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.

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.

Someone once said,

“Everybody’s a self-made man; but only the successful ones are ever willing to admit it.”

Frederick Douglass: A Story of Unbreakable Determination

Frederick Douglass’s life seems to be the prototype of the American rags to riches story. Born as a slave, he was deprived of any favorable circumstances. Yet, through hard work and with the help of an unbreakable determination, he managed to free himself and to become one of the most prominent African Americans of his times. He said:

“Self-made men are the men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any of the favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results.

My theory of self-made men is, then, simply this; that they are men of work. Whether or not such men have acquired material, moral or intellectual excellence, honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best, if not the only, explanation of their success. All human experience proves over and over again, that any success which comes through meanness, trickery, fraud and dishonor, is but emptiness and will only be a torment to its possessor.”

Reconstructing Your Future

Our past choices have brought us to our present circumstances. We have created who we are and what we have.

Excuses about how bad our upbringing was and the amount of times we were cheated carry no weight, when compared with the hardships overcome by people in far more adverse conditions. Was your situation worse than that of a Second World War concentration camp survivor? Once we have the courage to accept responsibility for our past choices, we can start to reconstruct our futures, no matter at what age.

“As A Man Thinketh”

James Allen, in his wonderful book which had a major impact on my life, “As A Man Thinketh” (download it FREE at www.asamanthinketh.com), he said:

“Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul which have been restored and brought to the light in this age, none is more gladdening or fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this – that man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny. As a being of power, intelligence, and love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within him that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make of himself what he wills.”

All You Need to Achieve Greatness

Having this attitude and assuming the responsibility is the foundation upon which one can build any future one desires, however two more ingredients are required in order to achieve greatness:

• Access to the right people,
• and guidance along the way.

For this reason, I created DollarMakers. What future will you create?

Those important, turbulent, emotional, exciting, scary, formative years between twelve and twenty – so much changes in those years, and yet it can be easier if you maintain perspective.

This eight-year portion of your life is small in comparison with the rest of your adult life – about 60 years – and here are a few things that will help you cope with the hard times.

Things Will Matter Differently In the Future

In the years from age twelve to twenty, things seem to be magnified, and much more important than they really are. Relatively small things that a mature adult would hardly notice are attributed major significance. A bully or a jock, a rejection or a victory or failure seem mountainous, even though they will be forgotten very soon.

Coping with Bullies

The fact is that 97% of the people you know will never amount to much.

Most of the school bullies will end up in jail, on drugs, working in dead-end jobs, and dead. The reason why they are bullies is that they have emotional and mental problems – it really has nothing to do with you, except that you are a threat to them – they are jealous of something about you, so they attack you. Most bullies have low intelligence and problems at home, and you can use your mind to outwit them.

Things Will be Forgotten… And What to Do in the Mean Time

The key is to try and remain rational and objective about the things in your life.

This is very hard, I know – our emotions are pretty extreme in those years – but it helps a lot to be able to sit down with a wise adult, preferably not a teacher - and discuss your issues, fears, concerns, and dreams with them. They have a mature perspective.

In a few short years, hard as this is to believe, those incidents and people will be forgotten. Most of the things that seem huge right now are in fact insignificant compared to the bright future waiting for you.

Glean the Benefit & Leave the Rest Behind

The trials and tribulations of these years come with great benefits – youth, energy, strength, opportunities, optimism, and an open mind.

By focusing on building an exciting future and realizing that most of the things that upset you are really just barking dogs, life gets easier.

• That teacher that gives to you a hard time – a man amongst boys, but a boy amongst men – will be a joke to you in a few short years. You can easily earn more money than him and put him in his place quite soon.
• That pretty girl that rejected and shamed you in public will soon be fat, pregnant, and married to an unemployed jock.
• And your mistakes will be forgotten.

Do you think Bill Gates was teased at school? Probably. Where are the people who teased him now?

It’s YOUR Life

The only person whose opinion is important is YOU. It’s YOUR life.

Success in life is a choice. We choose how to interpret the circumstances presented to us. We choose how to react. And our choices will determine where we end up.

Your Philosophy is Your Compass

The most important factor in your life is your PHILOSOPHY. With the right philosophy, or world view, life gets a lot easier.

Look at successful people whom you admire, and ask yourself what their philosophy is.

The most powerful philosophy I have found, the one that gives you the most freedom, opportunity, and fun, is that of Objectivism. You can find out more about it here and here, but in a nutshell, it says that you own your life, and you are not answerable to others or responsible for others.

• Read “The Fountainhead” and the “The Virtue of Selfishness” by Ayn Rand.
• Get yourself some good role models.
• Stay away from people who want to manipulate and control the way you think.
• Don’t be a victim, don’t blame others or make excuses.  Take responsibility for your choices now, and life will be good.

Understand Money & Create Value to Make It

Finally, by now you know that 97% of your problems in life will be solved or diminished by money. The good life costs money.

If you understand money and value and how to create wealth, you have control and you can choose any life you want. Your age and circumstances won’t prevent you from making money. You can get rich fast, no matter how old you are, when you know how. Money doesn’t care how old you are!

Learn about how you can do that, starting right away, at www.JVWisdom.com.

• How many times have you heard employees complain that they don’t get paid enough, while their bosses drive smart cars and get perks?
• Haven’t we all heard the complaints about company CEO’s receiving large bonuses?
• How about salespeople who complain they don’t get enough commission, or people who whine that they’re not paid what they are worth?

Why do you earn what you earn?

It’s All Relative

A relative of mine complained that she was paid a lousy salary and worked too hard while her bosses drove beamers and worked shorter hours. I asked her,

• “Were you forced to take the job, or did you apply for it and sell yourself at the interview?”
• “And did you agree to the salary you accepted, or were you forced?”
• “Can you resign any time you wish?”
• “If you were capable of doing your boss’s job, and qualified to do it, would you accept the higher salary and perks?
• “Do you think you are paid what you are worth TO the company, instead of what you WANT FROM the company?”
• “Who determines what you are paid, what qualifications you have, and what you are worth to a business? Isn’t it YOU?”
• “Are you free to work wherever you can get a job? Can you choose to start your own business?”
• “If you owned the business, would you pay people more than you had to?”
• “Is the purpose of business to pay employees whatever they want, or to make a profit?
• “What or who limits the amount of money you can earn in a free, capitalist society? Isn’t that YOU?”

The Destruction of Socialism

Karl Marx said:

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

That’s called socialism, redistribution of wealth, collectivism, and communism.

In Cuba, people all earn an average of thirty American dollars a month. Education is free. So doctors choose to work as waiters in hotel restaurants in order to earn more money, and the black market and the underground economy is huge.

Are You Taking Advantage of Your Opportunity as a Capitalist?

Two people join the same Network Marketing business, or the same life insurance company, or start the same kind of business in the same town. One goes bankrupt and blames everybody else. The other one gets rich and take credit for his success.

97% of people fail or achieve mediocre success. 3% soar like eagle, because they have a different philosophy of life.

Why Most People Aren’t Brave Enough to Be JV Brokers

You can start your own Joint Venture Brokerage business with no cost or risk, with no earning limitations, regardless of your qualifications, background, education, age, or circumstances. No more excuses.

Why don’t people jump at the opportunity to do this?

Because suddenly, they would be responsible for the amount of money they earn, and they would be exposed for what they really are.

Business is like a nudist colony; you will be exposed.

And that’s why, when people fail as JV Brokers, they blame me. They conveniently forget that other people with the same opportunities, tools, support, training, and access, are making a lot of money. They can’t deliver on their promises, to they cast blame instead of accepting responsibility. Then they get a job and whine that they’re not being paid enough.

Create More value to make More Money

You get paid in direct proportion to the value you create.

Money is simply a scoreboard. That’s the way it works.

If you’re not making enough money, take responsibility, grow up, and make the necessary changes like an adult.

You have created what you have today, whether you want to accept that or not, and your future will be whatever you choose to create. If you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, perhaps it’s time to join the winners who get rich, because they refuse to compromise, quit, or curl up under their beds and whine.

Why Winners Win… and You Can Too!

Winners win because they insist on success, they believe in themselves and their goals, and they take responsibility for their lives. You only get one life, so decide what you want your future to look like. Then take decisive action and persist until you get what you want.

Many years ago, a relative of mine made an appointment to confront an evil church pastor about a serious issue of hypocrisy and double-dealing in her church. She prepared her case very well, and there was no doubt about the fact that the “pastor” was, in fact, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’ll never forget what she told me when she got home from that meeting.

She said she felt as though she had imagined the whole thing; he made her feel foolish, he actually laughed at the facts she presented, and she left feeling convinced that she was wrong, that he was right, that she was guilty of being disloyal and negative, and that she actually owed him an apology for wasting his precious time.

The Deceptive Art of Distraction

Politicians and psychopaths are good at diverting one’s attention from the important things and questions they would rather not answer. They know that attack is the best form of defense. Salespeople are singularly adept at sleight of hand or legerdemain:

• Answer a question with a question.
• Baffle with unimportant facts.
• Use complicated explanations and trickery to throw your pursuers off track.
• Make light of exigent issues.
• Brush off serious accusations with a condescending smirk.
• Hug them while you knife then in the back.

Magicians use distraction all the time.

Even Good People Do This to Avoid Responsibility

My point? I used to attend regular, weekly sales meeting with a group of other SMI Distributors. At every meeting, we Distributors would tell our amazing stories to the meeting leader.

We would talk about all the leads we had “in the pipeline”, all the sales we had narrowly missed, all the things we were “working on”, and all the promises we had heard from our prospective buyers. We also spent a good deal of time making excuses, blaming the weather, the competition, holidays, pricing, traffic, the products we sold, the packaging, the economy, and of course our leader.

At one meeting our leader got up before anyone could start mouthing off, and his words have stayed with me to this day. He said,

“Today, I don’t want to hear any stories, promises, excuses, or lies. Don’t you dare say a word, any of you. This is a silent meeting.

Walk up to the board, take the sharpie, and write down the amount of sales you made last week. That means PAID sales. I will check your figures. Then get out of here, and don’t contact me until the next meeting.

I am only interested in results. Next week, I will fire the Distributor with the lowest sales. Now get out!”

We doubled our sales as a result of that valuable lesson.

Shape Up or Ship Out

Losers and underachievers specialize in the deceptive art of distraction. They will:

• ask you irrelevant questions
• create rumors
• seem very busy
• make excuses for everything

If you allow this kind of behavior, you reinforce their failure to take responsibility and you encourage them to become parasites and posers.

When you focus on results and refuse to be distracted, you’ll get them to shape up or ship out. And you’ll save loads of time.

Talk is cheap, and money buys the whiskey.

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.

If you wanted to learn how to succeed in battle, would you ask a rookie soldier or a seasoned, decorated veteran? Would you trust battle scars or certificates on a wall?

If you wanted a good lawyer, would you find some apathetic academic, or a newly qualified lawyer, or an experienced, successful lawyer who had battled with giants over the years and won?

How to Succeed Against All Odds

I once had the privilege of spending time with a real business warrior, who was also the Sheriff of Pretoria, the city I lived in. He was a fellow Director in our Rotary Club.

When we had ordered our lunch, I asked him the burning question:

“You have succeeded against all odds, in varying business climates, you have a sterling reputation, and you have become wealthy. What is the secret to your success?”

His answer has always stayed with me. Here is the gist of it, as I remember it:

“Robin, there are two responses everyone must choose to ANY challenge or circumstances – fight or flight.

I deem it my responsibility to succeed, to react positively, and to take the fight to my enemy, whether that enemy is money problems, a business opponent, or any other challenge.

Many people see hardship as an excuse to retreat and fail. They welcome any circumstance that will offer them a way to hide and defect. I don’t believe I have an option – I INSIST upon success, whatever the cost. I believe that saying, ‘For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.’

To me, my friends and family rely on my success, and I don’t make or accept excuses for failure. I’m like a boxer that keeps getting up off the mat UNTIL I win.”

His favorite quote was by Friedrich Nietzsche:

“Courageous, untroubled, mocking and violent-that is what Wisdom wants us to be. Wisdom is a woman, and loves only a warrior.”

Difficult Times Call for Action

That little pep talk before a delicious peppercorn steak was worth a hundred hours of anemic blather from academics.

Difficult times are a reason to take deliberate, brave action, not an excuse to stay at home and play video games while your wife supports you. Financial challenges are not solved by hiding and wallowing in self-pity, but by rising like a phoenix and going on the offensive. Instead of crying and cringing, get creative and courageous. Excuses are for losers. Carlos Castaneda said:

“To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.”