger-than-life ideals. Well, while there are such people, my experience tells me they are rare.” – Micheal Gerber

I agree with Micheal Gerber that this image is absolutely absurd!  As long as you are a solopreneur, working on every facet of your business, you will be your business’ number one problem!!!  As Gerber explains in his book, there are 2 kinds of businesses:

1. People-dependent businesses
2. Systems-dependent businesses

Which Are You?

How do you know which one you are?  Well, simply ask yourself this:

“if I (or anyone else in my company) were to leave my business for 6 months, would the business still exist when I came back?”

If you answer YES, then you have a systems-dependent business.  If NO, then you likely have a person-dependent business.

What IS a Systems-Dependent Business?

So what IS a systems-dependent business?  Consider this: McDonald’s can deliver the exact same promise – the exact same food and customer experience – whether you are in Edmonton, Toronto, New York, or Kalamazoo.  And it’s delivered by disinterested, teenage kids – some of the least qualified employees on the continent.  And this do this BILLIONS of times every single year, at thousands and thousands of locations from sea-to-sea.

…and yet you can’t ever deliver that level of consistency to one set of customers of your one business, located in only one city or town.  What’s the difference?

The difference is SYSTEMS.  Your business depends on you (people-dependent) while McDonald’s depends on systems – the people can be swapped in and out.

I will now ask you: why is it that you are taking care of making sales calls, balancing the books, dealing with inventory, answering calls, cooking, cleaning, and doing all of this ON YOUR OWN?

True Entrepreneurs

The true entrepreneur sets up a system, then delegates it.  Once that’s taken care of, then they create a system for another area of their business, and delegate that out. And they do this with every area of their business until they ARE able to walk away for 6 months or more.

And the funny thing is that it is often the mundane, monotonous, pressing / urgent, and repetitive tasks that distract an aspiring entrepreneur from actually doing the “big-picture” items that will actually take their business to the next level.

Build a SYSTEM for these mundane, monotonous, and repetitive tasks, and DELEGATE.  Then get re-focused on the MOST IMPORTANT things… building your business, learning new skills, ideas, and strategies, and maybe even spend more time with your kids, spouse, family, and friends.

Systems for More Than Business

And what if you don’t own a business?  Well, in your family life you likely DO have many mundane, repetitive tasks that take time away from being with your family.

• Perhaps processing application forms for a charity you volunteer for.
• Perhaps calling all of your relatives for the forthcoming family reunion.
• Perhaps it’s really a pain for you to balance the family cheque book at the end of the month.
• Or maybe it’s a hassle to always be coordinating the parents for Johnny’s soccer team.

Any of these items could be systemized and delegated.

So many routine and mundane tasks…

• WHAT IF you could get someone else to do any or all of this?
• Would that make you extremely happy?
• Would that give you more time to be with your family, kids, and friends?
• Would your life experience be better if you just didn’t have to deal with any of that boring, productivity-killing, repetitive brain-freeze?

Well, having your own Virtual Assistant (VA) may or may not be a fit for you.  To find out if and how a VA would help you in your specific circumstance, contact Tina at 1-877-977-4776, or Info@SaveTimeBoostProfits.com to get a FREE 30-minute consultation.

Want More Time?

If you agree that basically, people don’t change – we change our choices, but not who we essentially are – then their past track record must, to a large extent, predict their future choices.

• I’m talking about a track record that starts early in life, and consistently repeats.
• Also, small decisions and actions give us clues to who people are.

We want to work with winners, not wanna-be’s. The quality of our network will determine our net worth, and we can’t afford to hook up with losers. That means that 97% of people simply don’t qualify to work with us. Here’s a simple checklist:

1.  Their Track Record.

Talk with people about their successes and failures in their lives, from childhood. Winners and leaders will always, like the proverbial cream, rise to the top – in teams, in groups, in organizations, in clubs, at school – wherever they choose, and wherever their passion is. If a champion believes in something, he or she is going to make it work. They have track records of success in many different areas of life. Ask the hard questions.

2.  Their Daily Choices.

Watch their daily choices – do they deliver on time, return calls and emails promptly, dress professionally, groom themselves well? Are they reliable, punctual, respectful, honest, and straightforward? Are they generous? Do they honor their promises and make good and take responsibility when they mess up?

3.  Their Money.

Have they made money? If not, what makes you think that will suddenly change? If they have money, where did they get it? Inheritance? Are they self-made, or Daddy-made? If the boy lives with his parents, is a stay-at-home-dad, has his wife support him, and moves from one financial disaster or network marketing company to the next, how will you benefit from partnering with him? Ask them!

4.  Their Associations.

With whom do they associate? Look at their friends. Birds of the feather flock together. Losers love to team up with each other.

5.  Their Input.

Look at what they read. BIG clues there. Be careful of “seminar junkies” – they flare up fast and fade away even faster.

6.  Their Philosophy.

Determine their philosophy. Avoid mystics, socialists, and altruists. You will discover their philosophy by observing their lives. Do your due diligence.

7.  Their Involvements.

What clubs / groups / cults / organizations do they belong to?

8.  Their Action.

Are they action-takers or procrastinators? Are they overly analytical? Do they embrace change positively? Are they “big hat, no cattle”, or the real thang?

9.  Their Presentation.

How do they present themselves? Their dress, grooming, business cards, car, pen, shoes, paperwork, binders, hair, (men with nose / ear hairs, women who have unruly, wet, or badly cut hair) nails, jewelry, tattoos, piercings… Everything is a clue. Do the women dress act like flirts / sluts? Avoid smokers and drinkers.

10.  Test Their Metal.

Even is all the above are in line, test your potential JV partners in small matters before opening up the store. Give them enough rope to hang themselves, enough opportunity to steal, and enough time to let their masks slip.

Be patient – it’s well worth it. Remember, you’re looking for 3% of people.

Checklist: Choosing the Right Joint Venture Partners

The Red Flags of Conmen

Conmen play the vague, politically-correct, altruistic games that call for “trust and respect” and “giving back”, while avoiding specifics, making elaborate promises, and never committing to anything in writing.

An outspoken and highly intelligent, perceptive, and prophetic blogger recently wrote,

“Obama has been b*tch-slapped by North Korea who has no fear of any reprisal. His naiveté and narcissism has damaged America’s global standing and put us and our allies in danger. Obama’s tough talk carries the significance of Boy George fighting in mixed martial arts.”

I would trust this blogger whom I have never met, more than many people whom I know.

What Business is All About

Business is not personal – it’s about the transaction of value, and it has nothing to do with “giving back”, your wife’s lumbago, or helping the poor.

1. I do what I commit to, and you do what you commit to, and if not, there are consequences.
2. If you don’t pay me what you owe me, I’m coming after you hard with a very nasty lawyer, of that you may be assured.
3. I’m not interested in the consequences of your personal choices or your lies or excuses.
4. And if we do good business, we may become friends. Maybe, but not necessarily.

That’s why we need to be very specific when setting up our Joint Ventures.

How Do Your Role Models Behave?

I have found that people who smile and laugh a lot and insist on hugging everyone in sight are usually adroit at back-stabbing, stealing, and lying. You don’t see the Donald giggling and tickling his way through life. I don’t want to talk hockey and discuss my family with you – I’m here to make money. If you want to be popular and avoid stepping on toes, you will soon find yourself in the company of other compromisers and snakes who will steal the milk out of your tea while recommending their personal psychic and asking you to sponsor their local free injection clinic for drug addicts.

“Tell it like it is” – there are millions of people, and just as many JV opportunities out there for a good Joint Venture Broker. I would rather be feared and respected than liked. And the same goes for real entrepreneurs who make real money – they’re not signing up for popularity contests or trying to win awards or titles. Model truly successful business owners – think of Ari Onassis and Jimmy Pattison. They are serious about business and they expect you to be so, too.

Your good JV partners will feel a lot more comfortable when you get serious about business, and the losers will run away for fear of being exposed for what they really are.

Your Joint Venture Partners Deserve to Know Where They Stand

Who Are You Dealing With?

Think about it:

• When you try to set up JV’s with copycats, counterfeits, caricatures, wannabe’s, and “managers”, you’re not dealing with real decision makers.
• Sycophants, sidekicks, mimics and morons cannot make a JV work – they don’t have what it takes. If they did, they would be the head honchos, the chiefs, the principals. But they’re not.

They talk the talk, but they can’t walk the walk. They’re just parasites and pawns, and they with frustrate you and fail you.

The posers and pretenders will sabotage and scuttle your lucrative JV.  Don’t even bother.

Aim Higher

Smart JV Brokers know that the higher you go, the more you grow. Deal with the top guy, the president of the company, the real deal, and you will find your Joint Ventures flowing and flourishing.

1. They make good decisions, which they make fast.
2. They can pay their way.
3. They have a track record of success, and that is a clear prediction of their future with you.
4. Winners are generally generous and upfront.
5. They will tell it like it is and practice what they preach – that’s how they got to be the owner of the business.

Getting to the Top

The way to get to the top people is to create a really good, complete, professional presentation that requires no money, no risk, and little time from the other party, and pushes all the right buttons.

• It should be logical, short, and sweet, understandable, and concise.
• Most of all. It needs to have high, residual potential.

After all, the JV is about money, leverage, and results – it’s not about you, so don’t get your self-esteem or lack of experience slow you down and lower your expectations.

Go to the top dog, not the concierge. Pitch your JV with the focus on the bottom line and his or her interests – not your own. And stop trying to sell yourself – successful people don’t have to convince others that they are successful.

Red Flags

Here are a few red flag words that will chase off any winner:

• “Integrity” the bigger the loser, the more often he will use this word!
• “I am honest”
• “I will try / do my best”
• “If”
• “I hope / I guess”

If you have done your homework and you have the right training and support, you will speak easily and as an equal.

You may feel important by dealing with losers, but you will become important by dealing with winners.

A Fatal Flaw to Avoid in Your Joint Ventures

It’s like sugar in your gas tank, poison in your pop, the worm in your apple – the one flaw that can cripple even the best Joint Venture, and something to be avoided at all costs. The reason why many newbies to Joint Venture brokering fail is their choice of JV partner. Because of their low self-esteem and confidence, along with their limited belief and low aspirations, they approach people by whom they don’t feel threatened. (This is the same reason why network marketing newbies try to recruit losers.)

Who Are You Dealing With?

Think about it:

• When you try to set up JV’s with copycats, counterfeits, caricatures, wannabe’s, and “managers”, you’re not dealing with real decision makers.
• Sycophants, sidekicks, mimics and morons cannot make a JV work – they don’t have what it takes. If they did, they would be the head honchos, the chiefs, the principals. But they’re not.

They talk the talk, but they can’t walk the walk. They’re just parasites and pawns, and they with frustrate you and fail you.

The posers and pretenders will sabotage and scuttle your lucrative JV.  Don’t even bother.

Aim Higher

Smart JV Brokers know that the higher you go, the more you grow. Deal with the top guy, the president of the company, the real deal, and you will find your Joint Ventures flowing and flourishing.

1. They make good decisions, which they make fast.
2. They can pay their way.
3. They have a track record of success, and that is a clear prediction of their future with you.
4. Winners are generally generous and upfront.
5. They will tell it like it is and practice what they preach – that’s how they got to be the owner of the business.

Getting to the Top

The way to get to the top people is to create a really good, complete, professional presentation that requires no money, no risk, and little time from the other party, and pushes all the right buttons.

• It should be logical, short, and sweet, understandable, and concise.
• Most of all. It needs to have high, residual potential.

After all, the JV is about money, leverage, and results – it’s not about you, so don’t get your self-esteem or lack of experience slow you down and lower your expectations.

Go to the top dog, not the concierge. Pitch your JV with the focus on the bottom line and his or her interests – not your own. And stop trying to sell yourself – successful people don’t have to convince others that they are successful.

Red Flags

Here are a few red flag words that will chase off any winner:

• “Integrity” the bigger the loser, the more often he will use this word!
• “I am honest”
• “I will try / do my best”
• “If”
• “I hope / I guess”

If you have done your homework and you have the right training and support, you will speak easily and as an equal.

You may feel important by dealing with losers, but you will become important by dealing with winners.

A Fatal Flaw to Avoid in Your Joint Ventures

But how much better would it be , how much more attention would you get, and how much more word of mouth advertising would you enjoy if you handed out $75 gifts to all your customers? And what if it didn’t cost you a blue cent?

What Impresses

Nobody is impressed with discount vouchers, two-for-one, “Buy one, get one” and bulk deals – what they ARE impressed with is stand-alone, no-obligation, real value, like a gift, as opposed to bait.

What about handing your female customers a nice Gift Certificate for a complimentary manicure, paid for and provided by the local spa? The spa would get a whole bunch of potential new customers, and they would be happy to pay for the printing and provide the manicures (subject to availability, of course). Far better for them than expensive advertising.

Add to Your Bottom Line at the Same Time

Naturally, you could negotiate a commission on any sales resulting from said Gift Certificates, as well.  That would drive net profit directly to you bottom line with no cost, risk, or time. As long as the Gift Certificates are distributed to the right demographic or psychographic model, it’s a win-win, since you’ll be passively endorsing and recommending the products and services of the vendor providing the Gift Certificates.

Think of the Possibilities…

How about Gift Certificates from interior designers, home theater purveyors, kitchen renovators, yoga teachers, jewelers, kayak and boating places… provide samples, classes, consultations, reports – the sky is the limit. Imagine all the possibilities, and consider the exposure and publicity you would get!

• Target your markets, and Joint Venture with the providers of the Gift Certificates to reciprocate by paying you commissions and / or distributing YOUR gift certificates.
• You could even SELL the Gift Certificates for a dollar each to other businesses.

Think about it…

That Added Value that Gets Attention and Draws Customers

You’re not crazy – just trusting and naive. Too many people show up at “Educational Seminars”, which are usually thinly disguised bait-and-switch pitchfests, with no intention of spending a cent, only to wake up the next morning with the terrible realization that they just gambled their nest egg or life savings on the most ridiculous “investment” possible.

They found themselves rushing to the back of the room, frantic to throw their hard-earned money into mind-numbing schemes, grateful for the opportunity to do so. The repercussions, apart from the loss of their money, can be devastating. They were conned, and they eagerly signed away any chance of recovering their “investment”.

“Get Anyone to Do Anything and Never Feel Powerless Again”

Here is an excellent article from www.RickRoss.com (a great website) that can help you from falling into the trap referred to above:

“Get Anyone to Do Anything and Never Feel Powerless Again” – Psychological secrets to predict, control and influence every situation Chapter 9, Pages 42-43/May 2000

By David J. Lieberman, Ph. D.

From the bedroom to the boardroom learn how to see clearly and easily evaluate information without being swayed by those with selfish interests and unkind intentions. The manipulator’s bag of tricks is stocked with seven deadly tactics that can leave you jumping through hoops. The good news is that by knowing what they are, you can watch out for them, and…never be manipulated again.

These powerful manipulators are: guilt, intimidation, appeal to ego, fear, curiosity, our desire to be liked, and love. Anyone who uses any of these tactics is attempting to move you from logic to emotion-to a playing field that’s not so level. She or he knows that she or he can’t win on the facts so they will try to manipulate your emotions with any one or a combination of the tactics below.

1. Guilt: “How can you even say that? I’m hurt that you wouldn’t trust me. I just don’t know who you are anymore.”
2. Intimidation: “What’s the matter can’t you make a decision? Don’t you have enough confidence in yourself to do this?
3. Appeal to Ego: “I can see that you’re a smart person. I wouldn’t try to put anything past you. How could I? You’d be on me in a second.”
4. Fear: “You know, you might [not get "it" if you go take a pee/act un-coach able] just lose the whole thing. I sure hope you know what you’re doing. I’m telling you that you won’t get a better deal anywhere else. This is your last shot at making things work out. Why do you want to risk losing out on being happy?
5. Curiosity: “Look, you only live once. Try it? You can always go back to how things were. It might be fun, exciting-a real adventure. “You never know unless you try and you regret never seeing what happens.”
6. Our Desire to be Liked: “I thought you were a real player. And so did everyone else Come on, nobody likes it when a person backs out…this can be your chance to prove what you’re made of.
7. Love: “If you loved me you wouldn’t question me. Of course I have only your best interests at heart. I wouldn’t lie to you. You know that deep down inside, don’t you? We can have a wonderful relationship if you’d only let yourself go and experience the wonders that the future will deliver to us.”

Strategy Review:

Look and listen objectively–not only to the words but also to the message. The abusive maneuvers interfere with your ability to digest facts. When these emotions creep into your thinking, temporarily suspend your feelings and look at the messenger as well as the message. If you hear anything that sounds like these manipulators, stop and reevaluate the situation. Don’t ever act quickly and emotionally. Wait and objectively gather the facts so you don’t become a hand puppet.”

Does this remind you of the last timeshare or MLM presentation you attended, or the last self-development seminar you attended? Forewarned is forearmed. Educate yourself about the way people are manipulated in order to prevent yourself from being manipulated.

Why Did I Spend All That Money at the “Seminar” Last Night?

Why would you accept less than that? I know some of us are saddled with unions, relatives that work for us, people we’ve inherited and can’t easily get rid of, and many other excuses, however here are a few pointers that I think will help.

Remember, getting the job is the first job of someone who wants to be an employee. After that, every day, they have to prove to you why you should still hire them. and not give them the sack.

1.   Link their income to their production.

Work out what your real net profit is, your incremental profit, and a way to measure the output of every employee. This takes some analysis and a spot of Work Study (Organization and Methods), but it is well worth the exercise.

• Don’t be too generous, and remember you’re not a socialist organization. People should get paid according to what they produce, not what they need.
• Set traps to catch rats. Take a really good look at productivity, shop your own business, record phone calls, restrict Internet use, use Secret Shoppers, send one employee on leave for a week and see if the others cope. If they do, get rid of the worst one.
• Educate your employees about profit and business.
• Look after your champions, and remember that people change.

2.  Increase the production of your salespeople.

Teach your salespeople to sell, make them accountable, don’t accept excuses, have a sales meeting EVERY day, and fire your worst salesperson on a regular basis. Focus on results, not pipe-line, reputation, branding, market share – just the bottom line. Get them all onto a commission-only basis. Beware of  “sales trainers” – they usually can’t sell.

3.    Weed out the leeches and parasites.

Make their job unbearable if necessary; simply give them lots of work that they hate and micro-manage them. They’ll soon leave if you do it right. You’re in business to make a profit, and you don’t owe them anything.

4.   Learn to Delegate.

The best program I ever attended to learn about management was the Dale Carnegie Management Course. I learned a lot of valuable information about delegation, and I highly recommend it. Most “managers” have no idea how to manage, motivate, or discipline people. Your people need to set their own goals, report to you how they’re doing and how they will improve, and be accountable for their commitments. No excuses acceptable.

5.    Understand Joint Ventures.

In my business, everyone I deal with is a JV partners. I run my company with no employees, no risk, no cost, no overhead and little time. So I make a lot more profit and I don’t have to deal with losers and users. Lean and mean. Learn how JV’s work.

6.    Don’t hire socialists, smokers, or people who don’t need a job.

If you need an explanation for this one, you have a problem.

7.   Reward innovation, honesty, loyalty, and ambition.

These qualities are hard to find. Look after your champions and lock them in with residual commissions and long-term incentives.

8.    Familiarity breeds contempt.

Don’t be their “buddy”, maintain your distance, be strict, hold people accountable, and lead by example.

9.    Set up a “Dress and Grooming Code”.

When people look good, they feel good, and they do better work.  Set and maintain high standards in every area of your business.

10.    Train them, train them, train them.

Especially in the Joint Venture mindset.

10 Essential Tips to Make Your Employees Accountable and Productive

1.   Take note of their mentors.

I know someone whose mentor had no respect for follow-up, didn’t return calls, was undisciplined, and slack. She is following his lead, of course, and will likely wind up with a scary lawsuit.

2.    Take note of their friends and associates.

Birds of the feather – similar values, beliefs, networks, standards, and aspirations. Where do they go? With whom do they spend their time?

3.   Their customers and vendors.

What is their reputation with people who sell to them or buy from them? How about their competition? How LONG have they known this person? Be especially careful of people who are new in the area and have a gray past. In many cases, they’ve run away from their bad choices in the past.

4.    The Internet.

Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, their websites and blogs – take the time to check them out. They will naturally have enemies and detractors if they’re well known, but judge the assault by the quality of their enemies.

5.   Their philosophy.

What books do they read, what groups and clubs do they belong to, what religious and political affiliations do they have, where do they live, how do they spend their time? One’s philosophy drives ones motives and choices – it is a good predictor.

6.   Test them in small ways first.

Test them in small ways before opening up the big JV opportunities. Do they return calls and e-mails promptly, do they pay on time, are they cheap, are they well groomed and punctual, respectful, and professional? Are they loyal and honest? “Faithful in little, faithful in much.”

7.    How do they treat others?

Their spouses, kids, friends, the waiter in a restaurant, animals, receptionists, their employees, and colleagues. Listen and watch – observe – because that’s how they will end up treating YOU.

8.   Take your time, there’s no rush.

And don’t take the word of one person referring them – I now a successful businessman who has very little discernment in judging others. Over time, you will find out a lot more about them, good and bad. Over time, you will see patterns and tendencies – people hiding, making excuses, justifying, lowering standards, cutting corners. You will also be able to identify loser traits, like smoking, greed., ego, drinking too much, gambling, womanizing, and other addictions.

9.    Watch Out for These Personalities

Be careful of the too friendly, smiling, backslapping, always agreeing, politically correct funster. Those who are everyone’s friend and promise the world are usually sociopaths, or at the very least passive aggressive back-stabbers.

Watch out for posers and parasites, too – there are many of them out there. If someone agrees with everything you say and has no opinion, he’s weak or dangerous. Either way, watch out.

10.   Look at the track record.

That is a clear predictor of future behavior. Along with that, listen for EXCUSES and BLAME – the sure sign of a victim mentality. In that case, be aware that your prospect lives in the Victim/Persecutor/Rescuer world that denies personal responsibility.

Better to take the time and make the effort on the front end than to suffer later. The cost of discipline weighs ounces, while the cost of regret weighs tons.  I would rather pay a good private detective up front than lose a lot down the road.

How to Do Your Due Diligence on Potential Joint Venture Partners

“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” ~ Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797)

One thing that stops most people from achieving their goals is the fear of failure, embarrassment, loss, or anything that they currently have and don’t want to lose.

This fear will prevent them from moving forward – the perceived threat and pain – until the pain of their present condition or their approaching condition exceeds the potential danger that they fear.

By examining the things you fear, you might get perspective and change your mind about whether or not that fear has the power you currently bestow upon it.

• What do you fear?
• How can you diminish that fear?

Fear Failure?  Try This.

For example, if you fear failure, think about this: If there was nobody else in the world but you, no other people – would you fear failure? No, you wouldn’t. Because you don’t fear failure per se – you fear the opinions and ridicule of other people.

And anybody who likes you and cares about you would not ridicule you if you failed – they would help an support you, so why worry about the opinions of people who don’t like you or care about you?

Fear Loss?  Try This.

If you fear loss:

• What do you have to lose?
• What is the risk factor?
• Specifically, what would happen if you incurred that loss?
• Could you cope with that loss?
• Is the reward of facing your fear worth the risk?

Think objectively, not emotionally. Write down the pros and cons. Be rational.

1. How can you reduce or prevent the risk?
2. How can you change the situation, protect your assets, or shift the risk?

Fear is usually illogical and based on our conditioning and self-esteem, instead of hard facts. We assume a whole lot of things that are generally not true.

How a Professional Evaluates Risk

Imagine an engineer, and architect, or a scientist evaluating a risk. Would they cry, wring their hands, get angry, shout, hide, or rant? Probably not – they would get out their calculators and have meetings with other analytical people, draw diagrams, make plans, discuss the situation, and find a solution.

The architect doesn’t start whining, “But what if the bridge falls down? What if the floor collapses? I’ll be so embarrassed!” Analyze your fear, get the input of experts, talk with people who have been that route before and succeeded, and then make a logical, adult decision.

The “What if?” Game

Play the “What if?” game. It works well if you write things down.

• What if that person dies?
• What if this project fails?
• Exactly what would I do?
• What steps would I take?
• What would happen?
• Whose advice I need?
• What would I do?
• What could I do?
• Why would I make that choice?
• What would my alternatives be?
• Exactly what would this cost?
• How do I arrive at that number?

When you view life like a monopoly game or a chess game, you can override your conditioning, bias, self-talk, beliefs, and fears.

When you align yourself with successful, mature people who have experience in the field, it gets even better, hence the Mastermind effect of the DollarMakers Joint Venture Club and the DollarMakers Women’s Club – create a support system that will help you avoid the pitfalls of emotionalism, mysticism, and negative conditioning. Together, we can do amazing things.

Most Fears Never Even Happen!

The things you fear are not always all they’re cracked up to be. Several recent studies indicate that over 85% of all that we worry about never happens. Our minds tend to make mountains out of molehills.

Fear is not bad – it’s a warning light that we should consider, and when the warning light goes on in your car you don’t start crying, get paralyzed with fear, or sell your car; you take it to the shop and get an expert mechanic to check it out, or you take the time to read the manual.

• Sometimes,  an inexpensive item or a small adjustment is all that is required.
• Sometimes, it’s more expensive, but less expensive than a seized engine.

Consider the situation calmly and you will find that all you have to fear, as a smart man once said, is fear itself.

Break Free of Fear

Follow the Leader, Wait for Me

Sheep have a strong instinct to follow the sheep in front of them. When one sheep decides to go somewhere, the rest of the flock usually follows, even if it is not a good “decision.” For example, sheep will follow each other to slaughter. If one sheep jumps over a cliff, the others are likely to follow. Even from birth, lambs are conditioned to follow the older members of the flock. This instinct is “hard-wired” into sheep. It’s not something they “think” about.

Safety in Numbers

Sheep are gregarious. They will usually stay together in a group while grazing. A sheep will become highly agitated if it is separated from the group. It is the banding together in large groups which protects sheep from predators which will go after the outliers in the flock.

Social Animals

Sheep are a very social animal. Animal behaviorists note that sheep require the presence of at least 4 or 5 sheep which when grazing together maintain a visual link to each other.

Flocking Together

Flocking instinct is strongest in the fine wool breeds, but exists in all sheep breeds, to some extent. It is the sheep’s flocking instinct that allows sheep herders to look after and move large numbers of sheep and lambs.

Flee, not Fight

Sheep are a prey animal. When they are faced with danger, their natural instinct is to flee not fight. Their strategy is to use avoidance and rapid flight to avoid being eaten.

Safety in Numbers

After fleeing, sheep will reform their group and look at the predator. They use their natural herding instinct to band together for safety. A sheep that is by itself is vulnerable to attack.

Never a Straight Line

Sheep tracks are never straight. The winding of trails allows sheep to observe their backside first with one eye, then the other. Sheep can spot dogs or other perceived forms of danger from 1,200 to 1,500 yards away.

Pain

Sheep have an amazing tolerance for pain. They do not show pain, because if they do, they will be more vulnerable to predators who look for those who are weak or injured.

Leaders are not sheep.

• They are eagles, not ducks.
• They take responsibility and control.
• They lead the pack.
• They fight for their rights, and make no apologies for their values, beliefs, or choices. They confront issues and tell it the way it is.
• They have no need for the endorsement of others and they refuse to work with sheep.

Eagles don’t flock. They don’t live in fear and compromise, and they don’t sacrifice themselves or allow themselves to be taken advantage of by predatory mystics, politicians, parasites, or bureaucrats.

If you wish to be a leader, adjust your philosophy, remove the sheep from your life, and learn from eagles. You can soar to unprecedented heights and enjoy a good lamb stew with mint sauce.

Are You a Sheep? Wanna Change?

• live in denial,
• hope for the best,
• write pathetic “business plans”,
• hide,
• and make weak excuses that nobody believes.

Many flock to “business networking meetings” where they desperately try to sell stuff to other broke people, or dig their hole even deeper with ineffective advertising.

Worse still, they hire unemployed business failures who label themselves “Business Consultants” or “Coaches” and charge an arm and a leg to steal the last money you can borrow. (They’re also in a debt hole!)

Some people have lots of money, but they have no time and their debt is time.

How a Bad Situation Turns Worse

Either way, when your money, credit, or time is flowing out faster than it is flowing in, the murky, smelly water rises until it’s high enough to get our attention. At that point, we try to make a logical business decision while in a state of panic.

That’s when we start to understand the old saying, “desperate people do desperate things”. Situational Ethics kicks in faster than a speeding bullet.

And I am now addressing the people who are in this very situation, or who have the courage to see that it is approaching like the proverbial oncoming train.

What Do You Do?

When you see you’re finally about to drown in the hole you so carefully dug, who do you call?

• A three-year-old with a pink, plush toy?
• Do you call over to the “life coach” in the hole next door?
• Do you invite an advertising salesman over to pour a few extra barrels of water into your hole?
• Or sign up to sell real estate or life insurance?

I know this sounds familiar to some of us, since I have been there myself. How did I very narrowly avoid certain bankruptcy on one scary occasion? Not by doing what I had always done, I assure you. Not by second-guessing people who were capable of saving me, and not by resorting to the arrogance born of fiery fear.

Here’s What I Did

Here’s what I did, and what you might want to consider if a few lungfuls of water is not your cup of tea:

1. Find the most successful, competent, insightful, straight-talking people you can, and give them a vested interest in helping you out of your hole.
2. Follow their instructions to the letter, or they’ll throw you back like the minnow you are, faster than you might imagine.

My Story

I was in bad trouble. I was about to lose everything, and those I had expected to help me (family) were not coming to my rescue, in spite of the fact that I had never approached them before (and never will gain.) The bank was about to pull all of my credit, and things looked darkish. My panicked decision was to sell my house and rent in order to get out of debt, so I called in on my smart, successful friend and asked for his advice.

Help at Last

Gerald Voutsas took an objective, relaxed look at my ridiculous plan, showed me that it definitely would put me deeper in the hole, and offered an alternative solution as quickly and easily as passing me another ginger biscuit. I did exactly what he told me to do, and he saved my asset.

It took a few months, and lots of hard work, but I learned my lesson and I never put myself into that situation again. I avoid those dark holes like the plague, and the way I teach Joint Venture Broking is based in part on avoiding that kind of deep, dark hole.

“But where do I find these experts?”

OK, I know you’re going to ask me, “But where do I find these experts?”

That’s why we created DollarMakers. I wanted a decent financial planner, so I went to a very good friend who is also my Joint Venture Partner, very wealthy, and a successful lawyer, and asked him whom HE uses for his financial planning (insurance). Now we use the same insurance guy. Birds of the feather. Successful people know other successful people.

And only someone who is happily not in a hole can help you out of the hole. “The blind leading the blind” is an everyday occurrence in business, masterminding with the mindless…

Bottomline

Elicit, then follow the expert advice of real experts to the letter. And don’t you dare second-guess, question, or slack off. I listened to Gerald, and I didn’t drown.

Climbing Out of the Debt Hole

When people can steal any information off the Internet,

• copy anyone else,
• plagiarize the writing of others,
• and buy impressive websites and claim titles,

…you’ll often find yourself dealing with someone who is not capable of supporting you or steering you in the right direction.

Who stands behind the screen?

I have just spent some time on a website all about Joint Ventures, offering memberships and chat rooms and you name it, but one thing has been carefully and strategically omitted from the site – the name and description and contact information of the PERSON behind the site.

There is no information on the JV’s that person has created – only rave reports about the book he completed with plagiarized writings, and I suspect he wrote most of the testimonials himself, using the names of non-existent people.

Shyster or Sage?

I don’t buy information – I buy the BASE and the philosophy behind that information, which comes in the form of a real person, not a twenty-something who lives in his mom’s basement and plays computer games all day. I like to learn from people who have actually done the things they teach and have proof of it.

Conmen and tricksters abound in this world, and there are a lot of seminars and courses being sold to vulnerable, desperate people who don’t take the time to do their due diligence of the leaders of those programs.

Red Flags

When you’re hiding, you usually have something to hide. When you’re not available, your name isn’t even a real name, and you don’t supply physical addresses or telephone numbers, I know there is something wrong, and I don’t accept what you have to teach.

What My Finely Tuned “BS Detector” Tells Me

I live in the real world and I make real money, doing Joint Ventures with real people, and after 21 years of doing this, my “BS Detector” is finely tuned. I always look at the man behind the screen before buying his snake oil or urgent, time-sensitive, one-of-a-kind, discounted, priced to sell, buy-one-get-one-free, “available today only” deals.

My Advice to You

Get to know the man behind the BS screen before you open your wallet, click the BUY NOW button, or run to the back of the seminar room to buy his trash or join her club. Who is John Galt?

Information Age Due Dilligence: Who’s The Man Behind the Screen

Seth Godin brought up some excellent points about where joint ventures can go wrong in his post “Why Joint Ventures Fail So Often” – however he does not provide any solutions other than to say ‘do something that requires more risk and causes you yourself to have a lot more at stake.’

Here are the 6 Top Reasons why Joint Ventures don’t work and their effective solutions:

1. Wrong premise or expectancy: If we assume things which aren’t true, have unrealistic expectations, or misunderstand certain market shifts or requirements, or if we misjudge buying trends or the choices of consumers, a JV won’t work. If set up correctly, with no cost or risk to either party, we can learn from the mishap and live to fight another day, as friends rather than foes. We’re not fortune tellers, and we can’t predict the future, but we can arrange our JV’s in such a way that we avoid any harm being done.
2. Wrong partners: If you’re dealing with weasels, parasites, losers, or conmen, your JV’s won’t work. Do your due diligence and be prepared to walk away as soon as you see the red flags. Again, if you roll out your JV in a small way before committing to a large launch, you can test your partners and the market before going big. In some cases, the JV partner is honest but incompetent, or he simply can’t handle the volume or demand when we have underestimated the response. A good “What if?” planning session with objective evaluations and checks and balances can help avoid that scenario.
3. Greed and ego: When one of the partners gets his ego in the way or gets greedy, things can go awry. Avoid this with solid agreements and contracts and work with mature, seasoned business owners, not incompetent upstarts who don’t know that pride does, indeed, precede the proverbial fall.
4. Insufficient planning and/or quitting prematurely: Often, we’re so excited and in such a hurry to get going that we neglect to plan the details and specify amounts and quantities, percentages and responsibilities, and things fall part because of that. Miscommunications and misunderstandings come from haste, and inexperience and a sense of entitlement, along with the desire for instant gratification result in quitting too soon, instead of tweaking and fixing what could be a lucrative JV.
5. Inconsistency and a lack of self-discipline break down trust and repel good JV partners. A good reputation attracts a good database and solid JV partners, which results in successful Joint Ventures. Don’t get involved with people who are not consistent – reliability and honesty, along with proficiency and integrity, are the mortar that hold good JV ‘s together. Both parties are responsible for the success of any JV.
6. Finally, communicate regularly and effectively. Losers hide behind excuses and don’t communicate well. Most flaws in any JV can usually be rectified through effective, adult communication and openness.

Joint Ventures are the most sophisticated way to make money, and people who genuinely understand Joint Ventures can make an unlimited amount of money with no cost or risk and little time.  Just keep the above 6 points in mind when executing any JV, and you’ll find yourself breezing through your JV’s.

The 6 Top Reasons Joint Ventures Fail

While a good DISC assessment takes only seven minutes and will reveal remarkable, useful information that will predict choices and show one how to manage, motivate, and discipline an individual, as well as assist in hiring the right people and discovering their strengths and weaknesses, my system takes much longer, but costs nothing, and is infallible.

Ideally, one should use both systems.

My Infallible System: Monitoring Behavior

My system is as old as the hills, and it works inexorably. It is called BEHAVIOR. By allowing people access to many, diverse choices and options, and simply observing their consistent choices and behavior over time, one can predict what they will do in the future.

My business (DollarMakers) is designed like a giant filter. It attracts people and monitors their choices. The cream, as always, rises to the top. It’s like sorting coal from diamonds. Simple.

Just watch them. When they consistently make good choices, we offer them better stuff. They disqualify or qualify themselves. Their behavior tells us whether or not we can trust them, and what they will do in the future.

Other Critical Indicators to Watch

• Obviously, we also like to look at their past – track records help a lot.
• Also, if people CHANGE from good to bad, and many do, cut them loose – fast.

“Little” Things Speak Loudly

Simply observe the little things:

• How they dress, groom themselves, and behave.
• Do they show up on time?
• Do they leave early?
• What verbal clues do they give?
• Do they respond promptly to e-mails and phone calls?
• Do they hide when they are late with payments? That is a form of dishonesty.
• Do they lie? The more they talk, the more they reveal – good and bad.
• Are they cheap? Are the generous?
• Do they offer their help?
• Are they optimists or pessimists? Regardless of what they say, what they DO will tell me if they believe or not.
• Are they in for the long run, or are they quitters? Time will tell.
• Are they saboteurs, backstabbers, and thieves or are they winners, champions, and loyal friends? Their actions will tell you – just watch them closely.

Test Over Time

You can devise simple tests.

“Come hiking in the mountains at 8am Monday morning”, you suggest. Do they show up? Are they on time? How do they behave? Do they return? Do they bring friends?

Put them in a position where they can be dishonest – set a trap. Your loyal friends will report to you on bad behavior. Look for consistency.

The Tortoise and The Hare

Most people start off well, but quit soon. Some will start with a powerful fanfare, huge promises, massive action, and burn out just as fast. Others will start slowly and build over time – the tortoise and the hare.

Why Using Both Systems is Best

If you use DISC to assess people after observing them for a while, you will have even more information, and your choices will be even better, resulting in better business and a real win/win.

Other Helpful Situations to Observe

• Watch how people interact with their families and pets.
• See how they deal with laborers, waiters in restaurants, parking lot attendants, and hotel employees.
• Are they smokers?
• Listen how they speak with their spouses on the phone.
• Discover someone’s world-view / philosophy / religion, and you will know a lot about their future choices.
• Listen for pain, regret, guilt, fear, embarrassment, bias, political views, and you will find valuable clues.
• Look at the books they read, the pictures in their homes, the state of repair in their homes, what cars they drive, their hobbies, and most importantly, their friends.
• Are they gamblers?
• What groups or clubs do they belong to?
• Monitor them on Facebook.
• Say controversial things and watch their response. I love that one.
• Talk with their employees, vendors, and competition.

6 Vital Guidelines for Monitoring Behavior

1. Look for patterns.
2. Ask open-ended questions.
3. Do this due diligence before getting involved in serious business with them.
4. Make them qualify for the privilege of your company.
5. And be aware of who you’re dealing with / who the real decision maker is – is it their spouse or parent, or is it them? Spouses are often the fly in the proverbial ointment – be very careful.
6. Finally, remember that desperate people tend to do desperate things – look for vices and money problems.

A Free, Infallible Assessment Tool to Reveal the True Nature of Your Business and Joint Venture Partners

Why “Me, me me!” Doesn’t Work Anymore

Basically, when you’re trying to sell your services, tap into other peoples’ databases, and sell, sell, sell, you’re simply wasting other peoples’ time. Joint Ventures is about getting the attention and the reciprocity of other people by NOT selling, but by solving THEIR problems. You’re in selling mode, that’s why you’re not getting ahead. This isn’t a networking club. Here’s how you get someone’s attention and create enough value for them to ask, “And tell, me Petunia, how can I help YOU?” That’s what I teach. The “Me, me me!” approach doesn’t work anymore – people will simply delete your e mails. You need to find out what other people want, help them get it, and get paid for it. It has nothing to do with what you’re selling, but everything to do with THEY want.

Why People Buy

People only buy from you (they have millions of other options, believe me, Mr. Manson, or may I call you Charles?) when they like you and trust you, and they will only take time to even LOOK at what you’re offering when you give them a damn good reason to do so. I get to know you by spending time with you, even if it’s on the Internet, not by reading your adverts.

What “Sowing Before You Reap” Means

The Members of DollarMakers who make the most money are on our Members Only conference calls, at the local Members meetings, especially at the Convention, and at the Bootcamps, building relationships. Are you involved in these ways? You have to sow before you reap and earn the right. I promote people who have proven themselves to be trustworthy, reliable, honest, professional, and generous. I cannot know that when there is no relationship.

My suggestion to you is to:

1. identify people with whom you want to work,
2. then to go all out to create value for them (and get paid for it, of course, Petunia,)
3. and build relationships with them.

The return on that investment is substantial. Give me a reason to like you and trust you and help you.  Put wood on the fire before you expect heat.

The Difference Between Selling and Brokering

Desperate salespeople are a dime a dozen, and nobody likes them or respects them. They hang out at business networking clubs, reeking of aftershave, pushing business cards, flashing their whitened teeth and trying to sell their stuff to other broke people. Joint Venture brokers are entrepreneurs who work strategically and use leverage, relationship, and reciprocity to create long-term wealth. Then you can go buy you own candy and even have your teeth whitened, if you’re that needy.

The HUGE Difference Between Selling and Brokering

The main reason is that they don’t work hard enough, and they quit too soon.

We’ve all heard the story of the billionaire who started out in a car dealership and fired his worst salesman every month. It’s interesting to see the responses of people who hear this story.

Talk is cheap – money buys the whiskey.

“Show Me the Money!”

I like to give people a chance to prove themselves, to show me that the hype actually leads to results. I have no expectations, because I am used to listening to B.S. and I am pleasantly surprised when someone actually does what he tells me he can do.

I don’t believe a word you say; I only believe results.

You can’t bank B.S. – only money.

So give people time to produce, and if they don’t, fire them. Replace them. Everyone is replaceable. Losers hate the story about firing the worst salesman every month, because they know they are just talkers.

Only Pay for Results

People who write sales copy are the worst – they will tell you how they can write copy that will make you millions – IF you first pay them their ridiculous fee. When you put them on the spot and tell them how they can make double their fee by getting paid for the results they produce for you, they tuck their tails between their legs, grab their teddy bears, and run for the hills crying for their mamas.

The same goes for web “masters” who tell me how much money they will make me through SEO. OK, so go ahead and create a site for me, do your thing, and let’s share the results.

Talk is cheap. I don’t pay for lies and promises; I pay for results. The same goes for advertisers.

Check These Out & Gauge Your Reaction

Making money isn’t about being popular or parties or hype – it’s about closing sales and making deals. (Warning – foul language in the following movie cuts.)

• Watch this cut from the movie, Glenn Gary Glennross and get a wake-up call.
• This cut is from the movie, Boiler Room. It will either excite you or upset you, depending on whether you’re a producer or a talker.

Production Shows the Real You

Tom Hopkins said:

“Sales is the highest paid hard work, and the lowest paid easy work.”

It puts people on the line. You can’t hide behind your computer and wear your mask when you’re in sales – sooner or later, you will reveal who you really are through what you produce…

“by your FRUIT, you will be known”

…apples don’t grow on weeds.

If you can’t produce, go work for the government. But if you CAN sell, close deals, and produce, you are on of the most valuable people around, and a rare commodity. Time will tell.

Are You a Producer or a Poser?

Save much time, money, frustration, disappointment, and even bankruptcy, while speeding up your progress and making a lot more money by sailing your ship past these sandbanks and dangers. Avoid these ten risks, landmines, and pitfalls in business, and you can navigate a successful voyage to your Treasure Island.

After 22 years of working with thousands of business owners, I have discovered that you can definitely learn from the mistakes of others.

Risk #1 – Things Susceptible to Undercutting or Short Life-Spans.

Avoid fads, trends, gimmicks, and products that can be duplicated, knocked off, reengineered, and produced cheaper. Remember, the Chinese provide no patent law protection. “Today, it sells for a fortune – tomorrow, it’s in Wal-Mart.”

Look for long-term stability and growth.

Services usually provide higher margins and more stability.

Risk #2 – Selling Your Time.

Selling your time is not smart, unless you’re a famous film star or sports star. Remember that time is your most valuable, irreplaceable resource.

Be a general and work strategically, not a soldier in the trenches. Use your head, not your hands. Use leverage. DollarMakers teaches people how to use leverage through Joint Ventures.

Risk #3 – Bad People.

Jim Rohn famously said that:

“there are only eight bad people in the whole world, but they get around a lot.”

Sociopaths and scam artists are usually very friendly and convincing. Do your due diligence and work on referral.

DollarMakers Joint Venture Broker Club Members that are dishonest get fired when we discover them. Your reputation and fortune are at stake. “When my enemies become your friends, you, too, become my enemy.”

Don’t choose the wrong people to work with. Evaluate them carefully.

Risk #4 – Buying a Franchise or a Distributorship.

We teach our students how to get the same benefits, and more, at no cost whatsoever!

Risk #5 – “Investing” Schemes.

Avoid “Investing” in “Foreign Currency” schemes and other spurious, “Tax Break” schemes and dreams – don’t let urgency and greed blind you to obvious rip-offs.

Risk #6 – Start Ups.

Avoid buying mass-marketed real estate properties that aren’t built yet, especially in third world countries, is very risky.

The same goes for business start-ups and new inventions – I don’t even consider them. Their failure rate is extremely high.

Risk #7 – Having All Your Eggs In One Basket

Keeping all your eggs in one basket is probably the most risky thing you can do in today’s business world.

As a Joint Venture Broker, you can build multiple income streams and diversify across different industries, products, services, economies, and countries.

Risk #8 – Being Lead by the Blind.

Taking advice from the wrong people  is just plain silly.

Never take advice from someone who is more screwed up than you are, and always learn only from someone who already has what you want. Poor people can’t tell you how to get rich, and more than a bank manager can.

Risk #9 – Poor Thinking.

The wrong philosophy about life and money will sink your ship faster than ten giant torpedoes. Maintain the right attitude and mix only with winners.

Risk #10 – Quitting.

Quitting too soon is the mark of a loser. Most people give up three feet from the gold.

Avoid Risk by Becoming a Joint Venture Broker

In spite of warnings, the best motives and intentions, and well-planned strategies, the future is unpredictable, and things go wrong in the real world.

DollarMakers teaches people how to create unlimited wealth, financial freedom, and peace of mind through the use of Joint Ventures regardless of your background, age, experience, or circumstances, and whether you have a business or not.

Joint Ventures is the best way I have found to create financial success.  I run DollarMakers with no cost, risk, overhead, employees, inventory, or risk. This is a great business to be in.

Avoid These Ten Business Risks

But Can You Recognize Your Own Symptoms?

While we’re all aware of the “fight or flight” response to panic, and we recognize the symptoms in others, it is not always easy to see them in yourself. We tend to suppress feelings of panic and deny them, get too busy to acknowledge and deal with them, and in the process start to slip down a slippery slope that includes sometimes irreparable damage to our relationships, health, and financial situation.

Men, especially, want to appear “Macho” and in control, so we tend to cloak panic with aggression and bravado.

A Lotto Desperation

Yesterday, Rika and I sat in a restaurant and watched a succession of men feeding a lotto machine. We were amazed at the tension and desperation we saw in these men. They were gambling precious time and money with extremely low odds of winning anything, yet they probably saw this as their only alternative. Sure, some were just having fun, and some were addicted, but my overall impression was men on the brink of panic.

Men vs. Women

This article tells us why unemployment is hitting men harder than women, and this article tells us that “Unemployment Rate Soars for Older Men with Limited Education”. Women are better equipped to handle stress, and they generally panic less than men do, but we are all vulnerable.

Manipulating the Herd

The herd instinct is much more pronounced in our highly connected society than in past years, and politicians and the media are milking it for all its worth. They know how to manipulate with fear, exaggeration, and spin, and this often leads to mass panic in different degrees. Anyone who believes what politicians, mystics, and the media tells them is living in a dangerous fantasy world.

Scam artists are also very busy tacking advantage of desperate people.

Deadly Panic

Many highly publicized cases of deadly panic occur during massive public events.

• The layout of Mecca was extensively redesigned by Saudi authorities in an attempt to eliminate frequent stampedes, which kill an average of 250 pilgrims every year.
• Football stadiums have seen deadly crowd rushes and stampedes, such as at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield, England, in 1989. This led to controlled entry gates and stricter rules by the end of the 1980s to regulate seating arrangements.

6 Lifesaving Tips to Keep a Cool Head in Times of Panic

I know what it’s like to feel as though you’re on the verge of panic. From my personal experience, having been exposed to high levels of stress at different times in my 56 years of life, including military combat, business and finances, dangerous situations, fire, marital problems, divorce, and many other things, here are some tips on handling panic:

Tip #1 -Realize Stress Effects Your Perception

Perception is reality. Accept that our perception is never accurate, and that the more stressed we are, the less logical our assumptions, choices, and conclusions.

Realize that you don’t see the whole picture, and that you’re missing a lot of vital information as you develop tunnel vision and see everything through a lens of desperation, scarcity, and limitation.

Tip #2 – “YAHOO!”

Shout, “YAHOO!”

You Always Have Other Options.

The fact that we are not aware of our real options doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Your problem is in your mind, and you need a way to see through the eyes of a rational, intelligent, mature, relaxed, and creative person. As I always say, “You don’t have money problems; you have thinking problems.”

Tip #3 -Discriminate the Advice You Accept

Never take advice from someone who doesn’t already have what you want, or from someone who is more screwed up and stressed than you are. They will drag you further down the slippery slope to panic and loss of control. Taking financial advice from a social worker or teacher, for example, is just plain silly.

Question the motives of people giving you advice, and be especially careful of mysticism – this is a dangerous, irrational, and destructive escape route. Choose your mentors very carefully.

Tip #4 -Get Excellent, Level-Headed Support

It’s hard to cope alone, but help is always available from the right people. When you’re blindfolded, you need to be led by someone who sees the obstacles as well as the exits and solutions until your blindfold can be removed. Things are never as bad as they seem.

Finding a good support group usually means that what you currently have doesn’t work. If everyone around you is panicking, you want to remove yourself from that situation. Pessimists are no help to anyone.

Take note of the people in your life. Are they helping you or hurting you?

Tip #5 -Monitor and Improve your Self-talk

I have found the most tool to stave off panic and maintain a level-headed approach is my self-talk. I have always talked with myself, often aloud, and saying things like:

“This is a piece of cake. I can handle this. So what’s the big deal? What are my logical options? This is no problem for me – a mere hiccup to one of my talents…”

Remember, also, that the questions you ask yourself will determine, to a large extent, where you end up.  Find out more about this concept in my book, Break Free!, coming soon to JVWisdom.

Tip #6 -Is Your Philosophy Helping or Hurting You?

Finally, check your philosophy / world view / religion – it, too, is ether helping you or hurting you, and you have many other options. If a shoe doesn’t fit and gives you blisters, replace it.

DollarMakers is designed to provide financial solutions to any people in any circumstances, as long as they are prepared to learn, work, and persist until they are free.

6 Lifesaving Tips to Keep a Cool Head in Times of Panic

Peak performers carefully monitor their input, associations, diet, and environment. They control their self-talk, and set high standards for themselves.

Making the Right Adjustments

• You know how you feel if you wear dirty or creased clothes, if you don’t groom yourself well, if you spend time with losers, or if you don’t get enough exercise or sleep.
• And you know how you feel if you associate with winners, wear smart clothes, look your best, and go to top restaurants.

When you feel good about yourself, it’s because you have systematically created that situation, and you will achieve a lot more. Simply making the right adjustments in your life will go a long way to improving your self-esteem, and we earn money in direct proportion to our level of self-esteem.

How We Learn:

• Taste 1%
• Touch 1.5%
• Smell 3.5% (yet it is the most emotional sense)
• Hearing 11%
• SIGHT 85%!

Because visual triggers are so important (ask any advertiser), I designed a few triggers you might want to take advantage of.

Carefully Design Your Environment

My office is very carefully designed to visually trigger motivation, work, belief, optimism, feelings of well being and success, joy, and peace of mind.

I remove anything that has a negative trigger for me. Photographs of people who hurt me get removed and replaced.

Everywhere I look, I see multiple triggers.  I surround myself with:

• Gifts from people I like, respect, and love.
• Reminders of past victories.
• Reminders of future promises.
• Symbols of success and strength.

Our entire home is like that. Rika and I are careful about our triggers, and we’re highly disciplined. Cleanliness, orderliness, and high quality are important to us.

Do Some Spring-Cleaning

Take a good look at the triggers in your life, from people to things, and do some spring-cleaning. After all, it is spring, and every day is the first day of the rest of your life. Create an environment that makes you happy, healthy, and successful.

Make Your Environment Make You Money

•    Consistent behavior and choices are usually an indication of congruency – actions speak louder than words.
•    The opposite is passive aggression, hypocrisy, and political correctness.

When choosing a Joint Venture partner, look for congruency, patterns, and proof. Do your own due diligence.

Someone might be consistently irrational or dishonest, displaying a congruency, which reflects their lack of integrity.  You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge people by the company they consistently keep.

Your Partner’s Philosophy Ultimately Affects You

You need to understand the philosophy of people in order to predict their future choices, and the future choices of your JV partners will affect your own future.

Umshini wami, also known as Awuleth’ Umshini Wami (English, Bring me my machine gun), is a popular Zulu language “struggle song” used formerly by members of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the African National Congress of Nelson Mandela, during the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. Most recently, the song is identified with the persona of Jacob Zuma, the new South African Prime Minister, and is often sung at rallies which involve him and his supporters, including the ANC Youth League. Here are the words:

“My machine my machine Gun
Please bring my machine gun
My machine gun my machine gun
Please bring my machine gun
My machine gun my machine gun
Please bring my machine gun
Please bring my machine gun
You’re pulling me back
My machine gun, Please bring my machine gun”

Knowing that, how would you like to JV with this character, regardless of his official status?

How to Choose the Right Joint Venture Partner

•    Don’t base your opinion of someone on his or her station in life, wealth, position, or political power.
•    And never believe what the media tells you.

My best JV partners have always been humble, unassuming, successful, and consistently honest.

•    Test your potential JV partners in small ways before committing to large JV’s – allow them to prove themselves first.
Until then, wear a bulletproof vest.

How to Choose the Right Joint Venture Partner

Putting “Time Vampires” to the Stake

If you work out how much time we waste watching mindless TV shows and sport, and listening to brain dead DJ’s and media propaganda on the radio, it’s amazing how much time we waste. And time is our most valuable, irreplaceable resource.

Get rid of what Dan Kennedy calls “Time Vampires”. If every minute cost you $100, would you spend it so easily? Yet it is worth far more than that.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” ~ Steve Jobs

Avoiding a Bitter Ending

As we get older, we start to realize the value of time, and how much we have wasted. Kids grow up, we get old and fragile, and time moves inexorably on.

We don’t want to live in regret, like those who wait to enjoy their lives, and when they finally have the time and money, their health is gone. NOW is the time to enjoy your life, because who knows what tomorrow brings?

Before you know it, you’re old and bitter, your strength and vitality is depleted, and your relationships soured. You can avoid that.

Joint Venture Brokers Use Leverage – Not Time!

The big thief of time is working too hard and too long to make too little money. This can be solved by becoming a Joint Venture Broker, where you can leverage other peoples’ time, resources and money in order to become financially free. Work smart, not hard. Instead of selling your time like a paid slave, use your brain and leverage.

“For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.”

Linking Problems with Solutions

Time well spent is a great investment in your future, and in terms of money, the beauty of being a Joint Venture Broker is that you can work any time of the day or night, using the phone and the Internet, while driving or waiting for things.

There is no more excuse for JV Brokers to say, “I didn’t have time”, because you’re not selling time – you’re linking people and opportunities, delegating, introducing, and managing relationships, like  general in the army, rather than a soldier in the trenches.

The meetings you do have in person can be worth a thousand times what an employee or time salesman can earn in an hour.

Break Free with Your Own Joint Venture Broker Business

I can run my JV Broker business from anywhere in the world, in one hour a day. Sure, it takes time and work to get to that level, but isn’t it worth working hard for one year on your brokerage, and then working one hour a day to maintain your freedom? Better, I think, than working like a slave until you drop dead, which is the future for many people, especially in this new economy and with the direction governments are taking us.

You Only Get Today ONCE

Don’t be a clone and a robot – break free, so that you can spend your own time as you wish, where you wish, with whom you wish. Today is the first day of the rest of your life, and it will never return. Life is not a dress rehearsal – you only get today ONCE. One life. One chance. It’s not too late to change.

Break Free by Leveraging Your Time with Your Own Joint Venture Broker Business

General Orlando Ward said:

“One of the biggest reasons for failure on the battlefield is not knowing what to do next. This is the result of not having been trained thoroughly in what to expect on the battlefield.”

Let Me Save You Some Frustration

Joint Venture Brokers look for clues and use their experience to detect warning signals and red flags in order to avoid sticky situations. After 21 years in this business, I have developed a sixth sense that usually works, however not in every case. Yet the better prepared I am, the less likely I am to get ripped off or taken advantage of.

Soldiers who are rushed through their basic training and pushed onto the battlefield prematurely are naive and vulnerable to an established, hardened enemy.

While honing your skills and your understanding of JV’s is very important, let me save you a few years of frustration with some pointers right away.

Tip #1 – Watch for Those with No Intent of Reciprocation

One of the things to look out for is people pretending to be loyal, open, and committed to a clean, reciprocal JV, when their true motive is simply to push their own product or business into your organization and database. They’re simply leeches who have smelled some juicy blood, and they hug, promise, smile, and joke their way right into your sleeping camp where they reveal their real agenda of rape and pillage.

The clue here is:

• the fact that they do very little due diligence on your business,
• ask few questions,
• and talk a lot about themselves and their business.
• They’ll tell you anything you want to hear, because they never intend to reciprocate.

We had one like this last year – he ended up spamming our database for ages, and never delivered on his promises. We warn others about you, Larry. Once bitten, twice shy.

Tip #2 – Do You Due Diligence EVEN on Those Who Are Recommended

Another situation that inexperienced or inadequately trained JV Brokers face is people who have no success record, no database, no ability to produce what they promise, and no integrity, yet they have have been recommended by someone you trust. Instead of doing your proper due diligence, you skim over it, touch on a few points, and overlook some important warning signs, to your regret. I did this with two people whom I shouldn’t have touched with a twenty foot pole.

Now, no matter who recommends people to me, I still do my own full due diligence, and the character that recommended these two fools will never get close to my database again. Learn from my mistakes!

Tip #3 – Downsize Those Who Consistently Fall Short

And we all know that people who consistently don’t produce what they promise on time and offer ever weaker excuses are headed for the proverbial scrap heap.

Reduce the business you send them, and replace them as soon as possible. They’re losers pretending to be winners.

Tip #4 – Look Closely for “Contaminated” Partners

Also, look out for contamination.

• A bad home life will affect people’s choices and actions in the workplace.
• Financial stress will skew their business decisions and can cause erratic and unreasonable responses.
• Certain religious affiliations will impact their values and can trigger situational ethics and justify unethical behavior.

Their levels of desperation, confusion, and conflict will impact your JV’s in irrational and sometimes dangerous ways.

Tip #5 – Be Leary of “All Hat – No Cattle” Men

And the worst of all red flags, dear Reader, is the egotistic, pushy, conceited type:

• snappy dresser
• runs his mouth
• lots of flash and show
• bad listener
• usually single
• interrupts you and talks over you
• makes big promises
• talks on his cell phone during meetings
• spends a lot of money on himself
• usually makes little eye contact
• pushes you to make decisions, as well – always a bad sign.

This is not the type of person you want to JV with. If you sit back and let him talk, he will talk about himself and his business for hours, at the end of which he will have forgotten your name. Usually, they’re all hat and no cattle, but conmen have never let that stop them. Voltaire said:

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

DollarMakers:  Where Preparation Meets Opportunity

DollarMakers Members are encouraged to continue to learn, practice, hone their skills, and select only legitimate JV partners. William Shakespeare said:

“All things are ready, if our minds be so.”

When you’re well prepared, you’re far more likely to succeed. Abraham Lincoln said:

“If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first hour sharpening the ax.”

5 Pointers to Save You Years of Frustration with Poor Joint Venture Partners

…And what do they do with the flawed rejects? They throw them away. They don’t try to fix them. They discard them and carry on making new ones.

You CAN’T Change People

The most important lesson I have learned about people is that you can’t, as my Dad told me, make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

You can’t motivate dumb, lazy people, and you will waste precious time if you think you can turn losers into legends. (Many women have found this out about the men they married and expected to be able to change.)

But you do have to keep on kissing frogs if you want to find princes.

Finding the Real Deal

In today’s world, people have learned how to dress like, act like, and talk like princes. They lease prince cars and talk prince language, and they appear like princes on the Internet. But in reality, most of them are frogs. It’s frustrating, and some people become cynics, but the warts are worth the wait.

The princes you find (and the princesses) are worth putting up with the posers. Realize that 97% of people are just average, and that you’re looking for the three percent who can really make things happen. Focus on the 3%, and you’ll be fine.

5 Tips for Relationship Success

Businesses depend on solid relationships with good people. Bill Gates once said that if he lost his top people, he would lose Microsoft, and top entrepreneurs know it’s all about attracting and keeping the right people.

1. Instead of focusing on all the parasites and losers you have had to deal with, be grateful for the diamonds you have found.
2. It’s a numbers game, baby. That’s all.
3. Keep on recruiting and searching for winners.
4. Don’t waste a second on the quitters and whiners.
5. …And when they leave, forget about them, and never make the mistake of taking them back.

Kiss More Frogs!

Business is all about two basic things: relationships and results. You have to keep on looking for good people, and they way you know if they’re good or not is by the results they create. By your fruit, you will be known.  Paul J. Meyer said:

“What’s behind this door, I cannot tell, but this I know, and know it well; the more I open, the more I sell!”

Savvy entrepreneurs know that persisting in finding good people and focusing on results will ultimately ensure their success. You can’t get results without good people, so kiss more frogs!

Kiss More Frogs!: How to Find More (And Better) Joint Venture Partners

It’s human nature to avoid reality, wear blinders, and stick our heads in the sand, but facts are facts. Your eager replacement is waiting in the wings. If you don’t perform, you will be replaced fast, and the scary part is that you won’t even know it until it’s too late.

Earn the Right

We all buy life insurance, houses, websites, holidays, cars, furniture, and many other things, and we are free to decide whom to purchase from.

I had someone call me and ask me, “Why didn’t you buy from me?” My response was very simple: “You didn’t earn the right. You need to earn my business. You didn’t.”

Last week I had someone ask me to recommend a realtor. I know a few realtors, but there was not one that I would recommend – they didn’t earn the right.

I am currently in the process or replacing one of my service providers, and he is blissfully unaware that his replacement is already waiting in the wings. Why? He has been unreliable, unprofessional, and unresponsive. So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight. When he wakes up and wipes his eyes he will realize he has lost a fortune in future business and referrals. Too late for tears.

A Few Pointers to Not Only Keep the Business You Already Have, but to Add to it Significantly

Pride comes before the fall. Take people for granted, let your service slip, and before you know it, you’ve been replaced by a hungry competitor. In order to avoid this unhappy and costly predicament, here are a few pointers to allow you not only to keep the business you already have, but to add to it significantly:

1. Respond promptly to e-mails, calls, and letters. That means FAST.
2. Pay on time. If I have to remind you, I might suspect you never intended paying.
3. Go the extra mile – add unexpected value.
4. Communicate effectively, respectfully, and regularly.
5. Reciprocate with referrals, invitations, and recognition.
6. Constantly improve your service and products.
7. THANK people for the business they send you with money or other real value.

Differentiate Yourself

Your replacement is eagerly waiting in the wings. He wants to take your business, and he’s ready to earn it.

DollarMakers specializes in showing people how to add massive value and differentiate themselves from the competition with no additional cost, through the use of Joint Ventures.

A Few Pointers to Not Only Keep the Business You Already Have, but to Add to it Significantly

When we mounted, the leader of the ride told me that when we got to a certain field and we were cantering or galloping, my horse would start to veer to the right as he always did, and she showed me how to get him back on track with the rest of the riders.

Sure enough, as soon as we started galloping out of a canter, he started veering right and pulling away from the other horses. I simply followed instructions and soon had him back with the rest of the horses.

When I rode in Rhodesia, I used to ride a horse that always had to be second or have a horse in front of him in order to feel secure, however when we headed back home to the stables, he would move to the front and gallop like a crazy thing.

As the Arabian proverb goes, “The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears.”

How to Predict the Future of Your Associates

People are also predictable.  If you battle to get a $200 check out of someone, don’t labor under the illusion that they will ever pay you JV commissions. When people reveal who they really are, believe what you see.

• You get to know people when they’re under pressure and on the line.
• Don’t believe their excuses.

You can predict the future by their past choices.

• Watch their choices in small situations to understand what they will do when it comes to real money and important events.

Watch for small clues, take care of the small details, and you can prevent larger problems. Benjamin Franklin wrote:

“For want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a Horse the Rider was lost; being overtaken and slain by the Enemy, all for want of Care about a Horse-shoe Nail.”

Check Out the Spouse Too

When I was selling businesses, I would insist that the spouse was present at the interview. Usually, It was the man buying the business, and I would ask the wife about his habits, while he was present. I would ask her:

• if he had trouble getting out of bed in the morning
• if he did things he promised to do
• if he shaved on his days off

If she revealed that he was a lazy type, unreliable, or lacking in self discipline, I wouldn’t sell him the business.

Behavioral Patterns

Look for behavioral patterns, and do small Joint Ventures with people before going big, so that you can see who you’re really dealing with. Test in a small way before rolling out in a big way.

We often have people trying to JV with us who tell us, “As soon as I get time, I will join DollarMakers”, or “I am considering joining” – how pathetic is that? It takes five minutes to join. That is a sure sign of a liar.

Strong relationship are built on trust, and it takes time to build trust and respect. W.C. Fields said:

“Horse sense is the thing that a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”

Earmark of Success

Successful sports people are usually successful in business, because they are disciplined, reliable, and understand that it takes time to succeed. Farmers also tend to be successful, for the same reasons, they don’t expect to sow on Monday and reap on Tuesday.

Past  choices are usually a good indicator of future behavior, as with horses. The difference is that horses are honest and uncomplicated, but eventually people will reveal who they really are. R.B. Cunninghame Graham, in his  letter to Theodore Roosevelt in 1917, wrote:

“God forbid that I should go to any Heaven in which there are no horses.”

Would that people were as honest as horses.

How to Predict the Future of Your Business Associates

There are a remarkable amount of similarities between a war and a peacetime recession that we can benefit from understanding.

I arrived in the country with my young family, and instantly noticed a huge difference in the mentality and approach of people in a warring country. Most of us were armed most of the time, and we saw opportunities that would not normally be evident in a peacetime or relatively affluent society.

We had to become very creative in order to make it in business.

Things to Learn from a “War-time Mentality”

During a war, there is a heightened sense of awareness, and people live on the edge.

Our women and children were sent out of the country to safety during the transitional time when the terrorist Mugabe was put into power, and men kept trunks with guns, grenades, and other useful items under their beds. People were tough and serious about life and business.

• We didn’t take customers or luxuries for granted, and relationships were regarded as being very important.
• Thinking “out of the box” was what kept people out of other boxes, called coffins.
• People had to be resourceful and reciprocate when they received value, as opposed to the lackadaisical, lazy, and selfish attitude of entitlement that pervades a well-fed and spoiled society.

Getting Creative to Survive

Sanctions had been imposed on Rhodesia, so in order to provide shellfish, imported alcohol, cutlery, and many other commodities that are usually easily available and readily accessible to our hotel guests, we had to buy them on the black market or have them smuggled into the country. We had to bargain and wheel and deal to get good cooking oil, silver foil, and other regular things. Local businesses manufactured products we couldn’t get. One company created drinking glasses out of ketchup bottles. (Those glasses lasted forever!)

Barter as a Way of Life

Tourism all but collapsed. Barter and the trading of commodities, resources, products, and services, was the norm. We traded and sold financial currency, gold, antiques, food, and gasoline coupons, which were restricted and valuable. I traded a diamond ring for the deposit on a house, and swapped that house for a car when we left the country. That sounds crazy now, but the relative values at the time made these deals good.

Where Customers are Coming from… And Still Are.

People cut down on luxuries, and acquiring and keeping customers was not an easy matter, when many of the smart ones had already immigrated. Customers carefully considered the value they were buying before opening their wallets.

After that Year

At the end of my year-long contract with Holiday Inns, I resigned from the company and returned to South Africa, little knowing that it was destined to follow in Rhodesia’s footsteps. I will always have great respect and affection for Rhodesians of all races – I wouldn’t insult them by calling them Zimbabweans – and I learned a great deal about Joint Ventures and creative solutions to real business in the real world in that short and exciting year.

Sadly, the country has been ruined by its savage leadership, but the lessons learned there from those wonderfully creative and disciplined people have always been a benefit to me.

These were my most important lessons:

1. Appreciate the customers and business you have, and realize that you have to work on continuing to earn their business by creating added value. You can lose them in a heartbeat.
2. Be creative, and leverage resources through trade, barter, Joint Ventures, and alternatives to money.
3. Focus on integrity, loyalty, and candor. Relationships is everything in business. Passive aggression, entitlement, and mediocrity, so evident in North America, is poison.
4. Diversify, spread your risk, run clean, lean, and mean, and focus on profit instead of products. Remain liquid and ready to fold camp at any time.
5. Always carry a (figurative) gun, and be prepared to use it. There are people that will steal the milk out of your tea with a smile, if you let them. React hard and fast.
6. Think big picture and long term, and don’t sell your soul for a bowl of soup.

What I Learned About a Recession During a War.

Alan Greenspan says in his latest book that Ayn Rand has been the most important influence on his philosophy, and his philosophy drives his decisions. There are only two kinds of decisions: Those based on emotion, and those based on fact or rational objectivity.

One of the most important quotes you will ever read:

“An emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of man’s value premises. An effect, not a cause.

“There is no necessary clash, no dichotomy between man’s reason and his emotions—provided he observes their proper relationship.

“A rational man knows—or makes it a point to discover—the source of his emotions, the basic premises from which they come; if his premises are wrong, he corrects them.

“He never acts on emotions for which he cannot account, the meaning of which he does not understand.

“In appraising a situation, he knows why he reacts as he does and whether he is right. He has no inner conflicts, his mind and his emotions are integrated, his consciousness is in perfect harmony. His emotions are not his enemies, they are his means of enjoying life. But they are not his guide; the guide is his mind.

“This relationship cannot be reversed, however. If a man takes his emotions as the cause and his mind as their passive effect, if he is guided by his emotions and uses his mind only to rationalize or justify them somehow—then he is acting immorally, he is condemning himself to misery, failure, defeat, and he will achieve nothing but destruction—his own and that of others.” ~ Ayn Rand.

Use this Litmus Test

When your business decisions are driven by need, fear, arrogance, pride, greed, envy, or revenge, they are emotional and irrational.  We have all compromised our values and overlooked important red flags to make a buck.

The result of compromise is guilt, and guilt causes self-sabotage. In other words, you will lose a lot more than you gain. Ayn Rand:

“A chronic lack of pleasure, of any enjoyable, rewarding or stimulating experiences, produces a slow, gradual, day-by-day erosion of man’s emotional vitality, which he may ignore or repress, but which is recorded by the relentless computer of his subconscious mechanism that registers an ebbing flow, then a trickle, then a few last drops of fuel–until the day when his inner motor stops and he wonders desperately why he has no desire to go on, unable to find any definable cause of his hopeless, chronic sense of exhaustion.”

What “Being in Harmony” Means

When you do business according to your philosophy and remain true to your values and philosophy, you’ll be happy and you’ll get rich, as long as you have the right philosophy.

When your philosophy is one of collectivism or mysticism, your business decisions will be flawed, and they will undermine your business.

“The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life.” ~ Ayn Rand.

When business owners sell their souls for money, they start to become conflicted about money. So they start projecting their dishonesty and condemning the very purpose of their business:

“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.”  ~ Ayn Rand

What Makes Good Business Decisions

Good business decisions are the result of careful, level-headed thought. Ayn Rand again:

“Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.”

Choose your philosophy very carefully, if you want to succeed in business. You have to learn to say “No”, even when it costs you money. The more defined and sophisticated your philosophy, the more selective you will become, and the more success you will enjoy.

Try This Analogy

A good analogy is a cheap watch versus an expensive watch. When you buy an expensive watch, you make sure that the person working on or servicing it is well qualified and licensed or authorized to do so. You don’t take your Rolex Presidential to someone who is not an authorized Rolex dealer, any more than you would take your Rolls Royce to a backyard mechanic.

Your business is a reflection of YOU. Who you are, your values, your philosophy – everything that you are is reflected in the way you do business.

Understanding Cause & Effect in Business

Every decision has ripple effects and long-term consequences, so it is important to think about the base and foundation of your business decisions and to determine to disciple yourself to live strictly according to your objective philosophy.

Compromise and concession are the cancer that kills businesses.

Operate with Like-Minded Individuals

Those who use their minds to make good business decisions find it easier to operate when supported and surrounded by like-minded, ethical Joint Venture partners, hence the importance in DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum to attract and retain only those whose integrity is beyond question and whose philosophy is one of capitalism.

Your mastermind, your inner circle, your team, and your family, affects every business decision you make. Be aware of that.

How to Make Good Business Decisions

The malignant venom that is so popular in our compromised and weak society that is corrupted by politically correct, creeping collectivism is so pervasive as to be almost invisible; we don’t see the proverbial wood for the trees.

Ayn Rand declared:

“I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.”

She saw that mediocrity is the poison to avoid if one wants to reach the summit of success. The majority chooses the colorless, humdrum existence over real success.

The Poison of “Part Time”

The first question I am asked by those who would aspire to become Joint Venture Brokers is, “Can I do this part time?” This is a world in which we celebrate the undistinguished, unexceptional, unremarkable, and unrepentant pursuit of concession, comfort, and corruption.

“Don’t work too hard” – “Don’t be a fanatic” – “Don’t pressure me” – “Don’t be so idealistic” – DON’T SUCCEED.

Don’t become a threat to the seething herd of sheeple.

Only Dead Fish Go with the Current

The tall trees catch the wind. The nail that stands up gets hammered down. If you’re successful, you become a mirror in which the losers see their own miserable faces, and they have to break the mirror and attack your virtue. You cannot allow their fear to stop you. Ayn Rand said:

“Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.”

Eagles don’t flock. Warriors don’t flinch. And winners don’t forsake their goals or forfeit their dreams.

Real Men…

Real men don’t sacrifice their values or surrender. They don’t desert and they don’t decamp – they attack and they demand success.

The insidious poison of popularity and insecurity will steal your success as surely as the sun will rise.

Think of champions like Patton, Thatcher, Churchill, Rand, Hitchens, and the like; they never hesitated to do what they believed in and they never left a back door open. General Patton said:

“Don’t Delay: The best is the enemy of the good.  By this I mean that a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.

War is a very simple thing, and the determining characteristics are self-confidence, speed, and audacity. None of these things can ever be perfect, but they can be good.”

Become a Fearless Fanatic

Full time, full throttle, total commitment, no compromise, whatever-it-takes, 24/7/365 is the mark of a winner. Scrape the opinions of the masses off the bottom of your shoe and courageously force your way through every barrier on your way to realizing your magnificent obsession. By all means, become a fearless fanatic; you’ll be in good company.

Mediocrity: A Poison to Avoid

If you wanted a good lawyer, would you find some apathetic academic, or a newly qualified lawyer, or an experienced, successful lawyer who had battled with giants over the years and won?

How to Succeed Against All Odds

I once had the privilege of spending time with a real business warrior, who was also the Sheriff of Pretoria, the city I lived in. He was a fellow Director in our Rotary Club.

When we had ordered our lunch, I asked him the burning question:

“You have succeeded against all odds, in varying business climates, you have a sterling reputation, and you have become wealthy. What is the secret to your success?”

His answer has always stayed with me. Here is the gist of it, as I remember it:

“Robin, there are two responses everyone must choose to ANY challenge or circumstances – fight or flight.

I deem it my responsibility to succeed, to react positively, and to take the fight to my enemy, whether that enemy is money problems, a business opponent, or any other challenge.

Many people see hardship as an excuse to retreat and fail. They welcome any circumstance that will offer them a way to hide and defect. I don’t believe I have an option – I INSIST upon success, whatever the cost. I believe that saying, ‘For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.’

To me, my friends and family rely on my success, and I don’t make or accept excuses for failure. I’m like a boxer that keeps getting up off the mat UNTIL I win.”

His favorite quote was by Friedrich Nietzsche:

“Courageous, untroubled, mocking and violent-that is what Wisdom wants us to be. Wisdom is a woman, and loves only a warrior.”

Difficult Times Call for Action

That little pep talk before a delicious peppercorn steak was worth a hundred hours of anemic blather from academics.

Difficult times are a reason to take deliberate, brave action, not an excuse to stay at home and play video games while your wife supports you. Financial challenges are not solved by hiding and wallowing in self-pity, but by rising like a phoenix and going on the offensive. Instead of crying and cringing, get creative and courageous. Excuses are for losers. Carlos Castaneda said:

“To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.”

How to Succeed Against All Odds

Losing Money Over an Unhappy Customer

I once had a friend call me and leave a message on my voice mail to complain that an unhappy, negative customer of his was calling his other customers and badmouthing him, telling lies. He said he was going to lose money, and he wanted to sue for defamation of character. I was busy, and I couldn’t get back to him for two days. When I did call back, he was out of the office. Eventually, we got to talk a week later, and I learned a great lesson from him.

A Blessing in Disguise

He explained that a business is like a water pipe, and the cash flow is like the water going through the pipes. The pipes get clogged up with blockages, usually bad systems, but toxic, mostly bad people – employees and customers who are unproductive, negative, whining, blaming, difficult, and looking for a reason to leave.

His unhappy, poisonous customer who was badmouthing him turned out to be a drain cleaner! Those who were looking for an excuse to leave, got their excuse, albeit based on lies and fabrications, and when they left, they unblocked the pipe and were replaced by good, positive, accountable, productive employees and customers. Cash flowed stronger than ever after the cleanup.

Never Fear Losing the Losers

There is an abundance of opportunities and there are many fish in the seas.  There is no shortage or scarcity.

• Good people will stay with you, produce, contribute, innovate, weather the storms, and in the end reap the rich rewards of their loyalty persistence…
• …while the losers and victims will come and go and take their friends with them.

Some of your Joint Ventures will work, and some won’t, but there is an unlimited amount of opportunities to do JV’s. Spring clean your garage, and you will find treasure hidden under the junk, while making place for shiny, new toys that bring you much joy.

Kick Your Garbage to the Curb!

Don’t hesitate to divest yourself of negative customers or employees, and realize that they will help you by taking people like themselves with them. Keep on weeding the garden of your business to protect the beautiful flowers. Drain cleaner is a wonderful thing.

Business Drain Cleaner

There is also a spirit to negotiating – if one party is continually taking and not giving, unreasonably inflexible, arrogant, or “talking down” to the other party, the JV will never work.

Changing the Agreement is Dishonest

Also, remember that changing the rules or moving the goalposts, in other words not honoring what you previously agreed to, is not negotiating, it’s simply being dishonest. Anyone who promises and doesn’t deliver isn’t negotiating; they’re stealing and lying. And if they can steal a few hundred dollars, they will steal millions, too – it’s who they are.

Watch out for cheap, tightfisted people.

Only Talk to the One in Charge

Negotiating with a middleman – especially one who hides behind the authority which they represent, seldom works; try to work with the person who actually has the authority to make decisions, instead of a puppet.

Look for Clues

During negotiations, you can get an insight into the character and values of the person you’re dealing with. Look for patterns, clues, honestly, small lies, and passive aggression. Con artists use greed (the big carrot), threats, bullying, and lots of details to confuse honest people.

Watch Your Emotions

Remain objective and emotionally detached during negotiations. Maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. Business, after all, is a game. You can remove the two emotional issues – risk and cost – with good negotiating skills. Watch your own “Greed Meter” carefully.

Walk Away When Your Gut Says

When you get a negative gut feeling about the other party, don’t bother to continue with the negotiations.

I recently made that mistake by getting involved with religious fundamentalists – they proved that they were totally irrational, and could justify the most ridiculous assumptions and blatant dishonesty by hiding behind their religious delusions. I will be more selective next time. One’s philosophy will drive ones choices and actions. We continue to learn. You can learn from my mistakes.

ALWAYS IN WRITING!

Finally, JV’s should be comfortable, fun, profitable, and very clearly communicated, which means IN WRITING. After a meetings, send the agreements in writing and make sure everyone understands the terms and conditions.

Months down the line, people get selective memory and amnesia. Each party is solely responsible for themselves, and the “blame game” can be avoided if these responsibilities are clearly defined – in writing.

You have millions of options in the world of Joint Ventures – be selective, because you can afford to be. An ounce of discipline is better than tons of pain down the line.

If you’re unsure about how to do this, read this page about how to write a Memorandum of Understanding, otherwise known as MOU, which is a basic Joint Venture agreement.

Why It Pays to be Generous

If someone is comfortable with 10%, don’t try to negotiate 15% – they will be uncomfortable and sabotage the deal or undermine it. And if they’re happy with 10%, offer them 12% – the pay-off to generosity can be massive when dealing with the right people. Test your deals in a small way before launching them in a big way – “Take time to know her”, as the old song goes.

You Can Make More Money Walking Away Sometimes

Remember: You make more money by walking away from money when it’s “dirty” money. By that, I mean you can only earn dirty money by compromising your values and overriding your better instincts. If you’re not comfortable, don’t walk away – RUN – towards better deals!

Top Tips for Negotiating Joint Venture Terms

They agree that they will each pay half the monthly lease and maintenance on the truck, which they will share, by using it  on alternate days. For example, John will use the truck on Mondays, work hard, and make as much money as he can. Jim will use the truck on Tuesdays, for his own benefit. Each will be responsible for finding his own business and paying for the gas he uses. Each will earn as much as he can.

Sounds Good.  Here’s the Reality.

John works hard, promotes his work, delivers excellent service, goes the extra mile, and makes good money. Jim is lazy, does shoddy work, has a bad attitude, and doesn’t make enough money to even cover his portion of the lease and maintenance on the truck, so he blames John and claims that this is a “Win / Lose” situation. After all, he is paying for half of John’s expenses, and John is making money, but Jim is losing money. This might sound ridiculous, but I encounter this loser mentality regularly.

Earn According to Production

John is not responsible for Jim’s choices, work ethic, or abilities. He is paying what he agreed to pay, and earning money according to his own personal production, so he deserves what he earns.

Jim deserves what he earns, too.

This is a win/win situation.

Losers Always Expect to Be Carried

Losers always find a scapegoat and claim to have been ripped off by successful people – that is as old as time itself. The leeches and parasites want the producers and creators to carry them on their backs, like Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders. Sooner or later, Atlas Shrugs,  and the losers fall off his back. And then the losers blame the producer for their own bad choices.

What a Win/Win Really Means

A win/win Joint Venture should always reward production and punish slothfulness and failure, and as long as both parties do what they promised and agreed to do, and each takes responsibility for the results he produces or fails to produce, we have a win/win.

Another Example

Adam decides to become a carpenter, so he pays to attend carpentry school. He learns everything, the classes deliver as promised, and Bob is certified as a qualified carpenter. But he makes bad choices, does bad work, smokes pot and sleeps half the day, so he fails as  carpenter. Then he blames the carpentry school and calls the situation win / lose.

Silly, right?  Silly, and sad.

Winners are accountable, and they honor their commitments. Only set up Joint Venture with winners who have a proven track record, and when they start to play these word games, break away from them fast.

My Criteria – I Only Work with DollarMakers.

I received an e-mail from a character who wanted to Joint Venture with me. I told him my criteria to enter any Joint Venture: “You have to be a Member of DollarMakers, we have to build a relationship, and then I will decide whether or not I want to JV with you.”

He was upset, and said this was win / lose. He has the choice – accept my criteria or don’t accept them – this has nothing to do with win / lose.

Win /win requires that you only work with winners. Look at peoples’ track records and do your due diligence, and test them in small ways, before setting up JV’s with them.

The Reality of Creating a Win/Win Deal

Those with hidden agendas will usually agree to everything, and be very friendly and accommodating on the surface, while executing their secret plans under the table. These affable, helpful people use their promises to put one off guard.

The Key is to Limit Access

The way to avoid losing too much to these thieves is to limit their access, control, and exposure as much as possible while testing their loyalty and agendas. This is not cynicism, but rather skepticism.

Hypocrisy Runs Rampant

After 22 years in business, I never cease to be surprised at how well people can hide who they really are. Many are passive aggressive, and when they finally openly turn against you, they are usually very nasty. Those who claim to be “spiritual” and religious have been the worst I have encountered over 22 years – they hide behind a veil of hypocrisy to subdue any suspicions you might have – “wolves in sheep’s’ clothing”, as it were.

11 Tips to Prevent Your Loss from Others’ Agendas

1. Expect the best, but plan for the worst.
2. Have exit plans, contracts, a “Plan B”, and damage control in place before getting involved with new people, if at all possible, especially those who you get that “gut feel” about.
3. Look for patterns and consider reading “The Art of War” sections on spies.
4. At all times, seek leverage and control, but don’t expose your suspicions.
5. Always endeavor to be one step ahead of them, and don’t hesitate to use private detectives if necessary.
6. Protect your relationships and database.
7. Put yourself into communication loops.
8. Consider the worst case scenarios.
9. Don’t bank on the promises of any one person.
10. Also, find out who the real decision maker is, and who the “front man” is.

… And, Of Course, Use Joint Ventures

This is why I use Joint Ventures to make money – I limit my risk, spread my income, and always have many options available. I do as much due diligence as possible on my JV partners and those I am involved with, and while I still get attacked and people still try to steal from me, my risk is limited. Conventional businesses have a lot more to lose from spies and saboteurs than I do as a Joint Venture Broker.

A Healthy, Objective Attitude Will Serve You Well

A healthy dose of suspicion is always a good thing, and warning signs are often there if you remain objective. Once you get emotionally involved, greed and desperation will blind you to what is really going on. Remain, as the Buddha teaches, “Unattached”, hedge your bets, and don’t expect things to last forever.

A mature view of business and life, and access to good mentors will help you to remain strong and rational. Try to see things through the eyes of others, seek to understand their motives, and ask lots of questions.

11 Tips for Handling Hidden Agendas in Business

Create “Overlap” with Joint Ventures

One reason for my success in business is to create “OVERLAP” with other successful entrepreneurs, where we each benefit from the success of the other person’s business. I’m not talking about partnerships or shares, but rather creating overlap through the use of Joint Ventures.

It makes a lot of sense to me to give a well-known, successful business owner a vested interest in my success, because I then get access to his resources, connections, experience, skills, and input. This is s smart strategic move that:

• increases profits,
• prevents losses and silly mistakes,
• gives you a sounding board for new ideas,
• and adds security and balance to your business.

Ani Defranco said:

“I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort where we overlap.”

A Real Mastermind Situation

The more overlap you have with other people, the more insight, perspective, opportunities, and options you have. This is a real Mastermind situation, and DollarMakers works on this principle. It is leverage, duplication, and optimization par excellence.

By the same token, it is important NOT to have any overlap or association with the wrong people, and to remove dishonest characters from your business connections as soon as possible. Quality is everything when it comes to Joint Ventures.

Reward (aka Pay) Only for Results (aka Production)

It is also important to note that people should be rewarded for production, not simply for being around. We have all made the mistake of accommodating parasites who pretend to work and get paid without producing anything, and when you see that happening, get rid of them ASAP. All Joint Ventures should be designed to reward people in direct proportion to their contribution, not their title.

Start with Those You Know… Who’s Also Successful

Finally, I encourage you to make a list of the most successful people you know and to work out a way to create overlap with their businesses. Smart entrepreneurs know that it’s not “what” you know, but “who” you know, however knowing someone and giving that person a vested interest in the success of your business is a different kettle of fish altogether.

They need to see a specific, measurable, and significant benefit to their contribution towards your success, and this has to be clearly communicated and effectively implemented. DollarMakers runs on this principle, and it works for us. Babe Ruth said,

“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”

Together, we can do amazing things.

Why Giving Others a Vested Interest in Your Business Pays

Talk is cheap, but money buys the whiskey.  I’m tired of tired old promises from people who can’t even trust themselves.

So I want to suggest to you that you start doing what I have started doing: When people promise stuff, and you know they are good at making promises, but seldom deliver or always deliver late (in many cases a subconscious need for control, due to a poor self image), simply say,

“Don’t promise what you will do – just tell me when you’ve done it.”

Promises are a Red Flag

Just as you have learned not to trust the posers, parasites, and pundits who spew licentious lies from their podiums and pulpits, so you should begin to doubt the pageantry, prevarications, promises and pledges paraded out by schlemiels that have no intention of fulfilling them, let alone the ability to do so.

Follow This Rule of Thumb

It’s time to move from hopeful, blind, childish naivety to mature, reasonable skepticism until someone proves themselves, and we should take note of their track records. I know people that regularly promise things that I have no expectation of ever seeing, because they have proven to me over time that they don’t deliver, or that they are always late. I feel like taking them to a tattoo studio and having a large “L” for Loser tattooed onto their foreheads, to save other people time and disappointment.

I have one particular fool who promised to put a system in place in August, and he still hasn’t delivered. I will never trust this specimen in any business deal or refer him any business. Mostly, I remove these types from my life – I scrape them off my shoes.

Take Heart.  There are Some Winners.

The good news is that there are a few winners out there (3% of the population) who actually do deliver on time, and they are few and far between. Work with them, trust them, and carefully foster those relationships.

Believe and pay for RESULTS, not promises.

A healthy dose of skepticism is in order until people prove themselves. Until then, don’t allow yourself to be set up. Focus on the producers.

Believe Results, Not Promises

You Can Do Something About It

First, recognize that if someone else in the same area, industry, and environment, with similar products, services, and offers, is doing better than you are, then there is definitely something you can do about it. That’s good news. So here are some pointers that will work for you:

Tip #1 – Up Your Enthusiasm

Your level of enthusiasm and belief will open many doors. Enthusiasm is contagious, and if you don’t believe in yourself and your offer, nobody else will. The higher your confidence level, the more impact you will have.

How can you increase this?

The word “Enthusiasm” ends with the letters IASM – I Am Sold Myself. You have to believe in, buy, and use your own product or service. You have to be “a product of the product.”

You increase your confidence and self-esteem by knowing everything there is to know about what you’re selling, the benefits, and the details, so training and learning about what you’re selling is essential. The more you learn, the more you will earn. Disciplined learning will increase your self-esteem and expectations.

Tip #2 – You have to look (and act) like a million dollars before you earn it.

Your personal presentation is important. If you’re badly dressed with bed head, sleep creases on your face, cat hair on your coat, and unshaven, no winner will want to talk with you. BO, halitosis, showing up late, not delivering on your promises, and a bad haircut will simply destroy any credibility you might have had.

You have to look successful and act successful in order to BE successful. Look like a million dollars before you can earn it. BE – DO – HAVE. Remember that. People DO judge a book by its cover, and first impressions are lasting impressions.

Tip #3 – Keep It about the Other Person

Talk in the interests of the other person, get your ego out of the way, and don’t waste your prospect’s time. Be very well prepared with a specific sales strategy.

Tip #4 – Look Good On Paper Too

If you have anything in writing, keep it concise, to the point, professional, bottom-line oriented, and on good paper. You will be judged by your written material, hand-outs, and spelling mistakes. Your prospect is looking for clues, so make sure the clues he finds are good ones.

Tip #5 – Set the Bar High and Be Ready to Walk Away

Self-respect, selectivity, and setting the bar high will label you as a professional to be taken seriously. If you’re desperate, needy, broke, and tense, you will frighten any winners away fast.

Be relaxed, well prepared, and ready to walk away from any deal. The more prospects you have, the easier this is, so use Joint Ventures to procure on-going streams of qualified prospects.

See yourself as your prospect’s equal. Be strong and focused.

Tip #6 – Carefully Choose Your “Field of Battle”

Choose the environment in which you present yourself carefully – the Four Seasons is better than a Mac Donald’s.

Tip #7 – Craft a Win/Win Offer…

Make sure your offer is genuinely win/win – think about what’s in it for the prospect, his return on investment, and his goals.

Try to remove the risk and cost from both parties as much as possible.

Tip #8 – …And Craft an Offer that’s Too Good to Be Refused.

Sweeten the pot through the use of Joint Ventures, by adding massive value – “an offer too good to be refused” – this takes preparation and thought, but you can differentiate yourself from your competition by adding four times the value, at no cost top yourself, through Joint Ventures.

Tip #9 – Stop Blaming Outside Circumstances

Stop blaming others and the economy for your poor ales – take personal responsibility – that is the mark of a winner.

Tip #10 – Remember to “Yahoo”

Finally, be sensitive – when someone makes it clear they’re not interested, walk away fast.  There are many fish in the sea, you have many options, and walking away from uncooperative prospects will increase your self-esteem and therefore your income.

Remember “Yahoo”.  You Always Have Other Options!

DollarMakers provides on-going, ever-improving training and support, access and information on how to be a successful and professional Joint Venture Broker, based on our own experience and the changing marketplace. JV’s will help you to increase sales, whether you have a business or not, and we’re here to help.

Ten Tips to Get People to Buy from You

Don’t talk to the person sitting next to you!

Why this anti-social choice? On a five or eight hour flight, even on a two-hour flight, you run the real risk of being locked into a one-sided conversation about the other person.

It’s like attending a “Business Networking Meeting”:

Ask someone, “What do you do?” and be prepared for a torrent of verbal trash and unadulterated BS that only stops when the other person decides that you’re not going to buy from him, at which time here turns you off fast, turns his back, and turns on his next unsuspecting victim.

People are Not Interested in You

You should realize that when people ask, “How ya doin’?” they really don’t want an answer. When they inquire about your business, they’re only trying to find out if you will buy their products or services – they’re looking for sales signals or buying signs; they’re prospecting. They are not interested in you, your welfare, or your opinion – unless it leads to buying their stuff.

Why This Poor Behavior is GREAT for You!

Sell, tell, push, and pressure – it’s amazing how so many broke, self-employed salespeople, has-beens and wanna-be’s, think that if they inundate you with enough egotistical, boring, self-aggrandizing information, you’ll eagerly whip out your check book and buy from them. And that, dear reader, is excellent news.

Why?

Because it gives you the opportunity to benefit from this mindless and desperate behavior. It offers you the lucrative opportunity to get people to send you more business than you can shake a stick at, using a simple, yet highly effective approach.

OK, so here is your action plan:

#1 – Only talk with successful people.

First, only talk with successful people who are capable of sending you lots of business, and many, qualified prospects.

#2 – Don’t talk about yourself.

Second, don’t talk about yourself, your products or services, your needs, opinions, or family. Nobody cares. Get used to it.

#3 – Recognize and drop losers fast!

Third, if the person you’re talking to looks at his Blackberry, interrupts you, or answers his phone, drop him like a hot cake. If he’s badly dressed / groomed, or appears arrogant or distracted, move away fast. If he’s a loser, he will refer you to losers.

#4 – ONLY talk about the other person.

Fourth, only talk about him:

• his products
• his family
• his goals
• his challenges
• his pain
• his needs
• his dreams
• his hopes

Dig deep with open-ended, strategic questions to find his Hot Button.

• What keeps him awake at night?
• What are his secret desires and fears?
• What does he want, or want to avoid, most of all?

Sincere, focused attention on him will make him like you and feel connected. Match and model his movements, speed, tone, and personality type to get in harmony with him, without going over the top (he sneezes, swears and burps, so you do, too).

#5 – Find solutions to bring relief for him through other people or their resources.

Fifth, find solutions, bridges, and relief for him through other people or the resources of others. That’s what Joint Venture Brokers do, and we get paid by the businesses providing those solutions. (This is what I specifically teach at our DollarMakers Bootcamps or through the Home Study Course.  You can read more about that here.)

We like people who help us, relieve our pain, and protect us, don’t we? We tend reciprocate when people do us favors and make us feel good about ourselves. The more value you can create for the other person (while getting paid for the referrals, of course,) the more likely he is to want to reward and repay us.

#6 – Set up reciprocation (that is also in his favor).

Sixth, after solving his problems, (not before,) alleviating his pain, and making him feel like a million bucks, show his specifically and exactly how he can reciprocate and return the favor, and how that will earn him generous commissions and favors from you that can be applied directly to his previously revealed Hot Button.

This is where you can set up a Referral System, Piggyback Mailing, Host Beneficiary Relationship, Endorsed Mailing, or other Joint Venture, again speaking specifically in the interest of the other person, never your own.

Solve More Problems = Get More Business

Zig Ziglar said:

“You can get anything you want out of life, if you’re prepared to help enough other people to get what they want.”

He didn’t say, “Run your mouth, blow your own trumpet, bore them with your false promises, and they’ll buy from you just to get rid of you.”

Solve the problems of good people and they will send you more business than you can shake a stick at.

Joint Venture Brokers get paid for solving, not selling.

We see every problem and goal as an income source, or dollarmaker. We understand that knowing what someone’s Hot Button is and knowing how to release the resources required to help others get what they want, with no cost or risk, is the way to wealth and strong relationships.

How to Get People to Send You More Business Than You Can Shake a Stick At

#1 – You Run Into More Losers Than Winners.

First, it’s easy to talk with losers.

When I had an 800 number, 95% of the people that called me were bored losers who couldn’t get anyone to talk to them.

I had two old women that would spend hours on the phone, purportedly discussing Joint Ventures, when in reality they were business has-beens with time to waste. I stopped the 800 number and saved a lot of time. Anyone who can’t afford a long distance call doesn’t qualify for my attention.

It’s easy to get appointments with broke, desperate people. They will rush to meet you, hoping to somehow make a quick buck off you. So lazy people take the easy way out and talk with the wrong people. Disciplined people won’t have any problem working hard.

#2 – Losers Seeks Out Losers

Second, people with poor self-esteem usually seek out people who are even more pathetic than they are – that way, they get to feel superior and they avoid feeling threatened. People with high self-respect seek out people who are more successful and driven that they are.

#3 – It Takes More Work to Approach a Winner

Third, you need a pretty compelling offer to get the attention of a winner, and that takes a bit of work and preparation. When you’re strategizing your presentation to a real center of influence, you know you had better have a real deal that is well packaged and credible.

If you’re pitching snake oil vitamins, questionable investments, property in third world countries, or start-up business deals, you know the winners will not waste any time with you.

When you want big results, you have to go after the big players. It costs money, it takes time, discipline, persistence, and preparation, but it takes less time (winners have the ability to make a decision and tell you what their decision is) and it’s a lot more fun than shaking the hands of broke salespeople who are convinced that their magic juice cures everything from Halitosis to Hypoplasia.

Get More Selective and Work with Winners

Every time my business has jumped to the next level, it has been as the result of a good connection with a big player. My Joint Ventures flourish when I work with winners. And the more selective I get, the more successful my business becomes. Learning to say, “NO” is crucial to your success. Spend more on less people, be focused on high class, high returns, and high standards, and you will bag the big game that brings you the big bucks.

Get More Selective and Work with Winners

Some of the reasons for this could be that:

• They don’t believe they will get a very large response.
• They simply don’t have the capacity to fulfill large orders or deliver the service.
• Their circumstances, cash flow, staffing, or supplier situation might change and put them in a position where they can’t deliver.
• Or you might find that their service stinks or they’re always late…

Whatever the reason, it is wise to test a JV in a small way before running it out in a big way.

Avoid Desperate People!!!

One of the ways to avoid disappointment is to avoid people who are desperate for business or have cash flow problems. You might find they’re so desperate for money that they make existing clients wait and stew while they grab all the business they can get to pay the rent and ultimately disappoint everyone by being late, making excuses, and contaminating your reputation with the customers you sent to them. They’re usually smooth talkers and very good at making elaborate promises.

Before Doing Extensive Business:

1. Check their capacity out, talk with past clients, and talk with present clients.
2. Look for red flags.
3. Give them small jobs to do over a period of time, and see how fast they react and how many excuses they make.

Excuses are a HUGE Red Flag

When you’re waiting for a commission check from a JV partner and it’s always “in the mail”, remember that FedEx and bank drafts will clear up all “misunderstandings” very fast.

“Cancel the check and send me a bank draft with overnight courier and I’ll believe you.”

Watch Pacino in the old movie, “Midnight Run”. Money is the ultimate proof, and a very emotional issue for most people.

Test in a small way before selling the farm. If he can’t pay for seven chickens and a donkey, don’t expect him to buy the entire farm. Excuses are usually the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Working Out the Kinks

Testing a Joint Venture in small ways also helps you iron out any potential misunderstandings and glitches before they become big issues. Most Joint Venture problems are the result of misunderstandings, honest mistakes, and miscommunication. That’s why it is important to:

• Get everything in writing.
• Play the Devil’s Advocate and “What if?” games.
• Remain realistic.

Past Performance: A Good Indicator of What You’re In For

Past performance is usually a good predictor of future choices. Often, people promise big to impress you, or they’re embarrassed to admit that they have problems or are facing threats.

You Reputation is on the Line

Your JV partner’s problems and limitations can become your problems and limitations if your reputation is at stake. Avoid:

• start-ups
• dicey investments
• new inventions

Work on the Relationship First

Work on the relationship and the trust before you do a Joint Venture with someone. At the end of every Bootcamp I present, I have characters approaching me to hard sell me their services or schemes, and I am amazed that they don’t understand that you have to “earn the right” and build the trust before assuming anyone would want to work with you on a JV.

Strike a Balance between Optimism and Objectiveness

• Trial runs,
• small tests,
• little investigations,
• and watching what someone DOES as opposed to what he SAYS before opening the floodgates…

will protect your JV’s and relationships, your reputation, and your blood pressure. We’re all optimistic, idealistic, trusting, and excited about business, and we like to believe the best about others, but we need to remain realistic and objective and be patient if we want to be successful in our Joint Ventures.

Testing a Joint Venture Before Full Implementation