“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte

Strong and successful entrepreneurs make decisions fast and stick to them. They don’t wait for the cat to fall out of a tree or Grandma to buy a new dress. They don’t have twenty committee meetings before they decide whether or not to order the Beef Wellington.

• They say, “Yes” or they say, “No.”
• They are fast on their feet.
• They don’t find excuses to procrastinate.
• They will weigh the information, do their due diligence and decide.

You don’t have to run after them for a decision, either; they will get back to you when they say they will. They are winners.

“All I needed was a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’.”

One seminar attendee gave me SEVEN reasons why he wouldn’t be able to attend an event. At the end of his whining, I said, “All I needed was a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’.”

Winston Churchill put it this way: “They are decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.” And George Canning said,

“Indecision and delays are the parents of failure.”

Those who vacillate, dither, hesitate and flounder are simply fearful of making ANY decision. They are afraid of the consequences of agreeing and equally terrified of the results of disagreeing. As Tony Blair once said of a certain politician, “Weak, weak, weak!”

Be willing to make decisions.

The chairman of Mesa Petroleum said,

“Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the Ready- Aim-Aim-Aim Syndrome. You must be willing to fire.”

Any decision is better than no decision. “I’ll get back to you” and “I’ll think about it / discuss it / review it” usually means, “I’m too scared to decide – please leave me in my misery and go find a real man”. Let us decide to decide. Let us be warriors and Eagles. Let us be confident, courageous and focused. Time is money and the window of opportunity doesn’t wait. Seize the day!

When you ask the right Joint Venture questions, you open the vault to riches. People like to talk about themselves, their goals and their problems. When we help them make their dreams come true and offer solutions for their problems, we all win and everyone makes money.

5 Possible Power-packed Joint Venture Approaches

Savvy Joint Venture Brokers know that it’s all about the right approach. Here are five powerful approaches that you can use, today, to make real money, real fast.

1. What do I have to create, bring to you or offer you in order for you to write me a check for $2,000 per month / $10,000?
2. What do you want, more than anything else, in your life and your business, and why?
3. If I was to bring you business and customers that you don’t have and would not have had, what percentage of the gross sales would you offer me?
4. If I could show you how to make money from your existing resources, with no cost or risk to yourself and without any time spent, would you share the resulting profits with me?
5. If I could double the amount of people in your restaurant, given that you have a 32% food cost and all your overheads and fixed costs are already covered, would you pay me 20% of every bill I generated?

If you help other people to get what they want, you will get what you want. And by asking the right, open-ended questions and being honestly interested in the other person, you find out what they want. And when someone responds negatively or offers a meager commission, simply walk away – the world is your oyster and there are unlimited Joint Venture opportunities out there.

5 Ideal Parameters of a Good Joint Venture

The 5 ideal parameters of a good Joint Venture are:

1. No money
2. No risk
3. Very little time
4. Lots of leverage
5. Big potential

Ask the right questions, do your due diligence and always be ready to say, “No.” Personally, I only work with Members of the DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum.

Our Joint Venture Broker Bootcamp Graduates are trained to find and exploit lucrative Joint Venture opportunities. Through our powerful DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum, they have access to hundreds of other Members worldwide, as well as meetings, a Convention, Tele Conferences, support and Joint Venture opportunities.

I asked the bell captain to call a cab for me to get to the train station for my trip to Ottawa. He replied that, with all the freezing snow Montreal was enjoying that morning, a cab would take 45 minutes to arrive! Shock and awe – what was I to do? I had meetings and a seminar lined up in Ottawa – carefully planned down to the last minute. I couldn’t afford to miss that train!

Then I realized that the bell captain was still there, talking. He was saying, “But, Mr. Elliott, why not take the underground to the train station? It’s right around the corner, here.” In only twenty minutes I was at the station via the underground, saved money on the cab and enjoyed a great, relaxing train ride to Ottawa.

Has Conditioning Got in the Way?

When he walked into the huge seminar venue in the Toronto hotel, he seemed pretty professional and successful Well dressed and groomed, poised, aware. He handed me his business card and I was impressed. Thirty minutes into my seminar, I asked the audience, “How many of you think this looks ‘Too good to be true’?” and the same man put up his hand. Shock and awe! It was hard to believe that this sophisticated businessman was, in fact, seriously handicapped by his mental conditioning. We all are. How many wonderful opportunities have we all missed, because our conditioning got in the way? We all have mental programming that hampers and restricts us.

We don’t have money problems, we have thinking problems.

The same goes for technology – I searched for YEARS to find a way to record sound bytes on my computer at home and then to e-mail them. It only took one e-mail from Member Andrew Cavanagh in Australia, and within ten minutes I had the solution, which has been working great ever since.

We don’t have money problems, we have thinking problems. And the same goes for everything else. We already have whatever we want and need – it’s all in the way we think. Understanding that we have mental blocks is the first step on the road to overcoming all obstacles on our way to success.

The Fastest Way I Have Discovered to Get Over Blocks

Other people know things that we don’t know. They have different perspectives and they know how to get to the train station. The fastest way I have discovered to getting over, under and around mental blocks is by associating with a wide variety of Eagles through our DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum.

Hundreds of ethical people around the world with a Joint Venture Mindset are available to help me to succeed in a win/win way. They have different frames of reference, experience, skills, connections, access and resources that are readily available. We help each other to see through the mental blocks and solve problems. Together, we can do amazing things.

It’s amazing how many people I see doing crossword puzzles. In coffee shops, on planes, in airports, in trains. Rika likes doing jigsaw puzzles. Many people enjoy chess. They’re all solving problems and making connections.

When I first read Zig Ziglar’s statement,

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

I realized that the more value I could create and the more people I could reach, the faster I would reach my own goals. So the puzzles that I enjoy are “value” puzzles: How to connect the dots and link the right people and resources in such a way that I create massive, unprecedented value. It’s called Joint Ventures.

JustLook at How the Big Guys Do Business

This is how I’ve done business and done well for nineteen years.

• We don’t have to create competencies; we can borrow them.
• We don’t have to own or buy resources – we just need access to them.

Ericsson and Sony work together. Disney, Amex, Pfizer and IBM all excel at Joint Ventures. Wal-Mart formed a Joint Venture with Mexico’s Cifra, which significantly shortened its learning curve about the Mexican market. It is said that 20% of the revenues of large companies are the result of Joint Ventures and that 50% of those Joint Ventures are with their competition, yet only 1% of small and medium businesses understand and use this powerful business tool to create fast and large profits at virtually no cost or risk.

It’s all about leveraging exiting resources and hidden assets. And it requires a certain mindset. And it doesn’t take years of academic study; it takes one day to get started.

Everything You Need is Already Available

The most important component of a successful Joint Venture is finding the right people to work with. One has to be careful to select ethical, professional people one whom one can rely. Secondly, you have to learn the mindset and understand how to select and approach potential Joint Venture partners and then to set up the deals in a win/win, no cost or risk manner. Once you get it, it’s like riding a bicycle or becoming a physician – you can work anywhere in the world, without any resources. Everything you need is already available through someone else.

A Game Where the Winner Gets Paid

Brokering Joint Venture deals is a wonderful and very rewarding game. It’s better than jigsaw puzzles because it creates value wealth, and great relationships. Real money, real fast, in the real world, with no downside – that’s why I love Joint Ventures. Remember “Six degrees of separation”? It’s true. And “What goes around comes around”? It works. I set up one Joint Venture yesterday that instantly exposed me to four thousand people. On my own, that would have taken a lot of time and money. Together, we can do amazing things.

As an immigrant myself, I understand the hopes, fears, dreams and unique problems faced by immigrants, no matter where they are in the world. Immigrants often face challenges that only other immigrants can understand. Often their qualifications are not accepted or they have no local experience, so they accept whatever they can get. Having worked with hundreds of immigrants, I know how hard it is to start all over again.

Common Barriers to Success for Immigrants

• Immigrants don’t always understand the culture in their new home.
• They might be afraid of risking their savings.
• They often don’t realize just how different things are in this new world.
• They sometimes face racism, xenophobia and people who take advantage of their vulnerability.
• They want to be accepted and blend in to their new environment, but it can be very strange and difficult.
• Money problems can lead to loss of self respect, shame, relationship problems and withdrawal.
• I know of a number of immigrants who ended up divorced from their spouses, their dreams crushed.
• Others lost their savings and will have to work until they die.

– UNLESS THEY FIND AN ALTERNATIVE.

Joint Ventures is the Alternative You’ve Been Waiting For!

The good news is that any immigrant, in any country, can use Joint Ventures to create an income fast, with no money or risk, no database, no business experience and no connections or support system. Just like I did. You don’t need money, reputation or inventory. As long as someone else has it, you can access and leverage it, if you know how.

My Story

When I got to Canada, the condominium agent didn’t want to rent me an apartment because I was new in the country with no track record or credit record here! Talk about starting over. I got a friend of mine, the head of the US Peace Corps for Southern Africa, to send them a testimonial. That worked. Ridiculous, but that’s what many immigrants face. You can’t get a job, because you don’t have “Canadian experience”. Chicken and egg. But I didn’t want a job – I didn’t need one!

Free Yourself

You don’t need to accept a minimum wage job or drive a cab or kowtow to some idiot boss. You can create multiple streams of income and financial independence using Joint Ventures. Don’t buy a business. Don’t get a job. Get smart. Use Joint Ventures.

What Brokers Do and You Can Do Too

Joint Venture Brokers leverage other peoples’ money, credit, reputation, resources and access. The money they earn is 100% profit. And they get all the tax breaks that any other business gets. They don’t sell time, they take no risks and they carry no overhead. They can live in a cardboard box and use a pay phone. They don’t have to sell anything. All they do is link people up with businesses supplying the products or services they want and need, and get well paid for it – win/win/win. They have a JV mindset and build bridges between supply and demand.

Anyone can do this. Immigrants have the courage to leave their comfort zone, home and friends, security and support system. They are courageous. They richly deserve the rewarding world of Joint Ventures.

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
- Calvin Coolidge

You can’t teach someone persistence. People will become sufficiently persistent to succeed only when their desire for their goal exceeds the pain and discomfort they have to endure in order to reach it. It’s simply a matter of comparison: the pain of living without your objective has to exceed the pain of paying the price to accomplish that goal. Which pain is greater?

What’s Your Motivation Level

Everyone is motivated. Motivation means “A motive for action”. Some people are motivated to lie in the gutter with a cigarette and bottle of liquor. That’s what they want to do, that’s why they’re doing it. Others live mediocre lives, because they don’t want real success badly enough to pay the price to obtain it.

When Success is Guaranteed

How do we guarantee success? DESIRE. When you want something badly enough, when you are prepared to do whatever it takes to get it, you will become persistent. And when that happens, success is guaranteed.

When to Not Bother

On a scale of one to ten, one being “It doesn’t matter” and ten being “Nothing will stop me”, how badly do you want to reach your objective? If it’s anything less than a twelve, don’t bother. FIND something that you want more than anything else. That desire will burn away fear, slothfulness, excuses, lack of attention, distraction, compromise, mediocrity and even fatigue. People who are seriously motivated are persistent and dedicated. They set extremely high standards and will pay the price. They LOVE their objective.

Persistence is…

Persistence is the result of finding your true purpose and the result of persistence is massive success. To find your purpose, it’s good to spend time with others who already know what their purpose is. Those people will inspire you and their energy will start to invigorate you. You will seek what they have, which is purpose. And what you honestly and sincerely seek, you will surely find.

“They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigour.”

- Eric Hoffer

Einstein told us,

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

And we tend to subconsciously seek evidence to support our dominant beliefs. So we get stuck in a loop – we continue to look for proof that we’re right, so we don’t change what we believe, so we don’t change. Then we complain that nothing changes. Well, our circumstances won’t change until WE change what we believe to be true. How do we do that?

Sabotaging Future Success

We created our beliefs by gathering evidence to support those beliefs. For example, Uncle Patrick was dishonest in business, Lonny ripped us off and Sam lost his savings in a bad business deal. And, as a result, we believe that business owners are dishonest and that we will lose money by getting into business. This can sabotage your future success. Or you’ve had six bad relationships and two divorces so you believe there are no good men in the world. That’s simple human nature: once bitten, twice shy. Seven times bitten…

Brainwash yourself

Actually, it’s easier than we may think. The best way I have found to change my own beliefs is to immerse myself in evidence that produce empowering, uplifting beliefs. If I had a bad experience in business, I can:

• Read the biographies of successful entrepreneurs
• Spend a lot of time on a regular basis with successful business owners
• Watch movies like “Tucker”
• Read business magazines
• Read “Atlas Shrugged”
• Read “Think and Grow Rich” and other good material
• Listen to podcasts and CD’s

Eventually, inexorably, my beliefs will change and my life will change.

If you had bad experiences in relationships, how about only mixing with people who have great relationships and marriages, read books about good relationships, work on yourself and concentrate on flooding your mind with positive information on relationships.

Brainwash yourself – wash out all the silly, weak, disempowering beliefs with good, clean beliefs! Focus on your input. Strategically plan to change your beliefs. Take massive, passionate action. You can dramatically change your life by changing your beliefs.

A man’s daughter told him there were ripe apples on the tree in their yard. He went out with an axe and a bucket, picked the five apples that were ripe, put them in the bucket, and then chopped down the tree, laden with green apples. He wouldn’t wait for them to ripen, and so he missed out on much good fruit.

The Moral to the Story

We need to continually brand ourselves so that when prospective customers “ripen”, you’re their natural choice – top of mind. We want to position ourselves in their mind by creating a category and then owning it.

Getting the Most from Marketing and Advertising

We know that advertising works very much better when you’re well branded. You get a much better ROI for marketing and advertising when people recognize you. How do you know how well you’re branded? I look at my site on Alexa.com, I Google Robin J. Elliott and DollarMakers and I see how many times the phone rings. But the best test is your bottom line, right?

Using Joint Ventures to Brand Easily & Effectively

Branding is essential for business success. But isn’t it very expensive? And with the cost of advertising and the mass of information out there, isn’t it difficult to stand out and be recognized? It is difficult if you use conventional methods. They’re risky and expensive. Hit and miss. That’s why we use Joint Ventures to build our brand effectively.

In order to brand Robin J. Elliott and JVWisdom.com I use the following:

• Blog my website a JV with another website
• Seminars and teleclasses
• Articles in other peoples’ e-zines
• Public speaking
• Keynote speeches
• E-books and audio books

… and on and on – all Joint Ventures.

I also use:

• Contingency Advertising
• Host Beneficiary Relationships
• Bundling

… all Joint Ventures as well. No cost or risk and very little time, with maximum effect and reach. I could go on all day. Bottom line, it works for my bottom line! And my JV Partners benefit just as much. Win/win.

Take a Multifaceted Approach

We discovered a long time ago that branding is a multifaceted thing. Many different baits on many different hooks. Get the public’s attention continually, on many different levels. Reinforce their awareness of you and your business. Donald Trump said that there is no such thing as overexposure. I agree with him.

The Value of Branding Your Business

Branding creates massive equity for you, as long as it translates into business. Branding on its own is ego. We need to convert that branding into after tax profit. Again, multidimensional approaches and income streams can be developed fast and with little cost or time and no risk, using Joint Ventures. When our income is not restricted to our own products and services, we’re doing real business and making real money, real fast.