Bob  Carlson writes,

“Not too many years ago, most people did not need retirement plans or help with retirement planning. Retirement lasted only five years on average. Not everyone retired. Those that did retire generally had adequate income from employer pensions and medical expense coverage plus Social Security and Medicare.

All that changed.

• Life expectancies increased, dramatically increasing the length of retirement to 20 years or more.
• Employers reduced or eliminated pensions. Employees save and invest for retirement on their own through 401(k) plans and other accounts.
• Employer-paid retiree medical coverage is greatly reduced, and Medicare raises premiums.

Americans more and more are on their own for retirement and must plan for much longer retirements.

‘Game Changing’ Events that Make Us Re-evaluate

To complicate things, retirement finances have changed and are changing rapidly. Bull markets rapidly turn into bear markets which become financial crises. Investment options change all the time. Taxes, long-term care, medical expense coverage, annuities, life insurance, estate planning, and other aspects of your retirement finances rapidly have innovations and turmoil.

Currently, we are experiencing real ‘game changing’ events that will require everyone to re-evaluate their retirement plans:

• A bear market that wiped out 50% and more of some retirement portfolios in a year.
• Likely tax increases in the next year or two.
• The financial instability of Medicare, likely to lead to means-testing or other major reductions in benefits.
• Questions about the future of insurers that sold life insurance, annuities, and long-term care insurance.
• Low interest rates and dividend reductions that slash the income of retirees.

Where Most Get Their (Poor) Advice

Now there is no shortage of people seeking to be the retirement advisors for tens of millions of Baby Boomers: brokers, financial planners, accountants, insurance agents, mutual fund companies, and more.

Too often these advisers have their own agendas or are so busy marketing and managing their businesses that they do not keep up with the latest news and trends. Cookie cutter approaches and rules-of-thumb dominate too much financial advice. Personal needs, situations, and desires can take a back seat or be pushed out of the vehicle.

Tackling It On Your Own

But if you attempt to tackle retirement planning on your own, you can easily become confused and overwhelmed by the mountain of advice available to you.

Type the search term ‘retirement planning’ into Google and it returns about 13.5 million hits. Type in ‘IRA’ and it returns almost 50 million hits! And most of these hits are for websites that simply want to sell you a particular product, or contain information that’s out of date.”

I Agree Wholeheartedly.

…And those “Advisers” are all asking you spend MORE money, take more risks, and trust them, so that they can earn bigger commissions on your risk!

Surely you’re tired of being ripped off?

Here’s My SOLUTION:

How about creating more income – residual income from multiple sources – with no cost, risk, or selling, no investment, and little time, regardless of your financial predicament, age, or background? That’s exactly what DollarMakers offers you.

Have a look at our website -lots of free stuff, information, and help. No obligation. No spam.

There’s even an e-book on how to retire in one year.  That’s right.  You heard me correctly.  ONE YEAR.

What have you got to lose? It’s not too late to turn your autumn years of scarcity and fear into the best years of your life.

We’ve all found ourselves in difficult financial situations, and we all know how fiscal pressure can tempt one to lower one’s standards and compromise in certain areas out of simple desperation and the urgency of the moment.

…And we have all found out how that backfires.

Like a wild animal, money runs away when you chase it; you have to lure it, entice it, attract it with value, and never compromise your standards.

Sell Up!

When we’re feeling down and the wolf is scratching at the door, it’s natural to “sell down” – we approach other broke and frantic people instead of “Selling up” – seeking out people who are more successful than we are at the time.

Note I said, “at the time.” Being broke is a temporary situation – remember that.

Everyone has been there, and there’s no shame in facing the odd storm; it’s HOW you face the storm and the reactions you choose under fire that will determine how long the storm lasts. You get to know yourself and others under pressure; you find out how tough and motivated you really are.

Turning A Tough Situation Around

The key to turning around a difficult cash flow predicament is to get a strong trunk out of the basement, find a solid lock to put on it, and stuff your bruised ego and emotionalism into that trunk until you recover.

Being objective and clear-headed is essential and that’s where it’s valuable to have access to an objective, successful mentor or friend who can keep you from rushing out and making a fool of yourself. Desperate salespeople seldom make sales, but they do make a lot of enemies.

1. Be prepared to walk away from any deal.
2. Be low-key.
3. Remain relaxed, professional, urbane, and at ease.

You Set the Standard

When I ran a hotel for a smart hotelier who was an even smarter entrepreneur, he told me,:

“Robin, no matter how urgent a matter is, even if the hotel is on fire or the chef is murdering yet another waiter, you must NEVER RUN.

You will walk in a stately manner, like a gentleman taking his leisurely constitutional.

Be professional and in control at all times, since you set the example and the standard for the entire staff and the guests.”

The Money Will Come

Most important, don’t hide from your creditors. Keep contact, offer payment schemes, communicate, and remain confident and self-assured at all times.

Think big, be flexible, and take the advice of your mentors, but don’t do silly things that will haunt you for years. Create the value that will attract the money.

Discipline yourself to be patient and consistent, and the money will come.

In January of 1979, I was promoted to Food and Beverage Manager of the Bulawayo Holiday Inn in Rhodesia. The country was enduring a prolonged war, so I was privileged to work in a country at war for a year.

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

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

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

Things to Learn from a “War-time Mentality”

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

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

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

Getting Creative to Survive

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

Barter as a Way of Life

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

Where Customers are Coming from… And Still Are.

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

After that Year

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

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

These were my most important lessons:

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

There’s an old story of a man who heard about a flood on the radio, so he prayed to his god that he would be saved and continued to read his newspaper.

Then his neighbors came by to warn him, but he simply prayed again, and had lunch. The water rose and the cat climbed gingerly onto the cupboard, but the man refused to accept the fact that the flood had arrived. Eventually, he perched precariously on the roof of his house,  surrounded by surging flood waters, and a boat came by to rescue him, but he refused, stating that his god would save him. Then a helicopter came by to rescue him. Again, he declined their help. Finally, he drowned, bitterly blaming his god for his demise.

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” – Sir Winston Churchill.

The Benefits of Facing Your Fear

Ignoring reality and denying the truth might prolong your false sense of comfort and security for a short while, but the consequences grow exponentially over time. Dealing with festering conflict is not something the passive aggressive types like, but the benefits of facing your fear and confronting issues is increased self-esteem and the peace of mind that follows that brave choice.

Some questions to ask yourself:

• If I continue going the way I am going now, what will my life look like in two years?
• Am I moving in the direction of my goals, or away from them?
• Am I getting wealthier, happier, healthier, and more successful?
• What are the consequences of my current choices?”

Then, shout, “YAHOO!” (You Always Have Other Choices.) Winston Churchill also said:

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”

..But Beware Whose Advice You Take

And when you understand that taking action to change your direction is the way to go, be careful whose advice you take.

The blind are the first to step up and offer to lead the blind – empty men with empty promises, who wish to fill their empty pockets with your hard-earned money. Those parasites will lead you down the road to destruction while telling you how much they love you. They are the bloodsuckers and the looters who sell nicely wrapped, glittering garbage to the unsuspecting and naive.

“Don’t take advice from anyone more screwed up than you” is valuable information, but don’t confuse money and fame with integrity.

In a nutshell, wake up, smell the coffee, and turn your horse in the direction of the treasure.

Are you a victim of the herd mentality?

If you are, you’re heading for the edge of the cliff. Look at the facts below and then let us apply them to your reaction and options in this recession. I will offer you some solid, safe, and secure guidelines.

How Reliable is the Evidence You’re Following?

Vito Rispo writes, “Researchers at Leeds University, led by Prof Jens Krause, performed a series of experiments where volunteers were told to randomly walk around a large hall without talking to each other. A select few were then given more detailed instructions on where to walk.

“The scientists discovered that people end up blindly following one or two people who appear to know where they’re going. The published results showed that it only takes 5% of what the scientists called ‘informed individuals’ to influence the direction of a crowd of around 200 people. The remaining 95% follow without even realizing it.”

This is called “Social Proof” – everyone else is doing it, so it must be right.

What Would It Take for You to Give Up Your Sense of Reality?

In “Cascade Behavior”, an individual wholly disregards his or her own information to follow the crowd.

Len Boselovic of the  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes, “On the way up, this irrational exuberance is all well and good as long as there is a ready inventory of fools willing to pay more than the last fool. When the supply of foolish buyers runs out, the issue becomes the supply of fools who want to sell for less than the last guy, which is where we find ourselves today. Friday’s 4 percent slide in the Dow Jones industrial average left the market barometer down 5 percent for the week, 27 percent since Sept. 1 and 37 percent for the year.”

Remember the lines of idiots buying overpriced real estate off plan? And those who bought properties in third world countries? Many of them attended seminars…

Investor Behavior Demonstrates Social Proof

Daniel J. Howard, a marketing professor, says investor behavior demonstrates the principle of social proof: The more an individual sees those around him believing something or acting a certain way, the more the individual believes that thing to be true or the behavior appropriate. (If you really want to see people getting ripped off, attend a Franchise Show.)

The Moral to These Stories

When you see the herd lining up to listen to the latest snake oil pitchman, RUN in the opposite direction.

Be Warned & Take Comfort In This Simple Advice:

A lot of desperate people are about to do some very silly things in this turbulent time, and you are warned not to join them. This is what you should be looking for when you consider ways to alleviate and change your financial situation:

#1 – SLEEP on it.

Does the opportunity make logical sense in a way that you can establish its accuracy before jumping on board? SLEEP on it.

#2 – Consider the Source

• Is the person selling you a solution credible?
• How long has he or she been in business, can they prove it, and what is your REAL risk factor?
• Also, who are they associated with?

Birds of the feather flock together. Do your due diligence, and be very careful where you are getting your advice from.

#3 – Don’t Believe the Hype

Don’t believe the media hype – politicians, the media, banks, “financial planners” and people who use podiums and pulpits are usually less than honest, and always have an agenda.

In every situation, there are those getting poor and those getting rich.

• Be objective and remain calm.
• Don’t take your check book or credit card with you to pitch fests. It can always wait until the cold light of dawn, when you have had time to calm down and get real.

I recently heard of a swine who charged unsuspecting, unthinking sheeple thousands of dollars to attend his seminar / selling routine, at which he sold them the same information again for more thousands of dollars, and they lined up to pay him. Lambs to the slaughter, I’m afraid. And he is endorsed and promoted by those like him; thick as the thieves they are. You SHOULD judge people by the company they keep.

So next time you buy anything or make any decision, ask yourself if you are being pressured, lied to, duped, conned, hoodwinked, or helped.

“Social Proof” is no proof at all.

Whether or not you have a business or a job, you can choose not to participate in this rushing, rampant recession. Desperate people will do desperate things.

• Marriages will crumble under financial stress…
• Health will decline…
• Bankruptcies and suicides will increase…
• Net worth will fall dramatically…

… for some.

Some Will Win.  Some Will Lose.

Those who prospered by default in the good times, in spite of their lack of professionalism, ability, or integrity, will be scraped off the bottom of the business world’s shoe. Smart companies will use the recession as an excuse to clean house and fire losers and parasites.

…And those who know how to ride this mighty wave of change will ride it all the way to Treasure Island.

Seeking Recession Solutions

The advice being offered on TV shows and in the media to those suffering from the recession is pathetic.

Some people will hide from reality by enrolling at colleges and universities, convincing themselves and their families that “more education will get me a great job.” What a joke. You don’t need a job; you need more money.

Business owners that were previously too arrogant and egotistical to consider alternatives to their present, limited business models will start to open up to solutions they wouldn’t consider learning about before.

And suddenly, some people will learn that most of what we have believed about money, security, value, business, and the way to create wealth is simply not true.

This is a wonderful time for dispelling myths and setting people financially free, regardless of their ages, backgrounds, circumstances, or education.

Now’s the Time to Harness Leverage

We don’t have money problems; we have thinking problems, and when you understand the power of leverage as it is available through brokering joint ventures, you suddenly have multiple, unlimited, international options that you never knew about before.

Business owners have a huge amount of hidden assets and resources that they can leverage. And smart brokers don’t need a business.

Earn from Multiple Income Sources

After 22 years as a Joint Venture Broker, I know how to run a business with no overhead, little time, no employees, no investment, costs or risk, no selling, and 100% profit on everything I earn from multiple income sources – most of them residual.

Most entrepreneurs, professionals, and the owners small and medium sized businesses are, in reality, simply self-employed salespeople. They might have money, but they don’t have the time to enjoy it, or they have neither time nor money. And most of them operate, in my opinion, at about 10% of their potential net profit. Employees are in an even worse position.

Become a Money Magnet

By linking supply and demand, being the middleman, and solving problems through other peoples’ businesses, products ad services, you remove all limitations from your earning potential.

By removing your ego and realizing that you’re in business to earn the maximum net profit with the least amount of time, cost, risk, effort, and stress, you become a catalyst – and a money magnet.

What Joint Venture Brokers Do

Joint Venture Brokers understand how to convert access, perishable resources, unconverted leads, reputations, excess inventory, relationships, and common sense into hard cash, fast. They see the connections, and they solve problems. They demand that they are paid, on an ongoing basis, for business that they create, and they understand how to set up joint ventures (we call them DollarMakers) and strategic alliances that operate on a capitalistic, win/win/win basis. They get paid for results, not promises, and all the parties involved are better off.

Create More Qualified Leads Than You Can Handle

Entrepreneurs who understand how to use joint ventures easily differentiate themselves from their confused competition by simply adding massive value, at no cost to themselves, which in turn spawn loads of back-end income. They know how to create more qualified leads than they can handle, and why they make more money by sending those leads to their competition.

They live in a world of abundance and opportunity, and they see the recession as a wonderful gift.

Who Are You Listening To?

A smart man once said:

“Only take advice from someone who already has what you want.”

Talking advice from bankers, consultants, coaches, “financial planners”, employees, and accountants about how to make money is ridiculous. They’re all selling their time, and all have a vested interest in telling you blatant lies, many of which they, themselves, believe. Taking advice from people who are more screwed up than you are is just plain silly.

Rich people understand things that poor people don’t – that’s why the rich get richer. It’s not magic, and it’s never too late to learn.

Brokering joint ventures provides a fast track to real money in the real world. While many will become the victims of seminar con artists, ponzi schemes, and snake oil salespeople, DollarMakers offers a practical, proven, creative, legitimate, safe alternative with a 22 year track record.