Too many people make Joint Ventures too complicated. They “feel overwhelmed” and “don’t know where to start”, when it’s really as simple as ABC.

When you respond to a need and make a referral, which you do every day, simply monetize the transaction and build in residual income wherever possible. And in many cases, the reciprocal value doesn’t have to be money – you can trade anything, as long as the one making the money reciprocates!

Here is an example of a JV:

We all have tons of books, CD’s, educational programs that we paid too much for at overpriced seminars, DVD’s, and audio programs at home, most of which we will never look at again, if we ever did in the first place. Yet we continue to buy new stuff.

How about twenty friends decided to have a little swap meet, get together for pizza, and swap their CD’s., etc? Everyone would get excellent value, at no cost!

Here’s another example:

Marketing is usually confused with selling. Using attraction marketing is a very powerful and effective way to get more customers. Instead of selling stuff, give stuff away! Especially when it doesn’t cost you anything!

Joint Venture with people who want to get their products and services into the market place by giving away their Gift Certificates for courses, consultations, cleanings, evaluations, samples, reports, conference calls, etc., and everyone wins.

Yet another example:

I was in England last week, and a good friend’s wife is very connected in Africa. I thought of another friend of mine in Canada who can almost certainly do business with her, so I e-mailed him to ask exactly what commissions I would receive if I connected him with my African connection. If I like the commission structure, I will send ONE e-mail to make the connection, sit back, and wait for a check. It’s that easy.

One more example:

JV’s can be TRIANGULATED: Those are the best, easiest, and most lucrative. Connect Tom and Peter, and collect an ongoing commission on any business they ever do, as with my African connection illustration above.

I had a fellow distribute someone else’s complimentary report to his database, and it earned me ten thousand dollars.

• Total time invested: 30 minutes.
• Risk: none.
• Cost: nothing.

Be Creative!

You can trade anything in JV’s – people have traded my JV Broker Bootcamp tickets for beef, pots and pans, advertising, hotel rooms, you name it. You can be as creative as you like!

One caveat here:

You should only do business and set up Joint Ventures with good people whom you know, like and trust, or have been referred to you by trusted friends, hence the DollarMakers Joint Venture Club.

Online “JV’s” with anonymous people can hurt you and your reputation more than you can imagine.

With the right training, access, and support, anyone can make money and even retire through the power of Joint Ventures. I have; twice.

I just returned from England, where the bite marks of the omnipresent recession are more evident than in Super, Natural British Columbia. Flying home, I was once again reminded of the upside of this recession; the benefits, as it were, of the half-full glass.

For example, the interest in DollarMakers services and products is growing steadily as people suddenly become aware of the value of the information and links we provide.

The flight was only two-thirds full, so I was able to select another seat and escape some precocious, seat-kicking French kids who should have been chained in the cargo hold with a selection of vicious, rabid wolves.

“Will Everything Be All Right?”

Smart people have a good perspective on how to benefit from these recessionary times, while frightened people frighten other people and the enlightened ones get rich.

When interviewed on CNBC, Monday, March 9, 2009, here is Warren Buffet’s response when Terry in San Antonio, Texas, asks, “Will everything be all right?”:

“Fear is very contagious. You can get fearful in 5 minutes, but you don’t get confident in 5 minutes.

Everything will be all right.

We do have the greatest economic machine that man has ever created. We started with 4 million people back in 1790 and look where we’ve come. And it wasn’t because we were smarter than other people. It wasn’t because our land was more fertile or we had more minerals or our climate was more favorable. We had a system that worked. It unleashed the human potential.

It didn’t work every year. We had 6 ‘panics’ in the 19th century. In the 20th century we had the Great Depression, World Wars, all kinds of things. But we have a system – largely free market, rule of law, equality of opportunity – all of those things that cause the potential of humans to get unleashed. And we’re far from done.

Your kids will live better than mine. Your grandchildren will live better than your kids. There’s no question about that.

But the machine gets gummed up from time to time. If you take the bulk of those centuries, probably 15 years were bad years. But we go forward.”

Don’t Let Fear Drive You

Fear drives logic and rational thinking out of the house, and welcomes its friends, apathy, scarcity, depression, and the blind acceptance of socialism – anything to hide from personal responsibility and reality.

While the producers are proactively embracing the situation and finding solutions, scheming collectivists sell filthy, overpriced, flea-ridden, wet  blankets to the huddled morons who convince themselves and others that the end is nigh.

Opportunity is Waiting at Your Disposal

Your concerned competition is so busy cutting costs and reducing value that any thinking entrepreneur can easily scoop away their customers. Instead of fleecing the timid, now is the time to provide real solutions and build lasting and profitable relationships with them, as DollarMakers does.

Look at Wal-Mart and IKEA – they’re thriving! The money in the world has not disappeared or dried up – it’s all still there for the taking.

• Are the five star holiday resorts empty? No.
• Are the expensive restaurants closed? No.
• Did all the money get burnt up in a raging fire?
• Are the resources, equipment, and distribution methods suddenly missing, as in a mythical Rapture? No.

It’s all waiting for you – at your disposal.

The Upside of the Recession

The upside of the Recession is that intelligent entrepreneurs are having a field day, and the scammers and posers are being revealed and removed.

It’s time to learn about Joint Ventures, and use them to have fun and get richer.

How can you turn your business into a “Customer Magnet?” How can you create rushing rivers of qualified, eager prospects? The key is not:

• better packaging (that’s what your printer sells you)
• a better website with “higher conversion ratio” (that’s what your Web person  – I hesitate to say Web Master – sells you)
• learning to close more sales, seeing more people, or better salespeople (that’s what “sales trainers” sell you)
• or more advertising (that’s what ad sales reps sell you.)

– it’s by changing the way you look at the market.

Most “Entrepreneurs” are Self-employed Salespeople

Most broke, self-employed salespeople who call themselves “Entrepreneurs” are legends in their own lunch times, and the only ones who are convinced they’re the cream of the crop with products and services nobody can possibly do without, are their doting dogs. Their arrogance is exceeded only by their ignorance.

Most are hard-sell, cheap, arm-twisting, desperate pushers of their products who make it abundantly clear that they don’t give a damn about you. They do not understand that they are a dime a dozen, unimportant, and irritating.

The Difference of People with a Joint Venture Attitude

People with a Joint Venture Attitude understand capitalism, value, reciprocity, and human nature.

• They’re in business for the long term.
• They see the big picture.
• They actually THINK.
• They act strategically (think chess game) instead of tactically.
• They are proactive as opposed to reactive.

Would you get more attention if…

At our DollarMakers Joint Venture Broker Bootcamps, we share the most powerful referral system I have ever found. I used it to personally train an elite team of Million Dollar Round Table Insurance Salespeople, and they loved it.

But for the purposes of this article, let me ask you a few questions to which DollarMakers provides the answers:

1. Would you get more attention if you were introduced to a prospect by someone whom they liked and respected?
2. Would you get more attention if you could GIVE AWAY valuable sales incentives and gifts, complimentary holidays, useful items, and massive added value, at no cost to you?
3. Would you get more attention if you stopped bragging about yourself and started talking about the other person’s needs wants, pain, and goals? (You might think this question is superfluous, but 98% of salespeople don’t do it!)
4. Would you get more referrals if you knew how to make your offer so attractive that you had people BEGGING for the opportunity to help you?
5. Would you get more attention if people were convinced beyond all doubt that you genuinely cared about them?

The common thread running through these questions is what we teach people – and it works, long term.

Creating a Golden Goose money machine (DollarMaker) that is carefully programmed to consistently spit out qualified, interested prospects is a smart strategy. And it’s not what you will learn from your sales manager, upline, “coach”, or “consultant”.

Based on your present conversion ratio, work out what a qualified, pre-sold customer is worth  to your bottom line, and consider whether or not you should attend a Bootcamp – either online or in person.

Most entrepreneurs have been taught that you have three options with any prospect:

• First, you can sell them something.
• Second, you can sell them more than once.
• And third, they may refer new business to you.

This is a linear, traditional way of thinking.

Use Joint Ventures to Maximize Impact

In today’s world, we have to think in terms of viral marketing and multiple impacts. In order to illustrate a simple Joint Venture scenario, let’s use the example of someone who recently joined the DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum. We’ll call her Carol. She has one thousand clients who know, respect, and trust her. How can she use Joint Ventures to make a serious amount of money, fast?

Make Real Money with a Replicator Website

I suggested Carol start off by leasing a Replicator Website, which will track all business and pay her up to 50% of all sales, including the sales of audio downloads, training, Memberships, more replicator sites, my book, etc. I would then write a very compelling letter for her to send to her database and friends, inviting them to visit her site and obtain a complimentary audio download, which I would create specially for her clients – applicable to their specific type of business. Carol would send out this email and two follow-up e-mails, which could make her a significant amount of money.

Build Your Back-End with Gift Certificates

Then she would send each of her thousand clients five Gift Certificates as a Thank You Gesture for their loyalty and patronage. Each gift Certificate would offer her clients a complimentary service worth at least $100.  For example, a business consultant might offer a complimentary consultation worth $150.

• Each Gift Certificate would be designed to provide real value and entice the user to buy more of the service.
• The supplier of the service would pay for the printing and postage.

Carol would have negotiated an ongoing percentage of all the business resulting from each of these 5,000 Gift Certificates that she distributes. In other words, when any of her clients started using the business consultant, accountant, lawyer, yoga trainer, spa or coach, Carol would receive a monthly check from that service provider of 20% of the total monthly bill.

This would create ongoing, multiple streams of passive income for her.

Leverage Databases with Prizes

Then, Carol could offer her clients a range of special prizes, all sponsored, which they could win. The way they could win these prizes would be to get everyone they know onto a certain conference call or to attend a seminar, which I would present, and the client who put the most people onto the call or into the seminar, would win the top prize. That way, Carol would use viral marketing to access her clients’ databases with their permission. One of her clients has 10,000 people in her database. Any sales resulting from the Conference Call or Seminar would earn Carol additional income.

Add Value AND Make Money

I could go on all night with different ways in which Carol could continually add value to her clients and make more and more money, in more and more diverse ways, as well as significantly grow her database.

Make $15,000 without Spending a Cent

In the above scenarios, Carol did not spend one cent. She continually gave away valuable information, prizes and services to her clients at every turn, as a thank you gesture for their patronage. She never tried to sell them anything. I would conservatively expect her to make at least $15,000 and an ongoing revenue stream in addition to that. This is all pure profit to her.

This system of accessing databases, giving stuff away at no cost, adding massive unprecedented and unexpected value and continually, exponentially expanding the options and reach, is typical of the atomic power of Joint Ventures.

After absorbing “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and other books by the amazing Robert Kiyosak and working with many “Business Owners” I realized that most of us are unaware of the requirements for retirement. We tend to fall for the lie that we have to invest a fortune with various characters, usually in the form of “investments” or the purchase of businesses, and get into massive debt, in order to have the hope of retiring one day.

Here’s a simple question: If the genius offering you the solution to retirement is steeped in debt and working as a salesperson, what right does he or she have to tell YOU about retirement?

A Very Simple Formula for Retirement

Here’s a very simple formula for retirement:

Create increasing, passive / residual income that exceeds the amount you require to live comfortably each month.

That doesn’t mean:

• you’re out there selling stuff all day.
• It doesn’t mean that you need a fortune just to break even every month.
• Or that if you stop working, you go bankrupt.
• It doesn’t mean that you lose your savings if your business fails or the stock market crashes.

It means you are very secure. It means you have multiple streams of passive income, from different sources / industries, low-income requirements and minimal, if any, debt.

Do You Have a Plan?

Every business should have an exit strategy. We need a specific action plan that will take us where we want to go.

You’re at risk if…

• you’re selling time.
• you’re depending on one income source
• you think that things don’t change or that that the economy doesn’t change.
• all your income is through your business. All your eggs are in one basket.

If you focus on duplication, leverage and diversification, if you reduce risk and overhead while increasing income, you’re on track. And most of all, remember this: It’s not about income – it’s about net, after tax, profit. It’s about the bottom line, not ego.

How long does it take to retire?

As long as it takes you to create increasing, passive / residual income from different sources that exceeds the amount you require to live comfortably each month. And of course you want to minimize tax and create a comfortable, growing, financial cushion.

You don’t have to accumulate massive savings. (And when you’re asked to invest, ask the salesperson to prove how much they have invested in the same venture.) There are some excellent investment opportunities out there, but they are few and far between. I know of very few.

Use Joint Ventures!

The system I use is Joint Ventures. Have done for 19 years.

• I leverage existing resources and hidden assets.
• I don’t have to own a business to make money from that business, and all my income from Joint Ventures is 100% profit.
• I carry no risk, leases, licenses, overhead or employees or inventory – I don’t have to – someone else insists on doing that.
• I can work internationally with no cost or risk.

So can you. When you fly to another city, do you buy a jet and learn how to fly it? You can just rent a seat. Joint Ventures is my system of choice.

You want to be free to do what you like, when you like, right?

You want to be free to go where you wish, when you wish, and to be able to afford to buy what you want. Ayn Rand said:

“Freedom is to ask for nothing, to expect nothing and to depend on nothing.”

Sounds good to me. But, to many people, this just seems like an impossible dream.

A Simple Plan to Create Freedom in Your Life

In fact, you can create this freedom in your own life to a large extent. It won’t happen overnight, but it can happen. You can consciously and systematically create this free lifestyle. I have. And you can, too. This is a technology, not some “Pie in the sky” scheme. It’s not MLM or Network Marketing. It’s proven and it works. Here is a simple plan to create freedom in your life: more than enough time and money and independence for you.

You Don’t Need Millions in the Bank to Retire

We should remember that Robert Kiosaki, in his “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” book, told us that you don’t need millions in the bank to retire.

What you do need is more passive income than you need to live comfortably on.

That’s not what some “financial planners” will tell you; they want to sell you lots of risky stocks and bonds and they tell you that you need millions in the bank. So, if you need $5,000 a month to live on and your income exceeds that, plus you have a little financial cushion stashed away for unexpected costs, you’re looking good!

Multiple Streams of Income Removes Risk

And we all know that it’s better, by far, to have multiple streams of income than just one. That way, we reduce our risk, don’t we? Not all your eggs in one basket. Have many baskets, so you can afford to drop some and still survive. Spread the risk. That way, you don’t lie awake at night, worrying about losing your income because of a crash in the stock market, a grumpy boss or a dishonest business associate.

10 Simple Steps to Create Time and Money Freedom

So, step by step, this is what we need to create time and money freedom and peace of mind, and all the quality of life that brings with it; ten simple steps:

1. Reduce and remove debts and overhead.

Most people buy things they don’t need and can’t afford, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t like. We need to reduce our monthly expenses and cut away the fat. Do you really need two cars and all the flash? The less you need to live on every month, the easier it is to get free. Take a good, hard look at your expenses and lifestyle. Do your things own you?

2.  Make sure you are properly insured against lawsuits and unexpected loss.

Get many quotes and be very careful which salesperson you talk with. Remember, the salesperson wants as much commission as he can get out of you. A healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing here.

When I was offered dental insurance and I looked at my benefits and costs, I decided to do without. It has saved me thousands of dollars. Read the small print; insurance companies really don’t want to pay you.

3.  Incorporate your business for protection and definitely have a business.

The tax breaks are excellent, especially if you’re a Joint Venture Broker as there are many more deductibles, including trips, entertainment and the like.

4.  Remove unnecessary costs and especially regular costs from your life.

5.  Organize Your Finances.

Visit your bank manager and the competition bank manager and an accountant. Look at refinancing and reorganizing your debts, line of credit, credit cards and mortgage – this exercise alone can save you a fortune and radically reduce your monthly costs.

6.  Simplify your life as much as possible.

What can be cut out? What is working, and what is not working? Are you attending a club or group out of habit, but not really getting any benefit anymore? And it’s costing you money? How much time and money will you save by leaving?

7. Educate yourself.

• Read Robert Kiosaki’s books.
• Read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”.
• Read “Think and Grow Rich” – again.
• Attend courses. Don’t go out and spend a fortune on schemes and dreams and “get rich quick” schemes. Be very careful. Attend free seminars but don’t buy stuff when the speaker turns into a used car salesman at the end and the mindless herd goes scurrying to the back of the room to buy his overpriced products. Sleep on it first. Don’t get emotionally whipped up.
• The more you learn, the more you earn. Understand money and debt.
• Examine your thinking and attitudes. We don’t have money problems; we have thinking problems.

8. Align yourself with winners, not whiners.

If we mix with people who are richer, wiser and more successful than we are, we will earn more as we learn more. Be open-minded and get that ego out of the way. People who are free can teach you how to be free. You don’t learn by talking; you learn by listening and then applying the new information.

9. Maintain the Joint Venture Broker mindset.

In everything, maintain the Joint Venture Broker mindset: “No Money, No Risk, Very Little Time.” You don’t have to pay for things when you understand Joint Ventures. You can trade, barter and Joint Venture.

10. Become a Joint Venture Broker and create multiple streams of increasing, passive income.

• Maximum potential
• Unlimited opportunities
• No geographic limitations
• No industry limitations
• Anyone can do it, regardless of education, age or background.
• All you need is access to a telephone. If you have internet access, even better.
• Work from home, a car, a beach, a forest, a hotel, an airport, or a wheelbarrow if you like.
• And you don’t have to go out and buy a business, sell stuff, sign leases, employ people or buy inventory. You can use existing resources – everything you need is available through other people and other businesses.

When Rika and I sold houses years ago, we did well. Because we used Joint Ventures. The first house I sold, I hadn’t even seen before. Worse still, I had never even read the contract. I got buyer to help me understand the contract! We sold a lot. How did we do it?

…And how can hard working realtors differentiate themselves in a very competitive market, dramatically increase sales and create multiple, additional streams of residual income at the same time?

1. Access the Right Demographic

First, we used simple Joint Ventures to access the right demographic. You don’t need the access to people as long as someone else has it. We piggybacked our marketing on existing distribution and used Host Beneficiary relationships.

2. Add Massive Value.

Then we used massive, added value to differentiate ourselves, again leveraging other peoples’ resources at no cost or risk to ourselves. You don’t need to own a cow in order to get milk. And you can get the milk at no cost, if you know how to offer real and compelling reciprocal value.

3. Only Aim to Solve Problems.

Most importantly, we never “sold” – we solved the buyer’s problems.

4. Leverage the Competition.

We had no shortage of inventory because we worked with our “competitors”. Only the egotistical, vain and stupid are afraid of their “competition”.

5. Keep it Real.

I didn’t use a 15 year old photograph of myself on a business card or the back of a bus. We were real people. Slick is scary.

6. Get Exposure Without Risk.

We branded ourselves effectively, again using JVs, so that we weren’t some unknown quantity. We were known and respected by leveraging relationships and exposure. So trust was never an issue for our prospects.

7. Set up a Back-end!!!

Best of all, we created multiple streams of income, a serious back-end that far exceeded the commissions we earned. Fifteen businesses partnered with us to meet the needs of our clients and even those who didn’t buy houses from us.

8. Adopt a JV Mindset.

The Joint Venture mindset is far removed from the “self employed salesperson” we see so much of today. It’s based on Zig Ziglar’s premise, “You can get anything you want out of life, if you’re prepared to help enough other people to get what they want.” It takes a bit to get used to and understand. Knowing about something and actually using and understanding it are worlds apart. But, once you start using it, everything changes, including, I’m pleased to inform you, your bottom line. This applies to any business or profession. You don’t have to try hard to persuade a starving man to eat.

I was recently asked why I was so passionate about Joint Ventures. Here is why:

Money is the lifeblood of a free, capitalist society. Joint Ventures offer people who have no savings, little education and no connections or business background, the opportunity to make money quickly and build multiple streams of passive income. Joint Ventures is a tool:

• to create wealth and freedom.
• to help small businesses survive and flourish.
• to build strong relationships between good entrepreneurs.
• to allow people to regain their dignity and self respect through the ability to be paid what they’re really worth.

A Tremendous Opportunity for All

Joint Ventures are a business opportunity in itself – it is the great liberator. Anyone can learn how to use Joint Ventures to create financial independence.

• Students who finish college and still can’t find a job,
• Seniors who can’t survive on their pensions,
• Immigrants who face xenophobic attitudes in their new countries,
• Good people who are downsized and people whose educational qualifications are no longer deemed sufficient by bureaucrats…

… can all grab Joint Ventures as a drowning man in a turbulent and dangerous ocean would grab a lifebelt.

Quashing Desperation & Instilling Prosperity

Crime, drug dealers and terrorism needs poverty and desperation in order to flourish. By helping people to create their own financial independence through the understanding and application of Joint Ventures, we can save marriages and lives and our society. The only people who claim that money is not important are those who don’t have any.

People can make good money with no risk, no overhead and no previous experience or education, and they can do so very fast. Our one day, Joint Venture Broker Bootcamps teach people in one day how to start making money the very next day, with no capital investment, regardless of age or gender. It’s almost miraculous how powerful this concept is. That’s why all the large businesses use them.

Real Security

Joint Ventures also give us security – we can earn money even if we can’t work through illness or other reasons, because that is the nature of a good Joint Venture. This is the solution so many people seek, yet they don’t even know it exists. I want to tell people all over the world that they can create financial freedom through Joint Ventures. With Joint Ventures, we don’t put all our eggs in one basket and we don’t give someone else power over us. We can be independent and proud and free.

I love Joint Ventures and I love teaching others about this amazing business tool.  I strongly suggest you watch the following video on the home page of www.jvwisdom.com.