One of the most important aspects of the Joint Venture Mindset is that we don’t need to, and in fact shouldn’t, “Sell” a Joint Venture proposal.

Avoid this Poor Play

Last night I attended a “Networking” meeting where the Membership Services Manager walked up and asked me outright why I didn’t join their Chamber of Commerce. She showed no interest in me, my business, my problems or my interests. She was simply out to hard sell everybody she could.

When I indicated that I needed to see how joining that Chamber would benefit my particular business, she proceeded to reel off the “benefits” of joining. She is not someone to approach for a Joint Venture. She is egotistical, arrogant and stupid.

Make the Smart Move

If this “Manager” was intelligent, she would have listened carefully to me and asked herself a few simple questions:

• How many people could Robin introduce to this Chamber?
• How many people does he influence and who are those people?
• What is his ‘Hot Button’? What does he really, really want?
• How can this Chamber bring him massive, unprecedented value?
• How can I best present this option to him, in a win/win scenario?

If she had listened carefully, she would have learnt that I have many DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum Members and that many of them might consider joining her Chamber, and that many of her 1,400 Members could join the DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum and attend our Bootcamps, which could make her a substantial amount of money (a lot more than she earns at the Chamber). She would have found out that I can put her in front of a lot of prospective Chamber members via my talks, e-zines and seminars.

When to Walk Away

When someone doesn’t understand the value you offer them, walk away. If you have to sell it, the value is not perceived. Either you have to:

1. Describe it better,
2. Listen better or
3. Realize there is no match and walk away.

But you shouldn’t try to persuade someone to Joint Venture with you.

They should eagerly accept your no cost, no risk offer – that will mean they’re committed and serious. If both Joint Venture parties are excited, enthusiastic and passionate about the Joint Venture, it will probably work very well.

The Joint Venture Mindset

You have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince, you know. But you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Some people will never understand the Joint Venture mindset – get used to it, don’t take it personally, and remember what smart salespeople say:

“Some will, some won’t, so what? NEXT!”

One of the most common questions I am asked at the seminars, talks and Bootcamps I present, is:

“But, Robin, how do I find people to Joint Venture with?”

Good question, of course. In a world where a good website and business brochure can make a bank robber living in his dog’s kennel look like the CEO of a Fortune 500 business, we have rightfully become skeptical, even cynical. We are wary of the scam artists and wanna-be’s out there. We don’t want to refer our trusted clients and friends to losers.

Use a Group that Enforces High Standards

That’s why we started the DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum. Good people were invited to join and they invited their best people, and so on. And now that people from all over the world are applying to join, we insist they agree to adhere to our Code of Ethics and we watch them carefully. Any deviation and we unceremoniously kick them out. Unlike many “Networking Groups” that would accept Hitler if he paid enough, our fees are so low and our benefits so high that we can afford to be, and are, very selective. So that is one way to find good Joint Venture Partners: simply join the Forum!

Use Your “N.E.E.R.” Relationships

Another way to find good Joint Venture partners is to start with your N.E.E.R. relationships – your Naturally Existing Economic Relationships – people whom you know and trust and have done business with in the past. People who are referred to you by trusted friends and associates are more likely to turn out well. And if you follow our guidelines, you will initiate those Joint Ventures with no money, no time and no risk. So you can walk away if things don’t work out or the Joint Venture partner deviates from the agreement, as some, I assure you, will.

Why You Should ONLY Associate with Successful People

Always remember that there are people out there who will agree to anything to grab a customer and make a quick buck. Desperate people do desperate things. So you should choose successful people – not the trailer park type who lives on welfare and can’t afford gas, whom you want to help; you’re not a social worker. I have tried that and it cost me money. Find winners and visionaries.

Other Key Factors

And make sure to manage the relationship and the Joint Venture – it takes attention and monitoring to make it work well. And the more they know about Joint Ventures, the more likely the Joint Venture is to succeed. For example, DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum Member who has attended the Joint Venture Broker Bootcamp is more likely to succeed than one who hasn’t.  Contact Us to attend one yourself.

“Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”

- Helen Keller

Do you know this person?

• He rises without hitting the snooze button.
• She works without complaining.
• He works longer and harder than anyone else.
• He always delivers on time.
• She gets there before anyone else.
• He cares little about the opinions of others.
• She consistently raises his own standards and expectations.
• He is not cowered or frightened by his circumstances – he is in control of his environment and his mind.

If you know such a person, they are living on purpose. They have a Magnificent Obsession.

“But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it’s better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you’re fighting for.”

- Paulo Coelho

Living on Purpose

People with a very specific and definite purpose are not easily phased or thrown off course. They are utterly reliable and focused. They do not make excuses. Their lives are meaningful. They know who they are and they don’t need anyone else’s permission, endorsement or acknowledgement – only their own.

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”

- Thomas Paine

He knew whereof he spoke. Purpose driven people pay the price of success gladly. They are warriors.

Are You an Eagle or a Chicken?

Unstoppable people are Eagles – they have goals and objectives and they are self reliant. They concur with Ayn Rand’s definition of Freedom: “To ask for nothing, to expect nothing, to depend on nothing.” And Freedom is usually their highest value. They enjoy strong self esteem and confidently pioneer new frontiers, never doubting their own ability. They don’t know how to turn tail, quit or compromise. It’s foreign to them. Eagles expect to win.

Someone with a purpose will know unprecedented peace, power and profit when they discover their own Magnificent Obsession and give themselves permission to win at all costs. They are strengthened by detours, obstructions and the mindless, seething masses. They see beyond the ordinary. They rise majestically above the quicksand of Collectivism and compromise.

Do you see this person in the mirror every morning? You can, you know.

A client of mine who owned a chain of restaurants radically improved his business when we tested his employees for the personality styles and re-organized the business. We all have characteristics of all the four major personality styles, however one is normally dominant. In business, it’s important to acknowledge our strengths and leverage them, and to find others to supplement our weaknesses. There’s no right or wrong character type. Here’s a quick overview.

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.

When you have a service or a product that is bought many times over, it makes sense to pay to get a new customer. For example:

• 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.

“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?”

Do you want to know whether or not you will achieve your goals? Just look at your life, and you’ll know! What you consistently do in your life is a very clear prediction of where you will be in two years’ time. Your level of self discipline is a crystal ball – there is a definite link between discipline, self esteem and accomplishment. Look how many hours you spend dedicated to the accomplishment of your goals, and your future will reveal itself to you.

“We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

- John F. Kennedy

Successful people are “Outcome Driven”.

• They know exactly what they want.
• They focus on the reward, not the process.
• They highly respect, protect and prize their time.
• They do things in the order of their importance.
• Their time is prioritized.

Frank Lloyd Wright said, “I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.”

Mike Litman says, “You don’t have to get it right; you just have to get it going. Take action NOW. In life, you’re either consistent or you’re non-existent.”

Which are You?

• Do you prepare your day with a Do List of the six things you absolutely have to accomplish the next day? Is your vision so clear, so compelling, so exciting, that you can’t go back to sleep again after thinking of it?
• Or do you drift along, side tracked and buffeted by every new quick buck scheme and MLM dream, grabbing here and there and never sticking to anything?

• Are you an unstoppable machine, up early and rearing to go? How worn is the snooze button on your alarm clock? Do you even NEED an alarm clock?

And please check your philosophy. Your entire life and business is a reflection of your philosophy.

“The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.”

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Action Steps

How many hours a day do you dedicate to your magnificent obsession? If you see a need for change, CHANGE NOW. Take charge. It’s not too late! Make it happen. Align yourself with Eagles, cut the ducks out of your life and kick any money making scam that isn’t working to the curb. Get a new telephone number and only give it to winners. You can do it.

We are all leaders; in our families, churches, temples, lodges, clubs, businesses and fraternal organizations.

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.