Dollarmakers.com BLOG

Thursday, May 15, 2008

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You Need A SYSTEM
SYSTEM: Save Yourself Time, Energy, and Money!

Imagine the amount of mistakes I have made in the last 21 years in my business. Scary! I discovered a lot of things that don’t work, and I survived. I got through the minefield, in spite of being blown up a few times. You have a choice: repeat my mistakes, or learn from them. Be smart and get onto the fast track.

Would you try to teach yourself to fly an airplane? Of course not! You would crash and burn! You’re wise, so you would take lessons from a certified professional. You would do exactly what you were told and you’d become a good pilot.

DollarMakers offers you a complete and unique success system that allows people to make money with no cost or risk, regardless of their background, age, circumstances, education, and whether they have a business or not. After 21 years, we provide a Blueprint for Joint Venture Success. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel; simply follow the recipe. Get the map. Invest in the compass. Buy the GPS, and you won’t spend 40 years wandering in the business wilderness. That’s what smart people do.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

People Want Stuff For Nothing

You might think it strange that wealthy people will take an irreplaceable evening out of their lives and drive for an hour through snow, to attend a sales pitch event for a complimentary meal. You may be amazed to see successful business owners lining up in an airport to sign up for a credit card they don’t need to get a cheap, Dollar Store clock. You shouldn’t be surprised, because it’s human nature.

We don’t want to be sold things, but we like getting gifts, and we love buying things. We don’t want to be pitched, but we love being entertained. Why do you stop and watch the pitch man demonstrating a set of kitchen knives or a juicer at the local fair? Because it’s entertaining and interesting! THEN, he shows you the amazing value and additional complimentary GIFTS you’ll get if you buy something right away, and we all reach for our wallets! It’s fun, isn’t it? It’s what works, that’s why smart people do it.

We don’t get excited about getting discounts, because they’re not fun, and we don’t believe them - we think they just hiked the price up top afford the discount - we think we’re being conned. And we don’t get too excited about getting money, because we have to pay the bills and the rent like responsible adults, but we love choosing toys that we get given, don’t we? We want to play, and we don’t want to work. We want to feel like we got a good deal. Like we got something for nothing. Then we can justify the fact that we just bought an overpriced thing that we didn’t need with money we didn’t have, to get a cheap gift we will probably never use.

Smart marketers use gifts and complimentary value, like education and entertainment to get people to a point where they will buy “by choice”. Dangle the big carrot in front of their noses after you’ve had them following the trail of chocolates all the way into your store. People will spend twice as much on an item or service to get a gift worth a few dollars. Why? Because sometimes they feel they couldn’t justify buying the gift for themselves, because of financial pressure, guilt, having to explain to a spouse, or some other psychological reason. This way, they can’t help getting it, so they justify the inordinate waste of time, money, and energy they expend.

Gift Certificates, evaluations, reports, CD’s, DVD’s, samples, candy, coffee, donuts, T shirts, ball caps, memberships, meals, toys, gimmicks, tours, ANYTHING they don’t have to pay for, is tremendous BAIT. And if you’re a smart Joint Venture Broker, you don’t have to pay a cent for the items and services you so generously give away. In fact, you can BE PAID for giving other peoples’ stuff away!

Think about using this approach: stop selling, and start enticing.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

“Idiot Compassion” = Business Failure


One of the first things to check under the hood when your business engine falters and sputters and you see your cash flow leaking onto the pavement, is your philosophy. Your philosophy determines all your choices and the consequences those choices will bring to your bottom line.

When we, as business owners, feel sorry for people and allow them to continue to abuse themselves and others, we demonstrate the use of “Idiot Compassion”. Trunga Rinpoche coined this term to describe the false, inverted compassion that enablers succumb to. Usually, they are really assuaging their own guilt - a selfish motive disguised as compassion - the opposite of “Tough Love”. So we continue to employ and tolerate losers and parasites, we overlook the bad choices of people, remove the consequences to crime and dishonestly, and thereby undermine those who are producing and constructing value. We become “politically correct” to avoid confrontation and disguise our own gutlessness. This is the worst form of altruism.

We need to check our philosophy - are we altruists and collectivists, or are we capitalists?

According to Capitalism.org, “the theory of collectivism (in all its variants) holds that man is not an end to himself, but is only a tool to serve the ends of others. Collectivism, unlike individualism, holds the group as the primary, and the standard of moral value. Whether that group is a dictator’s gang, the nation, society, the race, (the) god(s), the majority, the community, the tribe, etc., is irrelevant — the point is that man in principle is a sacrificial victim, whose only value is his ability to sacrifice his happiness for the will of the ‘group’”. This is the opposite of capitalism; it is a cancer that will kill your business. Entrepreneurs are not sacrificial victims.

We should pay people in direct proportion to their contribution of measurable value to the business. “Carrying” unproductive people is unjust, counter-productive, and downright dangerous in the business world and in life. Socialism has been proven not to work, and it’s beloved cancer cousins, multiculturalism, mysticism, and environmentalism, are equally pernicious. We are entrepreneurs, not social workers. We are in business to make a profit, not to support a prophet.

Those most violently opposed to capitalism and individualism often hide in organizations that pretend to be capitalist. They use terms like “caring and sharing”, “contribution”, and “giving back” to cloak their sacrificial contributions (entrepreneurs are the ones being sacrificed). They call their groups “Service Clubs” and talk about charity, when they really mean altruism. Their raison d’etre is the destruction of free enterprise and capitalism.

I suggest to every entrepreneur that he or she reads Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” in order to realign his philosophy and adjust his direction to wealth and the pursuit of happiness.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

All Your Eggs in One Basket?

Most people are blissfully oblivious to their level of risk. The most obvious and dangerous of all is having “all your eggs in one basket”. Is the bulk of your income dependent on one person, industry, product, service, geographical area, or niche market? Is your financial well-being controlled by, or subject to, the climate, politics, the Internet, a sales manager, a committee, or a key employee or partner? No wonder you suffer from stress, emotional highs and lows, and insomnia. Being controlled and being at such blatant risk is no fun. Living on the edge of a crumbling precipice doesn’t exactly inspire one to giggle much, unless it’s a nervous giggle…

Here’s the scariest part: The heavier that basket gets (the more money you make), the more likely you are to drop that basket, and the more incentive certain people have to take it away from you. People aren’t likely to cut you out of a deal or replace you with a lower earner when you’re earning peanuts. In addition, the more money we make, the more secure we tend to feel, and the higher our cost of living seems to go, as we start spending more and getting into more debt. Pride comes before the fall, and living in denial or suppressing the awareness of your hazardous gamble won’t prevent the inevitable. Fires, earthquakes, death, change, new competition, illness, bankruptcies, litigation, and a myriad of other things can happen at any time.

I set up a Joint Venture with a young weasel that earned me an easy $9,000 a month. It didn’t last long as the little tyke revealed his arrogance and ineptitude, and it died a sad death a few months later. I was not in the least perturbed, however, since I had 19 other income sources pumping away. It was replaced even before it disappeared. Had I become all gleeful about that income source and naively expected it to last indefinitely, however, I might have been severely disappointed, especially if it constituted my entire income. A friend of mine in Australia was suddenly laid off from his high-paying job at the age of 52. Downsizing, outsourcing, dishonest JV partners like the wanna-be above, and changes in the weather or economy (gas prices, for example) can unexpectedly rip that basket from your hands and smash your eggs all over the sidewalk. Some people never recover.

Diversification, spreading your risk, lowering your overhead, and leveraging your resources and the resources of others is what smart Joint Venture Brokers do. Don’t bank on income until it’s in the bank. Don’t believe the promises you hear: talk is cheap. If you have a slave master, think about this while you’re grovelling and simpering in the corner of your nicely furnished prison cell. Your bootlicking won’t make you any more secure. Lackeys don’t last, and toadies get tossed. The Chinese say, “Dig the well before you thirst”; prepare for the inevitable, and diligently create additional, congruent income sources that will eventually exceed the income you get from your primary source. Use JV’s to have your primary income source feed your new dollarmakers.

Using Joint Ventures, you can learn transferable skill sets and participate in leveraged systems that will provide growing, residual income that continues while you lie on the beach or watch a movie. You can stop selling your time and blood and live the lifestyle you want and deserve.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

Joint Ventures - Ultimate Strategy, Maximum Leverage

“Vertical Thinking” is analytical, focused, left-brain, binary (black or white) and narrow. This is the way most of us in the west have learned to view life and business. Horizontal thinking, on the other hand, is creative, right-brain, lateral, open, inclusive, synergistic, and strategic. Joint Ventures utilize and optimize both these approaches perfectly.

Edward DeBono, author of 62 books on creative thought, said “Some people are unhappy about lateral [horizontal] thinking because they feel it threatens the validity of vertical thinking. This is not so at all. The two processes are complementary, not antagonistic. Lateral thinking enhances the effectiveness of vertical thinking by offering it more to select from. Vertical thinking multiplies the effectiveness of lateral thinking by making good use of the ideas generated.”

The Wedding Planner, for example, is good at providing all the services and products related to weddings and the immediate events, even going as far as the honeymoon arrangements, and she gets paid a commission on all referred business within that limited time realm. A good Joint Venture Broker, on the other hand, will see well beyond that to a strong mailing list that builds an ongoing, long-term relationship and proceeds to mutually benefit both parties over the years; that married couple will breed, buy houses, furniture, cell phones, and holidays, and fifty percent of them will get divorced. All those services can garner serious income for the broker and the service providers, while at the same time providing massive, additional value for the couple. The broker thinks out of the box.

The traditional business owner is focused on his own products and services, to the exclusion of multiple additional sales and service opportunities. This myopic approach explains why, in my opinion, the average small and medium-size businesses out there only operate at about 10% of the potential net profit. A lateral thinking, Joint Venture approach can set up numerous back end income sources, all at 100% margin (we like to call them DollarMakers) within hours, days or weeks, thereby turbo-boosting income and differentiating the business from it’s competition, whose blinders keep them working too hard for too little.

Leverage and duplication can be systematically applied to virtually any business when the JV Broker applies this open mindset to the business services, focusing on providing the optimal ease and value for the customer and getting paid on all resulting transactions, much like owning multiple Toll Booths on thousands of bridges across the world. Best of all, this can be accomplished with no money or risk, and surprisingly little time, since this involves leveraging existing resources. The Broker looks for links and partnership opportunities, and specializes in building a congruent flow of business.

When you think out of the box, you get out of the box, and unlimited opportunities suddenly start appearing all over.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

Shed Your Excuses and Reach the Stars!

At a Joint Venture Bootcamp I conducted for 140 people in Edmonton, Alberta yesterday, a woman wrote the following on a slip of paper and put it on the podium for me to read: “Excuses are like armpits; there are lots of them around, and they all stink!” and, “I’m not paying for excuses - I’m only paying for results!” Your excuses are a cancer that eats away at your success., your credibility, your reputation, and your self-esteem.

Like Yoda, who said, “There is no try - only do or do not”, I have ceased to believe peoples’ excuses, and I don’t make excuses for my own slothfulness. I’m fat because I eat too much and exercise too little. Some people even make excuses IN ADVANCE! Ever heard yourself say, “I’ll try”? T.R.Y. means To Relive Yesterday’s Failures. When people say, “I’ll do my best”, or “I hope to succeed” or “If everything works out well”… these people expect to fail, so they do.

What happens when you don’t do what you promise and you then make excuses, instead of admitting to your lack of self-discipline and integrity? Your self esteem drops. You earn money in direct proportion to your level of self esteem, and that means that excuses cost you money in many ways. People take away opportunities from you and give them to other people who will deliver what they promise. Your excuses are hurting you.

One reason for excuses is that people are afraid of feeling rejected. They’re more likely to be rejected for offering feeble excuses (traffic, kids, spouses, cars, illness) than just admitting that they messed up and making right. “I’m late because I didn’t get out of bed early enough. It’s my fault. I am sorry. I won’t do it again.” Now, if you don’t repeat the bad choices, nobody will reject you - they will admire your courage and candor.

We make excuses to ourselves as well, so that we can avoid making painful choices and doing uncomfortable things. Winners know that when there is no pain, there is no gain. Instead of making internal excuses, compare the pain of regret to the pain of discipline. “Pay me now, or pay me later”. An ounce worth of painful self discipline will save you tons of regret in the future. Discipline will increase your confidence, self image, energy, and enthusiasm. You will feel you deserve to be rewarded, so you will succeed. Don’t compare yourself with people less successful than you are - compare yourself with more successful people and determine to improve your life in every area.

Finally, let’s talk about being late for appointments. There is NO excuse. Leave 30 minutes early. Everyone faces traffic and interruptions. Take control of your life. If there was a million dollar check waiting for you, would you be late? Get there early, turn your cellphone off during the meeting, be well prepared and well groomed, and you’ll be in the top three percent of people. Let us agree to stop making and accepting excuses.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

Your Future
Your future will be whatever you decide it will be. In four years time, you will look back on today and know that your decisions determined your destination. It is YOUR future. You can have whatever future you want; you don’t need to beg, plead, manipulate, or make excuses. You don’t need permission. Your future is like a buffet table with a huge selection of foods - take what you like. You are the master of your fate, the captain of your soul. Exactly what do you want your life to look like in three or four year’s time?

When I am in a strange city and I have a destination, I call a taxi and tell the driver where to take me. Then I sit back and relax. I do have to pay him, though - there is always a price to pay. What price will you pay for your goal life? Guess what? You’ll pay a price for NOT achieving that lifestyle, too! So either way, whether you design and create a wonderful lifestyle or submit to a life of compromise, pain, and frustration, you will pay the price. So you decide what price you will pay, because it’s cheaper to pay for the perfect lifestyle. Why? In four years, after paying the price and achieving the lifestyle, it gets much easier. If you don’t, and your life stays boring, painful and scary, you keep on paying!

Think of the man sitting in a rowing boat, working hard, rowing around in circles, going nowhere fast. That represents the average person in this world - 97% of people, statistically. In four years time, he’s older, weaker, and even more depressed, but he’s working just as hard, if not harder, to keep on going around in circles. The other rower in the other boat heads for his Treasure Island. He works just as hard, but in four years he is resting in luxury. Your choice. This can be your defining moment, if you want it to be.

DollarMakers is designed and continually evolves and improves, to offer people around the world the means and the guidance to reach their financial life goals. I know that 97% of your problems will be solved or severely alleviated with enough money. We have the blueprint, the systems, and support, and the tools necessary for you to use to reach your destination. Where will you be in four years? Your taxi is waiting…

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

Your Powerful, Secret Weapon

I say your “Secret Weapon” is a secret, because most us are blissfully unaware of it’s power and efficacy. When we realize how powerful this weapon is, we start to use it all the time, and life gets infinitely easier. Those daunting detours, obstinate obstacles, and blinding barriers are child’s play for your Secret Weapon. On the way to your objective, you get to replace your ox wagon and blunderbuss with a fully armed F18 jet fighter. Instead of using a sundial and a sextant, you get the latest and best GPS when you use your Secret Weapon. You cut through hindrances and impediments like a freight train going through a shopping cart, a red-hot knife through butter.

You already have the secret weapon. Here’s the scary part - right now, TODAY, right here, it is either working FOR you, or it’s working AGAINST you! And most of the time, people have set their their own secret weapons up to work against themselves! No wonder the seething herd is locked into mediocrity, compromise, frustration, fear, weakness, and depression. No wonder it’s so hard to get ahead and get traction. No surprises there, once you understand and acknowledge the choices to make to switch your Secret Weapon from Destroy to Deliver. Once you stop turning the gun on yourself, life gets easier.

Ever wondered how it is that you wake up just before the alarm clock goes off? Or you think of someone that you haven’t had any contact with in months, and there’s an e mail or letter of voice mail from that person waiting for you? What about those people who always seem to have “bad luck” and everything goes wrong for them, while everything others touch seems to turn into gold? “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” - ever wondered why? I’m not talking about the lies you will hear from the mystics, politicians, and others who have a vested interest in keeping you poor, blind, hungry and tired, I’m talking about the rational, proven reality here.

I have to keep this article short, so let me get to the point real fast now. Your Secret Weapon is your Subconscious Mind. Now before you bleat, “I read about that and I know about it”, let me assure you and all the other sheeple out there that you might have read about it or heard about it in a seminar, but you’re not USING it, or you would understand it. When you learn how to harness, control, and direct your subconscious mind, your whole life starts changing. You suddenly realize that you have turned from victim to victor, and your Reticular Activating System and subconscious power stars directing and enhancing every single one of your choices and changing your perspective so that you find yourself flying on jet fuel towards your goals; you start to get extraordinarily “lucky”. Things start working out. You start “attracting” and magnetizing all manner of good people and great opportunities, and your peace of mind, confidence, and power starts increasing in leaps and bounds.

Here, in a very tiny nutshell, is the simple recipe for governing your Subconscious Mind to work FOR you, and not against you:

1. Focus on what you want, and not what you don’t want - be very clear and specific about your congruent goals and objectives, using visualization, affirmation, and daily monitoring. This is the catalyst that will activate your powerful Reticular Activating System.
2. Control your self talk, questions, what you say, and every single choice.
3. Carefully construct ALL your input - what you see, read, hear, watch, and whom you mix with, where you go, and what you expose yourself to - everything has to be aligned with your objectives and values. Everything has to be cohesive and clear.
4. Mercilessly cut the rubbish from your life and your mind, your environment, your home, and your business. That means all bad people, input, association, visual triggers, as you would two week old, smelly garbage and dead animals.
5. Focus on the future and the present, not on the past, unless as a tool to motivate and inspire you.
6. Change your philosophy from one that will keep you deluded, confused, inferior, guilty, and impotent, to one that will empower, release, and revere you.

As you apply these six choices on a daily, consistent basis, your subconscious mind will start working for you in amazing ways, I assure you.

You have the power, and the money is already in the bank. Use your most valuable asset, your Secret Weapon, and break free from the shackles of ignorance, sacrifice, and servitude. Be free!

We will be teaching these principles as a part of the curriculum on our exciting DollarMakers Cerified Business Mentor training program.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

The Jewel is In the Lotus

When Tibetan Buddhists chant “Om Mani Pedme Hung“, they mean that ‘what we seek, we are’. The seeds of greatness are within us. We are wonderfully equipped with a powerful mind that can guide us to whatever goal we seek, as long as we take action and make the right choices. Tony Robbin’s work, “Awaken The Giant Within”, was a great inspiration to me. When I fired my boss and started my own business, a friend of mine, Louie Boshoff, gave me a copy of that book and wrote in it, “Congratulations on your Independence Day, Robin!” That day, I started focusing on the giant within me.

Tony Robbins said, “We can change our lives. We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish”, because he understood the power we all have within us. When you learn to master your mind, you will be able to control your emotions, beliefs, and choices. At that point, you get the power. When you understand how to use your internal communication with yourself to accomplish your goals by asking yourself the right questions, you control your focus and the interpretation of your circumstances. It’s not what happens yo you that will determine your success or failure, but how you interpret what happens to you, and your reaction to those circumstances.

You are the lotus, beautiful, unblemished, unlimited, and perfect, rising up out of the black mud of mediocrity, compromise, confusion, and pessimism, and the jewel, that is the seed of success, is within you. You can control your Reticular Activating System, command your subconscious mind, and steer yourself directly to Treasure Island. Other people have no control over your success, your emotions, or your mind, unless you hand it to them willingly. This is the plateau we all need to ascend to in order to be the best we can be. And we first have to BE (become) before we can DO (take the correct actions), and DO before we can HAVE whatever we want in our life: Happiness, Health, and Prosperity in every area of life.

How do we unleash our power, nurture the seeds of success within us, and break free from the bonds of compromise, second-best, feeble accomplishments, excuses, and frustration? How do we elevate ourselves to this level of self control and discipline? I like to think of our potential as being a huge water tank with an unlimited amount of pure, magical, fresh, sparkling water in it. The spigot or tap opens in minute degrees to allow more and more of our potential to flow, or it closes by degree. What closes it? Our association with negativity, bad input, bad people, bad thoughts, and wrong choices. This is the result of ignorance and slothfulness.

How do we open the spigot and allow more and more of our immaculate potential to flood our lives and the lives of those we love with joy and prosperity? Every time you associate with positive people, learn from the right sources, understand the correct techniques, and apply good choices, the spigot opens a tiny bit more, slowly elevating our minds, our understanding, and our self discipline to the next level of power. By immersing ourselves in the correct information, allowing ourselves to be mentored by the right people, and consistently making good, rational choices, we learn how to open the spigot more and more. We grow up into giants. We wield more power. We control our minds, emotions, and circumstances better. As the Buddha said, we “make our minds a castle”.

You are the source of your own power, the answer to your dreams, the solution to your questions, and the combination to the vault of success. By learning and working, you allow the seeds of greatness within you to grow and develop, until you are strong enough to teach others. We never stop growing and learning, and we all learn from one another, so keep your feet firmly on the ground and remember that we all have a long way to go. It just gets better and better!

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com