Need and Wants: Do a small market research and then deliver what the people want

Doing market research is a good way of saving cash in any business endeavour. Many of you may have heard me bash “market research” a little and sometimes a lot. But I have done that mainly because I do my market research a lot differently than many other entrepreneurs. They say Richard Branson discusses stuff with people when he meets them. Asking them about their opinions etc. That is one way of doing market research that I usually follow as well. I don’t know if that is because I am lazy or if I am just consciously a cheapskate. But it seems to work pretty well for me.

You can start by asking you friends what they need help with. Then ask them if they would pay you for helping them with it. If the answer is yes, then ask them how much they would be willing to pay. Then it is up to you to find a way to make it a feasible businessplan (be able to deliver value and at the same time profit from doing so). If you can’t find a way to make ends meet, dump it. Ask them if there is something else they would need help with and if and how much they would pay you for delivering it to them. Then make a new research study. Doing things this way you will find something to build a little business on.

Everything is a question of viral expansion from there. You ask your friends if they would be happy to refer some of their other friends and family to you for the same service and price. If they say yes, you will expand. Make it a habit to expand as cheaply as possible. They call this bootstrapping. I love the method, because it speaks to my lazyness and cheapskate mindset:). Often bootstrapping is the only method you will be able to use when starting out, because investors usually want to see revenue and profit before they invest in you. They also want to see how smart you are with money management (I can sympathize with that).

Many people think you need to work harder doing it “bootstrapping style”. Somewhat yes, but if you make things happen quickly it will not be hard work for long. Count less than a month if you can make people refer you to more business. The faster your reach more customers the sooner you can hire people and then license the concept/trademark etc and prove it is worth something for others to be involved in. And then it is easy peasy. It is all about collecting the money and keeping the licensees (and employees) happy from there on in. From there on in, the licensees (and employees) are your direct customer. Make it a habit to do monthly market research against your licensees (and employees) and make them as happy as possible (you will all gain on it). Deliver what they want. Support them.

This method builds upon the famous idea of “if it works on a small scale it will probably work equally as well on a big scale. As long as you can scale it well”.

So let us take an example:

Your mother wants someone to take out the garbage, because she is so occupied with cleaning the house. You offer to help her and ask her if she would be willing to pay you money for helping her taking out the garbage. She says yes. You then ask her “how much would you be willing to pay me for helping you take out the garbage once every week?”. She says $10 per week.

So you think to yourself, can I hire someone to do this for less than $10 a week? For me, It would be tricky, because I have a rule that says “I need to recieve 10 times my money input”. So if I get paid $10, then I would only be willing to pay someone else $1 to do it. That creates a dilemma as you might imagine. Not when it comes to a lot of money, but $1 is close to slave salary;). But you could always hire your little brother to do this for you. Or maybe you could import a chinese guy, I don’t know.

Anyhow, it all comes down to how you compensate and how many households your employe can do every hour. If you pay someone $10 an hour then he has to be able to do at least 10 households in an hour for it be lucrative for me to have him on the force. With me? So if there are less than 10 households to be done, it would probably be better for you do it yourself or find someone who would be willing to work on a minute-by-minute based salary or whatever (that would be something:)). Project based so to speak.

My answer would be: This may be a feasible business model if you could start it up yourself, with your own brute force input (sweat equity). But in order to scale it you would have to ask your mother to refer more places where you could help take out the garbage. You could do some extra research and see if these mothers would be willing to sign a long term contract with you, say 12 month contract (a simple contract, nothing fancy) and then let you come by and take out the garbage 4 times a month. At the same time you collect the $10 every week and you write a receipt for the mothers to store and one receipt for your own records.

You then create a brand and then you find likeminded licensees who would like to do what you do in their neighboorhods and pay you a fixed fee once every year. Nothing big. But let us say $100 a year. They pay you when signing the licensing agreement and then they pay you every year at a certain date. The licensing agreement could be something simple. Something you could create yourself. Maybe something like “Mathias, the owner of the trademark XX Garbage Can will license the brand name and it’s underlying concept to Mr Mark Cuban. Mark Cuban will pay Mathias $100 at signing of this document and then $100 every 31st of December during the interval period of 2009 until 2015. At year 2015, this agreement will be void unless renewed by both parties”. Nothing fancy, but practical and functional enough.

Doing market research is something we will all have to do, but you don’t have to create this mega monster market study that costs you a fortune. Just ask your family. You will have a business right there. It might not be any fancy business or any kind of Facebook or any kind of other cool business that gets mentioned in the Fortune magazine or whatever. But it will be a business created with very little money and will be funded almost from day one. With customers money.

For all of you homeless people: this is how you survive and take yourself up from the streets. Ask people what you can help them with in exchange for money. Ask them what they want and what they will pay you if you deliver to them. Then do it. Save 30% of the money for further investments and employ others to help you expand. Take referals, always. Have people spread the word about you.

I mean, I could tell you one thing about my sister. She used to ask me to babysit here newborn little kid, her son Jonas. And she paid me a little bit of money for doing so. Nothing much at all, say $10-$20 every time I did it. If I wanted to, I could have taken on her friends cute little kids as well and baby sitted them all in one sitting and have made a pretty amount of cash. No million dollars by any means, but still cash in the hand for doing a little bit of work. I could have done what I mentioned above about taking out the garbage for moms. Expanded with the same expansion idea. Easy.

The easiest way to sell something is by letting the customers suggest what they want to buy and at what price and then deliver it to them at that price (if practicly possible). I mean, you can’t find any easier sale ever. The customer actually sells you on the idea:).

I can tell you about one other thing I saw a couple of days ago (2-3 days ago). One guy had posted about a website he wanted someone to program for him. It was a lot of programming involved and I knew my brother was a systems engineer (IT) and that he could do these things in his sleep. So I contacted this fellow and asked what he wanted help with more specifically and what he wanted to pay for having it done for him. I am still waiting for an answer, but this method is a great way of letting the customer present the case and what he think this kind of service is worth and then it is up to me, the entrepreneur, to find a way of delivering the service and make a profit.

So let us say this fellow decides he is willing to pay a project based compensation. He is willing to pay, say, $10,000 for it all. If I am to get my brother involved in this I know I would only be able to pay him $1000 in total for the whole workload (because of my $10 in return for every dollar invested). Will he take it:)? Maybe, maybe not. I have a feeling he will. It’s extra cash, on top of his already existing salary. An extra $1000 is always and extra $1000. I know my brother and understands his thought process so I am certain he will take it on if he thinks he can do it. All the rest is mine to keep, minus 30% taxes (swedish tax percentage for sales income and capital gains).

All of you: send me your own startup examples. And by any means: what would you be willing to pay me for having your company URL’s noted on this blog? Nothing? OK:). $1? Fine. $1000? Perfect. Just give me a hint of where we are at. Any given bid are considered and every startup example will absolutly be read and also considered for showcasing, but I don’t guarantee I will accept the bid you give me nor publishing any startup examples. I will take the freedom to chose which startup example to showcase.

And never forget that you are a big reason why I write this blog so please, don’t be shy about comments. Rude comments are banned however, but well thought out ideas and suggestions are showcased. We are soon coming up for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. So, what can you do business wise right now to make money from these crazy days? What can you help others with and what will they pay you if you do? Make it a mission to ask people what they want and what they will pay you for delivering it to them. And then get busy.

See you next Saturday.

Starting a company in a recession is not what it is cracked up to be

There is a hugh crowd following the advice that it is a whole lot better starting a startup in a recession than in good times. I disagree strongly. The only way you will gain anything in a recession is while being the cheapest guy in town, because only a select few people will have the purchasing power needed to buy something new and flashy. Few can afford quality items in a recession.

The best time to start a startup is in good times, when a lot of people are employed and they have money to burn and they have room in their budget to borrow money so that they can purchase big ticket items. That is when you should start a company, ideally.

I remember 3-4 years ago when I started importing mp4/mp3 players to Sweden (from China). Me and my business partner sold for $35,000 a month. That was not a typo. That is what we sold for in general each month. I wouldn’t be able to reach that same income now in these recessional times. Not a chance. I would be lucky if I sold 10% of that amount today. If I sold to the same mass crowd I did back then, that is.

They tend to say that in bad times you see who is really an entrepreneur. I say, in bad times you see those who are good at math. In recessional times like today you have to become savvy with numbers. In good times you can sell any kind of crap, because people have money to burn and they don’t really look at the price ticket. These days, all they do is look at who is the cheapest supplier. If you are the most expensive choice you are out of the game. If you sell to the mass/average affluent.

The only way to survive recessional times with an expensive, but quality, product is by selling to the cash rich people. The wealthy/super wealthy, rather than the masses. That is the only hope you have. If you fail in selling to the wealthy, then you better start becoming cheap and be very good at it. Or you are bankrupt pretty soon. That is the reality now.

But once again: Saying that it is better starting a company in a recession than in good times is just nuts as far as I can see. Why would you start a company in bad times in the first place unless you where forced to do it? Don’t you think it is better starting a company in times where customers throw money freely at you, when investors throw money freely at you etc? I think so. Why make life harder than it has to be?

Take my advice: Start a company when people spend money like there was no tomorrow. We are heading towards that Nirvana right now (business follow cycles as you surely know. We now go from bad to better again). Believe me, it will change to the better and when it does: milk the market as much as you can and store the money for times like these. You can thank me later.

Lastly, in business you have to think like those famous farmers they talk about on the internet (Robert Kiyosaki discussed the difference between a milker and a slaughterer for example). Sow, nurture and harvest and live of the harvest during the winter and until Spring comes along again. Do the same with your business.

If you sell to the average rich (the mass affluent) you have to understand the sowing, nurturing and harvest process very well. You sell things expensively in good times and lower the price and increase credit while things are going bad. Or you change buying crowd entirely (from broke to richer) and collect more money by default.

You want rich customers who don’t look at the price ticket as a rule. Sell to those people who buy because they like your product more than they like your cheapness. I have said all this before and it is always worth repeating. Repeated information becomes truth as you may know, that is why schools use the process of repetition. Because it works.

Ok, next Saturday I will continue on with a “supply and demand” inspired post. It is somewhat a continuation of the post I wrote last Saturday on how to create business ideas. So stay tuned and as always comment and ask me about startup related things and I may bring your question up in the near future and answer it. And also, if you like my blog and what I write here, then don’t be shy to bring in friends and family as well. It is all free after all. Spread the love people;).

How do I generate ideas?

I was positively surprised when I recieved a comment from a guy named
Robert. He asked:

“I would like to read something about business idea generation. How do you find your ideas for a new product or a new business?”

First of all you do a mini market study. Many companies do big scale market studies that cost a lot of money. I prefer asking my family and friends and expand from there. More about this in a coming post. Stay tuned. In short: you need to know what to solve first of all, potential customers decide this mostly. Then you come up with the solution.

The best way of coming up with new ideas is by testing scenarios. For example “What happens if we remove this and that?” or “what happens if we fill this and that with x amounts of this and that?” etc.

You experiment and you basicly act as a crazy professor. Testing many things in different ways to come up with something that hasn’t really been considered before.

For example:
An orange is usually the size of a baseball. More or less. What would happen if we made the same orange as big as a fotball or as little as a winegrape? What would happen to taste? What would happen to smell? What would happen to nutritional values? etc.

You play with scenarios all day long. That is what makes you stand out and that is what makes you able to charge higher prices than competitors. The value differential is obviously hugh between a normal orange and an orange with the size of a fotball. We can’t deny that, can we? What is odd sells. And what is odd usually sells for a higher price and probably with a much higher profit margin per sold unit as well, because it is so unique. As long as there is a demand for it as well. If you have no demand, then it doesn’t matter how much of something you have in supply. You need both variables to produce a price point (supply and demand). But if you have very little supply in relation to a much higher demand, then prices can soar very high in deed. You all know this I am sure, this is what you learn first of all in business.

Everyone can do this, but few will because they can’t stand going into the mood that it requires to be creative. I don’t think I have to tell you that creative people are scorned for being cooky. So few will engage in this enjoyment, but those who do will have a blast. I mean, why not do this? Playing around, experimenting and then sell it for cash and make a fat profit margin? It is common sense, why compete on price when you can compete on value? And value lays in the oddity combined with a high demand.

Get people involved

You will hear phrases like “don’t bring in partners, it can destroy you” and “It is always better to do it on your own”. I strongly disagree to both of them. I like to bring in partners because it drasticly improves my success rate as an entrepreneur. I will tell you why.

When you bring in more and more owners you will not be alone anymore. Being alone, one guy, in business is utterly stupid. You will be eaten alive by those who want you out of their hair. They will crush you dead easy by spreading bad rumours about you and what can you really do about it? Unless you are already rich and have a good and well regarded reputation and can hire fancy lawyers and use your good name to convince clients and potential clients that the bad rumours are just hogwash. If you are starting out in business you are highly likely near broke and probably the least trustworthy guy in the room because of your lack of experience of running a business.

But, if you bring in more owners in your business. If you own the IP rights to the idea you had in mind and if you have proved on a micro scale that you have sold some of these products/services you want to construct a mega corporation around, then you can bring in other owners (you have the evidence that commercial interest exist. You just have to scale it from there). Let these owners work with you to bring on board the best of the best in regards to Directors and Officers and of you go.

The more people that are involved as owners in your creation, the more probable your success will be. These other owners will bloody well make sure of it, because they don’t want to lose their stake in the company. No way in hell they will allow that. So everyone you bring into your little world will help you become rich much faster. Maybe rich beyond reasonable measures. You will all be in the boat together. Success or not. That is a good thing to strive for. Make it a habit.

Three questions to all of you

What do you want to read? What have I missed that you would like me to mention or develop further?

Do you have a story of your own that relates to startups? If yes, send it to me and let me look at it. Maybe I will post it on the blog for all to see. Make yourself heard.

This will be it for this week (unless I recieve something interesting to post). I am empty on stories so help me out with some inspiration.

As usual: comment on this post and I will recieve your email at the same time. I will email you back, I promise. And you can send me your written story via email.

This will be sort of a test to see if this blog is worth my time. If you think it is, then help me out:).

Want to show your own extreme startup success on this blog?

Anyone who wants to tell about their own startup success story? If yes, these are the criterias to be covered:

- The startup story has to be a “rags to riches” version. Start from scratch with more or less no money of your own and no real connections.
- Showing how you moved from a despaired state to a prosperous state.
- A little bit about how you coup today.

Comment on this blog and I will email you at the emailadress you give me (only I can see the email adress. No one else).

My idea is to start covering stories from you guys from November 28th 2009 and onwards a few weeks. So if you want to tell your story, please send it in pronto:). When I have 9-10 stories I find interesting the gates are closed.

Proving Your Concept

I am sure you have all heard about that little something called “Proof of Concept”. “Proof of Concept” is the way you get investors to even look at you. Without it investors will think you are a nutcase. Fair and simple. Don’t believe me? Prove me wrong:).

In business you can have the coolest gadget available. It doesn’t matter. If that cool gadget is not making money, then you will be the only one thinking it’s cool and perhaps a million other people who will not pay for using it. If you don’t get paid giving stuff to others, then why do it in the first place? Unless your mission is more of a generous nature (Philantrophy in short). Then it makes sense.

So let us take an example in order to demonstrate this in a clear way. Abstract discussions have not helped many. Maybe confused them, but never helped any.

Let us say you have this stone I mentioned last week. Let us then do a little mini research of the stone market. We will see that we have many stones all around the world. Probably many stones that looks just like yours. AND they are all free to pick up by anyone. So how the hell do you make this thing a monetary success? Given up yet? No? Well, if you are still with me, I guess you have some hope going for you. If not, to bad. Wish you well in life.

Let us think a bit here. What is the first thing you do if you are trying to sell something everyone else is selling? What do you do when you have a commodity type of product so to speak? Well, you create a better offer than the other guys. Remember the agreement for the stone I mentioned last week? Let us go into more detail regarding that.

Let us say that the other stone salesmen give their customers free stones. How can you compete with that? Well you give people the same stone, but with better quality attached to the stone. Being cheapest in town is bad and can easily be competed against if you offer better service or better terms or better additional items to go with it. Your competition may say “we don’t charge for stones that you can get for free in the nature”. Well, we can say “we charge for this stone because this or that person has touched it”. Can you spell “celebrity power”?

You can rent this little stone out for a lot of money if you can prove that, say, Michael Jackson or any other big hot shot celebrity has held this stone in their very hands. It’s up to you to have this occasion documented. You remember me mentioning last week that you could rent this boring little stone out for a lot of money with the right marketing offer? Well you could. And the best part is, the celebrity doesn’t have to cost you any money if you play it smart. Why not go on the red carpet and charm your way to a picture taken with you and the celebrity AND the stone? Have the celebrity sign it. Sure, the celebrity might consider you an odd guy/gal. But if it get’s you the money then why not?

Just think about it: You find a normal sized stone in the woods that you could fit in your hand. You go find a elebrity on a red carpet somewhere and you present yourself to this hot shot celebrity with a charm and innocently ask for an autograph and a picture with you and her/him.

Then just go back, find yourself som scouts and braggers who brag about your celebrity stone and the possibility for people to come and hold the very stone that this hot shot celebrity has held and actually signed their name on. Charge a couple of hundred bucks per session and you can make money hand over fist with a simple little boring grey stone.

It is all about proving the concept, people. And there are so many ways of making money with more or less garbage things. IF you are clever that is. Fantasy and oddity shall not be under-estimated. Oddity sells, people. Oddity sells. Make it your mantra. Don’t believe me? Look at American Idol or any other strange program and you will see how fanatic we are about odd occurrences. We love’em.

So when the other dumb fucks give away their stones just because “people can find those stones for free in the forrest” or whatever, you guys are making millions on a simple little rock with celebrity status.

I have said this before and I will tell you this again. Never compete on price, why compete on price when you can compete on oddity? And, in the process, become much more financially solid than your competitors who can’t think rationally. Lowering your prices in order to beat the other guys is not a rational business decision. That is called business madness and the CEO who runs such a business should be shot immediately for being really dumb.

The whole idea of running a business is to make maximum profit. Tell me: how can you make maximum profit if you lower your revenues and hence lower your profits margins?

As Dan Kennedy said in one of his presentational material “Do you know how much more volume you have to sell when you lower your profits?”. Answer: “A hell of a lot more volume”. If that makes sense to you, then you need a medical examination. Because you are not healthy. Why increase risk by lowering prices and hence profit margins when you can increase price and increase profit margins? You don’t have to work that hard when selling things more expensively AND you can deliver much better VIP service. Quality in short. That is smart for everyone involved in a deal.

Proof of Concept is the idea about proving that something works. In business and in startups it is all about proving that a business idea can make revenue and ultimately profits as well. Without this phase you can hunt for investors all day long. Few will invest. You can spend that time making revenues directly instead and then let those horrible investors convince you why they should even be allowed to invest in your business.

Start simple, start a little mini business and let your friends scout for business and brag about your excellence. Never brag about yourself, it seldom produce good outcome. I know, I have done that mistake so many times that I can’t really remember the correct number. I still do that dumb mistake even today for some idiotic reason. Don’t ask me why, because I really don’t know why I do stuff that I know is stupid. But we all do it.

Whatever you do, minimize stupid behaviour and do the things that works. Having advocates who deals for you is the best route. Always will be. The reason is simple: You get better negotiating leverage if you let others brag about you. You can say “well, you came to me”. That is powerful. Try it out. It’s really nice stuff. Because negotiating power is essential if you are going to succeed. And this advice goes for everything in life. Even in love and especially in moments when you have to beg for sex from your girlfriend:). Girls have a great advantage over us guys for one reason: They don’t need sex as bad as us. Few girls are the opposite, “nymfomaniacs” that is.

Ponder this and have a nice day. See you next Saturday.

A spectacular offer too all you devouted readers

I want to grow a newletter for this blog. And I want to reach 10,000 readers in the coming 2 months. And I want to cut you in on the action.

I will create a newsletter that will send out not only the posts I make here on this blog every Saturday, but also special bonus offers that only newsletter readers will recieve. And I don’t mean silly offers that anyone can offer. I mean bonuses that can actually make you money. Making you richer. I will cut you in on my deals. Exotic deals. Special deals that you seldom get to experience unless you start your own things. There will be no need for investing money. Just smart brains. I like smart people who can accomplish the seemingly impossible. If you are one of those wizards (or want to be), then you and I have a match. I give you the opportunity, you decide what to do with it and how to use it. See it as a way of training you in how the real business world works. What you read about in the newspapers or in books is seldom the way things work in the inner sanctum. It’s a lot of smart dealings and smart solutions. So if this is of interest to you, then help me with this thing first.

Those who succeed in giving me at least 2000 new readers in 30 days will recieve 1% of the ownership in one of my ventures. Free of charge. Just as a thank you for helping me reach higher. I believe in givng and taking. In business the rule is “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”.

This is how you can help me:

1. You write a comment to this post. Saying you are game, you are in. Be sure to give your email when filling in the comment fields. No one else will see your email adress, only me when I log into my blogger back office.
2. I will email you back telling you how to help me more in detail. There are certain steps for verification and so on that need to be considered so that we both benefit from each other. No point in doing this otherwise.

Take care and don’t be shy. Send those comments. We win by being bold.

The one thing that runs this world except people

This world is run by people foremost, but there is one thing that governs how these people run things. That “thing” is agreements. What the agreement says is what goes. Or actually “the way people intepret agreements is what goes”.

Why discuss legal stuff? Because it is so important. If you are not skilled in writing and interpreting agreements, you will lose. You may not do business with sharp guys today, but you will someday do business with such guys. Perhaps not because you want to, but because you are actually forced to. Don’t believe you will fall into that situation? Think again.

Many entrepreneurs I have been in contact with has this naive view of business. They think everyone is nice and trustworthy. That it is all about the product and that it is all about the creative design. It is actually more about the agreements you strike with people and how you secure cashflow from those agreements than anything else. The product or service is just something to use to get to the dollar (a bargaining chip of you will). Always will be. Just as agreements is the “thing”, the same goes with your market offer. The market offer is actually much more important than the product you have. I mean you can have a simple piece of stone. On the face of it, it is a bloody stone. Nothing else. But then, involve smart agreements and that stone can suddenly become a million dollar asset. And the agreement you reach always stems from the market offer you can come up with for that ordinary stone.

Many entrepreneurs are so tone death to business that they can’t see this flow of melodies. Few of those who start out as tone death become skilled in hearing the music. But many of them do not.

What I want you to think about and actually practice after reading this post is the following:

Find something. Find anything. It can be any kind of crap you can find. Then look at it, create a smart market offer for it. Then create an agreement for that crappy shit you have and find someone to sign that agreement of yours. Then collect the money. Ask any professional marketer and he will tell you that you can promote most things with a compelling offer. The offer sells, the product/service just comes along most of the time. I have seen one guy on TV who lives in New York and he fills these transparent boxes with litter from the streets of New York City and sells them online. He sells garbage at a premium. I mean, come on. If he can sell crap for a lot of money, then you can sell a stone or even rent it out. Right:)? We all can do that.

Now that I think about it, and I am pretty sure that all of you business junkies out there can relate as well, many big investment banks and big corporations usually buy their big clients some drinks at strip clubs and what have you and then have them sign their agreement while they are intoxicated. I know, ugly stuff. But I mean, that is how business is conducted in the real world. In the fantasy world many internet guys live in this notion that everything is fair and nice and I think they are foremost cheating themselfs on how the reality really looks like and they also cheat those who follow them. I just wonder how they even survive with their strange fantasy ideas. I really don’t get it. I wouldn’t survive a day if I was that unaware of the reality. I really wouldn’t. I learnt my stuff on the “street” as they say. I don’t have an MBA and never will have one. Why would I want to have such a crappy paper in my drawer when I know how to survive without it? It would only be a waste of precious time. In the time those people study for that MBA they could have made their first $10 Million. And they would be saner as well.

Yes, I have something against MBA guys. I think they have a screw loose. If some of you readers have an MBA and you read this and don’t have any hugh trouble accepting my truth, then more power to you. I consider you one of the smart MBA guys;). I really do. What you need to know is that there is a big gap between what the books tells you and what reality really looks like and I hope you are aware of that. If not, you will certainly find out sooner or later. It’s a bad wolf world out there and the sharp ones are the ones that will win. Fair or not.

If you would even use a fraction of all that MBA crap in the real “street” world you would be very dissapointed and very hungry. If you start from scratch and you are in debt as I was, then you have no options but to play to win. And you win by being clever and sharp with those papers called agreements and you play it to the hilt. But always inside the law. If you play outside the law, then bu-hu for you. Hope you enjoy the orange suits in jail. Unless you get away with it. If that is the case, then try doing it legally next time so you can sleep like a baby as well. No need to break any laws. I mean laws usually have such big loopholes in them that I don’t really understand why anyone would willingly break them.

What I talk about here has nothing to do with being criminal. Far from it. You do things that reach the goals, but you never break the laws. That is counter-productive no matter how you look at it.

If the agreement says” This and this is the deal”, then those things are the play rules between you and the other party. After that it is all about gaining as much as possible from that agreement by interpreting it in a way that is most satisfactory to the goals you have set out for yourself and your company. You can be sure the other players will do this as well. Why wouldn’t they, unless they are brain dead or something. Play inside the rules, but do it cleverly. Use your brain, that is, after all, your best asset. That goes in anything in life.

You may have heard lawyers say “that agreement has so many loopholes in it that you can drive a big school bus through it”? Well that is a lawyers way of saying, you are screwed unless you become very sharp and exploit what you can exploit. Be sharp about the creation phase of the agreement. Before you sign, find every way of getting out of the deal lawfully. Find every loophole you can think of so you know how to hide and how to play the other party for as much gain as possible. Once again, play lawfully. No need to break rules.

I usually have a motto that goes something like this “Rules and regulations are there to be used cleverly by you”. And it’s true. Capitalists, I mean true capitalists, not socialists posing as capitalists (there are plenty of those morons around), always try to outsmart the system with legal means. Ask any true capitalistic soul and he will tell you ultimately that business is a game. It’s like Monopoly. A true capitalits looks at most obstacles as challenges to be overcome. They find the rule book and beat it or end up owning it or whatever. He uses the system against itself and gains. And such acts should be encouraged. They should really teach school children this. Teach them how to have the employer give the best deal or beat the employer with his own cleverly constructed employee agreement:). If the school taught these things, then we wouldn’t see so many jobless people we do see today and will continue to see tomorrow. I would be willing to guarantee it. The reason so many people work for capitalists or the goverment is not because they always want to. Many times it is because they have no other options. Or they can’t see these options themselfs due to lack of understanding of agreements and how they could have these agreements work to their own benefit.

Just take those myriads of financial companies that exists today worldwide. There are so many rules and regulations in the financial sector and the reason is pretty simple, because there are so many capitalists daily trying to outsmart the system and also succeeds. Until the system creates additional rules and regulations. When the new rules and regulations are in place these capitalists will find new ways of circumventing the system legally and cleverly so as not to be tied down in the same mold as everyone else. By now you should know that you have to create a competitive vaccuum for yourself. You need to operate in a vaccuum and let the competition work out a sweat inside the mold.

Agreements are the tools that can make you very rich fast and with relative ease. I can go around here ranting for a long time about this. As you may have noticed already. It is a subject that is very elastic and easy to discuss in eternity.

In it’s simplest form: Create an IOU, write that someone special is indebted to you, they owe you, say, $1 Million. Then let someone write their signature on it. Making a million bucks is not that hard really. It’s more the convincing part to have people sing that piece of paper that can be tricky. But once you have their indebtness on paper, be happy. Why not buy them a couple of drinks and have them sign it while being drunk;)? Just kidding, no hate mails needed.

The issue of startups and bad reputation

In this post I will discuss the issue of bad reputation and startup ventures. As you may know starting something new and especially starting something new AND controversial is coupled with big troubles most of the time. If you are controversial then be prepared to fight bad reputation or don’t fight it rather.

Why not fight it? I know by my own experience that fighting accusers seldom lead to a personal gain for yourself. It usually leads to you being attacked even more. It’s better to let it die out or get away from it in a smart way. Smart way, meaning, try to focus on the positives of what you offer and just let people make up their own mind in the meantime. What else can you do anyhow?

Try being as open as possible for relevant questions. That is the best thing you can do. I know I can learn one or more things myself from these words because I usually become too tangled up in accusations and feel as if it is a personal attack on me, eventhough it may not be.

I don’t know if you believe in the Wealth Dynamics philosphy or not, and that’s fine either way, but I did the personality test that is associated to that philosophy and I was diagnosed a Creator/Star. The difference between a Creator and a Star profile was decimal in my case. Why do I mention this? I want you to understand why I have such a hard time following this advice of mine. Because I truly do have a problem with just letting accusations die out. I alwys seem to, automaticly, create chaos out of the chaos. And the reason is because of the Star trait I have. Star profiles are strong character types. Stars use their force of personality to make things happen. And that is not always a great way of dissolving accusational issues. It usually create bigger problems.

Martha Stewart is a Star profile according to the Wealth Dynamics diagnosis and if we you looked at how she handled the insider charges she faced not that long ago then you will see that she didn’t really face it in a satisfactory manner. She became more entangled in the problem than she really should have. And consequently she went to jail as you may know. So, just so that you know what kind of guy I am I need to refer to these personality tests.

I also did a Myers Briggs test and came out a Champion type (ENFP type). Champion types are, according to the test, rare beings and they are in a minority if you look at all people in the world (one of them being Oprah Winfrey). Champion kind of people are, the test result says, ” ENFPs are charming, ingenuous, risk-taking, sensitive, people-oriented individuals with capabilities ranging across a broad spectrum. They have many gifts which they will use to fulfill themselves and those near them, if they are able to remain centered and master the ability of following through.”. Please see more here: http://www.personalitypage.com/ENFP.html

ENFPs are people-people, meaning we are very interested in dealing with people, we like to try new stuff and we are also sensitive people (maybee that is why I react so strongly to accusations of every kind. I react first and think later).

Now you may be thinking “come on now, why all this self babbling stuff?”. Well, I just want to cover this topic from my point of view so as to create some body and some quality to this post. Maybe you can relate to the way I am or maybe you are the direct opposite. Maybe you are the hard kick-ass type who do not care if anyone even called you an asshole right in your face. Some people even like being in the masochistic position. They crave it, however crazy that sounds. Every man to his passion I guess:). I can’t stand getting my ego hurt, but I am getting better every day at trying to just being “on task”.

When it comes to bad reputation there is one annoying thing about it: you can’t beat it with force. Well you can try to prove to the world with facts and numbers that your adversaries are wrong and you are right. But the funny thing is: it doesn’t matter one jota. Why? Because people believe what they want to believe. Facts and numbers doesn’t change a thing. Sound nuts? Well, the world is nuts. The only thing you can do is to carry on and conduct business with those who care more about your service and product and your offer than about who you stole from or who you cheated or what an asshole of a partner you are. As long as you know that those things never happened or are true in reality you can atleast sleep like a baby tonight anyway. But of course, it is annoying. It’s annoying because having a bad reputation is seldom a good thing even if you know the accusations are B.S. and slander.

I learned one thing from Eddie Murphy which is pure excellence. He said that he never read newspaper clippings about him. He never watches stuff that is reported on him etc. I think he is the absolutly smartest guy on this topic. It’s genius. You know genius is hidden in the simple, right:)? If you didn’t, then now you know.

Carry on soldier and put on dark glasses and plug your ears because you don’t need them in this aspect of business. Let someone else deal with those things on a paid basis. That way you can avoid it, but still having it dealt with, with a professional touch.

We have a swedish guy called Ernst Kirchsteiger. He is one of Swedens most famous interior designers. He actually implements this strategy about having someone else read his email, snail mail, taking phone calls etc (an agent so to speak). He is a happy chap for doing so. So apply it yourself as well. Your good mental health is worth gold if you are a startup entrepreneur. You invest so much energy in getting your company up and running, making money and structuring deals. You don’t have the time or energy to sit around being depressed about what some crazy nut with his unsuccessful life says about you. I sure as hell know I don’t.

There will always be some nut trying to make you believe you don’t deserve a hugh paycheck or that you don’t deserve this or that. The only guy who should be ashamed is the nutcase. Ask your agent to recommend a good shrink free of charge. See, that is what good PR relations is all about:). Can you see the headline? “Company ABC offers professional shrink help free of charge to depressed accuser/crazy stalker”. That would be something. Odd and newsworthy at the same time. When have you ever seen that type of headline? I have never seen it so I am very proud of my sudden creativity here;).

A new post will be published every week as of now. And I would really like your comments so don’t be shy. Let them flow in. If your comments are nice then I will publish them and if they are naughty they will go down the toilet quickly. As mentioned before: no time for nutcases with personality issues. If you have nutcase issues then thefastlanetomillions.com will certainly take you in quickly so as to enforce their mob group;).

Take care until next Saturday.