Naturally, they all replied that it would be impossible. Then I asked them,

“If your family was held captive and (I named a celebrity with a reputation for violence) was to show up with a shotgun and tell you he would kill your entire family if you didn’t double your sales in three months, could you do it now?”

First, they sheepishly (I feel that adverb is most apt) admitted that, given that level of urgency and motivation, they could definitely double their sales, then they reported me to their bosses for being politically incorrect and “upsetting them”.

I fired the bank as a client – I don’t do business with clients who prefer low productivity to honesty.

Being Exposed and Challenged

Why did they immediately attack me?

Why release their pent up, festering, passive aggression?

Why not be grateful to realize that they could, indeed, double their sales? A producer would certainly not have responded in this manner. Here’s why:

1. The slothful sluggards had to immediately divert attention from the fact that their ineptitude and low productivity had been revealed, and that they would now be responsible, having admitted the possibility, for doubling their sales. That new level of production would mean they would have to confront issues in their lives, forego their weak excuses, change their behavior, and do uncomfortable things in order to get better results. And they wanted to avoid that at all costs. Tall trees catch the wind, and when a loser doesn’t like what he sees in the mirror, he smashes the mirror.
2. Anyone exposing a parasite for what he is becomes the enemy of the parasite. In spite of the fact that I was just doing my job, which was getting more production out of these so-called sales professionals, and that I was indeed helping them shift their paradigm in order for them to earn higher commissions, they chose to attack me. I was doing my job too well! They wanted to be motivated and congratulated, not exposed and challenged. I was putting the status quo in jeopardy.
3. Misdirection is used by magicians and politicians alike. Political correctness is the poisoned tip of the spears of socialism, statism, and collectivism. It is the tool of the mystics and the politicians.

The Same Amount of Work Could Be Done With Half the Employees

Years ago, I was a Work Study Officer in a government department, a job I grabbed to put some money in the bank after a nasty divorce.

I was ordered to conduct an organization and methods examination of a large typing pool, and the result of my work was my suggestion that half the bureaucrat typists be summarily fired, and that the same amount of work could be done with half the employees.

I was called into my boss’s office and told to withdraw my report immediately. After all, these people had families to feed – they were the friends and family of many of the people in the Work Study department, and they needed those jobs!

Three months later, I resigned, started my own business and never worked for a boss again. That was nearly twenty-three years ago.

Political correctness is what Ayn Rand refers to as “Collectivized Ethics” in her book, “The Virtue of Selfishness”, written in 1967, and more relevant today than ever before:

“Hence the appalling recklessness with which men propose, discuss and accept ‘humanitarian’ projects. ‘Medicare’ is an example of such a project. ‘Isn’t it desirable that the aged should have medical care in times of illness?’ Considered out of context, the answer would be: yes, it is desirable. And it is at this point that the mental processes of a collectivized brain are cut off; the rest is fog. The fog hides such facts as the enslavement and, therefore, the destruction of medical science, the regimentation and disintegration of all medical practice, and the sacrifice of the professional integrity, the freedom, the careers, the ambitions, the achievements, the happiness, the lives of the very men who are to provide that ‘desirable’ goal – the doctors.”

The 2012 Misdirection

Right now, many people are becoming enthralled with the new movie, “2012 – An epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world”.

The 2012 doomsday belief suggests that the Mayans foretold the end of the world at this time and, since the world is ending, there is no need to continue counting days or making calendars past that point.

Think about it – isn’t it a lot easier to discuss the end of the world than taking responsibility for your daily life? Wouldn’t moochers and looters prefer to focus on something vague in the future, rather than admitting that they are failing miserably in the present? Misdirection.

The Ugly Truth For “Politically Correct”

The most dangerous people are the politically correct. They are the snakes and the back-biters, and they represent the majority of people today. They squirm in their seats when I mention the word, “loser”, because they know they’re losers. They bristle when I state the fact that we’re fat, not because we’re retaining water, not because of hormones or our metabolism, but because we won’t put the fork down.

The smokers seethe when I tell them they stink. And when I say that Obama is a socialist, they tremble with fear and indignation. I tell it like it is, and I don’t give a damn what anyone says or thinks. If they won’t rock the boat, I certainly will. Turkeys pretending to be eagles are no threat to real eagles.

The reason for being “politically correct” is to redistribute wealth from the producers and creators to the parasites and the lazy. It is to deflect responsibility and hide reality, and to allow the looters to steal with impunity. Be aware – Atlas will shrug, and is already doing so.

The REAL Reason for Being Politically Correct

• If you can afford to fly instead of drive, you save time.
• If you can afford the money to delegate and subcontract, you can save time.
• If you can hire experts, you can save time. You can pay others to do stuff for you. That saves time.

Money also buys health – the best medical care, diets, exercise, avoidance of financial stress, security, enough rest, peace of mind, holidays, leisure, and so on.

Working Hard to Save Time = Neglecting Your Family & You

So it’s chicken and egg to most people who don’t understand how to create real wealth – they say,

“If I work very hard, lick my boss’s boots, neglect my family, and sell my soul, I’ll have enough money to buy time.”

Not true, as you will find. You’ll lose your health, family, and half your life by the time you learn that the system most people rely on doesn’t work.

I have a far better solution for you.

Free Up Time To Make Money

Now that we agree that money can buy time, in order to make the money, we need to free up some time so that we can put in some very strategic work for about six months to a year, at which time we will be free.

And this isn’t some MLM scam. It took Patrick Giesbrecht 7 months and it took Dick Low five months.

Here’s How You Can Start Saving Time FAST:

1. Analyze your present time expenditure. Write down what you’re doing every fifteen minutes for one week. You will be SHOCKED, I guarantee you. Time is our most valuable, irreplaceable resource, yet we waste it like drunken sailors.
2. Remove unproductive activities from your life. Look at each expenditure, or “Time Investment”, and ask yourself:
   - “Is this activity taking me towards my goal of financial freedom, or not? Is it necessary?”
   - “Is it urgent or important?”
   - “Why am I doing this?”
   If it’s not essential, scrap it right away.

   The parasites and resentful relatives will hate you for it, but you don’t need them. Remove excessive TV, attending events with losers, telephone chats that have no purpose, surfing the Net with no goal, movies, watching sport, and anything else that doesn’t create real results.

3. Discipline yourself – cut the time you allocate to other tasks – wake up earlier, take shorter baths and showers, give yourself less time for normal activities – the activity always stretches to fill the time allocated. Ten minutes here, five minutes there, all adds up fast.
4. Close your Facebook account. Get out of those online Chatrooms and stop e-mailing and texting stupid jokes to friends – NOW.
5. Resign from organizations, clubs, and groups that are filled with wanna-be’s and losers. If there is no measurable return on investment, resign immediately. When you have time and money, you can rejoin if you really want to. You probably won’t – by that time, you will realize what losers those people are.
6. Delegate, subcontract, and go without when you can. Focus on creating time that you can allocate to the creation of Financial Freedom.
7. Stop carrying other people or doing things because you feel sorry for people or obliged. Read this book: “The Virtue of Selfishness” by Ayn Rand. Stop volunteering immediately. You can do that when you have time and money.
8. Unless you’re making serious money from it, or it takes very little time, break your ties with Network Marketing. It will eat your time and money like a hungry cannibal.
9. Stop reading newspapers – if the news is important, you will hear about it. Use Twitter instead, and don’t follow more than 30 people at any given time.
10. Don’t attend any face-to face meeting unless you absolutely have to. And systematically remove all the losers and posers from your life. They are a waste of your time. Only associate with successful winners.

You Can Retire in Less Than a Year

If you do all of the above, you will find you have a lot more time available in which to create more monthly, residual / passive income than you need to live on, if you follow my money-making, Joint Venture instructions.

You will be able to retire in less than a year with all the time and money you want.

The Next Step is to Start Creating Wealth

Anyone can do this, regardless of your age, background, education, or circumstances.

You can do all the following simultaneously, and you can start part-time. While you’re following these steps, read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand.

NOTE: Before You Start

Set your specific your goals that are:

• Measurable
• Personal
• Exciting

Exactly how much do you need per month in residual income before tax in order to pay your bills and live a comfortable life?

By what date, exactly, have you decided to reach this goal? Commit to this goal. Whatever it takes. No turning back.

Here We Go

• Step 1:
  Take this complimentary online analysis and coaching session.
• Step 2:
  Join DollarMakers or the DollarMakers Women’s Club, or, if you’re a woman, consider joining both. This way, you’re getting involved with the right people and learning to think straight.
• Step 3:
  Take this Online Bootcamp. Apply what you learn, especially the system to earn 1% per month on your bank’s money.
• Step 4:
  Register and start using this powerful, proven system.
• Step 5:
  Attend as many DollarMakers events in person as you can.

Freedom is Worth The Price

Once you have more residual income than you need, you can continue to work just an hour or two a day to make more money and increase your quality of life.

But now you will be living on your own terms, doing what you want, when you want. Freedom is worth the price. The sun, sand, snow, and fun is waiting for you! I’ve done it – join me.

Do You Need More Time? Here’s How

This virtual crystal ball has helped me significantly over the years to save time and money and allocate my resources more accurately.

Here’s How To Do It – Quick and Easy!

Sit down and do a spot of goal-setting with them, including the creation of an Action Plan.

There are really only two responses to this activity.

Winners who intend to produce will set goals with an Action Plan to Support them that are:

• very specific,
• realistic,
• measurable,
• time-related,
• and significant.

Those who do not intend to produce will set vague, mediocre goals that focus on activity rather than results, and are hard to measure and check.

Clues: What Winners and Losers Say

For example, the winner writes:

“I will make four paid, $2,000 sales by November 1st.”

The loser writes:

“Contact fifteen new prospects, advertise in the newspaper, ask for referrals from existing customers, read ‘Think and Grow Rich’ again.”

You get my drift.

How do I know he/she called fifteen new prospects or read the book, and how does reading the book put money in the bank? Did he/she really ask for referrals? It’s easy to advertise in the newspaper, but that doesn’t create sales.

Also, listen to their words:

• Winners says things like

“I will, I commit, definitely, exactly, certainly, I know.”

And they will put themselves on the line, invest, and face the consequences.

• Losers will use words like,

“I guess, I hope, I’ll try, IF, it depends on, maybe, I can’t control the future”, etc.

They will deflect blame.

Have Something to Show For It

When November 1st rolls around, the Winner will either celebrate their success, or they will have to explain why they didn’t attain their four sales, because it will be plain to see whether they succeeded or not.

The loser has protected them self by insulating them self from criticism; they will claim that they achieved their goals by reading the book, contacting people, asking for referrals, and advertising, yet they made no sales!

So he/she feels very successful with no sales, while the Winner, who in fact made three sales, determines to do much better next time by applying more self-discipline, something which the loser knows nothing about.

Motivation for Losers Vs. Winners

Losers (parasites and moochers) are motivated by:

• being busy,
• feeling important,
• impressing others,
• and teaching others (the blind leading the blind.).

Winners (producers and creators) are motivated by:

• results.

The way they set goals is the first way to predict their futures. The second way is to listen to what they say after their results are revealed.

Losers will:

• make excuses,
• blame others,
  • the economy,
  • circumstances,
  • their tools,
  • products and services,
  • pricing,
  • the market,
  • you name it.
• be “offended” if confronted with the fact that they failed to produce.

Winners will:

• take personal responsibility and
• resolve to do better by
  • changing their action plan,
  • working harder,
  • honing their skills.

Before you commit time and resources to working with someone, apply this simple formula – it could save you a lot of time and money!

Use This Simple Formula to Predict Someone’s Future Choices

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

Everything gets blamed on the recession, from halitosis and hiccups to oversleeping and body odor. People make excuses for lethargy, low sales, their dogs’ fleas, and failing to stop at traffic lights.

ENOUGH!

Contrary to what the media is feeding you, not everyone is suffering during this recession. And YOU don’t have to, either.

Want to Move from Feeble and Flaccid to Frenzied and Famous?

These Solopreneurs think that they are maximizing their chance of survival and profitability.

They are totally WRONG.

Two Kinds of Business

Consider what Michael Gerber says in his world-famous book The E-Myth: Revisited

Want More Time?

A Circling Kayak?

The Story of a Smart Dealmaker

How about getting leverage on your mind, so that you can accomplish your goals faster and easier? It costs nothing, and it’s simpler than one might imagine. They say, “Affirmations, like ‘I’m happy, healthy, and successful’, consistently spoken out loud with enthusiasm and belief, work.” Well, that’s at a very basic level. One can ramp that up significantly.

Stepping Up Affirmations

How to Leverage Your Mind

“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?

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

When I took a salesman on, here was my pitch: “You pay for the signs, you print exactly what I tell you to put on the signs, you include your cell phone number on the signs, you put your signs up every week, you never turn your cell phone off except during my seminars, you take the calls that result from your signs, you book the seats, you pay your share the rental of the room where I present the weekly seminar, and you get five thousand bucks for every business I sell to the people you brought to the seminar as a result of your signs. OK?”

My Salespeople Earned Lots of $$$ – But if they didn’t remain consistent, they were Fired

My salespeople all earned between 5,000 and 10,000 per month in commissions. If they didn’t put up enough signs or respond properly to calls, if they didn’t show up in a suit and tie at every event, they were fired. There were two different responses to my pitch:

1. “I haven’t got money to pay for the signs / I haven’t got time to put up signs / I haven’t got a car / I haven’t got a suit / I’ll try / I hope / What if it doesn’t work? / How much money can I make? / What if nobody buys?” These people were chased out of my office immediately.
2. “What is the limit on my earnings? Can I put up more signs than anyone else? Can I put my signs higher than the others?  Can we have more than one seminar per week? Can I start right away? Can I recruit more salespeople and get an override on their sales?” There people started work immediately. If they had a job, I made them quit it.

There is always a reason to do something and there is always a reason not to do something. To me, it’s black or white. If you’re not making money, stop sleeping and work longer hours. Put in double the effort. If you can’t afford it, sell your TV set, your Xbox, your toys. Borrow the money. Stop making excuses, because the more excuses you make, the less I trust and like and respect you. I don’t believe or accept your excuses, anyway.

Losers Always Have An Excuse At The Ready

Losers always leave the back door open. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll get a job again.” That attitude GUARANTEES their failure. They make excuses in advance: “IF it doesn’t work / I’ll try my best / I can’t FORCE people to buy / I GUESS / I HOPE / I can’t guarantee anything / the weather / the economic situation…” Winners never doubt that they will succeed, because doubt is poison. Would you drink a little poison every morning? Mixing with losers is poison. Following losers is poison. Belief and positive expectancy is rocket fuel power.

I know what you believe and who you are by what you DO, not by what you say, your promises, hype and B.S. I look for consistent actions – I don’t even hear your words. The reason why people succeed is that they expect to succeed, and they will do whatever it takes 24/7/365 to make their dreams come true. They are fearless warriors who never quit, never make excuses, and never lie or steal. With a winner, what you see is what you get. Winners are fanatics. I had one salesman, Colin, who heard from someone that his eyebrows were too thick, so he shaved them right off! When he walked into my office the next morning, I laughed so much, I nearly wet myself. But my respect for Colin went through the roof, and in spite of looking like a Martian, he doubled his sales that month.

Be Serious, Dedicated and Fearless

Be a fanatic about your work, and you simply can’t avoid succeeding. Paul J. Meyer said, “Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon, MUST inevitably come to pass.” Believe and achieve!

If You’re Not Making Money, Stop Sleeping and Work Longer Hours.

When you set up a Joint Venture, bearing in mind the potential residual income, and the fact that all JV income from triangulated deals is 100% profit, it behooves you to manage it responsibly in order to glean the maximum benefit for all parties concerned.

8 Pointers to Manage Your Joint Ventures to Their Fullest Potential

Here are a few pointers that will help you maximize your Joint Ventures and open the doors to new opportunities and bigger and better deals:

#1 – Investigate Partners & ONLY Work with the Successful

Only work with JV partners who have a successful track record and who have committed in writing to their part of the deal, including their duties, input, contribution, and specific, measurable responsibilities. This will improve the chances of a successful JV.

#2 – Think the Deal Through & Then Put It In Writing

Set up your JV’s carefully – take time to do your due diligence and think through the “What if?” scenarios.

#3 – Communicate Regularly

Monitor, manage, measure, and, maximize the JV.

1. Remain up to date on new developments, marketing materials, benefits, opportunities, and options.
2. Track results carefully, and, more importantly, track the income and charge-backs, if any.
3. Hold regular conference calls and/or meetings with your JV partners to maintain, secure, and build the relationship.

#4 – Continually Build Your Joint Ventures and Joint Venture Network

Continually look for ways to improve your existing JV’s, link them with others, and upgrade them. Find ways to enhance the value to the recipients. Bear the relationships with your JV partners and the Big Picture in mind at all times.

#5 – Remain Detached

5Be prepared to walk away from JV’s that don’t work, and from JV partners that don’t live up to their promises. That makes place for more JV’s of better quality.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and set your JV’s up with an option to quit at any time without recourse or repercussions. This helps you retain your leverage and freedom, but also your integrity.  Being involved in a JV with dishonorable partners will crush your reputation.

#6 – Remain Alert

Beware of greedy, lazy, or arrogant partners. At the beginning of any JV, the parties are all smiles, back-slapping, promises, and big dreams, but when reality bites, people will reveal who they really are. When you see the red flags, don’t bury your head in the sand – confront them immediately.

#7 – Know Where You Stand with Your Partners

Always be aware of the priority your JV enjoys in the mind of your JV partners.

• Have they lost interest?
• Are they lowering the priority of your JV?
• Do they have new, hidden agendas?

#8 – Make Sure Partners Maintain Integrity Too

Finally, don’t allow your JV partner to delegate important aspects of the JV to incompetent, uncaring employees who will agree to anything to keep their jobs. Their incompetence will cost you money.

At any given time, I have about 22 income streams for my JV’s, and managing 90% of them takes me about an hour a day. Keep your finger on the pulse!

8 Pointers to Manage Your Joint Ventures to Their Fullest Potential

1. I had been telling my audience to incentivize all earnings…
2. and to link every cent earned to five cents generated in profits.

I told them that paying someone a fixed salary was not just stupid, but dangerous to one’s financial health.

Here’s his story, which adequately makes my point:

He had employed a middle-aged man whom he met at his church, and for whom he “felt sorry”, to “give him another chance”, at an above-average salary. Lots of red flags right there, but I digress.

Naturally, this “grateful” fellow promised to be the best employee he had ever had, and he went to work.

The business generated a lot of profit from back-end income, Joint Ventures, investments, and the like, and an important part of the duties of this employee was follow-up.

What the business owner didn’t understand was that he was dealing with an employee whose highest priority was to keep his job, not to create additional profit for the business. And that’s where he had made his mistake.

Why the Employee Mentality is Poison to Your Balance Sheet

The employee went through the motions of calling, closing, following up, and providing information, and completed all the required control and time sheets, but he was simply doing a job -

• he had no passion for profit or understanding of business,
• and he didn’t understand why his employer might want to make so much more money – after all, didn’t he have enough already?

His was a collectivist, altruistic, mystical philosophy, which was why he had never made money himself, and that philosophy is like poison to any balance sheet.

The Results Speak for Themselves

When the employer started getting phone calls and letters from his Joint Venture partners, his downline, his suppliers, and his customers, he started to put two and two together. He found that many of his valued customers had moved to his competition, where they got better services, more information, and more value from people who actually benefited directly from their patronage.

This employee had a lackluster, mediocre attitude when his boss wasn’t around, and we have all been exposed to that.

He realized that his lost opportunities, missed sales, lost customers, and diminished transaction values had conservatively cost him ten times what he had paid the loser that he should never have hired for that job in the first place.

The Moral(s) to the Story

An employee:

• Does the least and expects the most.
• Tells you exactly what you want to hear, and, like a politician, will bend the rules and overlook anything in order to keep his or her job.
• If they don’t receive a significant piece of new business, sales, or profits that they are responsible for generating, why should they bother? Where’s the passion and commitment?
• Their real agenda is far from that of the entrepreneur. They have no vested interest in the success or growth of the business, and they are in fact paid slaves or mercenaries. They are not capitalists.
• They will leave you for $100 per month increase, and you will never be able to pay them enough to secure their loyalty or commitment.
• A disgruntled employee can sabotage your business and reputation, and use the courts to hurt you.
• There’s a thin line between love and hate, and you tend to give your employees lots of information which they can use against you when they feel like it.

Create Overlap

Smart entrepreneurs work on creating a vested interest for people with whom they work, which we call “Overlap”. They remove the risk from their own business and force their employees to take responsibility for their duties and choices through financial incentives and commissions. They fire salaried people and rehire them on a commission only basis – no base salary, no leverage on the company except their ability to perform and produce, and no place for hidden agendas.

If that is a new concept for you, read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand and examine the concept of Joint Ventures as presented at www.JVWisdom.com.

My Employee Free Business

After 22 years in this business, I run my business with no employees, cost, risk, overhead, or inventory. I can walk away from anyone at any time, everything I earn is 100% profit, and nobody gets to limit or sabotage me for long. Everyone with whom I work is a Joint Venture partner.

Audit Your Business to See the Truth

Audit what is really going on while the cat is away.

• Take a good, hard look at your employees.
• Shop your own business anonymously.
• Install cameras.
• Record all phone calls “for quality control.”
• Rethink the way you compensate your people, and what you are actually paying them for.

This is especially important for hiring web “masters”, often the most passive-aggressive people around, as well as secretaries, assistants, and office staff. You will find that you are paying far too much for losses, bleeding wounds, theft, and apathy than you should be.

The High Price of Altruism

By the way, when the business owner in this true story fired the loser who cost him so much money, he got sued, and his church excommunicated him for his “sinful and selfish” behavior.

You’re in business to make the maximum after-tax profit, with the least cost, risk, time, and frustration. Remember that.

Are Your Employees Costing You Ten Times What You Pay Them?

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

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

• Unproductive salespeople who specialize in whining new tunes
• Salespeople complaining that the customers can’t afford their products and services
• Economic downturns
• Absenteeism and showing up late
• Salespeople that are not loyal and leave for the slightest pay increase or incentive
• Salespeople that make excuses and are lazy
• Strong competition
• Hard to find and keep good salespeople
• No new information or tools to motivate their salespeople – they’ve heard it all before.

We offer Sales Managers the following tools for their beloved sales teams:

• Create unlimited streams of eager, qualified, and primed prospects
• Differentiate yourself from the competition by creating massive added value at no cost
• Offer huge, compelling incentives, bonuses and premiums to prospects for making a buying decision, at no cost to you
• Learn how to get the prospect’s undivided attention and lifelong loyalty
• Stop selling, and start solving
• Increase sales closing/conversion ratios through the roof  by using our proven systems
• Offer your salespeople exciting and valuable sales target bonuses at no cost to you

Our customized, in-house, 5-hour Joint Venture Bootcamps turn snailspeople into salespeople. We’re all about working smart and getting results.

What Sales Managers Want

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

She said she felt as though she had imagined the whole thing; he made her feel foolish, he actually laughed at the facts she presented, and she left feeling convinced that she was wrong, that he was right, that she was guilty of being disloyal and negative, and that she actually owed him an apology for wasting his precious time.

The Deceptive Art of Distraction

Politicians and psychopaths are good at diverting one’s attention from the important things and questions they would rather not answer. They know that attack is the best form of defense. Salespeople are singularly adept at sleight of hand or legerdemain:

• Answer a question with a question.
• Baffle with unimportant facts.
• Use complicated explanations and trickery to throw your pursuers off track.
• Make light of exigent issues.
• Brush off serious accusations with a condescending smirk.
• Hug them while you knife then in the back.

Magicians use distraction all the time.

Even Good People Do This to Avoid Responsibility

My point? I used to attend regular, weekly sales meeting with a group of other SMI Distributors. At every meeting, we Distributors would tell our amazing stories to the meeting leader.

We would talk about all the leads we had “in the pipeline”, all the sales we had narrowly missed, all the things we were “working on”, and all the promises we had heard from our prospective buyers. We also spent a good deal of time making excuses, blaming the weather, the competition, holidays, pricing, traffic, the products we sold, the packaging, the economy, and of course our leader.

At one meeting our leader got up before anyone could start mouthing off, and his words have stayed with me to this day. He said,

“Today, I don’t want to hear any stories, promises, excuses, or lies. Don’t you dare say a word, any of you. This is a silent meeting.

Walk up to the board, take the sharpie, and write down the amount of sales you made last week. That means PAID sales. I will check your figures. Then get out of here, and don’t contact me until the next meeting.

I am only interested in results. Next week, I will fire the Distributor with the lowest sales. Now get out!”

We doubled our sales as a result of that valuable lesson.

Shape Up or Ship Out

Losers and underachievers specialize in the deceptive art of distraction. They will:

• ask you irrelevant questions
• create rumors
• seem very busy
• make excuses for everything

If you allow this kind of behavior, you reinforce their failure to take responsibility and you encourage them to become parasites and posers.

When you focus on results and refuse to be distracted, you’ll get them to shape up or ship out. And you’ll save loads of time.

Talk is cheap, and money buys the whiskey.

One Bad Habit Even Good People Do To Sabotage Success

When he remarked to one of the security guards that it seemed that crime was increasing in the mall, the security replied that the crime rate hadn’t changed – the guards had simply started intervening and arresting thieves, whereas before, they had turned a blind eye. They were rewarding my friend for his change in attitude towards them. But I digress…

What REALLY Motivates Employees

In his book, “Persuasion IQ”, Kurt W. Mortensen discusses a working paper by Kenneth A. Kovack of George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Kovack researched the differences between what motivates employees and what managers think motivates employees. Here’s the data:

What Motivates Employees as Ranked by Employees

1. Interesting work
2. Appreciation of work done
3. Being well informed
4. Job security
5. Compensation
6. Growth and promotion opportunities
7. Good working conditions
8. Personal loyalty to employees
9. Tactful discipline
10. Help with personal problems

What Motivates Employees as Ranked by Managers

1. Compensation
2. Job security
3. Growth and promotion opportunities
4. Good working conditions
5. Interesting work
6. Personal loyalty to employees
7. Tactful discipline
8. Appreciation of work done
9. Help with personal problems
10. Being well informed

“Shared Ownership”

One thing that I believe will cover many of these requirements is “Shared Ownership”. I’m not talking about giving your staff shares in your company.  I’m talking about profit-sharing Joint Ventures, where employees get compensated in direct proportion to the value they add as measured in profit.

Front line employees are often to privy to information of which management is blissfully unaware, and many times by design. Empowering your employees by partnering with them:

• gives them an “ownership mentality”.
• reduces absenteeism, laziness, and shoddy work.
• increasing motivation, loyalty, productivity, interest, enthusiasm, and innovation.

Managing the Potential Downside

Opening opportunities to your staff has its downside and risks, and therefore should be carefully managed, watched, and controlled, while allowing enough freedom and accepting enough damage through honest mistakes and inexperience to remove fear and hesitation.

Clearly defined boundaries, regular, open communication, and quick feedback, and awareness of the power of operant conditioning, with it’s requisite fast reinforcement, is essential.

As “partners” (without legal implications, please), most of the above motivational factors (we should also be cognizant of Hertzberg’s Hygiene Factors here) will be more than adequately addressed, indeed enhanced, and your bottom line will see the results.

How to Motivate Your Employees During This Recession

But first, we need to agree on one important thing, and that is that this is not a time to recruit desperate people. They say, “Desperate people do desperate things”, and that is true. You want to be recruiting successful, influential, Centers of Influence.

Recruit Leaders

When you recruit a Center of Influence correctly and manage that relationship, you will be amazed at how you can rocket your Network Marketing through the roof. They can sign up their leaders and use their existing communication and resources to build your business.

Follow Through

Most Network Marketers drop the ball after signing up a Center of Influence because they’re too obsessive, desperate, and self-interested. They follow what they are taught by their company, and they forget about the fact that they are, in fact, involved in a Joint Venture.

This is the difference between what you will learn from DollarMakers and what you will learn from your Network Marketing company. I have been recruited to join Network Marketing companies as a Center of Influence myself, and I have also recruited Centers of Influence, and in most cases I made a lot of money, so I know whereof I speak.

What is a REAL Center of Influence?

Now there is a reason why you haven’t recruited a Center of Influence before, and if you have, why they’re not performing. We’re not going to discuss that here. What I want to discuss is HOW to recruit busy people who have access to many other people who will do what that Center of Influence suggests they do.

• A Center of Influence is someone who influences many people who trust, respect, and like them, and who follow their suggestions.
• A real Center of Influence communicates regularly with his or her people.

Just to be clear, there are a lot of people who SEEM to be Centers of Influence and CLAIM to have large databases, but usually those databases are simply people who once opted into their database to get a free gift, and they don’t even know who the Center of Influence is, much less open his e mails or read them or follow his advice. I’m talking about a real Center of Influence

• who cares about her people and has a relationship with them.

Your Approach Must be Based on a Relationship and Reciprocity.

The Joint Venture Mindset that we teach through DollarMakers is that you should build business based on a relationship and reciprocity. I don’t do business with people I don’t know or respect, and who haven’t built some kind of trust relationship with me. I don’t even consider promoting people or products who have not contributed to DollarMakers or been involved with us. It is dangerous to work with unknown people.

This needs to be remembered when you approach a Center of Influence.

• You have to earn the right to talk with them or pitch them.
• You have to show them that it is in their own best interest.
• First, you have to know what they want, and what their “Hot Button” is.

Remember, Centers of Influence are being pitched almost daily by MLMers who do it all wrong. If you do what everybody else does you’ll have what everybody else has. Using the Joint Venture approach, you can differentiate yourself from all the others.

Tips for Top Notch Recruitment

In a nutshell, here are the simple points to follow in order to recruit a Center of Influence into your Network Marketing business:

1. Earn the right. Create reciprocity. Build a relationship. Contribute. Become known and respected. You have to put wood on the fire before you get the heat.
2. Position yourself. Look and act successful. Dress and groom yourself appropriately. Package yourself for success.
3. Find out what the Center of Influence’s Hot Button is. You need to understand his pain, problems, challenges, hopes, dreams, goals, and secret wishes. This takes work and research, but it’s well worth it. Be clear about what he wants, so that you prepare the bait / prize / incentive correctly.
4. Prepare your offer properly. Customize your presentation and be sure that it’s all about the Center of Influence to show her how she will benefit by joining you.
5. Make your offer in such a way that it is hard to refuse. Remove time, money, risk, inconvenience, and irritation, and add massive value and substance. Push the Hot Button effectively.
6. Close and sign him up.
7. Follow-up and management – this is the most important part. If you stop putting wood on the fire, it will go out, and you will be replaced.

Finally, remember this:

The Center of Influence you are going to recruit is not going to be doing your business on a full time basis – she already has a successful business, and you are simply an add-on. By neglecting this fact and assuming you and your products or services are the center of the universe, you will very quickly lose the relationship and commitment of that Center of Influence.  That’s what DollarMakers teaches.

If you want to acquire the Joint Venture mindset that will make the above possible, I suggest you join DollarMakers, get involved, and learn from about reciprocity, value, commitment, wealth, and Joint Ventures from us.

Attention Network Marketers: 7 Tips to Turn Recession Depression into Treasure Beyond Measure!

He ripped the Goals Program off the office flipchart, calmly crumpled it up, and threw it into the bin. Then he leaned forward, resting his fists on the huge oak boardroom table.

“Gentlemen”, he said softly and with great intensity, “every week we meet here to discuss our sales and plans. You’re all independent business owners. Time is valuable to all of us.

From today, I don’t want to know about all the leads and deals you have ‘In the Pipeline’. I don’t want to hear about what you’re working on or whom you’ve met. I only want to know one thing, and then you can all get out of here until next week. This meeting will take just five minutes. HOW MANY SALES DID YOU EACH MAKE LAST WEEK?”

What Really Matters is Results

Salespeople are in the habit of making excuses and promises when they’re not delivering results. We’re all good at it. After all, we’re salespeople, right?

And often we lie to ourselves about what is really going on. We talk about our plans and goals, but what really matters is results. I don’t care about schemes and dreams – I care about results.  Intention and goals are important, but outcome is more important.

You Can’t Bank Excuses or Potential

If I say I will do something or produce a certain result on a certain date and I don’t, my excuses are of no importance to you. You can’t bank excuses or promises. Your accountant doesn’t want to know about potential and opportunities. The bottom line is real money.

Get Serious about Getting Results

This is real life and every day gone is gone forever. This is not a dress rehearsal. Let’s get real serious about getting real results. Winners will allow one or two slip ups, but sooner than later they will cut bait and stop working with you if you don’t produce.

2 Criteria to Reevaluate What’s Possible

I once trained the insurance salespeople in 91 banks simultaneously on a conference call. I asked them, “Can any of you double your sales next month?” they all replied that it was impossible, given their busy schedules and past results.

I then asked if it would be possible to double their sales if their families had been kidnapped and they knew without a doubt that their families would be murdered if they didn’t double their sales in a month. Guess what? All of a sudden it was possible!

I asked what they would have to change and do differently and stop doing, and we could create an action plan to accomplish 100% sales increase without calling in the terrorists. Think about it:

1. How badly do you want to double your sales?
2. What are you prepared to do?

By your FRUIT you will be known. Talk is cheap but money buys the whiskey. Action is all.

Get Serious about Getting Results

Here’s How It Works

You can private label an innocuous shampoo for a good hair salon and make serious money. You can make a seminar or sales training program industry specific and sell ten times as many. I was recently talking with someone who created exercise DVD’s. How about making one for seniors, one for travelers, one for children, one for ladies, one for teens, one for busy executives… then market each one through the marketing and distribution channels reaching that particular demographic? For example, you would Joint Venture with seniors publications and clubs, AARP and seniors tours to reach seniors with your seniors exercise DVD.

Private Label Training, Seminars or Teaching

When you find excess inventory, you can re-purpose it in this way. You can also approach someone who presents training, seminars or teaching, and Joint Venture with someone who has access a particular market segment, while procuring the rights to market their products and services to that segment and receive ongoing commissions. For example, how about Training for Realtors? Get more specific with Training for Female Realtors and you’ll make more money. The more specific, the more terrific.

Let Your Access Lead the Way

Which segment of the population do you have access to, or can you get access to? Once you have access to a demographic/psychographic sector, you can go out and find products that can be customized or relabelled for that sector. Once you have strategic alliances in that sector, it’s easy to expand to the entire sector.

I once did seminars for an Executive Women’s Club and ended up serving all their clubs nationwide. Had you set that up, you could have asked for and received up to 20% of all my income from that market, and that would have put at least $20,000 in your pocket. All it took to get me into that market was a friend making one, single phone call. One phone call can be worth $20,000 to you. Do Joint Ventures work? You’d better believe it!

Sales Tip

Specialists get paid more and have more credibility. Understanding more about an industry than your prospect positions you as an expert. In order to do this, use statistics and education to differentiate yourself from the generalists who think they can cure anything from recessions and receding hair to bad knees and bad attitudes.

Management Tip

The more you understand your prospect and his business, the more likely you are to sell to him. Train your employees to ask questions, make notes, do research and create industry specific solutions. Learn the language and jargon of the industry you’re targeting. Become familiar with their hopes, dreams, challenges and unique opportunities.

“I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a ‘mainstream’. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.”
~ Ayn Rand

Private Label Your Products And Make A Fortune

Most businesses are like African baboons – these furry fellows race through the cornfields, picking corn and stuffing it under their arm. As fast as they stuff the corn under their arm, it falls out the back, but they keep on picking and stuffing! By the time they get to the edge of the cornfield, they are carrying one corncob and they’ve left a trail of corn on the ground. This is how many entrepreneurs handle customers. They’re so busy getting new ones that they neglect and lose their existing customers out the back door. Attrition spirals out of control and yet they continue to spend more money on finding new customers.

Invest in Your People

We know it’s far more affordable to resell existing customers than to get new ones. We know that it’s better to retain our customers and to encourage referrals through added value service than to spend a lot of money finding new customers. So why don’t we act accordingly?

Why don’t we spend 80% of our marketing budget on our EXISTING customers?

Invest in your people and they will bring you a lot of new ones. Building strong relationships with the customers you have will:

• increase loyalty
• reduce attrition
• increase transaction values
• lengthen customer lifespan.

Why not put a program together to REACTIVATE inactive customers?

It’s much easier than trying to buy new ones.

A happy customer is good – an elated customer is better.

By redirecting our marketing dollars to our loyal clients and creating unprecedented added and unexpected value, we can engender massive reciprocity in the form of referrals and goodwill. But only strategists will understand this. Tacticians, those “instant gratification” types, will never understand this. A satisfied customer might stay with you, but an inspired and enthusiastic customer will bring her friends, family and associates. You can buy a lot more new customers than advertising with:

• A surprise party
• An unexpected gift
• A personal phone call
• A complimentary dinner

Use Joint Ventures to add value at no cost to you. Partner with other businesses to increase the value to offer and to differentiate yourself from the competition. Put yourself in your clients’ shoes and take the time to find ways to make their lives easier and more comfortable. Look after what you have and they will look after you.

Sales Tip

Act in your customer’s best interest. Reward referrals generously. Don’t skimp on packaging. Create referral systems that make the customer happy. Protect your customers; they’re hard enough to get and they can be worth their weight in gold.

Management Tip

Teach your team to listen and to go the extra mile. When I go into Safeway and ask where the bathroom is, the employee will walk me to the bathroom. When I go to the competition, the employee points in the direction on the bathroom. Big difference. A nice bag with a pretty bow and a big smile, a follow-up telephone call and even a thank you note can generate a massive return on investment. Get creative and set the example.

Customer Loyalty: Investing In Relationships

I worked with a real estate company to help them increase sales and saw the “tortoise and the hare” fable come to life right before my eyes. One of the salespeople (the tortoise) was slow, not highly skilled, not a great communicator and she had a long commute to work, which cut into her flexibility. But she was steady, consistent, reliable, very enthusiastic and totally focused and committed to reaching her goals. Some of the other “hare” salespeople tended to be highly skilled and polished, but they were often erratic and unfocused. They worked in fits and starts. They got side-tracked. The tortoise beat them every single month. The results I see a salesperson accomplishing are in direct proportion to his or her consistency and focus.

The “Magic” Formula

The formula for Momentum is p=mv where p is momentum, m is mass and v is velocity. If we were to translate that into sales, momentum would be branding and results, m would be the amount of effort, action and focus and v would be enthusiasm and belief or:

Your Brand’s Momentum = Your effort, action and focus + Your enthusiasm and belief

It’s the Accumulation of Great Action

Branding and momentum is not achieved overnight. It takes consistent sowing and nurturing to build a brand, whether that brand is you, your website, your product or your business. Imagine someone pushing a car up a hill. As they push, they gain momentum and it gets easier. If they stop and let go of the car, it starts rolling back down the hill! Momentum is a vector. That simply means that momentum is a quantity that has a magnitude, or size, and a direction.

Are you headed in the best direction?

Some businesses have momentum in the wrong direction, and they require a turn-around expert to deal with them. We need to be sure that our efforts are taking us in the right direction and we need to know why we want to move in that direction.

Use this Reality Check

• It’s good to stand back and take along, hard look at your business.
• Re-evaluate your goals.
• Look at your activity.  Is it building momentum and the branding you want?
• Are your sure you’re creating the right image?
• Most of all, focus and consistency should be built into all your systems.

As Michael Gerber tells us in the E Myth, work ON your business, not IN it. And continually adjust and improve upon every aspect of it. Concentrated effort and persistence is the mark of a winner. Once you gain positive momentum in the right direction, make sure you continue to feed the fire, and the sky’s the limit.

Branding Your Business: A “Magic” Formula for Building Momentum

The High D – Dominant style

Dominant style (minority of people, hardest to find) is bottom-line andresults oriented, impatient, sometimes tactless, driven and extroverted, with weaknesses in details. Major fear: being taken advantage of / ripped off. Good closers, great pioneers. Need the numbers and systems guys.

The High I – Influencing style

Influencing style is an extrovert, “party animal”, great at meeting people and starting relationships, popular, good opener, weakness is details and time management. Major fear: being embarrassed in public. Needs closers and numbers guys.

The High C – Cautious style

Cautious style is introverted, loves details, numbers and systems more than people, excellent numbers guys and accountants, computer experts, analyzers. Weakness is over analysis; fear is criticism of their work. Needs the extravert’s and the drivers.

The High S – Steady style

Steady style (majority of people) is an introvert, loyal, team player, family type, great systems and support person, needs security and long term relationships, fears risk, conflict and change. Needs others to make things happen and to create change and to take unpopular action when necessary.

Optimizing the Strengths of the Styles

This is a simplistic approach, but understanding our strengths and weaknesses and allowing people to do what they’re good at, while avoiding tasks that they’re weak at, is simply smart business sense. For technical sales we use High C’s and S’s. Ideal salespeople are normally High D’s with secondary I’s. One wouldn’t an accountant who is a High D, or a High S to launch a new business. You don’t want a High C to be the host at a cocktail party and we don’t want two High I’s behind a reception desk because they’ll talk all day!

Using personality style analysis has helped many of my clients to be better entrepreneurs and hire the appropriate people. Self knowledge is essential to success. I use the DISC style analysis – there are many others available, including the excellent Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Sales Tip

When selling to:

• High D’s – Talk results and ROI and close early and hard.
• High I’s – Build relationship, have fun and close early.
• High C’s – Provide copious details and proof and take time to close.
• High S’s – Prove that the support and relationships will be in place long after the sale is made and close slowly.

Management Tip

When Managing:

• High D’s – Give them lots of control and clear objectives and do what you say you will do.
  High I’s – Reward them publicly, make them look good and watch their time allocation.
• High C’s – Be specific, don’t rush them, and compliment their work (catch them doing something right), set time goals.
• High S’s – Make changes slowly, provide lots of security, share long-term plans.

Utilizing Personality Styles for Effective Joint Ventures

• I showed a hair salon owner client of mine how to invite high-end potential clients for a hair free cut and blow wave. His cost was negligible; however 82% of them were so impressed with the quality of his work that they became regular customers.
• A Tree Surgeon may offer a free service in order to obtain long-term customers.
• An accountant or lawyer may offer a free initial consultation.

Try These Excellent Money Making JVs

Combine the above with a Joint Venture and you can create the opportunity to access a large base of potential customers, especially if you have a consumable product.

• If your research and experience shows that most people who try your product go on to consume it on a regular basis over a period of time, why not ask JV partners to advertise your product and keep 100% of the first sale income for their trouble?
• Or they might want to give it away to their clients as a gesture of thanks for loyal patronage.

The clients who like it can be directed to make all future purchases from you.

A Little Upfront Profits You Greatly in the Long Run

Smart coffee shop owners can target business people who work in the area with an offer of three free cups of coffee. The prospects will get used to coming in to the shop and probably buy muffins or sandwiches anyway, and if the food and service is really good they could very well become regulars. Three cups of coffee costs about 60 cents. What is your profit on a sandwich?

The Law of Reciprocity works.

When most people get something for nothing, accompanied by excellent packaging, friendly service and a good product, they feel obliged to reciprocate. What is the marginal net worth or lifetime value of a customer to you? Being generous and allowing them to taste and experience your products and services at no cost is a smart marketing strategy. People whom you would never have met will have a reason to try your products and services.

How to Break Even on the Front End

“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.”
- Anthony Robbins

There are only two types of questions: Those that get negative or negligible results, and those that get great results. What questions are you asking yourself and your associates, employees and customers that can result in a better bottom line? What questions will reduce customer attrition, improve loyalty and profits and motivate the people you work with?

Design the Right Questions

• The answers to the questions we ask should result in answers that inspire, motivate and initiate innovation and positive action.
• They should encourage, cheer, challenge, energize and drive.
• The more specific the question, the more specific the answers… And the more specific the answers, the better. Specific is terrific.

By designing the right questions to ask those involved in our business, we direct the business to greater success and focus everyone on the goals and objectives for which we have taken responsibility. When you ask the right question, you create an answer that begets a success strategy.

Try Asking These for a Self Check:

1. “Which three things can we do to increase the amount of people coming into the store by 5% without any cost or risk to us?”
2. “How can I pay for results instead of promises when it comes to advertising?”
3. “Who do we need to work with in a Joint Venture to double the amount of prospects we are currently exposed to?”
4. “How can we create three new streams of increasing, passive income?”
5. “How can we benefit from someone else’s advertising and marketing activities?”
6. “What can we do to double the value we offer our clients, without increasing our cost of sales?”
7. “How can we get customers to increase the amount of times they visit our business by 30%?”
8. “How can we reactivate 40% of our inactive customers?”
9. “How can we create back end sales without increasing our overhead or the time it takes to sell the back end?”

Sales Tip

Learn to ask questions that result in a buy. “O.K., Bill, I’m going to charge you card now for the basic Widget. Now shall I add the Blue Squink for $100 as well as the Rutten for another $800, or shall I just add the Blue Squink?” The answer should be, “Sure, add both”, or, at worst, he says, “Oh, just the Blue Squink for now.” Either way, you have upsold him.

Management Tip

Management questions can help or hurt. Ask, “What could I have done to help you achieve even more sales?” “You’re really at the rock face, Candy. What do you suggest we do to improve customer service even more?” “Bobby, I want to pay you a higher commission. What can we do to ensure a higher transaction amount per sale?”

Questions that Make Money

Manager vs. Leader

Have you ever heard of a Cult Manager? What about a Religious Manager. Of course not!  Yet, where have we ever seen more loyalty, commitment and blind obedience? They’re leaders and there’s a huge difference between management and leadership. “Semantics”, you say. Well, when I went to Hotel School and was taught how to be a Hotel Manager I found that I had to become a Leader in order to gain the loyalty and commitment of my staff.

How I Created Loyalty as My Staff Tested Me

When I first arrived to work as a manager in a hotel in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, the staff did the usual hotel staff things to test me. The cashier would mix up the cash register, and see if I could sort out the problem. The night chefs would stay home, and see if I could handle the kitchen at night and prepare the breakfast. I had to prove myself. How does a manager cope with that, as opposed to a leader?

I was called in to a meeting of my management peers and they told me to fire a certain Functions Manager. He was a rebel and no good, they said. Lazy. Obstinate. Get rid of him!

His name was Oral and as I watched him at work I saw his staff of waiters set up the conferences and do all the work perfectly while he sat outside, smoking.

I called Oral into my office and fired him. Then I said, “Oral, I’ve done what everyone here wanted me to do. I fired you. Now, I’m rehiring you on my terms. Here are my terms: You can sit outside and smoke all day. You never have to enter the hotel. As long as the job gets done to my satisfaction, I’m happy. If not, we will talk.   How’s that?”  Oral beamed.

He thanked me profusely. He was happy. He did a great job. I was happy. And one day he saved me from being badly beaten up. Oral, you see, was a natural leader. He understood leadership.  Suffice is to say that after a while I had a loyal following instead of an obedient staff.

A Leader Understands

A leader understands that she is leading personalities with value systems, goals, fears, hopes and dreams. She knows that she can get people to work 24/7/365 when she pushes the right buttons. Never run, raise his voice or panic.

Creating Real Motivation

When I was 17 I was drafted into the army. I saw what leadership was and I saw what psychopaths did. The psychopathic, racist South African army officers got people to do things by force. They achieved very little. The true leaders in the army got a lot more done, without fear, manipulation or force. They got soldiers volunteering for things. When your people are motivated and have a vision and a goal, they will achieve their goals and your goals together. Without pay, if necessary. Financial rewards and incentives are not the most powerful there are.

Questions You Should Ask the People You Intend to Lead:

1. What is your greatest fear and your greatest dream? Why is that your fear? Why is that your dream?
2. If you had a million dollars and lots of time and energy, what would you be doing right now?
3. What feelings do you want to experience, and what feelings do you want to avoid in your life?
4. What’s the best book/movie you ever read/saw?
5. What are you most proud of about yourself? What is you greatest skill? What do you do best?
6. What are you weakest at?
7. If you could have any job, what would it be, and why?
8. What is your greatest worry?
9. How do you feel about…?
10. What would you change about this business/organization?

Ask open ended questions; draw them out. “Tell me more? What do you mean by that, exactly? Why do you say that? And? Yes?”

Characteristic of a Phenomenal Leader

The true leader knows that she has to know a lot about the people she wants to lead.

• Empathize and care.
• Show them how to measure their progress.
• Treat them fairly and be consistent in how you lead.  Regularity, honesty and consistency is important.
• And there must be clear guidelines, consequences and reasons for what happens. Everyone must understand why they are to do what they do, what the outcome is supposed to be, the consequences for failing to do the right thing and the BIG PICTURE. The vision, the overall strategy, should be understood by everyone concerned.
• Most of all, each team member should know that, by reaching the company or organization’s goals, they will reach their personal goals as well. They should have a vested interest in the success of the venture. This is vitally important.

Mortimer Adler was quoted in Time Magazine in 1974 as saying, “In Aristotelian terms, the good leader must have ethos, pathos and logos. The ethos is his moral character, the source of his ability to persuade. The pathos is his ability to touch feelings, to move people emotionally. The logos is his ability to give reasons for an action, to move people intellectually.”

Very few managers know how to lead. It’s never too late to change. Leaders are firm, flexible, value-driven and honest. They have Magnificent Obsessions, driving goals and clear action plans. Their followers feel loved, secure, cared for and lucky. Together, we can do amazing things.

How to Raise from Management to True & Outstanding Leadership

A Change of Heart

He owned a successful jewellery store in a mall. After attending his first Dale Carnegie course, he decided to treat the security guards in the mall, whom he’d always ignored, in a friendly and respectful manner. He started asking them about their families and greeting them. Suddenly, they started arresting thieves in his shop, for shoplifting.  He called a meeting of the security guards and asked them what they thought had caused this rash of shoplifting.

Kindness DOES Effect the Bottom Line

To the best of my recall, this was their reply, as Deon conveyed it to me: “Sir, there has always been shoplifting and theft in your store.  But you treated us so badly that we simply chose to ignore the thieves.  Since you started treating us well and showing a genuine interest in us, we started catching the thieves.” Deon estimated that he had lost tens of thousands of dollars over the years because of his uncaring and haughty attitude towards the security guards.

Two Simple Exercises to Build Relationships

#1 – We tend to underestimate the tremendous untapped profit that can be released when we start to treat our employees well. I’m not talking about being soft or compromising our standards; I’m talking about being sincerely interested in their well being, dreams and goals. Remembering their family members’ names and their birthdays is a good start.  One simple exercise that works well for me is to have a piece of paper in my pocket where I jot down personal information about employees and file it for later reference.

#2 – As a group exercise, we hang a paper card around their necks, on their backs, and have them each write a positive, up-building, sincere and honest compliment about the person on the card on his or her back. At the end of the exercise, each person has a whole list of good things that other people think about them. I have known employees to keep these lists for years.

It Pays to Notice (& Compliment) Good Behavior

Many people seldom receive specific, honest compliments. They dress as well as they can and nobody notices or remarks on it. They have their hair done, and no one says a thing. They work overtime and it’s taken for granted. Notice their contribution, reinforce good behavior and reap the rewards.

It All Starts With You

And, if you really want to massively increase your sales, stop whining about your staff and attend the Dale Carnegie Management Course. It all starts with the owner of the business. That’s where the buck stops. And that’s YOU.

The same principle applies to Joint Ventures, the most powerful business tool ever discovered. Good relationships are the basis for good business. Together, we can do amazing things.

Two Simple Exercises to Build Relationships

You have two choices.

• You can work harder, which is tactical, short-term and comprised of reactive, daily activities.
• Or you can work smarter, which is strategic, based on a long-range plan and objective.

Your strategy should drive your tactics, not vice-versa. Strategists understand the big picture they’re creating. They agree with Michael Gerber, who said, “If you’re not working ON your business, you’ll soon be OUT of business.” So they create strategies that minimize cost and risk and maximize efficiency.

Why a Good Strategy is Essential

Statistically, motorists slow down when they see a police car to avoid a speeding ticket. Did you know they speed up again within only half a mile? That’s how quickly you’re forgotten by your clients and prospects if you don’t have a strategy that will create ongoing, unique, varied exposure and value. Strategists set goals and consistently work towards them, which leverages the Reticular Activating Systems of all those involved in the process. Involving others in your planning and creating joint ventures and win/win partnerships is essential.

Large companies know this.

90% of corporate executives surveyed felt a Joint Venture with another company was “absolutely essential” to maintain their competitive edge. At least 20% of the revenues in the Fortune 500 and International 2,000 are now coming from Joint Ventures. This strategic approach works in any size business and cuts the clutter to shreds, resulting in increased margins and staff retention, reduced customer attrition, radically decreased cost of sales and risk and exponential growth.

Sales Tip

By creating and setting your Buying Criteria, then educating your customers, you become the natural, logical choice. That overcomes clutter. And remember, it’s far better to spend $100 on each of ten good prospects than to haphazardly spend $1 on each of 100 suspects.

Management Tip

The second biggest problem in sales is that salespeople don’t close. But the biggest problem is hiring the wrong people. There is a proven system for hiring sales superstars and when you get the right salespeople, closing is no longer an issue. Once you have superstars, train them consistently and the sky’s the limit.

Why a Good Business Strategy is Essential

• If you say, “Money”, what does that translate into for you?  Control?  Power?  Security?  Dignity?  Freedom?  How much money?
• If you say,  “Health”, what does that exactly mean to you?  How will you know when you’re healthy?  What has to happen in order for you to declare, “Now, I’m healthy!”
• If you say,  “Success”, what is “Success” to you?  How would you measure it?

I once consulted with a client who wanted to start a trans-Africa transport airline service.  When I dug deep down, what he REALLY wanted was to fly an airplane!  Much cheaper, methinks, than starting an airline, wouldn’t you agree?

Assessing Hot Buttons: “What is your NUMBER?”

I like this question: “What is your NUMBER?”  The “number” is the amount of money it will take you to do something. “Everyone has his price”, they say.  And they’re right.  What will it take?  And sometimes it will take a lot less than we might think.  When you know someone’s real Hot Button, you gain control beyond your wildest dreams.

Assessing Hot Buttons:  Pinpoint the Pain

Instead of mouthing off about yourself, your product or service, ask intelligent questions.    Find out what pain the other person is currently enduring.  Find out what keeps him or her awake at night, worrying – their greatest fears.

What Doesn’t Work

I know a fellow who continually tries to recruit me into his business.  But he’s so arrogant and egotistical that he never takes the time to find out who I am or what I want.  The more he runs off at the mouth the more I lose interest.  Instead of enticing me, he bores me.

What Does

I want to know everything about the people I choose to do business with because knowledge that can be applied is power.  It sometimes takes a long time to discover the Hot Button, but when you do, it’s worth the effort.  When you think you’ve found the Hot Button, test it. Don’t “jump to the confusion” that you’re right.

When you find the pain, turn the knife in the wound and then offer the solution, remedy and escape, in the form of a Joint Venture.

Understand your potential Joint Venture partner and get to know what their How Buttons are, and you will create a great Joint Venture.  Watch them:

• What do they look at?
• What do they read?
• Where do they go?
• What do they talk about the most?
• What do they spend time and money on?
• Whom do they spend time with?

Do personality assessments.  If you know I’m a High D, INTJ, you know more about me than most.  Take the time and spend the money, do your homework.  It will pay off in spades.

Use Hot Buttons to Drive Successful Joint Ventures.

Exactly. And that’s why most business owners overlook their greatest underutilized asset – their non sales employees. I got very excited when I realized that there were 85 people who could help increase his sales with no cost or risk!

The Unrealized Value of Your Employees

Every person on earth wants to feel important, recognized and appreciated. We want to feel that our contribution is important and that our ideas and suggestions are valued. Plus, we want to feel that we get rewarded for any value that we create. I have found that our employees at the coalface often know more about our businesses than we do. Their suggestions are based on real life, real experience and real opinions. They have insights and recommendations which could radically improve our bottom line profits, if we only gave them a reason to share those ideas, listened, and rewarded them accordingly.

Unleash Massive Sales!

Your employees want to feel a part of the business. They want to feel that they have secure jobs and that they can increase their income without moonlighting and arriving at your business half asleep. By listening to their ideas and providing them non-threatening and easy to use, understandable sales tools with a system to measure and reward results, you can unleash massive sales! When we understand that our businesses provide products and services that relieve pain and create value, we can train our employees to perceive “sales” differently. Use this massive, neglected resource – the cost is miniscule and the results are extraordinary – improved productivity and loyalty, decreased employee and customer attrition and increased sales and profits, innovation and motivation.

Give your employees what they want and the sky’s the limit

Zig Ziglar said, “You can get anything out of life, if you’re prepared to give enough other people what they want.” Most employees dread going to work and we can change that. Give your employees what they want: a voice, an ear, an opportunity, security, self esteem, reward, motivation, purpose and recognition, get your ego out of the way, and the sky’s the limit.

How workers ranked what they considered important, starting with the most important:

1. Appreciation for good work,
2. Feeling “in” on things,
3. Help with personal problems,
4. Job security,
5. Good wages,
6. Interesting work,
7. Possibility for promotion,
8. Loyalty of Management to workers,
9. Good working conditions,
10. Tactful discipline.

Apply this knowledge to your management systems and win!

Unleash Massive Sales with Your Greatest Underutilized Asset

“Hi Robin,

I just read your Eagle Attitude article and you are right on. I always make asset vs. liability calls.

Recently one of my staff did considerable damage to our main computer and database by going to inappropriate places on the internet. Certainly grounds for firing, not too mention suing for damages. Instead we are reworking his job description to take advantage of some obvious talents. There are some penalties he is working through, but there should be some substantial benefit to the company long term.

It’s nice to read that a risky decision is sometimes the best decision.”

How I Joint Ventured Instead of Firing my Employee

That reminds me of the time I was a manager in a large, resort hotel and we learned that one of the staff members was secretly running his own little room service business inside the hotel. He diverted all the orders to his cousin’s café on the corner. The thing was that he gave excellent service and guests were delighted with the quality (that’s how we caught him – compliments from guests about dishes that weren’t on the room service menu!) So instead of firing him, we created a joint venture: we saved his salary, cut overhead substantially and continued to provide the service to our guest, while his own business flourished. Win/Win!

Savvy entrepreneurs always…

• Savvy entrepreneurs look for ways to capitalize on the strengths and resources of their partners, associates, employees and vendors.
• They focus on what does work instead of what doesn’t work and, most importantly, keep their egos in check.
• Take the time to listen carefully and discover hidden assets like skills, connections, resources and information.
• Know that sometimes, opportunities take a little while to appear and options take time to become apparent.
• Know that patience and good communication skills, as well as being prepared to generously share the profits, are essential.
• Think outside the box and keep your eyes on your common goals.
• Be flexible and open to new ideas.
• Know that good people are hard to find.

Sales Tip

The better you know your salespeople, the better you can channel their energy, interests, skills and time. Don’t make the salesperson fit the job; rather, make the job fit the salesperson. Take time to listen to their opinions and suggestions, encourage sharing and reward innovation and risk.

Management Tip

By clearly defining the parameters of your employees’ jobs, you remove fear. Show them what they have to do to get fired, and you reduce any reticence to innovation. Fear stunts creativity and openness. People who feel secure will be more productive and honest with you. Spend more time developing relationship with your staff than you do with your customers.

Leveraging Strengths in Employees

Appointments

Someone shows up late for an appointment. If they don’t call to say they’ll be late, LEAVE after 15 minutes. If they do call, and they’re going to be more than twenty minutes late, cancel the appointment.

Returning Communication

Someone doesn’t return your e mails or phone calls promptly, but you have established that they did receive the voice mail, message or e mail. The longer you wait, the less control and respect you have.

Decision Making

Someone refuses to make a decision, makes you wait, puts you off. They are controlling and manipulating you, or they are simply too gutless and politically correct to say “No.” Walk away. If they do come back, renegotiate, increase your fee, and punish them for making you wait, in order to re-establish your authority and positioning.

Production

Someone doesn’t produce on time, on a regular basis. You find that you’re always waiting and listening to their lies an excuses. Find a replacement for them, or suffer as they repeat the pattern. Meanwhile, reduce contact, remove as much business and control from them as possible, and create negative consequences for non-performance.

Control your time, business, relationships, and choices carefully. Be in control, and spread your risk.

A Great Business Philosophy Part 8: How Long Will You Wait?

The reason we’re in business is to create the maximum amount of after tax profit in the shortest amount of time, with the least cost and risk.

While we all want to do what we enjoy and avoid conflict and work, we can use Joint Ventures, subcontracting, effective delegation, and leverage to create the results we want, if we set things up correctly.

#1 Strategize Objectively

Remaining objective and rational when prioritizing and planning our progress is essential. Clearly defining what will create the greatest return on investment, where the optimal back-end is to be found, and the real marginal net value of a customer or Joint Venture demands careful analysis and communication with your team and mentors. Like a jigsaw puzzle, we want all the pieces to fit seamlessly, so that the flow of business is smooth and natural, not forced and stop-start.

• Diversifying incomes streams and creating additional back ends with long-term potential is the result of Planning, not Panic.
• Compromise and quick fixes will undermine your progress, your reputation, and your balance sheet.
• Remember the 80/20 rules and fearlessly remove the 80% while conscientiously building the 20%. Getting rid of one rat in your organization guarantees that he will takes his rat friends with him.

#2 Reevaluate Regularly

Reevaluate, change your mind, terminate non-productive activities, Joint Ventures, and people, and constantly adjust. You’re in business to make a profit, not to accommodate parasites and create protected employment for losers. Play the “What If?” game, build in Plan B’s, and have contingency plans in place, including Key Man Insurance and alternative suppliers. Things change. See the Big Picture.

#3 Invest in Education

Invest heavily in training and education, but only if you use it.  Look for the return on investment. The greatest ROI I ever get is when I invest in training and education, but then I always apply what I learn.

#4 Optimize Your Time

If you only have 24 hours a day, it’s because you’re not leveraged or you’re not delegating. Paying someone $100 to make $1,000 is good business. Don’t do minimum wage tasks and only deal with winners who have a proven track record.

#5 Take an Honest Look

Finally, stand back and take a good, hard look at your business, your time, your profits, and the future of your business. If this was someone else’s business, what advice would you give them?

A Great Business Philosophy Part 6: Prioritizing Your Profits

“Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.”

Differentiate Yourself at Zero Cost

We tend to think that huge discounts or flamboyant packaging will add value and differentiate us from our competition, whereas small things that usually don’t cost anything can make a huge difference. The drivers of the shuttle service buses to and from the Long Term Parking at Vancouver International Airport used to be the most obnoxious, sullen swine I ever met, certainly not a reflection of what I consider the best airport in the world. Last week, Rika and I were very pleasantly surprised when we received cheerful greetings and sincere smiles from the new drivers, along with help with our bags. It costs nothing to train your employees and get rid of the scumbags, and the return on investment is most attractive.

Fabulous Examples!

WestJet crew members tell jokes, sing songs, smile, help, and obviously receive excellent training. They thank us for choosing WestJet; to me, there is no alternative, unless you want obese, unionized flight attendants who treat you like a smelly interruption. When I left my laptop on the plane recently, the WestJet flight attendant came running after me with it right into the Abbotsford terminal. Great attitude. A Thank You note in the mail, the Sears appliance salesman who shows up at my house the night before delivery, on his own time,  to make sure all the pipes are properly prepared. Nelson Boswell said,

“Here is a simple but powerful rule – always give people more than what they expect to get.”

We went to movies last week. Every employee was friendly and said, “Enjoy the show, folks!”

Here’s the thing: when you give great service, you feel good about yourself, you attract more business, you sleep better, and leave your competition choking in the dust.

People notice the small things, the compliments, the helping hand, the kind gestures, the extra mile, the sincere smiles and eye contact, a little extra care. What goes around comes around. Macy’s motto is,

“Be everywhere, do everything, and never fail to astonish the customer.”

The world hasn’t changed that much.

A Great Business Philosophy Part 5: Small Things Get Big Results

• When you pay people the same amount of money, regardless of their quality of work or level of productivity, you’re trying to run a capitalist business on socialist principles.
• When you overlook slovenliness, negativity, and bad service instead of punishing it, you are encouraging it.
• When you see people creating additional value for your organization without rewarding them in direct proportion to that value, you’re discouraging them.
• When you employ anything that breathes because you’re so desperate for workers, you’re setting yourself up for failure and lowering your standards.
• When you establish ceilings and limitations on earning potential, you lose the cream of the crop.

Successful, profitable businesses prosper by design, not by default. They create a climate of attraction, motivation, stimulation, and reciprocation. This is so unique and hard to find that it will bring you some fantastic people.

How to Get Employees AND Employees who Perform

Before you tell me how hard it is to find people because you live in a booming economy like that of Alberta or British Columbia, let me suggest that, if you pay more than your competition, that fails as an excuse. And before you tell me that you can’t afford to pay significantly more than the competition does, let me assure you that you can accomplish that through the use of Joint Ventures. That’s what my company, DollarMakers, does. But this is not about creating more profit through Joint Ventures; it’s about employees.

For Example…

I once provided some Joint Venture training for an award-winning restaurant. At this restaurant, all the servers had shares in the business and enjoyed a simple profit sharing process as well. Servers were hired and fired by the Servers Committee, and everything was results based. Uniforms, serving times, and menus were determined by the Servers Committee. This was a true capitalist operation, using effective delegation, profit sharing, and common sense. The owner told me, “Robin, I manage by Consequence.” They never had a shortage of job applicants.

The ONLY Way Worth Operating

Pay people in direct proportion to the value they create – measurable, bottom-line profits should determine individual earnings.

• No automatic raises.
• No unions.
• There should be no cap on the earning potential of anyone.
• There should be immediate consequences for overstepping the mark.
• People should be allowed to focus only on their strengths. (Generally, allowing an accountant or a chef into a management position is suicide.)
• Use personality type testing and give everyone a vested interest in the success of the business, while at the same time tying their income and security to the fortunes, good AND bad, of the business. When business goes down, salaries should decrease in direct proportion, depending on individual input and production, which means simply that an employee who produces exceptional profits can experience an income increase while everyone else’s wages decrease. That’s called capitalism.

Here’s my standard “Job Description: “Whatever it takes, 24/7/365, and we share the fortunes, good and bad.” My entire business is made up of multiple, interlinked Joint Ventures. I actually practice what I preach, and it works.

A Great Business Philosophy Part 3: Getting “Buy In” From Your Employees