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Category Archives: Entrepreneurship

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Millionaire Mind: Creative Financing and Flexibility

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Ever heard of that adage “It takes money to make money?”

As lots of us in the Millionaire Mind community know that’s just not true. It lends toward confidence and a sense of “safety”. It can make things more expedient, but is money absolutely necessary to, for example, start a business? The answer is no. You just need to learn how to be flexible and to use creative financing to your benefit.

Use Creative Financing To Gain Flexibility

Many millionaires have lost it all, fell into extraordinary debt, and still found a way to bounce back.

“It takes money to make money” is something people to make themselves feel safe and secure in their inaction. Then they don’t have to leave their comfort zones and really go out there and get it. Maybe a lot of people just don’t know that there are other ways to finance endeavors.

That’s why I plan to touch base on a few fundamentals when it comes to looking for capital. The hardest part, believe it or not, is imagination, which is actually easy once you really grasp it. The wealthiest people in the world didn’t get to where they are by doing what everybody else does. Wealthy people use creative financing.

While time can be a factor, there are some basic options to think about before you start:

Option 1: Don’t Start Yet.

Wait. Do something else with your time and skillset that doesn’t require a large sum of money. This is very obvious, yes, but it needs to be said. You don’t have to hit a home run your first time up at the plate. Get a couple of singles, maybe a double, and gain some confidence.

Option 2: If It’s Not Working, Do Something Different.

We all have these plans, sometimes they work, sometimes not so much. What do you do when the Universe says, “Nope, this ain’t happening?” Get frustrated and start beating yourself up? No. Just try it another way the next time.

 

Learn To Be Flexible With Your Plans

There are people who will wait until they think a plan is totally perfect and seemingly solid before they take any action. These are the types that get easily frazzled and distracted when that rock-solid plan starts showing some cracks. You have to be flexible and ready to accept that maybe you need to try something else. Flexibility is the keyword here.

There are always means toward starting something. You don’t have to have the ultimate plan right away. Start where you can, where you are, and with what you have. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, one of the first rules of financing is: You don’t need the financing! Change the way you’re going about it.

Common Sources Of Creative Financing

The more common sources of financing are things like bank loans. You could also find someone with collateral who would be willing to co-sign a loan as this is another standard method that tends to be forgotten. Most people started their finance history with a co-signed loan, whether it’s school, their first car, or first credit card. This is another reminder to keep good relations with those closest to you.

Private lending parties are another option, or partnering with someone who has the collateral. The easiest way to get money is home equity. When you have some equity in your home or something else that they can take, getting money is usually not a big problem.

But, now let’s talk about something that can change the whole way you do business. This is going back to the basics of business, which is buying and selling. Only you reverse the order. Pre-sell your product or services before you have to buy or deliver it.

Generate Cash Flow

I have never had a problem with cash flow in my life because I insist on doing this before and during the enterprise. This isn’t just for initial financing, but as an ongoing rule of business. Think about it and ask yourself, “Why should I pay for the product? If you want it, you pay for it.”

The customer is just paying for the product a little early. The typical mentality of business is that people want to see the product before they buy it, even though they’re not really seeing anything except the product’s packaging most of the time

Remember: the mind of a millionaire can’t think like everyone else.

Who says the money can’t come until the customer gets their product? People pre-order things all the time. The key is to create or take advantage of a demand, or even a perceived demand. That’s where marketing comes into play, which if done effectively can be much cheaper than actual production.

By reversing the buy/sell order, you also cut down on carrying costs. Let’s not forget the risks you cut down on by not over-producing and then not selling. Instead, sell to a high volume buyer from a sample or a prototype. For goodness sakes: don’t produce 1,000 or 10,000 of something and then try to sell it! Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But that’s exactly what a lot of people do, people who aren’t in business anymore.

Make that shift now! People don’t have to see the finished product. Some people will insist on it. Great! You insist, too.

See? You can jumpstart an enterprise with a little creative financing and thinking! It doesn’t have to cost you an arm, leg, or mortgage.

Now it’s your turn! Do you have any tips you’ve discovered along the way for creative financing? Share in the comment box below!

The Power Of Timing: Understand Ground-Floor Opportunity

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We’ve all heard the saying “Timing is everything,” but what exactly does that mean? Is it luck coincidentally taking advantage of a situation that happens to present itself? In business, knowing the best time to make a move is a skill. Learn more about the power of timing through the ground-floor opportunity approach.

Why Timing Is So Important In Business

The power of intuition can never be underestimated, and instinct can only help in getting your timing right. Good timing isn’t always just about being in the right place at the right time, though. It’s also a skill that can be learned, and at times it just takes a little present moment awareness. It can be as simple as persuading someone by listening to them first and presenting your case later.

In business, good timing means matching your product or service to the wants and needs of the current marketplace. It requires the right place and the right time. Think of it this way, business ideas and opportunities are like cars. You have your NASCAR speed demons, and you have your beat-ups that make you worry whether or not they’ll get you where you need to be.

If you’re trying to make money fast, are you trying to create your riches with a race car or a jalopy? In other words, if you don’t have a concept or at least one product or service that’s super hot right now, your chances of creating wealth in your business quickly diminish.

The Ground-Floor Opportunity

Unfortunately, most people hop on a trend when it’s already too late. On the other hand, being too early is no better. You have to learn how to gauge and time the market. You have to know when to get in and when to get out!

Your intention must be to get in on a “ground-floor opportunity”, meaning demand is high and supply is low. That’s when the elevator is going up. When supply overtakes demand, it’s time to get off the hell off!

There are a couple ways to take advantage of ground-floor opportunities:

  • Copy someone who is making a mint 
  • The Piggyback technique

By copying someone else, you can do the same thing they’re doing and improve upon it. Use the original as a proven blueprint to success.

The Piggyback technique is a way for you to affiliate with someone or something that’s already a winner. It brings new meaning to the phrase “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” It’s often faster and easier to affiliate with a company that’s already up and running rather than to start from scratch. Why reinvent the wheel? They may have exclusive products or a major distribution network in place, rare technology, or expensive production facilities already established.

Exercise: Find A Ground-Floor Opportunity

Can you think of an easier way to “get rich quick” than to have the rights to a hot, highly-in-demand product, and then market the hell out of it? Timing is everything. If you choose the right product at the right time, your road to wealth will be decidedly faster and easier!

What product or service can you sell and market that is in demand currently? Please share your examples in the comments!

This article has been updated for relevancy and accuracy. It’s original publish date was 05/07/10.

How to Leverage Yourself: Work Smarter Not Harder

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You can’t be in more than one place at a time. Physically speaking, it’s impossible, yes? Let’s think outside the box a little bit so you can learn how to leverage yourself in order to have a real financial impact.

Leveraging Yourself for Financial Success

A lot of you are familiar with the concept of leveraging yourself, yet I often find that many people out there don’t fully appreciate the importance of leveraging. It’s one of those terms that get bandied about in the business world so often that people take it for granted, one of those “Here we go again” terms. Yet, a huge part of financial success building is leveraging.

It simply means doing more with less. The idea is to work smarter not harder, get more done and deliver more value. You know you’re leveraging to the maximum when you’re away from the things you don’t enjoy and are doing what you really love to do. That means you’ve changed your blueprint about what’s available for you in your life, where you can be and how you play the game.

How does this apply to the average person?

You can start a business with little or none of your own money. It means delegating as many tasks as possible to others. It means using other people’s talents, skills, contacts, abilities and resources for mutual advantage. You’re good at whatever you do, but other people are better than you in other areas. Do what you’re good at and let others do the rest.

After you’ve gotten over the blueprint barrier, the next step is coming up with what will maximize your ability to leverage a talent, product, or idea. Can you create a book, program or a technology, and license it for royalties? That’s one of the easiest ways to generate easy, lucrative, passive income.

Using your resources

When it comes to leveraging, though, you’re not just maximizing other people’s skills and resources. You also want to get more out of yourself. That means enhancing your business knowledge and developing yourself personally. Be a constant learner. The best form of leveraging is self-education.

When you know certain things and develop yourself, you put that into action. If you’re not doing something with your skills, your knowledge becomes useless, it stagnates, and you start to feel bad about yourself. Who needs any more of that?

You vs. Your Health

If you really want to take it to the next level, leverage yourself by increasing your:

  • Health
  • Stamina
  • Energy
  • Anything business related

Get into shape. “I don’t have time” is an easy excuse. However, a person can think that they don’t have time to work out. Think about how much could get done when you have more energy to keep going instead of feeling fatigued and drained.

In general, leveraging means managing your time effectively. Less turns into more: more you, more money, and more of what you really want out of life.

Exercise: Think about what you could leverage and act on it.

  1. What’s that one thing that you know you should not be doing because it is not a good fit for your skills and time?
  2. How can you give it to someone else that is better suited to take it on?
  3. Act now to get your “leverage momentum” moving forward!

Has this post helped you to learn how to leverage yourself? Let us know in the comments section below!

Up Next: How To Be More Than Just Interesting With Your Marketing

This article has been updated for relevancy and accuracy. It’s original publish date was 03/26/10.

The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More (And Making More Money)

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When it comes to getting rich, most people pour their time, energy, and money into the wrong areas. Instead of focusing on the actions that will lead them down the path to becoming wealthy, unfortunately, they end up wasting their time and energy. If you haven’t been successful in what you want in life yet, chances are, you have done this, too.  

Become Wealthy By Following The 80/20 Principle

Maybe you’ve heard of the 80/20 rule before.

It’s the principle that states that 80 percent of your success is determined by only 20 percent of your actions. If you think about most areas of your life, this is probably true and some things just have more impact than others. True or true?

The same goes for business.

When it comes to having a successful business and getting rich, there is only one key element that’s more important than any other.

When it comes to having a successful business and getting rich, there is only one key element that’s more important than any other. Share on X

Whether you like it or not, it’s the part of your work that has the biggest impact on both your business and your life.

Would you like to know what it is?  

If so, watch the video below — a sneak peek of my free web class — to find out. You’ll also learn:

  • 00:20 — How I used to believe all parts of my business were equal and that each part deserved equal amounts of time, money, and effort
  • 00:41 — Why that belief left me constantly broke and struggling to make ends meet
  • 00:53 — How there are only three major parts to any business and what they are
  • 01:18 — The real secret to business success and how it will have the single biggest impact on your financial life
  • 02:17 — Why you should focus 80% of your business time, energy, money, and learning in this one particular area

Again what I covered in this video is counterintuitive. It’s not common knowledge nor is it common sense — but it works in the real world and that’s all that matters. True or true?

The fact is, if you don’t put your time and focus on marketing, you will always be working too hard AND earning too little.

So whether you like it or not, marketing will always have the single biggest impact on your business’ success, mediocrity or failure.

Which is a big, big problem…Why? Because unfortunately, most people are bad marketers.

But there is good news! You don’t need to know everything in marketing to succeed. You only need to know the right things. So to help you in this arena I created a FREE web class, called:

The 500 Million Dollar Secret


In this class, you’ll learn:

  • The most common AND deadly mistake that underachieving businesses make and how you can avoid it
  • How to get 10X more sales and make 10X more income from one slight change to your business model
  • The 10-letter word that will practically hypnotize your prospects and customers and make them fall in love with you
  • How to instantly eliminate all fear, doubt, and non-supportive beliefs around the word “selling”
  • And much, much MORE.

Friends, I can’t emphasize how important this free training will be for you and your business. Allow me to teach how you to approach marketing in a whole new way so you can reach the level of success where you’re finally working LESS and earning MORE!

Click here to register for my free class and select a date and time that works best for you.

Where do you put the majority of your focus on in your business or career? Leave a comment below.

For Your Freedom,

 

UP NEXT:

Discover The 4-Letter Word To Eliminate “Selling” Completely And Still Get Rich

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deliver Your True Value: Commit To Product Creation

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If you want to make money, you have to know your value so that you can deliver your true value fully. Keep reading for 4 income factors that will help you know your value and deliver it.

Follow These 4 Income Factors To Deliver Your True Value

Who wants to make more money? Better question: who doesn’t?

We’ve heard the phrase, “Money isn’t everything.” Of course it’s true, but … like it or not, money is a huge part of our lives. And a lot of people know it. Heck, they might think about it all the time, but they still don’t really understand it.

Quick: if I were to ask you to give me a definition of money, what would it be? “You buy stuff with it, Harv.” That’d be a fair enough answer.

Technically, money measures the value of goods and services exchanged between people; the key word being value.

 

Value is what determines how much money you’ll make. You will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the marketplace. And let’s be honest, folks: there are a lot of broke people out there because they don’t deliver a lot of value in the eyes of the current marketplace. That brings us to the other keyword here; deliver.

There are so many good ideas out there, and so many “reasons” why we’ve never heard of them. It’s simple . . . if you don’t deliver your true value, you won’t get paid a lot. Before we get to the science part of making money, we have to deal with simple and basic understandings.

These 4 income factors determine how much you’ll earn:

  • DEMAND: Offer a hot product or service that a lot of people want.
  • SUPPLY: To increase your value in business, you must provide something few others have, or do something in a way that no one else does.
  • QUALITY: How good your products and services are — and just as important — how good you are at your business. The higher the quality, in relation to the price, the higher the value.
  • QUANTITY: how much of your product or service you deliver.

Of all four factors, most people have the greatest difficulty with this last one. You can have an excellent product or service, and you may even deliver it to the market, but you could also not do it in enough quantities to create wealth. If you want to get paid, you have to deliver your true value to people. If you want to get rich, you must deliver your true value to a lot of people!

 

Here’s the thing; no matter what business you’re in, you have to sell a product, or better yet, products. A product increases your ability to deliver huge quantities. When you have a product to sell, there are no limits on how much you can produce and deliver, therefore, no limit to how much money you can make!

This is where I challenge would-be entrepreneurs, businessmen and women, dreamers, and anybody with a great idea. Stand up! Take actionable steps to at least find out if your idea could be viable. Research usually doesn’t cost much, if anything at all. Ask yourself:

  • What kind of demand is out there for your idea?
  • Is there any competition?
  • What further research do you need to do to make sure it’s a great product?
  • Are there someone else’s great products you could sell while negotiating a cut on that?

Demand, supply, quality and quantity are the cornerstones of value, and delivering massive value means being well on the way to wealth creation.

Exercise: Know Your Value and Deliver Your True Value

1. Have you had great success with an idea you turned into a product? If so, share your success here so others can learn from your actions.

2. If you don’t have a product, why not? What is stopping you from taking action and delivering your value? Share it here and someone else just might have great feedback for you to help you move forward.

This article has been updated for relevancy and accuracy. It’s original publish date was 02/19/10.

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