Robin J. Elliott: Joint Ventures with the Prophet of Profit, Training, Strategic Alliances

People do business with you and help you to succeed because they like and trust you. Every interaction with them is either a deposit or a withdrawal in your TRUST Bank. If you focus on making deposits, you will get rich and build good relationships with winners. This is how to make withdrawals and deposits:

Withdrawals:

Don’t return e mails and phone calls on time. For every day you don’t return a call or e mail, your bank balance goes down. It’s an insult to the other person.

Don’t do what you promise, when you promise to do it: BIG mistake – big withdrawal. (People don’t believe your excuses, even if they’re valid!)

Don’t acknowledge peoples’ contributions to your success – it’s like not sending them their paycheck!

Be negative, whine, focus on what can go wrong, and complain. Pessimism will drain your bank balance faster than you think. You may even be running on empty…

Deposits:

Pay them genuine, specific, and sincere compliments.

Deliver on time. Go the extra mile. Talk in the interests of the other person.

Be positive, enthusiastic, upbeat, and encouraging. Expect to win.

Return phone calls and e-mails promptly.

Be reliable and committed, loyal and available.

Every interaction, every phone call, every meeting and e-mail, is an opportunity to build your TRUST account. It’s easy, it takes little self discipline, and it works!

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

Without action, nothing happens. Dreams and ideas without action are impotent. Everything that you see around you is the result of action. Nothing happens by mistake. Your residual income is the result of activity. Every little action counts. I know that the word, “WORK” is a cussword to many, but successful people embrace it. Persistent, consistent action is the key to success, not intermittent action. Winners keep on keeping on, even when they don’t feel like it. ESPECIALLY when they don’t feel like it. They never even consider the option of quitting.

Self-discipline and hard work will create a life of freedom for you, as long as you’re prepared to pay the price, which is ACTION. The more action you take, the more you will learn, and the more self-confident you will become. When I look at the DollarMakers Management Team, I see action takers. These wonderful friends are unstoppable. We believe passionately in our goals and we work tirelessly toward the accomplishment of our dreams. We believe in our goals and in ourselves, and we do whatever it takes. Massive action gets massive results, as long as it is consistent and passionate. Ask any successful athlete how many hours a day they practice.

One of the DollarMakers Members got involved with a Network Marketing company and has done extremely well. Someone asked me what the secret of her success is. I said, “Tammie takes massive action. She holds weekly meetings – EVERY week. She attends all the training sessions. She immerses herself in the company and understands every aspect. Her hallmark is action. She is highly disciplined.” Many others joined the same company and never made money. The reason? Not enough ACTION. How many hours a day do you invest in achieving your goals?

Work when others sleep. Work when others watch TV. Work when others watch sport. Work when others find excuses not to work. When you feel sick, work harder. Do not go to bed until you have achieved your daily goal. INSIST on achieving your goals. Be determined and fearless. The top 5% of salespeople simply put in more effort. Eventually, this action becomes a habit, and you will be able top leverage all your hard work. But you have to get there first. Get into the habit of doing whatever it takes. Prioritize and stick to your program. Focus your time on high return activities.

At the end of the day, look at what you DID, not what you talked about, promised, planned or whined about. To get into the top 5% of winners, focus on activity. There’s not a lot of competition out there when you become an action taker. You can overcome any barriers and achieve any goal with organized, consistent action.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

Be careful when setting up any reciprocal Joint Venture. Here are a few pointers / red flags that can save you time, money, and frustration:

1. MOTIVES: When setting up a Joint Venture, be aware of the motives of your prospective JV partner. Many times, they will tell you anything you want to hear to get into your database, so avoid sending your people to their websites where they automatically opt in to their database. Set it up so that there are checks and balances – I have made the mistake of trusting the wrong people once too often. Now, before I cross promote, I want evidence that you are indeed reciprocating before I sell your products and services to my database. You can “salt” their database – opt in with a false name so you can see if they actually promote you and send out those e-mails. Many times, they have no intention of reciprocating.
2. RULE CHANGING: Watch out! When they start changing the rules and moving the goalposts, or “Re-negotiating”, you know you’ve found a dud, not a stud. If you suddenly become too successful in their MLM downline, for example, and they renege on their promises, you have a loser by the tail. Replace them fast. Get the rules in writing at the beginning in a simple Memorandum of Understanding.
3. LACK OF COMMUNICATION: If they are eager to communicate with you at the beginning and then they become “busy” or unavailable, you know they’re hiding and trying to back out of their commitment. Everyone is busy – that is never an excuse.
4. WEAK REPORTING: You should receive a full Report / Statement at the end of each month, with a check attached. If you have to beg for details, it’s because they’re not tracking or don’t intend paying.
5. Finally, THE COMPANY THEY KEEP: If you see that they are linked up with scoundrels and weasels, you know that birds of the feather flock eagerly together. DO judge them by the company they keep.

The great thing about a carefully arranged JV is that it takes little time and no money to set up, and you should not incur any risk. If you see any of the above Red Flags, walk away, terminate, cut bait, and move on. You’ve lost nothing and you have learned something. There are millions of JV’s to be had out there- no shortage – don’t be attached to any one JV.

Be particularly careful of the Big Ego. Usually, a big database makes people feel they‘re important, and you should be careful around those types. They think they’re untouchable, but they’re not. Do seek Centers of Influence, but find people who are humble, real, professional, and caring.

Do your due diligence, plan carefully, bearing the above in mind, and take your time. When people rush or pressure you, they’re either hiding something or they are desperate for money – either way, it’s another Red Flag. Look for patterns and remain objective – treat your JV’s like a Monopoly Game or a Cash Flow Game – don’t take it personally. By having multiple JV’s running at the same time, you can cross sell and cross promote the good ones. Take advice from your team members, mastermind group (if you have to pay to join it, by the way, it’s not a mastermind group) and fellow JV Forum Members.

Finally, as a DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum Member, I encourage you to ONLY JV with other Members. I do. I will not even consider doing a JV with a non-Member.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

Most people don’t realize that it is relatively easy to double their sales. These three steps always work.

ONE: DAILY NUMBERS.

When I started in Sales, I was told exactly how many appointments I needed to conduct every single day, how many referrals to get at each appointment, how many phone calls to make (that means you call UNTIL you have your four appointments per day – everything is bottom- line related), how to track my closing ratios, and how to REPORT my activity and results every single day.

Get the numbers working for you. Track everything. What are your specific, measurable, time-related goals, yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily? What are your closing ratios? How many appointments / exposures per day? What is working? What is not working? Measure everything. At the end of each day, can you write down exactly what results you attained? WILL you write it down? This is painful for losers and semi-committed pretenders – they don’t want to be exposed, so they hide behind the Big Picture, the Pipeline, and Excuses. Lots of Activity, no results. If you’re serious about your goals, whatever it takes, you will confront reality in this way. And take responsibility. Accountability means you have to account for your results. You can’t bank promises. Get real and get results. What are you committed to accomplish TODAY?

TWO: COMMIT TO YOUR TEAM.

When I was a Distributor for SMI, we got a new Sales Manager whose job it was to help us increase sales. He asked me a simple question: “Would you like to double your sales?” Yes. “How often do you hold sales meetings with your sales team?” Once a week. “OK – start holding sales meetings EVERY MORNING.” I did – the loser salespeople all slithered away because they couldn’t handle the pressure and the winners doubled and then redoubled their sales. We didn’t discuss the weather, promises, excuses, or activity – just results. We solved problems and honed our skills, practiced our pitches and learned more about selling. We all attended the Tom Hopkins sales training. I paid for everyone – great investment. It worked. DAILY CONTROL and ACCOUNTABILITY. Even if your team is you and your spouse, agree to the ground rules and stick to them. Communicate, learn, and be reliable.

THREE: MORE PRESENTATIONS TO BETTER PROSPECTS.

A client once asked me how she could double her sales in life insurance. I asked her, “What is your closing ration, and how many calls do you make per day?” Then I advised her to double the amount of presentations she made. She tripled her sales. Reschedule your time, double your activity, and don’t waste time on non-productive activities or weak prospects. Be very selective and don’t waste time on administrative duties (leave that to people who can’t sell) or minimum wage activities – hire someone to do that stuff. At any time of the day, ask yourself, “Is this activity going to increase my sales or not?” If not, why are you doing it? Upgrade the quality of your prospects and ruthlessly cut the time vampires out of your life.

Jan Janzen said, “So many people fail in Network Marketing for the very same reasons that people fail in anything.” Rika and I attended a meeting with a thousand other high achievers with Pre-Paid Legal in

Finally, if you’re not using Joint Ventures to create unlimited flows of qualified prospects, perhaps it’s time you did so.

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com

Rika and I just got home for a great trip to Huntington Beach, California, where we stayed at the luxurious, five star Hyatt Regency Resort and Spa for five days. We were very impressed with the excellent quality all round, but I was blown away by their expert internal marketing. This is Joint Venture magic at its best.

Every product, service, and department of the resort is marketed in a classy, sophisticated way at every opportunity, offering guests value, solutions, ease, and comfort. Using menus, table cards, standing signage, notes, samples, discounts, and premiums, guests are educated and enlightened about the various options available to them. The entire operation is a giant Joint Venture. I loved it. Every aspect of this internal marketing was aimed at the pleasure of the guest – no hard sell, no pressure. Subtle and easy to understand and use. All barriers to buying removed. Simple flow-through.

Joint Ventures are not simply a means to create additional income sources or to upsell and cross sell – they are carefully and tastefully designed and implemented to strategically assist people to solve their problems and reach their goals, providing valuable information and ease, saving time and effort in the process. This Hyatt Regency has it working perfectly. No concierge trying to sell you the restaurant down the road so that he can pocket a quick buck. No cheap flyers for pizza pushed under your hotel door in the middle of the night – just a carefully planned, well-designed guest services machine.

DollarMakers strives to offer the same internal solutions, saving our Members the trouble and time involved in finding these services and JV’s themselves and protecting them from unscrupulous types and swindles. I recently saved a Member a lot of money and embarrassment when they e-mailed me a question about an illegal pyramid scheme deal they were being offered. My question when they thanked me was, “Why don’t you just take advantage of the existing JV’s available to our Members? It’s easy, safe, lucrative, and quick – you don’t have to risk your reputation and money on unknown schemes.” By the way, if anyone tells you that DollarMakers is endorsing any opportunity out there, check with us first.

My hat is off to the Hyatt – like their excellent Governator, we’ll be back!

Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com