Dollarmakers.com BLOG

Monday, February 11, 2008

"Take Your Own Temperature."

I had coffee with someone in my Network Marketing downline last week. She was whining about the company’s imperfections, while the real reason for her misplaced and ludicrous passive aggression was that she hadn’t recruited anybody recently. Does that sound familiar? We like to blame others when we’re not performing, don’t we? When I started taking her temperature, her aggression soared and she actually stopped smiling through her teeth. (A sure sign of passive aggression.)

Now, I didn’t whip out the trusty old thermometer and thrust it into the corner of her scowling mouth. When I say “I started taking her temperature”, I mean I started to calibrate her level of motivation and passion. Let me ask you this: If you needed to sign a lotto ticket in order to claim your ten million dollar win within five minutes or lose the money, and you didn’t have a pen, would you hesitate to ask everyone in sight, even BEG everyone in sight to lend you a pen? I think not. Your motivation level would have you flagging down cars, shouting at passers-by, shoplifting, wrestling obese women to the ground and rummaging through their purses for a pen… you get my drift.

I simply asked her, “Have you asked EVERYONE you know to join your team? How many times have you asked them? Have you asked them to bring their friends, family, and alcoholic nephews to the meeting? If not, why not? How excited and serious are you about your business? Do you BELIEVE you will make $20,000 per month in residual income from this business? Do you attend every single meeting? How many hours a day are you working?” And that innocuous question seemed to irritate her. I knew she was irritated when she turned a beetroot red and started stammering. Which is hard on a shy fellow like myself.

People will work nine hours a day and commute two hours a day (total 11 hours a day), with people they hate, for a boss they despise, serving customers they regard as the scum of the earth, to earn and a pathetic income, but when they resign to start their own business and the Sword of Damocles is removed from above their heads, they expect to earn ten times the money by working three hours a day. Such is their level of self-discipline, belief, and motivation. Hence the need for taking their temperatures. If you find someone’s level of motivation, on a scale of one to ten, is anywhere below twelve, kick them to the curb. Work with your motivated people.

This is important: The cream will rise to the top. When you find that someone is skimmed, sour milk, move on. Give everyone the best opportunity and information you can, but do not kick dead horses. (”You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run…”) Work with people who actually WORK. Don’t beg them to succeed. Take their motivational temperatures and focus your energy and support on the highly motivated. And remember, actions speak louder than words. Do NOT believe excuses and don’t listen to complaints. Talk is cheap, and money buys the Lagavulin.

Now let me ask you this: “What is YOUR temperature?” You will know by looking at what you DO.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

The Real Thing

Today I made a stupid mistake - I answered the phone, thinking it was my printer. Instead, it was a very typical phone call. "I have this amazing health product and how can the DollarMakers Joint Venture Brokers Club help me sell more of my products? What can you offer me? I have read your website." Yeah, right! And you have a very low IQ, too. DollarMakers is about Joint Ventures, not the type of joint you just finished smoking. Here's a special message to the next broke, self-employed salesman that calls me with this kind of ridiculous question: We're in business to make a profit, not to sell your placebo effect snake oils. We're not your salespeople or hired hands - you can't afford us. We teach people how to broker business deals, not how to stay broke by flogging overpriced lotions and potions.

Now let me tell you how I REALLY feel... A real businessman or entrepreneur is in business to make the maximum amount of net, after-tax profit, with the least amount of time, risk, and cost. We do that by leveraging resources. Our egos are not involved. We focus on the bottom line. We invite people to join our Club in order to learn more about Joint Ventures and to get access to like-minded people who understand the process. You make more money by triangulating deals and selling other peoples' products and services than your own products, services, or time. If you want to make money, broker JV's. If you want to feel important, loved, and clever, go buy a teddy bear. If you want hugs, find a new age support group or become a chubby chaser. If you want PROFIT, come to DollarMakers.

There are a lot of illiterate, blind people out there who claim to have read my website. But then, to be fair, reading it doesn't mean they understand it, even after watching hours of videos and reading an entire 146 page book. After all, the average IQ on a bell curve is only 100. So let me try to explain one more time how to make money, using examples that the average entrepreneur can identify with. If I sell my time as a ditch digger (I rarely do) I can make a limited amount of money. If I subcontract the job and become an agent for ditch diggers, I can make more money, because I am leveraging other peoples' time. 100% of my own limited time versus 20% of the time of twenty other people = four times more money using leverage.

I had a "personal success coach" call me and tell me he understands exactly what a Joint Venture is and how they work. He can't afford to attend the next Bootcamp, however. In fact, he does not understand Joint Ventures, because if he did, he would not sell his own time. That's why he has no money. He is unconsciously incompetent; he doesn't know that he doesn't understand. Only 1% of the owners of small and medium sized business, and about .1% of self-employed salespeople, understand and use Joint Ventures.

At our training sessions, I encourage "business owners" to try and forget that they have a business, to forget that they have products and services to sell, and to focus instead on value, money, and distribution. In other words, on business. Pretend, for a heart-wrenching minute, that you have closed your business down. Forget about how smart and experienced you think you are. Nobody believes you, nobody cares, and it doesn't matter. Focus instead on getting other people what they want and make sure you get paid for every transaction you facilitate. Then, instead of being a Dollar Faker, or a Dollar Taker, you will become a dyed in the wool, geniune, 24-carat DollarMaker.

Robin J. Elliott (Gentle, humble, scared, and politically correct, as always.) www.DollarMakers.com