The
Quickest Way To Make Money On Earth©
By Martin ThomasThe Past
But lets back up a bit further before we go forward from the day Cassie’s mother died. I want to give you a bit of background and share with you my previous and current attitudes towards money and rapid wealth creation.
It’s new years eve, a few years earlier and we had just lost our son in a terrible drowning accident that was a never ending source of emotional pain. To lose an innocent child in such a tragic and mindless circumstance, you can’t imagine how it eats at you. The hollowness and emptiness you feel is only overshadowed by your overwhelming sense of regret and loss.
It had been 6 months since the accident and Cassie and I were coming to terms with it and beginning to think about living again.
We had been married for over 10 years and we knew each other very well. It was time to complete the grieving and allow ourselves some joy again. That new years eve, I told Cassie about a mobile “hose” franchise that we were going to invest in.
Over the years I had come to the realization that working for the rest of my life, in my job was just not going to cut it for us. I observed people doing things with their finances around me and I could see many smart people were taking risks so that the future could look a little brighter. Many got involved online and they ALWAYS did well out of it. It wasn’t obvious at the time to me, but the people that took the investment vehicle of an online business did exceptionally well.
This explains why I didn’t go in that direction also....it just didn’t occur to me. I was blind to the fact that everyone over the years who I watched getting well above my standard of living were doing it with an online endeavour and it never occurred to me to try it myself. It felt too complicated and boring to me. It seemed so cumbersome.
The work “seemed” excessive and that was after finishing your day job. The idea of prattling around with websites seemed like a waste of time. I was a putz with the computer anyway. Little did I know it was actually a complete and easy SNAP to make the type of money I sought working online! Just goes to show, you never know until you try.
Logical or not, that’s the reasoning behind why I got involved in a business I knew nothing about and injected over $48,000 of my own money and took out a loan against the equity in our previous home, just to get into mobile hydraulic hose fittings sales.
In hindsight, the sales pitch for this franchise made economical sense. The franchise dealer produced graphs and charts showing upward sloping trends in the hydraulic’s industry and it was true. Manufacturers were building vehicles of all sorts with more hydraulics and hosing in them. 20 years ago things like air conditioning and power steering in vehicles were a rare accessory.
They were the “up sell” that only some individuals ordered with their new car purchase. Today these “extra’s” are standard in every single vehicle. From small 4 cylinders to luxury saloons to large trucks and farming equipment.
They all had these accessories which were primarily run by hydraulics and hoses. These types of units break down easily due to operational vibration and if the clips and brass fittings aren’t replaced, then the equipment breaks down. In my mind, the franchise dealer made a very strong case and revealed a tremendous market waiting to be tapped. I had visions of owning 100 of these little vans with fit, friendly drivers who could be trained to do the simple jobs required to maintain the hydraulics equipment.
Mechanics didn’t generally like working on this stuff because the tools are specialized and they had to offer warranties on their work which made hydraulics maintenance a specialized field.
OK, enough justification for my gullible and stupid actions. FACT I knew nothing about this industry and was not very gifted in the mechanical sense. Second I based my decision solely on the recommendations of the person who stood to immediately profit from my decision to buy this franchise, the franchise consultant.
Third, the company that was selling these franchises was actually going broke itself and was using this method of revenue raising to soften its landing.
The crazy thing is I quit my job, put the family home on the line and took to manning the franchise van. I spent days doing nothing but reading the paper and wondering what I had done. When the dispatch radio did come to life, it sent me a short print out script with an address on it and a code which told me what type of job it was.
They were always “A6” which was the least paying most time consuming job that no other professional wanted because it just wasn’t worth the time to drive out. The payment was a poultry $12 which was less than the gas bill. I had made a huge mistake and it took me several months of this to realize it. We were living off the
loan we took out against the equity of our home and that was coming to an end. Something had to be done.
I sold the van and got some money for the hydraulics tools and the existing stock I had back to the company (for next to nothing) then I got my old job back within 1 week of making the decision.
All totalled, I lost $28,000 I wont say who the company are because they are still in business today and marketing heavily. I don’t know if they turned things around for themselves, but they are still in business surprisingly.
This experience is one of many such experiences that I have had trying to find a path to financial security.
My Experiences
The one thing that most of my small business attempts had in common was that I was of the quality school of business attempts gone wrong. I believed quite foolishly, that you get what you pay for.
Like a good consumer, I liked to and wanted to pay well for my business attempts. I believed that my success was much more likely the more the business costed me going in. This attitude served me well as a consumer as I always prefered paying a little more and getting the best rather than cutting corners and buying inferior products and services. I applied this same concept to businesses.
Hayden’s book is diametrically opposed to this faulty idea of mine and I see now why I lost so much money, so many times. In actual fact, I should have been as cheap as possible about setting up a business idea because negating risk is a top priority when setting up a new business. The LESS it costs you the better!
Over the years, I dragged my poor wife to more seminars and put her through more conversations about the latest book or tape set that I bought that I wonder how she is still with me. But when I get motivated about something, its kind of infectious and I have a certain way of communicating enthusiasm that can make others enthusiastic too.
I had tried many things over the years before I finally made my money primarily with my online businesses. These attempts are a world apart from how money is actually is made. I know now what I failed to grasp then, that money is numerical in nature and can be
exponentially grown with a simple system of ideas.
More on that soon, but my past is littered with failed attempts at making real money. Lasting money, money that will be with me for life, an outstanding amount of money that squarely puts me in the position of being wealthy.
When I was younger and before I was married I got heavily involved with multi-level-marketing. A self feeding system where the people you recruit become your customers. The “rah-rah” sessions keep you believing while you waste time trying to push cheap imported product at astronomical prices. All I can say about mlm, is that it's the quickest way to alienate yourself from your friends and family imagineable. If you want to get rid of somebody you value in your life, just try and recruit them into one of these schemes.
It’s the “rah-rah” sessions that really sucker you in. The social environment is fun and you feel accepted and liked by “positive” people. The dynamic is the same as the guru type cults that you hear about. People that are vulnerable socially make great candidates and being single and lonely at the time, I liked being surrounded by “positive” motivated women.
Its a utopian environment except for one small thing. Nobody really makes any money. The only ones that do are right at the top. The originators of the scheme and perhaps a few their cronies, but the majority spend their time kidding themselves until they finally wake up.
That’s been my experience anyway. It’s this “positive” attitude that keeps feeding you and the promise of a fortune that will just keep coming from your downline that really suckers people in. The idea of a passive cash flow appeals to many people. I personally don’t believe passive income exists except for bank interest rates and maybe in the automated/systemized world of online business. In these environments, a steady stream of cash does come “passively” without you having to lift a finger ever again. But the truth is you need enormous amounts of money to begin with to get useable returns with a bank deposit. A useable return is one that will replace a day job wage. That is what I consider to be useable.
To get that sort of money, $1000,000 or more, you are not going to get it from a cash flow proposition. If banks and real estate rent roll’s will give you a steady and very reliable 7% (roughly speaking) then where do you get the money you need in the first place? On a capital account of $1 million dollars, 7% translates into $70,000 or about $1400 per week. Most people could live quite comfortable on $1400 per week. You are definitely not rich. An income of $1400 per week would mean you are on a typical income with a typical middle class lifestyle, but you are not rich. The big difference is that you don’t have to physically labor to get this income. It comes from the $1 million dollars you have in your bank account or the $1 million dollars of real estate you own. You could say you are rich because you have the million dollars but if you spent it, then you will lose your income. So in actual fact at the $1 million dollar level you are not rich, but rather just independently retired.
The real measure of wealth is to have money that you can apply to lifestyle. In other words, $5000 to $10,000 per week would be considered as wealthy. With that sort of income your lifestyle is well above the standard family. To get that sort of income you would need to be the owner of an outstanding amount of money. About $5 to $12 million.
With that amount of money in cash or assets that produce a return like Real Estate, then you could definitely call yourself rich because lifestyle is the true reflection of wealth.
But like me, I am sure you would agree, that just getting to that first level and becoming independently retired and never having to work again would be a great outcome in anybodies books.
Small Business Attempts
After I gave the multi-level-marketers my final “hoorah” I went back to working for a living. I was in sales and went back to the industry I had some reasonable experience in. The insurance business is very broad and there are many opportunities for young people in this business. I took those opportunities and did OK I guess but not more than a year into my working life I had established a line of business credit and began thinking about quitting my job and setting something up for myself again.
I had been servicing a group of small car lots in my territory selling them wholesale warranties that they could offer their customers at a profit. These warranties were about as valuable as a piece of blank paper and I was disgusted with the product and the company I worked for. They were ripping people off and to support myself I was forced to peddle these useless warranties so buyers of used cars could feel a little secure. However, if the car did break down, there was so much fine print that nobody ever read, that meant they would have to pay for the repair themselves. It was pretty unpalatable from my perspective and I hated it.
I was ready to toss my service pack at my boss and walk out for good. I would run my own ethical business and I chose to become a car dealer principle.
I arranged the finance to make a purchase of a small group of 20 cheap cars from the auctions my contacts introduced me to and I set up an old lot that had been vacant for months. It was on a busy highway so by my estimation if my marketing was looking good I would get the exposure I’d need to succeed in this new business venture.
I lasted exactly 14 months before I closed the doors on that business. To stay competitive, my margins had to be extremely thin. This suited my ethical needs and I was happy to continue because at least I felt I was offering value to my customers. To say I was discouraged after a few months would be an understatement.
When you are not making money for your time and efforts, there is a genuine difficulty that can’t be explained. A certain stigma of failure that is just unbearable. Maybe its the fight or flight response but anxiety began to be a problem for me. I had to get out or risk my health so I did.
My only regret is that I had to let go of my loyal staff of two who were a wonderful married couple that took to me when I first opened the yard and stayed with me the whole time. So the phones were answered professionally and the vehicles were serviced by a good mechanic. But to tell the truth, when I finally closed the doors and returned the key, I was relieved.
Years went by and I tried my hand at owning a coffee shop that had no real customer base. I had some experience with the cabinet making industry through my job as the sales manager for a different insurance company. This led to another business attempt. I opened a very attractive and expensive kitchen showroom with 7 custom built kitchens on display. This was very expensive to set up and I was under that debt for several years after that one.
I was beginning to get a little discouraged. I was getting older and my attitudes were less optimistic. I could see businesses all around me that looked like they were successful, but my attempts seemed to be futile. I started to think more laterally about my approach. I began to really seek out knowledge. I replaced the impetuousness of youth with the absent minded hopefulness of maturity.
I stayed in my job this time, but sought to learn what others know as obviously I was missing something and there were people out there offering to teach me what I don’t know. They advertised in “opp magazines” and promised all sorts of things. Most of them were not credible to me, when I was young and full of hope, I dismissed these “opps” and I felt they were a scam of some sort so I never really got interested. But now it was changing, after my experiences, I started to think maybe I was really missing something and I could buy that knowledge and apply it.
I began attending seminars and collecting books and tapes on diverse topics. These people are good. Some better than others but I always learned something. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for but felt the investment in my education was more then necessary by this point.
It became urgent the day I met my soon to be wife Cassie and I really wanted to give her a good life. This meant that my learning activities were ramped up. I really wanted to be somebody special to her and I wanted to get something going that proved I was worth her trust.
But with all the best intentions, nothing really gelled or made sense to me on a fundamental level. There was nothing that really gave me what I wanted. The truth. The facts. There was a result I was looking for and that result was sustainable and rapid wealth. For this, I would have done what it takes. Short of breaking the law or
offending my own ethical standards, I would have given of myself totally to the task if I found the right path.
click>>> Next Chapter - How I turned it all around!
CopyRight Martin Thomas 2008 (c) EasyCorporateMoney.com - All rights reserved
No statements contained in this book constitute legal or business advice and you should consult a competent legal or accounting professional before making any investment decisions