Joint Venture Leverage

See me in the picture? I'm talking to 375 people at one time. Better than talking to each one individually, right? Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I will move the world.” If you had the choice between carrying rocks and using a wheelbarrow, you would choose the latter. If you could either make a phone call or drive to a meeting, a phone call would save you time. This is simple, common sense. Yet as entrepreneurs we tend to forget this in business. You find business owners who are great salespeople spending time on minimum wage activities. Why spend your $100 per hour time on an $8 per hour administrative job?

We complain that we don’t have enough time and that we can’t afford advertising dollars, and we’re right. Because we’re allocating our resources incorrectly and we’re not taking advantage of resources that are readily available. We’re working hard instead of smart. We’re putting the cart before the horse. Two fellows get together and decide to start a transport business. They max out their credit cards and deplete their bank accounts paying for the design of a fancy logo, buying a new truck they don’t need and printing expensive brochures. Then they find they don’t know how to market or find customers and they have no money left.

There are two schools of thought – the one says, “Go out and spend years and all your family’s money creating what you have convinced yourself is a great product, then try to sell what you have made.” The other suggests you first go out and see if you can get some orders before you spend a blue cent on manufacturing. Here’s the Joint Venture approach: Find someone who has a great product, get someone else to market and sell it to their existing customers and you take a piece of the action. Leverage other peoples’ time, money, distribution, reputation, access, database and skills. Let them carry the risk, inventory, leases and sleepless nights. And you make money. Only spend time on things that only you can do.

When you’re selling time and selling widgets, you’re losing out on the power of leverage. When you’re reinventing the wheel, you’re missing the business success boat. Why do consulting or “coaching” when you could have someone else do it and pay you 20% of the gross sale on an ongoing business? I’ll tell you why you would do that: It’s because you don’t understand profit. See, if a five minute referral phone call to a “life coach” makes you $100 net profit, it’s better that spending hours of your time and a lot of other expenses to make $500. Time IS money. Real businesspeople understand that $100 for five minutes is $20 per minute and that’s better than $250 per hour less your traveling time and your gas and car maintenance expenses. They’re more interested in making a profit than in feeling important.

Here’s the bottom line approach for real Joint Venture success: “How can I do this with the minimum amount or time and risk and the maximum return on my time investment? How can I leverage other peoples’ resources? How can I distribute the maximum value to the most people with the highest possible margin in the least possible time with no cost or risk to me?” Think more, solve more problems and use Joint Ventures to make all your financial dreams come true.

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Yes, But...

I regularly speak to large groups of people in seminars, talks and my Joint Venture Bootcamps. I know that, while I am speaking, my audience are internally talking to themselves at something approaching 600 words a minute. They're either saying to themselves, "Wow! I can do that! Yes, this is a great idea I can and will implement. That sounds exciting to me!" OR they are saying to themselves, "YES, it all sounds great, BUT..."

What we say to ourselves about opportunities, challenges or options that we are confronted with or offered, means a lot. How we interpret those inputs will determine to a very large extent how we react and what choices will result. Usually, we interpret our input by comparing it with the information we have gathered in our lives: our experiences, learning and exposure. It's almost like we scan our frame of referenc, looking for a fit. And this is the dangerous part, because if I hear the adjective, "Ex Wife", I might have a negative reaction based on my past experience and prejudge the person it is being applied to. If my ex wife was a demon, guess how I will tend to evaluate someone else's ex wife, IF I don't stand back and get objective?

If you've been educated to believe that all businessmen are bad and dishonest, it might be hard for you to succeed as an entrerpreneur. Your self talk will hobble, distract, sabotage and undermine your success, because your belief and business and your entrepreneurial aspirations will not be congruent. So we need to be very open minded, non-judgmental and objective about new information that we're exposed to. When you hear yourself saying, "Yes, BUT" or prejudging new information, it's time to give yourself a "Check-up from the neck up" and decide not to deny yourself the opportunity to positively benefit from this input.

One of the ways I have found to make this work well is to take a lot of notes or record the seminar, and to make the decision to be completely unemotional about evidence I receive that conflicts with my present belief system. I use this affirmation: "I know that I have a lot to learn and that not everything I believe is true, so I choose to be open to new options and opportunities."

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com