Why do you employ people? For each of them to produce value, resulting in net profit in excess of the amount you pay them.

Why would you accept less than that? I know some of us are saddled with unions, relatives that work for us, people we’ve inherited and can’t easily get rid of, and many other excuses, however here are a few pointers that I think will help.

Remember, getting the job is the first job of someone who wants to be an employee. After that, every day, they have to prove to you why you should still hire them. and not give them the sack.

1.   Link their income to their production.

Work out what your real net profit is, your incremental profit, and a way to measure the output of every employee. This takes some analysis and a spot of Work Study (Organization and Methods), but it is well worth the exercise.

• Don’t be too generous, and remember you’re not a socialist organization. People should get paid according to what they produce, not what they need.
• Set traps to catch rats. Take a really good look at productivity, shop your own business, record phone calls, restrict Internet use, use Secret Shoppers, send one employee on leave for a week and see if the others cope. If they do, get rid of the worst one.
• Educate your employees about profit and business.
• Look after your champions, and remember that people change.

2.  Increase the production of your salespeople.

Teach your salespeople to sell, make them accountable, don’t accept excuses, have a sales meeting EVERY day, and fire your worst salesperson on a regular basis. Focus on results, not pipe-line, reputation, branding, market share – just the bottom line. Get them all onto a commission-only basis. Beware of  “sales trainers” – they usually can’t sell.

3.    Weed out the leeches and parasites.

Make their job unbearable if necessary; simply give them lots of work that they hate and micro-manage them. They’ll soon leave if you do it right. You’re in business to make a profit, and you don’t owe them anything.

4.   Learn to Delegate.

The best program I ever attended to learn about management was the Dale Carnegie Management Course. I learned a lot of valuable information about delegation, and I highly recommend it. Most “managers” have no idea how to manage, motivate, or discipline people. Your people need to set their own goals, report to you how they’re doing and how they will improve, and be accountable for their commitments. No excuses acceptable.

5.    Understand Joint Ventures.

In my business, everyone I deal with is a JV partners. I run my company with no employees, no risk, no cost, no overhead and little time. So I make a lot more profit and I don’t have to deal with losers and users. Lean and mean. Learn how JV’s work.

6.    Don’t hire socialists, smokers, or people who don’t need a job.

If you need an explanation for this one, you have a problem.

7.   Reward innovation, honesty, loyalty, and ambition.

These qualities are hard to find. Look after your champions and lock them in with residual commissions and long-term incentives.

8.    Familiarity breeds contempt.

Don’t be their “buddy”, maintain your distance, be strict, hold people accountable, and lead by example.

9.    Set up a “Dress and Grooming Code”.

When people look good, they feel good, and they do better work.  Set and maintain high standards in every area of your business.

10.    Train them, train them, train them.

Especially in the Joint Venture mindset.

If you have one of the two dry cleaning businesses in a small town, with high overhead and limited customers, scarcity is a reality to you.

If your business depends on the weather, the traffic, offshore competition, finding good people, or politicians, or if you sell your time, lack and risk are your constant shadows.

And if you have all your eggs in one basket,

• if your income depends on the whims of others to any extent,
• or if you rely on others or serve a limited geographic area,

shortage and fear follow you home at night.

Are You a Soldier or a General?

Many “businesses” are really simply prison cells, shackles, time vampires, and Swords of Damocles. If you own a franchise or if you are a self-employed salesperson posing as an entrepreneur, scarcity is a reality for you. Without scalability and replicability, you’re what Domenick Celentano, an Adjunct Professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, calls an “Artisan Entrepreneur.” Or what I call and “Paid Slave” or “a Laborer with a New Lable” – not much different from being an employee, except that you work harder for less and take more risk. You can be a soldier or a general.  Entrepreneurs are generals.

Stephen Duke wrote:

“There are lots of ‘independent business owners,’ but few are actually ‘entrepreneurs.’ Most are skilled technicians or managers in their fields and they work IN their own business, but fewer still work ON their business. There is a difference.

Self-employment is on one end of the continuum and Entrepreneurship is on the opposite. The difference is what the individual actually does for the business: Are they simply doing what they were doing for the ‘Man’ before they started working for themselves? Or, are they working at building a “world class company” that does the things they once did for a living?

Don’t be delusional about self-employment, even if you are not working by yourself – it is still not entrepreneurial. One must really be working on building a company that is less egoistic and more centered around its stakeholders i.e. what’s in it for them, instead of what’s in it for me. When you understand this, you understand the difference between the self-employed business owner and the entrepreneur.”

Why I Use Joint Ventures

To move from scarcity and risk to abundance and peace of mind, I became a Joint Venture Broker 23 years ago.

1. There is literally no limit to my business, except that which I choose.
2. My business is ultimately scalable.
3. I operate with no cost, overhead, employees, risk, inventory, advertising and marketing budget, or administration.
4. And I have plenty of time on my hands.
5. If you choose to keep the business you have, you can put your bottom line on steroids by understanding how to use Joint Ventures and create huge back-end income at 100% profit, while reducing risk and time spent.

There are many fish in the sea, if you set your business up that way. Threats fade away, and you can focus on building nets and working when you feel like it. A good Joint Venture Broker has his ego in check, focuses on the bottom line, is very selective, and enjoys abundance. And he sleeps well at night.

It’s sensible to buy one dollar umbrellas at the dollar store and hand them to restaurant guests as they leave on a rainy night – far better than handing them expensive “corporate gifts” that you have to pay for.

But how much better would it be, how much more attention would you get, and how much more word of mouth advertising would you enjoy, if you handed out $75 gifts to all your customers? And what if it didn’t cost you a blue cent?

What Really Impresses People

Nobody is impressed with discount vouchers, two-for-one, “Buy one, get one” and bulk deals.

What they ARE impressed with is stand-alone, no-obligation, real value, like a gift, as opposed to bait.

Try This

What about handing your female customers a nice Gift Certificate for a complimentary manicure, paid for and provided by the local spa? The spa would get a whole bunch of potential new customers, and they would be happy to pay for the printing and provide the manicures (subject to availability, of course). Far better for them than expensive advertising.

Drive Profit to Your Bottom-line at the Same Time

Naturally, you could negotiate a commission on any sales resulting from said Gift Certificates, as well. That would drive net profit directly to you bottom line with no cost, risk, or time. As long as the Gift Certificates are distributed to the right demographic / psychographic model, it’s a win-win, since you’ll be passively endorsing and recommending the products and services of the vendor providing the Gift Certificates.

The Sky’s the Limit!

How about Gift Certificates from interior designers, home theater purveyors, kitchen renovators, yoga teachers, jewelers, kayak and boating places… provide samples, classes, consultations, reports – the sky is the limit.

Imagine all the possibilities, and consider the exposure and publicity you would get!

• Target your markets.
• Joint Venture with the providers of the Gift Certificates to reciprocate by paying you commissions and / or distributing YOUR gift certificates.
• You could even SELL the Gift Certificates for a dollar each to other businesses.

Think about it…

Few people have guts to tell it the way it is. Robert Kiyosaki, in this incredible video, says things like:

“Four things make 90% of the people poor: taxes, inflation, debt, retirement plans.”

And then he provides solutions.

He says, “America will become a third world nation – rich and poor. That’s it. Tell me something money does not affect. Most guys are just wimps. Pussies. Cowards. They don’t have it, so they should get a job. It takes discipline.

“Most people would like to have a great body like Charles Atlas, but they’re at Burger King wolfing down a Whopper with fries. I don’t know how you can expect to get anything you want without some degree of long-term commitment. Quitting is the easiest thing to do. That’s why most people don’t make it.

“Everybody has doubts and fear of failing. But look at Tiger Woods or any great athlete: when the going gets tough, that’s when they turn into geniuses and most people turn into wimps. Get off your butt. If you want to be a mechanic, you go hang out with mechanics. If you want to get rich, hang out with rich people.”

3 Things to Succeed in Business

When it comes down to it, you need three things to succeed in business:

1. The RIGHT financial education.
2. Connections with the right people.
3. GUTS. The guts never to quit, make excuses, or run away.

Let’s talk about these three.

1.    Financial education:

Kiyosaki points out in his four quadrants that you can be an employee (quadrant 1) or a self-employed salesman / solopreneur (quadrant 2), and never get rich, or you can be in quadrants three and four. Quadrant three is big business (500 employees or more) and quadrant four is having your money work for you.

Most people who don’t have money think it’s impossible to play in quadrants three and four, whereas DollarMakers shows you how to participate in big business through Joint Ventures and to make money from the investments of other people – anyone can do that. We don’t have money problems; we have thinking problems.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Why? Because the rich keep doing the things that made them rich, and the poor keep doing the things that made them poor.

2.    Connections with the right people:

DollarMakers has hundreds of Members, many of whom have a great understanding of Joint Ventures, in 19 countries – all looking to do a deal with you. And we FIRE dishonest people who don’t abide by our Code of Business Ethics. We are constantly weeding the moochers and posers out. Winners will link you with winners, and losers will introduce you to their loser friends. We provide various platforms and options for connecting with the right people. We’re not a networking group full of broke wanna-be’s.

3.    GUTS.

If you are a weak, politically correct, passive-aggressive, excuse-making wimp, don’t join DollarMakers. Our Members have to take full responsibility for their own success – we’re not socialists or quitters, and we don’t carry passengers or pamper parasites. We’re excited, determined, motivated, and disciplined. Our goal is to MAKE MONEY. That’s why we’re called DollarMakers.

If you’re serious about success and you’re tired of watching your wealth go down the drain, join DollarMakers. Right now.

When I talk with my incredible wife, we describe people to each other in terms of three descriptions:

1. DISC, or the four personality styles.
2. Commitment – people either have it or they don’t. This goes along with “Staying Power”
3. Do they have a Killer Instinct?

Aspects of a “Killer Instinct”

• People with a killer instinct are fearless closers.
• They don’t understand how to quit.
• They don’t back down, roll over, or wallow in the fetid swamp of politically correct, passive aggression.
• They are loyal soldiers, and they’ve got your back when you’re in a jam. Unlike pansy parasite posers, who will stab you in the back and steal the milk out of your tea with a permanent smile on their faces.

Trump Has Killer Instinct

Donald Trump is a real man. He said this of Revenge:

“There are a lot of bad people out there… if you have a problem with someone, you have to go after them. And it’s not necessarily to teach that person a lesson, it’s to teach all of the people that are watching a lesson, that you don’t take crap.

And if you take crap you’re just not gonna do well. So Be sharp, Be Smart.

It’s all about this (points to his head/brain) you have to have this to start off with. But you can’t take a lot of nonsense from people. You have to go after them. I have always believed it.

When a person screws you, screw them back 15 times over.”

Killer Instinct.

The Difference Between Someone with a Killer Instinct & a Pansy

Pansy: We knew someone who told us how he was going to change the world and create massive wealth. (Perhaps he thought he was his rich daddy.)

Anyway, his very first seminar was a failure because he teamed up with a loser, and he quit almost immediately. At the very first bump in the road, this pansy tucked his scrawny tail between his legs and ran for the hills!

Powerhouse: Winners don’t take “No” for an answer. They hardly even hear it!

I went on a sales call with one of my salespeople years back. We traveled for two hours to get to the prospect’s house, and at 7pm, after listening to our entire presentation, the prospect and his wife told us in no uncertain terms that they would definitely not buy our product. My salesman kept of selling. He closed the sale at 9pm.

When I got home at 11pm, my phone was ringing in my office. The customer wanted to cancel the sale. At 12.30am, and hour and a half later, I had closed him again. He stayed closed after that.

THAT, dear reader, is a Killer Instinct. No excuses, no turning back, no fear.

What kind of people do you have on your team?

The wimps will sabotage your success and undermine your efforts, while frustrating and irritating you.

The winners will make your life easy. They will motivate, encourage, and inspire you with their courage and innovation.

Losers say things like, “I couldn’t help it, it wasn’t my fault, I’ll do my best, I don’t have the time / money, people can’t afford it, times are tough, it’s the recession, my wife won’t let me, I don’t want to offend people, I need my rest…”

Winners take responsibility, seize the opportunity, and make it happen, whatever it takes, no matter how long it takes, 24/7/365.

Read “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand, and see an example of a powerhouse who doesn’t compromise, carp, quit, or crawl.

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

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

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

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

A Mind-blowing Epiphany for Entrepreneurs

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

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

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

The problem is that they are working BACKWARDS.

Make Money Linking Problems to Solutions

The fact is that:

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

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

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

Anyone Can Do It

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

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

You Can Profit from What Others Don’t Know

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

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

1. I had been telling my audience to incentivize all earnings…
2. and to link every cent earned to five cents generated in profits.

I told them that paying someone a fixed salary was not just stupid, but dangerous to one’s financial health.

Here’s his story, which adequately makes my point:

He had employed a middle-aged man whom he met at his church, and for whom he “felt sorry”, to “give him another chance”, at an above-average salary. Lots of red flags right there, but I digress.

Naturally, this “grateful” fellow promised to be the best employee he had ever had, and he went to work.

The business generated a lot of profit from back-end income, Joint Ventures, investments, and the like, and an important part of the duties of this employee was follow-up.

What the business owner didn’t understand was that he was dealing with an employee whose highest priority was to keep his job, not to create additional profit for the business. And that’s where he had made his mistake.

Why the Employee Mentality is Poison to Your Balance Sheet

The employee went through the motions of calling, closing, following up, and providing information, and completed all the required control and time sheets, but he was simply doing a job -

• he had no passion for profit or understanding of business,
• and he didn’t understand why his employer might want to make so much more money – after all, didn’t he have enough already?

His was a collectivist, altruistic, mystical philosophy, which was why he had never made money himself, and that philosophy is like poison to any balance sheet.

The Results Speak for Themselves

When the employer started getting phone calls and letters from his Joint Venture partners, his downline, his suppliers, and his customers, he started to put two and two together. He found that many of his valued customers had moved to his competition, where they got better services, more information, and more value from people who actually benefited directly from their patronage.

This employee had a lackluster, mediocre attitude when his boss wasn’t around, and we have all been exposed to that.

He realized that his lost opportunities, missed sales, lost customers, and diminished transaction values had conservatively cost him ten times what he had paid the loser that he should never have hired for that job in the first place.

The Moral(s) to the Story

An employee:

• Does the least and expects the most.
• Tells you exactly what you want to hear, and, like a politician, will bend the rules and overlook anything in order to keep his or her job.
• If they don’t receive a significant piece of new business, sales, or profits that they are responsible for generating, why should they bother? Where’s the passion and commitment?
• Their real agenda is far from that of the entrepreneur. They have no vested interest in the success or growth of the business, and they are in fact paid slaves or mercenaries. They are not capitalists.
• They will leave you for $100 per month increase, and you will never be able to pay them enough to secure their loyalty or commitment.
• A disgruntled employee can sabotage your business and reputation, and use the courts to hurt you.
• There’s a thin line between love and hate, and you tend to give your employees lots of information which they can use against you when they feel like it.

Create Overlap

Smart entrepreneurs work on creating a vested interest for people with whom they work, which we call “Overlap”. They remove the risk from their own business and force their employees to take responsibility for their duties and choices through financial incentives and commissions. They fire salaried people and rehire them on a commission only basis – no base salary, no leverage on the company except their ability to perform and produce, and no place for hidden agendas.

If that is a new concept for you, read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand and examine the concept of Joint Ventures as presented at www.JVWisdom.com.

My Employee Free Business

After 22 years in this business, I run my business with no employees, cost, risk, overhead, or inventory. I can walk away from anyone at any time, everything I earn is 100% profit, and nobody gets to limit or sabotage me for long. Everyone with whom I work is a Joint Venture partner.

Audit Your Business to See the Truth

Audit what is really going on while the cat is away.

• Take a good, hard look at your employees.
• Shop your own business anonymously.
• Install cameras.
• Record all phone calls “for quality control.”
• Rethink the way you compensate your people, and what you are actually paying them for.

This is especially important for hiring web “masters”, often the most passive-aggressive people around, as well as secretaries, assistants, and office staff. You will find that you are paying far too much for losses, bleeding wounds, theft, and apathy than you should be.

The High Price of Altruism

By the way, when the business owner in this true story fired the loser who cost him so much money, he got sued, and his church excommunicated him for his “sinful and selfish” behavior.

You’re in business to make the maximum after-tax profit, with the least cost, risk, time, and frustration. Remember that.

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

The Program that Changed Our Lives

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

Throwing Away a Fortune

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most Never Even Cross the Finish Line

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

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

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

It’s NEVER Too Late To Break Free

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

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

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