I read the book The One Minute Millionaire for you, written by Marc Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen.
The authors say that every 60 seconds someone in North America becomes a millionaire. The biggest dragon standing between you and achieving your million is your fear. Million-dollar ideas are all around you. The only degree that counts is a million-dollar idea. Examples of millionaires who never graduated include: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Steven Spielberg. All you need is a burning desire — everything else can be hired or borrowed. Everything starts with a thought, so think positively. All you need is a good idea, determination, and connections with people who have everything else. Ask yourself about your talent, what others think you are good at, what your past successes have been, what you want, what brings you the greatest satisfaction, what excites you, and what your hobby is. The quality of the result always depends on the quality of the question.
Create a good system that works without: cash, risk (use other people’s money), wasting time (invest time at the beginning, then the system works automatically for you), management (find other people to manage) and wasting energy. An example of a good system cited by the authors is Duracell batteries — someone sold the idea to the company and earns money on every battery sold. One of the simplest forms of earning is to connect with someone who has a large customer base and convince them to help you sell your products or services in exchange for, for example, a certain percentage of sales.
In the business world, there are 5 types of leverage:
– Other people’s capital
– Other people’s experience
– Other people’s ideas
– Other people’s time (connect with experts in your field)
– Other people’s work (some people prefer a secure job over entrepreneurship)
When you are alone without leverage, you are dependent on your own knowledge, experience, money, and other resources. Have a mentor, as they know what you should not do and what shortcuts are available to you (the world’s wealthiest person Warren Buffett had a mentor, Paul Graham). A mentor is not always a person — it can also be an illness, job loss, etc. Work in a group, as it fills the gaps in your knowledge and abilities. A winning group includes people who like to generate ideas, strategists, analysts, and organizers. Have a system and use it to emulate the successful. It is better to find one buyer who will buy a million products than a million buyers.
According to the book, the main paths to your first million are:
– Your own business: Sell to individuals, legal entities, the government, charitable organizations, acquire another company, etc.
– Online business: Consider selling information online. You can market information about knowledge, entertainment, your successes, mistakes, etc. Follow these steps: Choose a topic (e.g. sales), find customers, discover the bait for them (e.g. what they are asking about/have a problem with) and offer it to them for free, then start selling.
– Real estate: You make money on real estate when you buy it — meaning you buy it at a low price. Options for later profit include: change of use if some construction is expected nearby (e.g. a shopping center), or simply getting a cheap property due to the owners’ difficulties, etc.
– Other options, e.g. stocks that promise high growth, dividends, etc.
When you have an idea, ask yourself the following before actually implementing it:
– Who are your customers and what do they need: From your ideal customer you need the following information: age, gender, occupation, income, place of residence, what they want, and what is most important to them about your product.
– As much as possible about your product: How to best position the product based on customer requirements and the competition’s offering, and what your competitive advantage will be.
– Offer the most for your price: Ask yourself how you will make the product so that customers, compared to the competition, will consider it an excellent purchase for the price.
– Good distribution: How you will profitably deliver the product to customers.
– Effective promotion: Which media will be most suitable for advertising and why.
To earn money, find so-called addicts (e.g. golf, weightlifting, video games) and offer them your product or service. Have multiple sources of income. Focus on the most important activities, as the book’s authors believe that as many as 85% of activities are unnecessary. Focus on the top 20% of your most important customers. Always do the most important and most difficult tasks first.
Build a network of people. Collect the addresses, names and phone numbers of everyone you meet and maintain contact. You are worth as much as your connections are worth.
To achieve a million, learn to use the latest technologies that will help you. The skills used by the wealthiest are: they can turn every dollar into a million, they share their wealth with others (giving at least 10% of their earnings to charitable causes), insurance (the wealthy protect themselves under the umbrella of various companies and funds), they create investments and save, and they have control (they buy the best at the lowest possible price).
