“I find it difficult to find, motivate, and keep good employees. If only I could find people who are as motivated as I am!”

• When you pay people the same amount of money, regardless of their quality of work or level of productivity, you’re trying to run a capitalist business on socialist principles.
• When you overlook slovenliness, negativity, and bad service instead of punishing it, you are encouraging it.
• When you see people creating additional value for your organization without rewarding them in direct proportion to that value, you’re discouraging them.
• When you employ anything that breathes because you’re so desperate for workers, you’re setting yourself up for failure and lowering your standards.
• When you establish ceilings and limitations on earning potential, you lose the cream of the crop.

Successful, profitable businesses prosper by design, not by default. They create a climate of attraction, motivation, stimulation, and reciprocation. This is so unique and hard to find that it will bring you some fantastic people.

How to Get Employees AND Employees who Perform

Before you tell me how hard it is to find people because you live in a booming economy like that of Alberta or British Columbia, let me suggest that, if you pay more than your competition, that fails as an excuse. And before you tell me that you can’t afford to pay significantly more than the competition does, let me assure you that you can accomplish that through the use of Joint Ventures. That’s what my company, DollarMakers, does. But this is not about creating more profit through Joint Ventures; it’s about employees.

For Example…

I once provided some Joint Venture training for an award-winning restaurant. At this restaurant, all the servers had shares in the business and enjoyed a simple profit sharing process as well. Servers were hired and fired by the Servers Committee, and everything was results based. Uniforms, serving times, and menus were determined by the Servers Committee. This was a true capitalist operation, using effective delegation, profit sharing, and common sense. The owner told me, “Robin, I manage by Consequence.” They never had a shortage of job applicants.

The ONLY Way Worth Operating

Pay people in direct proportion to the value they create – measurable, bottom-line profits should determine individual earnings.

• No automatic raises.
• No unions.
• There should be no cap on the earning potential of anyone.
• There should be immediate consequences for overstepping the mark.
• People should be allowed to focus only on their strengths. (Generally, allowing an accountant or a chef into a management position is suicide.)
• Use personality type testing and give everyone a vested interest in the success of the business, while at the same time tying their income and security to the fortunes, good AND bad, of the business. When business goes down, salaries should decrease in direct proportion, depending on individual input and production, which means simply that an employee who produces exceptional profits can experience an income increase while everyone else’s wages decrease. That’s called capitalism.

Here’s my standard “Job Description: “Whatever it takes, 24/7/365, and we share the fortunes, good and bad.” My entire business is made up of multiple, interlinked Joint Ventures. I actually practice what I preach, and it works.

Most successful leaders believe that only 3% of people are truly successful, and statistics support this. Only 3% of the North America population, for example, reads books. If you look at retirement and wealth statistics, baseball batting averages, and business sales ratios, you’ll find that magical 3% everywhere.

That means that 97% of people are not ideal business partners, and you frankly don’t need them to succeed if you can get to the 3%. Entrepreneurs who try to be well liked, popular, and politically correct, waste a lot of time appeasing losers and consoling whiners, instead of  focusing on the leaders, the winners, and the results. It’s more important to be respected than it is to be liked, and then only by the 3%.

I once heard a good analogy that a friend of mine taught when illustrating that “the tall trees catch the wind”.  He said that he regarded the complaints and resentment of wanna-be’s as he would barking dogs. The opinions of successful people were important to him and he took advice only from people who were achieving more than he was. Some say they justify tolerating underachievers and has-beens with the old saying, “You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince”, however we don’t build relationships with frogs. Those are simply the duds that lead to the studs. You don’t carry stepping stones up the mountain with you.

You don’t have to justify or explain yourself to anyone who does not contribute to your success.

You simply don’t have the time and resources to waste. Rescuing victims and enabling parasites is for government and social workers. John Addison said, “Never take advice from someone more screwed up than you are”, and Boreh Dean said, “You have to earn the right to whine to me.” Casting pearls before swine is fine if you like applause, but if you like profit you need to conserve your resources.

If you are serious about creating wealth:

• become extremely selective
• set high standards
• discipline yourself
• and develop a thick skin.

You need courage to achieve success, and, if you want to join the 3%, popularity is superfluous. Study the life of Winston Churchill for a great example of this philosophy. Do what winners do, and you’ll get what they get.

1. TAKE ACTION!!
2. Read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand
3. Get Out There and Meet New People
4. Make a List of Goals
5. Forget About The Opinions Of Others
6. Compliment Those That Deserve It
7. Learn to Listen
8. Break Away from Fear
9. Stop Worrying and Start Doing
10. Listen To Your Inner Voice
11. Stop Watching TV
12. Delegate your C items, only do the A and B items.
13. Eat Healthy
14. Be True To Yourself
15. Drop Your Bad Habits and Enhance Your Good Habits
16. Get Up a Half Hour Earlier
17. Implement Daily Affirmations – Repeat Your Affirmations Any Chance You Get
18. Be Your Biggest Fan
19. Remember Good is the Enemy of Great
20. Always Keep Learning
21. Focus Your Energy – Be a High Powered Laser
22. Don’t Be Cheap – Invest in the Tools You’ll Need to Succeed
23. Have Integrity.  REALLY.  People Catch On Fast.
24. Keep a Journal – Carry It With You Everywhere
25. Follow Great People – read their blogs, biographies and anything else.
26. Never Give Up. Never Surrender.
27. Trust In God, and Tie Up Your Camels.
28. Subscribe to a “Word Of The Day” Email.
29. You Can’t Do It All Yourself – Find Great Partners
30. Watch What People Do, Not What They Say They Do
31. Give Referrals, Ask for Referrals
32. Sleep When You’re Dead
33. Send Thank You Cards

Affirmations are essentially a personal self-improvement and self-motivation technique.

Having some Daily Affirmations that you recite to yourself at least twice a day will do wonders to change your life. Changing your life is not difficult, as it is simply a matter of reprogramming yourself. That’s basically what repeating powerful Affirmations do – they reprogram your beliefs and feelings to what you want them to be.

Repeating some really good affirmations will do wonders for you, such as:

• Your thinking and emotional state becomes more positive
• You have increased self-assurance and self-acceptance
• You begin taking more purposeful action
• Enhanced vitality and passion for life
• People treat you with more respect and interest
• You experience greater happiness and joy
• You have a renewed sense of personal power (Just like when you were a kid)

So I decided to release a poster that you can print out, that has my personal Affirmations that I have been using daily for over 10 years.  When I wake up and when I go to bed, these are the affirmations I am saying to myself, in my head.  I even say these on the plane, in the car and even when brushing my teeth.

The Daily Affirmations poster is available to anyone who subscribes to JVBlogger – either via an RSS Feed or via Email.  It’s simple – in the upper right of this blog is both ways to subscribe.  If you don’t know what ‘RSS’ or a ‘FEED’ is, then just subscribe by email – it’s easy!

It is a 2.9mb PDF file – very high quality.  I had my graphic designer put it together for me and it looks quite stunning printed out and on the wall by my desk!

Please let me know what your personal affirmations are in the comments section below, I’d love to hear them.

Would you like to know the most valuable lesson I learned from Mr. Arthur Honey? Mr. Honey, who was an ex boxing champion and one of the seconds for Roger Bannister, when he ran the first four-minute mile, owned the Continental Hotel. I was his hotel manager. Mr. Honey was a wonderful hotelier, trained in the old school, and a real gentleman. After I completed my Hotel School Training (city and Guilds directed), I managed a German restaurant for a year and was then employed by Mr. Honey. It was the best management training I ever got.

One morning, he asked me why I had not arranged to have the one kitchen’s extract screens cleaned. I had simply forgotten. Here is the gist of what he taught me:

“Robin, any manager who forgets things is not a manager, but a DAMAGER. You may be wearing your morning suit, but when you forget, you are not managing. You will not build trust, respect, and a good reputation if you don’t deliver on your promises. When you forget, you insult the other person and yourself. When you’re late to do what you promised, you further damage your reputation and the business. Forgetting costs money and loses hotel guests. I carry a paper in my inside jacket pocket, and I write down EVERYTHING I need to remember. Anything you ask me, anything the accountant tells me, anything I notice (he used to use a white glove to search for dust), is written on this list. When I return to my office, I transpose the list onto my desk list. I never forget and I always do what I said I would do. That has made me successful. Do the same, Robin, and you will be successful. In my hotel, you will not forget anything, because you represent me. Understood?”

Mr. Honey taught me many valuable lessons (including how to knot my tie correctly!) but this was the one lesson that has helped me more than most of the things he taught me. I worked for nine straight months without a day off for that man – he was the best manager I ever had the privilege of working for. He was absolutely reliable, never compromised, and always delivered. I modeled him and even joined Rotary when I became successful because Arthur Honey was a Rotarian. In South Africa, you had to be wealthy to become a Rotarian. You had to own a business, as well, in order to even be considered as a Rotarian. My entire business and life revolves around lists, and it works very well.

I recently had a jumped up seminar junkie once again disgorging his unsolicited advice about how to run my business. One flower of success in the midst of a murky myriad of failures has convinced him that he is the business oracle before which mortals such as I should gratefully prostrate ourselves. One swallow does not a summer make, my young friend. Buying overpriced business courses does not make you a Donald Trump – it merely makes you a customer of the Donald. The smartest people I know only offer their advice when asked, and even then they humbly qualify their contribution.

Taking advice from people, as Mr. John Addison says, “who are more screwed up than you are”, is not one of my many failings. I am acutely aware of the limits of my knowledge and experience, but I have never benefited from the advice of someone who is clearly inexperienced, arrogant, and stupid into the bargain.

When I discovered the Average IQ was 100, I was Appalled (and then relieved!)

When I discovered that, on a bell curve, the average person has an IQ of 100, I was at first appalled, then relieved, when I found forgiveness in my icy heart for the average plebe who disguises himself as an entrepreneur and doles out his noxious counsel to other equally inept pretenders – the blind blissfully leading the blind, and laughing all the way to the bankruptcy court.

When Jim Stovall said that we should only take advice from people who already have what we want, he should have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Wisdom. Imagine an entrepreneur taking advice from an academic, a bank manager, or a socialist. Ridiculous, I know. Yet the sheeple continue to be sheeple, and we don’t have to follow them over the edge of the cliff.

Seek out TRULY SUCCESSFUL Mentors and Follow their Advice Carefully

Let us carefully select a good pair of effective earplugs and install them as soon as we are approached by one of these tormentors. Let us not confuse the symbol for the real thing. If I was a detective looking for a psychopathic conman, the first suspects on my list would be religious leaders, seminar presenters, consultants, and coaches, suffering from delusions of grandeur and fed by brainless sycophants who pay too much to join their cults.

I seek out truly successful mentors and follow their advice carefully, all the while retaining my reason and a good dose of skepticism, and cautiously weighing their recommendations before grabbing my wife’s checkbook. Empty barrels do, in fact, make the most noise. And still waters run very deep.

The Buddha said,

“Don’t hurry to believe in anything, even if it has been written in the holy scriptures. Don’t hurry to believe in anything just because a very famous teacher has said it. Don’t believe in anything just because the majority has agreed that it is the truth. You should test anything people say with your own experience before you accept or reject it.”

Let me add this final piece: When you find yourself in any meeting, seminar, or presentation where group dynamics and mass hysteria, group-think and emotional manipulation are at work, do not spend more than $500 or commit yourself to any amount over $500. This will prevent you from waking up with a terrible, haunting question the next morning: “WHAT HAVE I DONE?” The offer will still be there the next day, believe you me, and it might look very different.

The DollarMakers Credited Business Mentor Training Program

• Become a Certified Business Mentor (CBM)
• Learn how to Double the Profits in virtually Any Business
• Earn real money getting real results for business owners

As a Protégé of Robin J. Elliott and Patrick Giesbrecht, get five days of personal, hands-on coaching in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia

For 18 years, I consulted with the owners of small and medium sized businesses to dramatically increase their profits. As I got more involved with the DollarMakers Membership and traveled around the world more frequently, I stopped the consulting. My fees ran from $500 per hour to $1200 per hour and my monthly retainers were $5,000 plus profit sharing, but my heart was in the Bootcamps and my Joint Ventures.

I continually get requests from business owners to help them grow their businesses through my business mentoring, and there is nobody I would recommend to do that. After seeing how many “Coaches” and “Consultants” out there cost a small fortune and do more damage than good, I don’t know one person who can do what we do. OK, I know one person who can do it: Patrick Giesbrecht, the fellow who retired within seven months of attending my Bootcamp, but he doesn’t do mentoring either.

And so we came up with a solution: We would offer personal, intense, hands-on training to a few, carefully selected, qualified Protégés so that we can turn them into Business Mentors who are equipped to go into virtually any business and double or quadruple its profits, and get very well paid to do so. We created a five day, focused program, during which Patrick and I will personally coach and train these few, selected people and duplicate our skills in them. They will learn directly from my 21 years of experience and Patrick Giesbrecht’s business genius.

We will accept only a limited amount of Protégé’s per group, and we will include their accommodation, meals, and a professional city tour of our home, Vancouver, the most beautiful city in the world. Spouses and life partners can attend the training as well, at no cost, and their accommodation and tour will also be included (with the exception of their meals).

If you are interested in applying to be a Protégé, you can complete an application form on this site. We reserve the right to accept or reject applicants without an explanation, and since we will only accommodate a few people over five days, there will be very few slots to fill and we are already inundated with applications. If you’re interested in applying to be personally trained to be a Business Mentor, click here.

Read what you get and what investment is required before completing this Application.

Everything that impacts your mind, perception, choices, or awareness, has only one of two effects: Good or bad. The lukewarm amongst us will jeer at that declaration and allege that there is a “gray area” – losers LOVE that idea. Remember that our limitations are Self-Imposed, and so are our successes.

The fact is that if you are seriously committed to success, everything that you are exposed to will either help or hurt your progress en route to your objective. Winners cannot afford any dilution or distraction. Cyclists shave their bodies. Champions measure their speed in thousandths of seconds. EVERYTHING counts: diet, environment, input, association.

Contrasting Experiences To Learn From

I received an unsolicited phone call today from a fellow who wants me to participate in a public conference call. He asked me what my criteria were to participate or not. My answer was, “When I know whom the other participants in this project are, I will make my decision.” I will judge him by the company he keeps.

I once unexpectedly had to impose on someone with whom I had a business meeting to give me a lift home in his car. Before and during the meeting, he had impressed me with his stories of success and achievement. Until I got into his filthy van, that was. Cigarette butts clogged the ashtrays, papers were spread all over – dirty disarray, a reflection of his real nature – no congruency. End of relationship.

Nourish your success by elevating your standards, expectations, systems, and consciousness through the carefully selected association with people, ideas, input and environment. Exorcise the mundane, the tepid, the feeble, and the inconsistent.

Find mentors and heroes, both dead and alive, who will inspire, uplift, and challenge you.

Adhere to and create environments that are aligned with and congruent with your values, beliefs, aspirations, and expectations. Everything you read and watch, see, hear and perceive, has a consequence. The people in your life either take you towards your goals or away from them.

Nourish your success by paying whatever price is required. Invest in your goals and future. Discover the Real You and regain your old belief and excitement. Read only that which will fuel your ambition and inspire you on your journey. Churchill will trump Stephen King. Associate with those whom you wish to emulate. Practice that which you wish to perfect.

Read the thoughts of the great ones, if you wish to think the thoughts of the great ones, for their words ARE their thoughts. Align your philosophy with that of your heroes. Carefully and diligently remove all obstacles, detractors, and distractions from your path. Fuel your enthusiasm with stories about the accomplishments of winners. Everything counts, and everything matters. Contamination is real. Replace poison with power. You don’t eat donuts if you want to win the marathon.