Scotiabank has a slogan, “You’re richer than you think” – I wholeheartedly concur.

Most of us focus on what we don’t want to happen, what we don’t like, our fears, and the bad things in our lives. You only have to open any newspaper (do people still read those?) or turn on CNN to see how bad news dominates the thoughts of the average person.

The fact is that you have access to wealth and prosperity of which you’re probably blissfully unaware.

Bear with me, and you will see both the logic in my statement and the way to turn problems and goals into hard cash.

A Mind-blowing Epiphany for Entrepreneurs

We’ve all heard the truism, “Business is finding a need and filling it”, so people rush out and find a product or service to sell, or they buy or build a business to solve problems. Then they have to sell those products or services.

That’s why 87% of new business fail in the first five years and 87% of the remaining 87% fail in the next five years.

And that’s also why most “business owners” are in fact broke, self employed salespeople, and why most entrepreneurs either have money or time, but seldom both.

The problem is that they are working BACKWARDS.

Make Money Linking Problems to Solutions

The fact is that:

1. Everyone in the world has access to resources, and everyone knows many people who have access to resources. By the same token, everyone has problems, challenges, hopes, and dreams.
2. Every business is looking for more customers and more sales, and every business has excess inventory, perishable resources and other resources, hidden assets, and customers.

There is a proven way to create unlimited, residual wealth by linking supply and demand, solving those problems, and helping people reach their goals, without limitation, cost, risk, lots of time, or even selling – it’s called Brokering Joint Ventures.

I’ve been doing it for 22 years. Very few people understand how to do this, and that’s what DollarMakers is all about – teaching people to make money by simply introducing people to solutions and being paid.

Anyone Can Do It

Anyone, regardless of their circumstances, age, education, or background, and whether they have a business or not, can create wealth by setting up Joint Ventures.

Bill needs what Sally has, so you link Bill and Sally and get rewarded. This is not a new concept, and it can be as sophisticated or as simple as you like.

You Can Profit from What Others Don’t Know

Most small and medium sized businesses operate on about 10% of their potential net profit because they simply don’t understand the concept of Joint Ventures. It’s also why so many of them fail. Joint Ventures give businesses the edge and provide them with a way to dramatically increase their profits, while lowering their risk and overhead significantly.

At a seminar I presented to business owners, a delegate told me that he discovered that one of his employees had cost him at least ten times what he paid her.

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.

If you track the lives of truly successful people, you will see they all have a history of taking action, raising their hands, and stepping up. Successful people:

• take the lead
• innovate
• break the mold
• get out of their comfort zones
• put themselves on the spot

…And they do it consistently. They immigrate, start new ventures, and volunteer. And they never quit.

But there is a BIG difference in the way winners do things to the way losers attempt things.
Begin It… and Begin It Now.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote:

“…the moment one commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

4 Things that Make Winners Successful

There are four things that make winners successful WHEN they raise their hands and take action:

#1 - Model Successful People

They model successful people – they make sure they are mentored and lead by champions, not chumps in shiny suits or pretenders that ride on the coattails of the real leaders.

• They take advice from the right people.
• They align themselves with winners and avoid losers like the plague.

#2 - Work with Successful People… Even if They’re “Competition”

They realize that they can’t do it alone – they work with other successful people.

“If you think I am your competition, I will be your competition, and you will make less money. If you realize that together, we can accomplish more, and you will get your ego in check and work with me.”

#3 - Lead Yourself

They are their own bosses, never lead, manipulated, or directed by others behind the scenes, like spouses or silent business partners. They don’t have hidden agendas.

They are their own moral compass – they don’t need gurus and witchdoctors to tell them what to think. This means that they make decisions in line with their true values and beliefs, honor their word, and never quit.

#4 - Take Consistent Action

…And they consistently take action, because it’s easy to move when your ideas, motives, and choices are aligned with your values and objectives.

#5 - Have a Winning Mindset

• They are “abundance thinkers”, which means they think big, expect a lot, and take massive action.
• They are generous and humble.
• And you won’t hear them whining about being ripped off or taken advantage of or “what’s in it for me?” all the time.
• They understand reciprocity and relationships.

A Good Example

I saw a good example of this kind of winner in the person of a young man who attended one of my Joint Venture Broker Bootcamps recently – he consistently makes good choices, takes action, steps up, and deals with the top dogs instead of their gofers and emissaries.

Tim Francis is someone who will achieve a lot, because he is smart enough and confident enough to take advice from the right people and take action until he succeeds. He raises his hand.

Bridges don’t collapse for no reason. And Joint Ventures don’t fail for no reason. A well-constructed bridge lasts a long time and does the job it was meant for, as do good business deals. The main reason why Joint Ventures don’t work are essentially very simple, and DollarMakers is designed to use our 22 years of experience to teach people how to create lucrative, long-term JV’s with no cost or risk, so that if something doesn’t work out, nobody gets hurt and we can all remain friends.

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.

Invaluable Information in Just 7 Minutes

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.

Rika loves garage sales. It’s a beautiful spring day, and we go for a walk. Along the way, we see… A GARAGE SALE! Suddenly, as we meander along past the tables laden with other people’s trash, we both notice something on one of the tables that once changed our lives.

The Program that Changed Our Lives

Many years ago in South Africa, we imported the Anthony Robbins Personal Power Program from America. Because of the exchange rate and import duties, it was expensive, and it took a long time to receive it. We were very excited and listened to it over and over again. It changed our lives dramatically and resulted in personal understanding and choices and a video program that made us tens of thousands of dollars. We still live by the principles we learned from that wonderful program.

Throwing Away a Fortune

And there it was, in all its glory! The Anthony Robbins program, in pristine condition, with the little workbook and everything, at a garage sale!  That’s like putting your most precious, inherited, priceless, irreplaceable family jewels on a garage sale.

I was stunned. Rika and I both reached forward simultaneously to grab the program.

I looked at the character behind the table, early fifties, torn T-shirt, and asked him. “Why are you selling this fantastic program?”

His reply should have been expected, but I was still shocked. “I didn’t even finish listening to it - I don’t believe that stuff - that a 20-something could make all that money - it’s rubbish.”

When I recovered I asked, “So how much do you want for it?”

“I paid $139″, he scowled,”But you can have it for eight - say five dollars.”

On the way out of the garage sale, clutching my treasure, I noticed that the event was held at a Co-op housing place.

Most Never Even Cross the Finish Line

Naturally, I am re-listening to the entire program and loving every minute of it, and on the first tape Tony Robbins mentions that only 10% of the people who invest in the program will finish listening to it.

There’s a reason why that loser lives in government subsidized co-op housing. He was handed the keys to a magnificent mansion in the form of the Tony Robbins program, and he discarded it, probably in favor of a joint and a hockey game on TV. It was “too good to be true”.

Guess when he started scowling? When he saw my DollarMakers ball cap. Bitter and twisted, trapped in his cynicism, and poor.

It’s NEVER Too Late To Break Free

Although I was disgusted at this specimen that devalued something as life-changing as that Tony Robbins program, I really do pity him, and deep down inside I know that it’s not too late for him to break free of his present situation, if, indeed, he wants to break free. Many people have missed the boat, and yet they could still escape their compromised lives if they had the tools, given that they want their freedom from serfdom, mediocrity, and lives of quiet desperation.

As I type this, I have just finished writing my latest book, “Break Free!” and it will soon be available. Perhaps it should be very expensive, instead of the usual $20, since $139 didn’t get the attention of a young man who held his future in his hands all those years ago.

The truth will set you free, and the source is unimportant. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear - even in the form of an old audio tape program at a garage sale. It’s never too late to start living and to break free.

Logically, if one continues to accept the beliefs and philosophy that got one into a pickle in the first place, one’s trajectory won’t change. Any rational person accepts that if we keep on doing the same things, we will keep on getting the same results.

Change Starts in the Mind

To break free we have to change a few things, starting with one’s understanding of money.

All change starts off in one’s mind. Believe it or not, we don’t have money problems; we have thinking problems.

5 Simple, Doable Steps to Freedom

When our lives are so complicated and scary, when we’re sleep-deprived, drained, and weakened, complicated, time-consuming solutions are not the best medicine; one needs simple, quick, cheap, doable fixes to build a ladder out of the dark, dank dungeon of dejection, rung by rung.

First, take personal responsibility for your predicament, and accept full responsibility for the solution. Then, start climbing the ladder to laughter, light, and luxury:

Rung #1: Visit www.JVWisdom.com and consume as much as you can about Joint Ventures. You will find heaps of valuable, free information and videos. Share this information with your family.

Rung #2: Choose a Joint Venture strategy that you feel comfortable with, and start taking consistent, focused action.

Rung #3: Accept that some of your Joint Ventures will work, and some won’t, but since they take little time, and given that they entail no cost or risk, you have nothing to lose and everything to learn and gain, so don’t quit – keep on keeping on.

Rung #4: Surround yourself with successful people and kick the pessimists, losers, and parasites out of your life. Start reading “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand.

Rung #5: Repeat rungs 1 though 4 until you emerge, victorious, into the glorious sunlight, having broken free from financial slavery, and breathe the fresh air of freedom, peace of mind, and security. I did, and you can, too. It’s not too late.

The following questions, when seriously considered and answered on an individual basis, will reveal some of your deep motivations and beliefs, interpretations and needs, objectives, fears, and dreams, as well as some of the perceived barriers and pain in your life.

I challenge you to take some quiet, uninterrupted time to sincerely and honestly ask yourself these questions and answer them.

1. If I won five million dollars tomorrow and I had to allocate it within five days, what, specifically would I do with it, and why?
2. If I was given five million dollars and I had to distribute that between five people, not including myself or my spouse, who would those people be, and why?
3. If I had to spend three weeks on a desert island with ten people, dead or alive, who would they be, and why?
4. What would be a good reason for me to commit suicide?
5. Why would I not commit suicide?
6. Why do I hold my present religious beliefs? Do they help me or hurt me?
7. If I had to double my income in three months or be shot to death in public, what would I do differently in those three months?
8. If I had only six months to live, what would I do in those six months?
9. If I had ten million dollars in the bank, how would my life change specifically? What would I start doing, what would I stop doing, and whom would I spend time with?
10. If the world was going to be destroyed and I had to pick fifteen people to escape with me in a rocket ship, who would they be, and why?
11. Repeat the same question for FIVE people plus yourself.
12. Repeat the same question for TWO people plus yourself.
13. If I moved, alone, to a new city, far away, where nobody knew me, and I didn’t have to work (enough money to live comfortably) and I had to live there for a year, what would change in my life and my activities? What new things would I do, and what would I stop doing?
14. If there were no consequences or punishment, and nobody would find out, what would I do?
15. What two things do I fear most, and why? What can I do about it?
16. If I could change two things in my life, what would they be?
17. Which five people do I love the most, and why?
18. Which three people do I hate the most, and why? How would I benefit from forgiving and forgetting them?
19. What stops me from succeeding to a greater degree? What excuses am I making for not reaching my full potential?
20. If I could change the way I think about my life and the things I tell myself about my life and my options, I could break free and be happier. How badly do I want my dreams to come true, on a scale of one to ten?