What is on your agenda?

It doesn’t matter if we are talking about personal or business matters. The only way to score is by knowing what you are scoring for. What is your agenda? If you can’t answer this simple question, it doesn’t matter how hard you work, because you aren’t really sure why you are even working in the first place.

So once again: What is your agenda? What are you scoring for?

Example:

You want to earn $10. What is your agenda in this case? To collect $10, right? Obviously:). So then what would be your aim? The easiest path to collecting those $10, right? With me? List all the easiest ways to collect those $10, that’s it. This aim has nothing to do with saving the earth. Just about collecting those damn dollars in your pocket. Doesn’t matter in what way you do it, but the easiest and fastest way is the most prefered, isn’t?

Many entrepreneurs start out with an ideal. They are more concerned with saving the world than actually making money. Hence they should start a foundation, not a company. A company exists to make money, a foundation for spending money on changing the world for the better (hopefully).

OK, another aim:

We want to have sex. What is our aim? Getting sex in the easiest and fastest way possible. It doesn’t matter a bit if we get romance so dating is out of the question. The easiest and fastest way to get some is by calling a call girl or visit a whore house, right? You want sex, you are not interest in ethics here. You just want to empty the hormones somewhere, preferably with a beauty, but it’s not a primairy aim. As long as the opposite person is willing and of normal appearance, then we are on the right track to reach our primairy aim.

This is the way you need to think to survive in business and in life. Especially if you want to be amongst the top perfomers. You need to be single minded. Screw the rest.

Create a couple of millions if you don’t have them!

If you are broke and you need a couple of millions for a new business idea you have, then I have news for you.

Find someone looking for finance, secure a guaranteed deal and an exclusive deal and sell the exclusive deal forward to real investors (with cash) for 30% less than you got through negotiation.

Example:

Business ABC is looking for $10 Million for business expansion. You see this and you decide to email the company saying something like this “I want to finance the whole amount of $10 Million. Let me sign an LOI (Letter of Intent) and let us then negotiate about a guaranteed return year 5″.

Not every company will say yes to this. But some will. In this case the company says yes.

So you sign an LOI that takes up the whole capital raising time the company has agreed upon (hence making this deal exclusively yours. You shut everyone out. Important). When that is done you ask the company to give you a guaranteed return of 20% annually, accumulated over 5 years (hence paying you your initial capital back + 100% in capital gains year 5). The company thinks that projection is realistic so they agree to this.

So you shake hands on this. But before you ask them to draft an investment agreement you ask them wait a week so you can arrange the financing needed to secure the deal (sometimes investors need to borrow money from the bank to secure a deal like this. In this case it would make sense to pay say 5-6% annually on $10 Million if you had a guaranteed return year 5 of 100% plus initial capital back).

During that week you go out and start looking for investors using the company ABC’s prospectus as presentation material including the deal you have secured for them.

This is what you say to investors “I have a deal here that requires $10 Million and it pays an accumulated interest of 20% annually over 5 years. Essentially giving you your initial back + 100% capital gains in year 5. All guaranteed by the current owners and the Board of Directors.

I have an exclusive hold on this whole deal and I am willing to give you the opportunity to buy me out at a price of $14 Million essentially giving you a chance of making a 60% return over 5 years (12% ever year)”.

As you see: I create a deal that gives company ABC the money they need, give the investors a guaranteed deal they most likely want (who doesn’t?) AND I recieve $4 Million myself for just passing along the ball to the investors who will work the legals with company ABC themselfs.

These $4 Million is money I can use to start my business.

Sometimes you need to do unconventional, though legal, deals to get money to start you dream business venture. Sometimes you need to think bigger and go bigger in the beginning in order to go small later. Does that even sound sane:)? I don’t know, but I do know this works. I do this from time to time when I lack capital and that happens sometimes when your capital is tied up and you can’t get capital the conventional way (through banks or your own capital stash).