DYI JV's?

A man returns from a visit to his physician. On the way home, he stops by a medical center and buys a variety of surgical instruments. He drops into the local library and takes out some books. Then he buys a nurse’s outfit. When he gets home, he tells his wife, “The doctor told me I need my appendix removed. I asked him a number of questions, and the good new is that we don’t need him! Why should we spend thousands on an operation, when I could buy everything we need for a few hundred? Read these books tonight, and tomorrow you can don the uniform and operate on me. Now haven’t you got a smart husband?”

IDIOT, right? Right. Many people have this same, cheap mentality. Why do you need a Burger King franchise when your mother makes such great burgers and you can buy used restaurant equipment? Is it arrogance, ignorance or a combination of both that encourages people to make such silly choices? “I don’t need that techie to fix my computer! He charges an arm and a leg. I’ll do it myself!” Well, the techie loves to hear that, because a week later, after messing his computer up even more, that same fool will beg the techie to help him, at any cost. He will carry the techie on his back through crocodile-infested swamps and then make him tea… And perhaps the techie will charge a little more…

When my car breaks, I call Ray. When my computer breaks, I call Andrew. When I have accounting / tax problems, I call Raj. I don’t negotiate or haggle with them. And they solve my problems fast. I am consciously incompetent. There are very few things I’m really good at, and even in those areas there are many better than I am. I save a lot of time, money and frustration by paying experts. The same applies to Joint Ventures. We teach people, support them and encourage them in that area because we have 19 years of experience and we do this every single day. But, guess what? You have to pay to attend a Bootcamp or join the Forum. After that, we will support you. In Afrikaans, they say, “Goedkoop is duurkoop.” (Cheap is expensive.) Ever bought cheap shoes?

In Whistler, a fellow approached me at the end of a seminar I presented on Joint Ventures. He asked why the Bootcamp is “so expensive” at $997 for two people. I answered, “It’s probably not for you.” Why? Because he just revealed who he is. Successful people pay experts based on return on investment. How much does a shovel have to cost to be expensive when it is used to shovel gold into your car’s trunk?

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com