The secret to making money

This post is an example of the content I share every Friday in my Living by Experience Magazine. If you’d like your free copy, just click here.

It turns out my post about multi level marketing, and why I dislike the model, created some quite a few waves with people disliking what I wrote. This post will share some additional thoughts about making money – because in the end that’s why I decided to give the MLM world a try: make money. It’s also the executive summary of why I dislike the model: I didn’t make any money.

Actually, reality was even worse than simply not making any money. Most start-up companies will go through a (preferably short) period of limited cashflow. But my experience was worse than just that: I was required to spend increasing amounts of money first in order to have the opportunity to make money later.

That model simply doesn’t work for me. I’ve built and managed several companies and had a variety of interesting careers – and anything I’ve done was always based on the model of money flowing towards the company I was creating, and subsequently me. Especially in our modern days, it doesn’t take much to start a new venture. If you have a great idea you can create a basic website and be up and running by end of day today, for less than $100. As I share in my book about Happiness at work – My model has always been to only re-invest money in the company that the company was generating on it’s own. It takes virtually all the risk out of starting a company as you’ll always be cashflow-positive: even if you’re not making any money at all initially, you’ll at least safe from losing any.

Other “opportunities” like the one presented to me don’t always fit in that safety model, and they justify it by saying you have to struggle first before success comes around. Excuse my language, but that has to be the biggest load of bullsh*t ever. Will building a business be hard work? Sure. Will there be hard days? Absolutely. But if it needs to be a struggle you’re probably ignoring the feedback that you are NOT on the right path.

Success is hard work but it doesn’t have to be a struggle

Similarly, I was invited to join a “remote working year” a few weeks ago. Being a bit more cautious now, I read the fine print before applying. That’s where the catch was: once I made it through the first round I had to pay a non refundable application fee. Just for fun I applied, and not so surprisingly I made it to the next round within minutes of my initial application. Somehow I believe everyone makes it “through the first round”… congratulations not in order.

This online remote-year scam made me think. If you really wanted a remote year, also known as making money while working remotely somewhere other than you home town or country, it doesn’t take much. All it takes is to find and dust off your passport, book a (free) flight, pack your bags and your laptop, and simply go. Stay in hostels to keep the price down and meet interesting people.

See the similarities with the multi level marketing story? It doesn’t take anything to get started, but to get started. Instead of getting started people will actually pay to work, not necessarily the contrary! The only secret to making money is to… work.

So get started on something. Find something that will catch people’s attention and start a blog about it. If you have a great business idea start now and create a website to share it. Or maybe even consider writing a book to help set yourself aside as the number one expert in your area. It will all be hard work that will pay off if your idea actually catches on. Are you willing to get started?

P.S. Questions, comments, compliments? Text me: 604-210-8668. I’d love to hear from you.

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