By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

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Better than a thousand days of study is one day with a great teacher. – Japanese Proverb

When most people get started on the path to "self made wealth", many of us choose one of the following:

1) To become a real estate investor
2) Start a business with an MLM company aka Multi Level Marketing

Both of these paths are very difficult and there is no easy way to success. For myself, I chose to become a full time real estate investor and dedicated all of my resources towards success in my field. In some ways, I envy the people who start with MLM companies because MLMs are:

1) Cheap to start
2) Come with training
3) Have an "Upline" of information (aka coaches and mentors are part of the system)
4) Build a residual income by establishing a team or downline
5) Offer great and cheap personal development programs

When I look back on the resources, time, money, opportunity cost and risk that I spent to get into professional real estate investing, I am astounded at the "startup cost" of the business. In many ways, an MLM would have been safer, cheaper, and faster than becoming a pure real estate investor. Here is why,

Real Estate Investing is:

1) Expensive to start (down payments are expensive and training is expensive)
2) Mistakes are expensive
3) Risk and leverage can crush you
4) No set path for success
5) Coaches and mentors are hard to find

However, as I advance further into Real Estate Investing, I begin to see more similarities between Real Estate and MLM's than differences.

The first similarity is what I would call an information "up-line".

THE UPLINE

One of the biggest mistakes that I made when starting out in business (first music, then debt buying, then real estate) was that until fairly recently, I had absolutely no informational up line. I define an informational up-line as a coach, mentor or teacher who has more experience in the business, a higher degree of success and has accomplished what I was trying to do. Completely ignorantly, I fumbled around in the dark for far too long making costly mistakes. Appropriate coaches and mentors could have prevented 90% of my mistakes, but I was too cheap to hire one.

"The only way to know the right steps to take is to study with those already taking the right steps. Douglas Vermeeren"

MLM's are smart businesses because many of them come with an up-line of information. The up-line shows you the ropes and teaches you how to achieve success in the business. In real estate investing, I have paid some obscene fees to coaches and mentors to correct my past mistakes and take my business to the next level. What is even crazier than the fees I pay are the results. Although the fees are high, the results are always worth it. If you are in real estate investing, and don't have an "up-line" to help you on your path, I would suggest that you get one immediately. Of course, your "up-line" will have to be paid somehow, so consider paying a fee or give them equity in a deal you are doing. One of the reasons why I love real estate is that it is a blank canvas, whatever you wish to create, you can create. The possibilities are endless.

A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside of yourself – Oprah Winfrey

THE DOWNLINE

In multi level marketing, there is an up-line of experienced mentors to help you in the business, and of course, you have a downline underneath you to push you to higher levels of success. In real estate investing, you must build a downline as well. The downline, in my opinion, is everyone on your team who helps you build a passive income. These people are:

1) Your contracting teams
2) Your wholesalers
3) Your bird dogs
4) Your realtors
5) Your property managers
6) Other investors who invest in you and refer business to you

I have made it my mission to adopt the Coca-Cola philosophy and "pay everyone who touches the product". Anyone who refers business to me, whether it be realtors, bird dogs or other investors, will always get paid in cash or equity because these people make me income, and mostly passive income. It's my job to be the up-line and train everyone on the team to work together, work efficiently and work the way I want them to work. I must educate them so that they can be the best team members possible and help me achieve success.

THE SUMMARY

The more I study the business of real estate investing, the more I see that real estate is the same as an MLM company. If you are not yet started in real estate, I would recommend joining an MLM for the training to learn how to run a business. More investors fail to become professional investors because of a lack of soft skills in general business. Many investors know how to do deals (real estate is very primitive), but have no idea how to run a business. The skills you can learn by joining an MLM are priceless. I chose to bi-pass this education and paid a much higher price for my skills. Looking back, having an MLM business on the side would have saved me a lot of time, money and effort. If you are in real estate today, make sure you have an up-line and build a profitable down-line - It's imperative to your success.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
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Get Stefan Aarnio's book "Money People Deal: The Fastest Way to Real Estate Wealth" at MoneyPeopleDeal.com!

P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
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Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

Why do some businesses grow to enormous while others fail in the first five years?

90% of businesses fail in the first five years and of the survivors, 90% will fail in the following five years. Business is not an easy game.

Consider the average realtor; Average realtors make less than $40,000 per year and do 12 transactions or less. You see realtors printing their faces on park benches, printing their faces on note pads and mailing them to strangers, and sending letters that say it's the "perfect time to buy and sell your home" (which makes no sense). If it's the perfect time to buy, it's not the perfect time to sell and vice versa. However, because Realtors make such great commissions, buying and selling is always good for them (perhaps not for you).

These self employed salespeople do some of the most ridiculous things to hunt and "kill" new prospects every month. It's a proven fact that it takes 7x more effort to sell to a new customer than an old customer and yet, most realtors, business people and entrepreneurs are running around chasing new business when they should be focusing on their existing business. Existing customers are much more likely to do business with you than new customers, yet most of us do not consider the lifetime value of an existing customer.

This year I did 12 joint venture deals and I learned very quickly how valuable pre-existing customers are. I was originally planning on doing 12 deals with 12 different partners. However, after acquiring 6 partners, my existing partners were lining up to do more deals with me and I didn't have to pick up the phone to call on new business; such is the magic of existing customers.

My goal in this upcoming year is to strengthen my current relationships with my partners and grow my business organically by emphasizing my new mission to create partners for life. If we do the math, we actually do not need very many customers to make a decent living. I saw a book a few years ago targeted towards independent musicians and the premise of the book was "you don't need a record label". The message of the book was that with 1000 paying customers, you can make a decent living in the music industry. Many bands have more than 1000 fans, yet the bands do not bother to create ongoing relationships with those 1000 people. Since most bands don't build 1000 relationships with their fans, the band members have to work at McDonalds to keep the music dream alive.

If you are in real estate investing, you need less than 10 customers to make a very comfortable living and can even become very wealthy by establishing less than 5  partners for life. The lifetime value of a few good relationships is more than enough to send both you and your partners to higher levels of wealth.

Build your relationships vertically rather than horizontally, keep in touch with your customer base, know your audience and give them what they want. We are all standing on very fertile soil, we just need to work the land and reap what we sow.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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This morning I was having breakfast with a colleague of mine and we were trying to find ways to compliment each other's respective real estate businesses. Sometimes it can be difficult to find ways to compliment another person's business due to personal similarities or differences and we spent a considerable amount of time talking about our business philosophies and dreams.

My philosophy in business has predominately been: it is better to sell one $1,000 hot dog than sell one thousand $1 hot dogs. 

Selling one hot dog for $1,000 makes much more money, requires less effort and has a completely different clientele and resources required to sell one thousand $1 hot dogs. 

However, we don't often see any hot dog carts selling $1,000 hot dogs… Why?

Years ago on the Celebrity Apprentice, one of my business heros Gene Simmons sold a $5,000 hot dog to one of his friends for charity. The context of the sale was a battle between two teams of Celebrities to see who could raise the most money selling hot dogs for charity. The business models of the two teams varied greatly with one cart selling $5 hot dogs and the other cart selling $5,000 hot dogs. The results for the two teams was vastly different with the $5 hot dog making approximately $17,000 while the $5,000 hot dog made closer to $52,000.

All of the money was raised for charity and both teams were loaded with celebrities. Both teams did very well, but the huge difference in money raised was that one team was thinking bigger by asking for more dollars per hot dog.

Years ago when I was in the music industry, I wanted to find a way to do business in a bigger way. Naturally I got into real estate because in music I was selling hundreds of $1 "hot dogs" whereas in real estate I could sell a few $1,000 "hot dogs" and make a much better living. Real Estate in general when compared to a music business has much better margins, takes less time, less work and is much more sustainable because there is usually only one customer instead of 1000 for a similar profit.

After I had mentioned that I would rather sell one $1,000 hot dog, my friend replied that his philosophy has been to sell one thousand $1,000 hot dogs. He elaborated by saying that he was working on a multi-million dollar land subdivision deal where he would sell nearly 100 lots of land and metaphorically speaking sell one thousand $1,000 hot dogs. His thinking was clearly bigger than mine.

When we had met that morning, we were looking at a house that I was going to buy to flip. I had clearly illustrated my $1,000 hot dog thinking with my current business model of flipping houses one at a time. My colleague had a much greater plan to take the profits of my plan and multiply it by 100 with the same effort.

But what do the hot dogs mean?

There are two ways to build a business model. One is vertical and the other is horizontal. 

HORIZONTAL BUSINESS - $1 hot dogs x 1000

A horizontal business will have lots of customers with low transaction volumes. The business relies on having a high amount of customers and transactions to make a profit. This is the hot dog cart with $1 hot dogs.

VERTICAL BUSINESS - $1000 hot dog x 1

The other model is the vertical model. This model has less customers, but makes more money per customer. It relies on having a few great repeat customers who account for 80% or more of the business. This is the model I am building in my business today. This is the hot dog cart with the $1,000 hot dogs.

DIAGONAL BUSINESS - $1000 hot dog x 1000

There is a third model, and this model is the diagonal model that uses both vertical and horizontal strategies where we sell $1,000 hot dogs to 1000 customers. This model is much more advanced and requires the customer care of the vertical model with the systems and velocity of the horizontal model. If you can build a diagonal model, you will be rich - guaranteed. However, this model is the most difficult to create and few people know how to actually build a horizontal business model that works.

After examining the $1 hot dog cart and the $1,000 hot dog cart, which hot dog cart would you like to own? Which cart are you running in your current business? Is this where you want to be today? What is holding you back from building a diagonal business?

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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Everyone loves perfection.

We demand perfection when we go out to a restaurant for dinner. We demand perfection when we go the dentist to get a tooth drilled. We demand perfection when a relative goes into the hospital for surgery.

Of course, perfection has a cost - perfection is not cheap!

For our perfect dinner, we need 5-10 people working in the restaurant dedicating their lives to our dining experience plus all of the suppliers of food, contractors who built the restaurant, interior designers who designed the restaurant and everyone else who indirectly created our experience.

When we see the dentist, he usually has a team of 5+ people working in the office plus nearly a decade of post secondary education to earn the right to work on your teeth.

The surgeon is has a similar team and education to the dentist.

Perfection is something we all want, but is it something we need?

Studies show that Top Achievers, the world's most successful entrepreneurs, actors, sales people, sports stars etc. strive for perfection but choose improvisation over perfection.

Top achievers improvise.

Consider the 80/20 rule, 80% of our results come from 20% of our actions. If we want to achieve the last 20% the "law of diminishing returns" comes into effect. After a certain point, the same actions will yield no further results and the last 20% becomes nearly impossible to reach.

Perfection is an ideal, something that we all strive for, but something that we cannot achieve without an irrational amount of effort. Therefore, top achievers will reach their point of satisfaction, improvise and will move onto the next task. 

You are better to grab the first 20 cents of every dollar than to try to grab 100 cents of every dollar because the last 80 cents are so hard to achieve that the return on time yields no measurable result.

Improvisation is a key skill for success. In his book Lynchpin, Seth Godin talks about the concept of "shipping". When creative, influential people are working on a project, they set a deadline and on that day they "ship" the product whether it is ready or not. The deadline benefits the author twofold:

1) It gets the product out the door in it's first revision, the product is imperfect, but it exists and is ready to go.
2) The product no longer has the risk of never becoming completed

Instead of perfection, we have a shipped product that is ready for use and is ready for improvement.

Microsoft (love them or hate them) has a very practical business model. They always "ship" their software - ready or not, bugs and all. The software that they ship is not always ready, but with patches and revisions, it eventually becomes functional and the company is able to earn revenue and serve it's customers. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world by "shipping" his software like this and improvising rather than seeking perfection.

If software companies would hold onto their software until it's perfect, they would all go out of business before the software is ready. The fact of the matter is that perfection should be reached for, but we cannot wait for the "perfect" product to ship because perfect does not exist.

What is much more practical is to produce a good product and slowly adjust it towards perfection.

Even companies like Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of World of Warcraft, the most profitable video game of all time are known for "taking their time" to produce their product. They will develop a title over 10 years and reach the closest they can to perfection without achieving it. After 10 years of development, they will release the imperfect software and continue to patch it to bring it closer to perfection over a 5-10 year period on the back end.

Are you addicted to perfection? Is your addiction holding you back from achieving your dreams?

For myself, I have renamed my company and brand nearly 6 times this year, I have gone through 6 runs of business cards, I have created and re-created 6+ websites to get the exact message I want. My motto is to "ship" whether or not it's perfect and adjust as necessary. The benefits of shipping when it's functional instead of perfect vastly outweigh the drawbacks. For example, I won the Canadian Real Estate Wealth Magazine's Joint Venture Partner of the Year award for 2012 because I had started blogging on an imperfect blog and gained some visibility.

My business was exactly the same with or without the visibility, I still did 12 deals, however, because I had an imperfect blog with imperfect articles distributed in an imperfect way, I was visible and nominated for the award.

Had I not "shipped" my blog until it was perfect, I would not have won the award. The deals still would have been done, but I would have lost out on $30,000 of press and exposure.

Perfection is a fickle mistress, chase her as an ideal, but do not succumb to her allure. Favour the maiden of improvisation and all will be well.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
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P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
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Everyday we wake up the morning, we go to work, we earn a living, we come home, we go to bed and do it all over again. Some of us earn a living doing what we love; others earn a living doing things that are tolerable. However, we all earn money the same way – we sell.

The question is, what do you sell?

Most of the population sells their time or a derivative of their time. A Janitor sells his time at a certain rate per hour. A doctor sells his time at a higher rate per hour. As long as we are selling time, labor and skills, we are bound to the labor that we sell.

Years ago, I used to teach guitar to teenagers out of my living room. The work itself was rewarding, enjoyable and fun. However, the part of the job that I hated was that I was tethered to the living room and could not leave town if I wanted to. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday I had to be in the living room to teach the kids. If I wasn’t teaching, I wasn’t getting paid. Going away on a trip was impossible because I would have to reschedule everyone and give credit to my customers in the summertime which would eat into my vacation time.

While working as a guitar teacher, I decided that selling time was not for me.

I also had a rock band that I played in and managed on the side and the great thing about the band was that I learned how to sell other things besides my time.

I used to put on little rock shows at community centers in Winnipeg and I generally lost a lot of money with those shows. The formula was simple and poorly thought out; put in all the money, take all the risk, invite other bands to play and pray that people showed up to buy tickets to the show. 90% of the time, the bands would not draw a crowd and I would lose money; until I got smart.


Instead of renting the most affordable venue I could find, I started to rent the best venue in the city that I could NOT afford. I would put up $100 as a down payment on a $1000 venue to control a day on the calendar. I would then get tickets printed and sell spots in the show to other bands. I would sell the tickets in the show wholesale for $300 per band and would make profit before the show started. I would then make additional profit at the door and profit off of the merchandise.

Instead of selling time I sold: space, tickets, and merchandise. I liked selling space instead of time so I started to study real estate and today have put myself in a position where I no longer have to sell my time. Instead of selling my time, I sell space in my rental units and the space allows me to earn a living.

Unfortunately for most people, selling is a dirty word. Most people hate selling, they think it’s cheap, they think they are ripping people off, they don’t like rejection, they fear approaching others and asking for money. What is even more unfortunate is that we all sell everyday: we sell our time to our employers, we sell our girlfriend/boyfriend as to why they should date us, we sell our kids on why they should be quiet and stop screaming. Everyone sells, it’s the only way to make money and we have no choice over whether we sell or not – we must sell. However, we do have a choice over WHAT we sell.

We do not have to sell our time; we can sell many other things that are not tied to our labor. Real Estate and business are two ways that we can break the link between time and money and begin to sell things other than our time. When we build a business we get to choose what we are going to sell and begin to take full control of our lives.

There is only one way to make money in this world, and that is to sell. What do you sell to earn a living?

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca

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By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so is value.

Everyday, we, the human race, wakes up and chases value until we drop dead from exhaustion at night.

It doesn't matter if you are Donald Trump sitting on a multi billion dollar real estate portfolio or monk in a temple. We are all chasing value.

The real question is, what is value and what is valuable?

Of course, value is highly subjective and can be very hard to determine.

I always find it interesting to see how excited people are to buy new clothes. Shopping malls are filled with rabid people who are frantically purchasing new garments to wear and 6 months later the clothes that they purchased will be donated to charity or thrown away.

The value of the clothes goes from "I will sacrifice my financial health to wear this" to absolutely "I will never wear this piece of garbage again".

The same thing happens with electronics. The day that apple releases a new iPhone or iPod, people are camping out overnight to get their hands on the new gadget and will pay a mortgage payment to own it. 6 months later, the same people are giving the old iPhone to their dog or are using it as a coaster on a coffee table because the newer, thinner model came out.

But what about investments? Real estate? Houses?

What is the true intrinsic value of a house?

Most middle class people will say "our house is our biggest asset"!

Most middle class people will have nearly all of their net-worth tied up in their home.

But what is the house actually worth? What is any house actually worth?

The truth is, all real estate is actually worth $0. Land and buildings are completely worthless.

If you would like to see the true value of land and buildings, drive to Detroit where you can buy a city block for $1 and nobody wants to buy it. People who live in detroit would rather have a $1 Taco at Taco Bell than own the liability of a city block.

Land, real estate, houses, and buildings only get value when there is a USE for it and an END USER. The end user places his or her subjective value on the Real Estate and that is where values come from.

There are more people who want to live in Manhattan than Detroit. That's why Manhattan real estate is worth so much more than Detroit.

At the end of the day, Real Estate is only worth what the end user is willing to pay. However, one metric I have been using more and more of lately is dollars per square foot.

When comparing two similar properties, dollars per square foot is one of the best ways to measure the current and future value of the property.

For example, in Winnipeg right now, many houses trade in the $200-$250 per square foot range. If you can make a purchase at $100 per square foot in an area that is trading at $200-$250, you have an opportunity for profit.

Construction in Winnipeg for a new build is approximately $200 per square foot, so if you can purchase for less than $200, you are getting the house cheaper than it would be to build. Likewise, if you pay $270 per square foot, you are paying more than it costs to build.

When analyzing retail single family homes, dollars per square foot is an excellent metric for intrinsic value of the property.

BUY ON INTRINSIC VALUE, SELL ON EMOTIONAL VALUE

One of the easiest ways to profit in any market is to:
1) Buy on intrinsic value and
2) Sell on emotional value

There is always profit in markets that have irrational buyers. Irrational buyers means that irrational amounts of money are floating around looking for irrational products.

For example, the neighborhood River Heights in Winnipeg is a desirable neighborhood where people will pay irrational amounts of money to get their kids into the local schools. In River heights properties trade for $200-$250 per square foot, prices that are well above cost to build.

However, in up and coming parts of town, there are "rational" buyers who will only pay prices that less than construction prices. These areas will trade at $150-200 dollars per square foot.

The key for profit is to buy with on an intrinsic value, pump the value and sell to an emotional, irrational buyer. The irrational buyer is unconcerned with what they are actually paying. They WANT the product and perceive that they NEED it. If you have a business, you want irrational buyers. Irrational buyers are consumers who allow you to create massive spreads in your products and grow your business.

Do what you can to attract irrational buyers. When you capture these buyers, take great care of them, and they will take great care of you.

Thanks for reading,
By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
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Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable

What do the world's top athletes, actors, and salespeople all have in common?

They are the three highest paid positions in the world.

No one makes more money in a JOB than actors, athletes and salespeople; and contrary to popular belief, Actors, athletes and salespeople have much more in common than the average person may think.

What stands out to me when I think of top Actors, Athletes and Salespeople is that each of these top level positions requires more than 10,000 hours of practice to compete at the top level of performance.

All of these positions are PERFORMANCE based and at the starting level, the pay is absolutely ZERO.

Ask yourself, when was the last time you hired a rookie actor to entertain you? The answer is likely never.

When did you last hire a rookie Athlete to endorse your product or service? Likely never.

When was the last time you paid a fat commission cheque to a rookie salesperson who doesn't know how to sell? Likely never.

However, when was the last time Nike hired a PRO athlete do endorse it's products? Everyday.

When was the last time that Disney or 20th century FOX hired a PRO actor for a production? Everyday.

When was the last time a top level sales performer cashed a huge commission cheque for dominating his or her market? Everyday.

There are people making obscene amounts of money in these positions everyday. However, most people perceive these roles as feast or famine.

Why not feast everyday?

Most parents will encourage their young children to be Doctors, Lawyers or Accountants because they can grow up and earn a high guaranteed rate of pay.

Parents overlook actors, athletes and salespeople as REAL jobs because these positions are perceived as "risky". Of course, all parents generally hate risk when it comes to their children.

Many people attribute success in acting, athletics or sales to politics, luck, good looks, genetics or connections.

The truth is, success in Acting, Athletics and Sales takes all of the above, but most people overlook the hard work, preparation, hours of study, and persistence that separate the top from the bottom.

Success is a science that needs to be studied and engineered on a daily basis. However, most people are too "busy" to bother studying success.

For myself, I have become a student of success early in life and have achieved marginal success in acting and athletics. However, I have achieved professional success in sales by becoming a national sales leader very quickly after entering the field.

What made me different?

What makes anyone different?

I had the very fortunate experience of being coached by a veteran salesman who had sold kirby vacuums door to door for years: 

If you can show up at someone's house unannounced and sell them a vacuum that they do not need or want then you can sell anything. If you can do this consistently over many years, you are a sales professional.

Unfortunately, most salespeople today, namely realtors, don't know how to sell kirby vacuums. In some ways, the study of sales is a lost art-form.

I had a great respect for my veteran coach; he showed me how to engineer success in sales and create a science out of the mysterious "sales art-form".

My coach was a left-brained engineer who was NOT a natural salesperson. Most natural sales people are right-brained, conceptual, outgoing people (the exact opposite of an engineer). In many ways, my coach was a greater teacher than most because he was NOT naturally gifted in the field. He had to learn, practice and prepare for success on a daily basis. Since he had learned to prepare every day for decades, he taught me how to PREPARE for success on a daily basis and manipulate my results.

PREPARATION: HOW TO STACK THE ODDS IN YOUR FAVOUR:

The first thing my coach taught me to do was write down the following:

LESSON #1

actions = money
money does not equal actions

What he meant by this statement was that if we analyzed our daily actions, we could find which actions made money and which ones didn't.

In sales and in business, actions equals money.

However, the opposite is not true. Money does not equal actions.

If you tell someone to make $1,000,000, often they cannot figure out which actions generate the money...

Money is not an intrinsic motivator and should never be used to motivate a sales person - or any person for that matter.

If you figure out how much money you want to make, and figure out which actions make money, you can reverse engineer the amount of actions required on a daily basis to create the dollars desired.

For example, 50 phone calls (actions) will generate 10 conversations which will generate 2 meetings which will generate 10 meetings a week. 40% of the meetings will results in a sale valued at an average sale of $20,000... 4 average sales a week will generate an average of $80,000 a week.

If I consistently made 50 calls a day, annually I would generate $4.16 Million dollars for the company, of which I would get 3% or $124,800 annually. If I made 50 calls a week for 52 weeks, that totals 13,000 calls. $124,800 annually divided by $13,000 calls is $9.60 per call JUST FOR DIALLING THE PHONE.

All I needed to do was:

1. Be prepared on a daily basis
2. Call 50 people a day
3. Book 2 meetings
4. Conduct 2 meetings
5. Close 4 per week

The actions that drive the whole model are CALLS. I could directly control my income by the number of CALLS I made. 

CALLS = ACTIONS = DOLLARS

If most people legitimately collected $9.60 per number DIALLED on a daily basis, I guarantee that most people would be dialling numbers until exhaustion.

Years ago, some scientists hooked a rat up to a button that released dopamine (a pleasure drug released by the brain). The rat would push the button consistently until it would die of exhaustion. The rat wanted the dopamine so badly that it would sacrifice it's well being to get the pleasure-drug. As humans, we are exactly like the rat. When we earn money, dopamine is released. If we know that dialling the phone generates money, in theory, we would be dialling the phone until we drop dead... correct?

Incorrect.

In reality, we do not dial the phone until we die of exhaustion because:

Average people hate sales, they are scared of sales, they freeze and won't pick up the phone.

They freeze because they have not associated dialling numbers with pleasure (aka dollars).

The average person thinks that they make money when they CLOSE a sale, however, they actually EARN money when they dial phone numbers.

CLOSING IS AN EFFECT
DIALLING IS A CAUSE

Life is CAUSE and EFFECT.

To get an EFFECT, we must create a CAUSE.

No matter how good of a salesperson you are, you cannot close every sale. This is a fundamental truth of sales. However, you can always make another call or dial another number. Control your actions, because actions are the only things you actually control. If you control your actions, you will become the master of your results.

The most important action in the business of sales is calls. Every time we call, we increase our probability of winning. It's like buying another lottery ticket, except the lottery ticket is free and has much higher chances of success.

Sounds too good to be true, but it isn't.

If we understand the science of success in sales, then why would athletics or acting be any different?

All fields take preparation and can be reverse engineered into daily actions that compound over time.

The trick is to understand which actions create results that move us forward and move us backward and waste our time.

To obey the 80/20 rule. 20% of our actions create 80% of our results. We must find the 20% and ONLY do the 20% to increase our success.

In the sales example, my coach taught me that CALLS were the 20% that drove the business. Without calls, you may as well go home.

Take a moment to think about your business or your job and find your 20%. Which actions bring you your results? How can you do more of these actions? How many dollars do you make per action?

Know these numbers inside and out and the next level of success is yours to be had.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

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By: Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

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“We have this notion in America of the Lone Ranger/Batman type - you know - someone who takes on the world alone. But in reality, all successful people need help. We need advisors, coaches, lenders, customers, and clients. True we ourselves have to do the work, but our "team" that we put together - makes it all worth-while. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can reach our goals.” – Robert Shemin

Although many entrepreneurs enter the field of business alone, achieving success in just about any field is impossible without a team.

This is especially true in business where “lone rangers” get squashed on a daily basis by teams of professionals.

1)   The local “mom and pop burger shop” gets wiped out by McDonalds,

2)   The local “mom and pop hardware store” gets crushed by Home Depot

3)   The local “mom and pop” department store gets destroyed by Wal-Mart.

These small “lone ranger” businesses may provide better services than Walmart; They may provide better burgers than McDonalds and they may offer more expertise than Home Depot. However, they cannot compete with teams of professionals that make up the talent at Wal-Mart, Home Depot or McDonalds.

One thing that separates “mom and pop” from the Walmarts, Home Depots and McDonalds is that “Mom and Pop” have to sleep: Walmart, Home Depot and Mcdonalds don’t.

Kevin O’Leary, Canadian Investment Guru, once said that he prefers investments that make money while he sleeps.

Investors make decent returns when their money grows during business hours... However, the same investors get rich when their money keeps working for them after they have gone to sleep.



In real estate investing, many investors don’t consider themselves to be entrepreneurs. Most investors manage their own properties, hammer their own nails, paint their own walls, lease their own suites and pick their own deals.

Most real estate investors do not get ahead because they are too busy pinching pennies at the $10 an hour level to make serious dollars at the CEO level.

In order to break out of the $10/hour mentality, it’s up to the entrepreneur to break the link between time and money.

Most of us are taught from an early age that:

Time = Money

In reality, time does not equal money:

·      Sales = money

·      Assets = money

·      Brand = money

·      Press = money

·      Information = money

When time equals money, we are stuck in an advanced form of slavery. We must trade hours for dollars. The problem with this model is that we only have a limited amount of hours and cannot make money while we sleep.

Sandman Empire: (noun) An empire of business or real estate created passively through a joint venture or partnership between a passive money partner and an active working partner. The active working partner handles all aspects of the business and the money partner is only responsible for financial backing. The passive partner is removed from all operations and can essentially sleep; hence the word “sandman”.

Investors who can create a “Sandman Empire” can earn serious returns in a completely passive way and have unlimited earning potential: Investors who fail to create a “Sandman Empire” are limited by time, focus, management, skill sets and capabilities.

But how can one create a “Sandman Empire”?

In investing, there are two types of investors: Active Investors and Passive Investors.

Active Investors are essentially entrepreneurs. They pick their own deals, manage their operations, manage their contractors and run the enterprise. Naturally, these entrepreneurs get the highest returns possible and in many ways, they take a risk on themselves to perform and run the enterprise profitably. Active investors may or may not invest money into their enterprise. Since they invest their entire lives into the business, usually they do not have money invested.

Passive Investors are more like silent partners who park their money with an Active Investor. Silent partners trust the Entrepreneur to run the enterprise profitably. Silent Partners need to be proficient at analyzing people and deals. These Passive Investors are the ones who get the benefits of building a “Sandman Empire” if they can select the right Entrepreneur to grow their money.

Usually passive investments have lower returns than active investments. However, Passive investors can get much higher returns by partnering with an Active Investor and splitting the profits.

If a Passive Investor can find the right Active partner, the possibilities are endless. When financial backing is paired with time and talent, tremendous value and profits can be created.

However, if the Active partner is not chosen correctly, massive financial destruction can occur; including losing the investor’s capital or worse.

A Passive Investor must perform proper due diligence on their Active Partner before “taking a leap of faith” and making a final decision to place their money with him or her.

Some questions that need be answered in the due diligence period are:

1)   Does the Active Investor have experience with these types of assets?

2)   Does the AI have experience with this strategy?

3)   How do we recover if things don’t go according to plan?

4)   Has the AI lost money before? How did he or she handle the loss?

5)   What is the track record of the AI, does it show success? Is he or she hiding anything?

6)   Has the AI built an adequate team? Can the team handle the additional business that the Passive Investor is funding?

7)   How has the AI handled himself when things went wrong? Can he turn bad luck into good luck?

8)   What transparency is offered?

9)   What options does the Passive Investor have to exit if things don’t go right?

10)                 Does the AI have good relationships? Is he loyal and in what way?

11)                 What is the brand of the AI? What does he stand for?

12)                 Is the AI 100% focused and committed to the venture or does he or she have a day job? Do you want a “weekend warrior” managing your money?

13)                 What is the X-factor for this AI? What makes him the over-the-top best choice for your dollars? Are you investing in someone who takes care of the details and provides an excellent product and experience? Or just another “real estate guy”?

If an Active Investor can provide satisfactory answers to all of these questions, then he or she is a prime candidate to build a “Sandman Empire”.

Of course you will have to trust and verify all of the answers to make sure that the “walk” matches the “talk”. When it comes to money, people will say whatever they have to get your dollars. Don’t be a victim of bad due diligence, put your potential partner through extensive scrutiny, ask the hard questions and make sure that you have a competent, trustworthy partner to build your empire while you sleep.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it helpful

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful

If you were offered $35,000 a year to sit at a toll booth and collect change from cars crossing a bridge, would you take the job?

Or would you decline and look for the next opportunity?

What if you were paid $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000 for the same task? Would you take the job?

What if you were paid $1 a year to sit at the same tollbooth?

For myself, I would not sit at the tollbooth for any amount of money because money earned at the tollbooth is “dead money”.

We are human “be-ings” not human “do-ings”.

Daily tasks that help us become the person we want to become create life, energy and success. These tasks have purpose, feed our spirits and nourish our souls; By performing tasks we enjoy, we become the person we want to “Be”.

If a task or job does not bring us closer to the person we want to become, we earn dead money and in some ways, waste our time, effort and energy.

Eventually if you earn enough dead money, you won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.

Dead money is a term I learned from Raymond Aaron, a New York Times best selling author. Raymond explained that the money he earned from his published books that were unaligned with his core purpose were “dead money”. In some ways, these books hurt his brand, wasted years of his life and were very expensive in opportunity cost.

In my own business, I make sure every action I do advances my career by building brand-equity or by earning cash AND brand equity. If I am able to monetize my actions and build my brand equity at the same time, I make the biggest gains in spirit and in my bank account.

My mentality is: Even if I earn $0 at the end of the year, but have built a $1,000,000 brand, I succeed. Steve Jobs paid himself a salary of $1 while he was the CEO at apple because his mission was to build the company and put a dent in the universe by challenging the status quo. I have a similar philosophy to Steve Jobs who I have idolized since 6th grade when I first learned about who he was and kept a picture of him on my desk at school.

I am fortunate enough to aware of my brand and purpose, the average person does not consider his or her brand, his brand equity, who he is, who he wants to become or where he is going in life. For the average person, this is very unfortunate.

These people are stuck in “dead end” jobs that are either high paying or low paying and every dollar they earn is a “dead dollar”. The dollars they earn do not build their dream or advance their career.

If you earn enough “dead dollars” you will eventually build the bars of an emotional prison.

Money is a medium of exchange and a currency because it needs to move in order to be relevant and useful like electricity or water.

If money stops moving, money dies.

If people stop moving for long enough, people die.

If the spirit stops moving, the spirit dies.

If you are earning money in your career, but are NOT moving towards becoming the person you wish to become, your career and spirit will eventually die.

Years ago I used to work Frito-Lay, the company that makes Lay’s chips and Doritos. I used to put chips on shelves at Wal-Mart every morning at 4:00 am and I earned a disproportionately high salary for doing so. Walmart employees stocking chips at 4:00am were making $8 per hour, I was making closer to $20 per hour to do the exact same task.

However, every dollar I earned was dead money.

The money was dead because although I was earning money daily, I was not advancing towards my goal of becoming an entrepreneur. The money was good, but my soul was dying. I was becoming a professional shelf stocker and not a professional entrepreneur. I was NOT advancing towards the person I wanted to become. The life that I wanted was not being built with my actions and consequently I was earning dead money that did not help me in my pursuit of happiness.

Many people think that earning money in itself is a good return on time, but in fact, earning dead money is a complete waste of time, waste of spirit and a waste of life.

Would you rather live a life of poverty doing what you love or a life of riches in a life of indifference?

Most people will say that they would rather do what they love and live in poverty. However, 70% of people are not happy with their current jobs or current careers.

70% of people earn dead money every day.

A wise man once said “Talk is cheap and money buys the whiskey.” What this wise man is saying is that most people say whatever makes them sound good: “I would rather do what I love” but their actions do not align with their words.

Remember: Talk is cheap and Money buys the whiskey.

I’m not saying that we should choose a life of poverty out of passion to pursue what we love. I’m a firm believer that we can “have our cake and eat it too”.

I think it’s 100% possible to do what you love, monetize it and become rich. 

I believe you can have it all, happiness, love and money. When it comes to happiness, love and money; there is always enough for everyone.

Obtaining happiness and money is a topic of major study for myself at this time in my life. What I find is that the more I love my career, the more I love my daily routine, the more fun I enjoy, and the more money I make.

Fun = money.

Love = money.

Enthusiasm = money.

Money = life.

The more fun, love and enthusiasm I enjoy, the more life I have, and my wallet benefits as well.

I have abandoned the pursuit of “dead money” and if a task or job doesn’t line up with my mission, my vision and who I want to become, I will not perform it.

Do what you love and the money always comes.

Complete the mission and the money always comes.

Provide enough value and the money always comes.

Money is a result of a job well done; it is an effect, not a cause. Actions performed at a level of excellence equate to money earned. Money itself can never motivate someone to be better, achieve excellence or create more value because money intrinsically has no value.

Money is intrinsically dead, we are the ones who breathe life into money. People are the ones who attach external value to money and we use it to build our dreams.

Money is neutral and money doesn’t care. Money doesn’t cry for you when you are sad and money won’t drink champagne with you when you want to celebrate.

Money will, however, buy you a bottle of champagne.

Money can either be alive or dead depending on how we earn it. It is up to us as the wielders of money to respect the neutrality of money, breathe life into money and allow money to flow through us in our personal pursuit of happiness.

Money, life, spirit, happiness, enthusiasm and joy are all currencies and we must allow them to flow.

If we allow money, life, spirit, happiness, enthusiasm and joy to flow through us, we will become congruent. We will prove our integrity and the universe will reward us for respecting it’s laws and creating abundance.

If we shut off our spirit, enthusiasm and joy, then we also deactivate the spiritual power of money and the power of life.

If we deactivate the spiritual power of money, the money we earn will die the moment it touches our hands. Instead of using our earned money to build our dreams, our dead money will build an emotional prison around us where we are forced into slavery for the all-mighty dollar.

When we align with the person we want to become, we earn the Midas touch and everything we touch turns to gold. When we are out of alignment, we earn the touch of death.

Ask yourself; do my daily actions help me become the person I want to become? Am I earning dead money? What is my purpose? How am I achieving my purpose?


We all have the Midas touch if we can find our purpose deep down inside of ourselves. Respect money as a tool; respect the neutrality of money and the power of money. Allow money to live and money will let you live the life of your dreams.

Disobey money, kill money and you will find yourself in financial prison. Don’t let money die.

Protect money and it will protect you.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio

Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it helpful

By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

Remember: Please share this article if you found it helpful

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.” – Christopher McDougall

In every market whether business, jobs or investing, there are lions and there are gazelles. The lions are the fastest, strongest, fiercest animals in the field while the gazelle is a fast, light, pack animal that finds safety in numbers.

The lion represents the leader in the market: he feeds on his competition and swallows up the slowest weakest gazelles. There are few lions, and only the best can become lions in the field.

The gazelles symbolize the “herd” of average players that flood the market and swarm the terrain in packs. Where one gazelle goes, the rest follow.  Unlike the few lions on the field, there are scores of gazelles. As a gazelle, you do not have to be the best to survive. Instead, you must only be faster than your slowest competition to win another day of life.

The lion requires a complex skill set and a high standard of performance to live, He must become strategic while hunting and move contrary to the direction of the herd. He must appear where the herd does not expect him if he is going to kill and live another day.

The gazelles only need an average skill set and average standard of performance. The herd feels secure when everyone is the same and the gazelles organize themselves in a crowd. The crowd makes the gazelles feel safe because it gives them a thin veil of protection from the lions. This thin veil keeps the lion from focusing on any one gazelle, for the lion cannot catch them all. The lion can only catch one gazelle for his dinner and let the rest of the herd go. The gazelles know this and they base their survival strategy around this fact.

As an investor or entrepreneur, which would you rather be? The Lion or the Gazelle?

Would you rather have the illusion of safety and move with the herd as a gazelle?

Or would you rather have the freedom of the lion to hunt and kill on your own terms?

In my investment/entrepreneurial career, I have always chosen to become the lion.

In my opinion, the lion is a better choice in the investment/entrepreneurial world because I have always had a rule for myself: Whatever the average person does – do the opposite of it and you will succeed.

Most people are not successful at all, so if you do the opposite of the average person, logically you will be a success.

If the average person wants to buy, then sell.

If the average person drinks, then don’t drink.

If the average person smokes, then don’t smoke.

If the average person has a 60-inch plasma screen TV, then don’t own a TV.

If the average person has a PC, get a mac.

If the average person doesn’t exercise, then exercise.

The formula is quite simple and it works more often than not.

People are pack animals, much like gazelles. As mammals, we flock and freeze when we are scared. We form packs to feel safe and we want to belong to a group.

Unfortunately, groups don’t know how to make decisions or create good ideas. Decisions and ideas come from an individual and never a collective.

A committee of professionals built the titanic while one man built the Ark.

No matter which subset of the world or the market you look at, there is always a majority and a minority.

Pareto law states that 20% of your actions create 80% of your results. This relationship applies to markets and people as well. 80% of the market is dominated by 20% of the players.

In the case of the lion and the gazelle, it would be more skewed. Perhaps the lions as 5% of the animals control 95% of the gazelles.

In America, 1% control 99% of the world. This is exactly the same concept as the lions and the gazelles.


The question is, why would anyone want to be a gazelle when you could be a lion?



The truth is, most people are not lions because it’s easy and convenient to be a gazelle while it is extremely difficult to become a lion.

The gazelles have safety in numbers; they do not have to be fast (just faster than the competition), they can feed on grass, which is plentiful and at the end of the day they can go to sleep with a belly full of grass. They don’t have to worry about hunting and killing because they can graze all day. Gazelles know that tomorrow will be the same easy routine and find security in the herd.

Lions on the other hand hunt alone or in very small groups. They have to be much faster than the slowest gazelle or they starve to death. Lions cannot eat grass like the gazelle and require meat survive. Every day the lion must be tracking and hunting for his next kill.  If the lion fails to kill a gazelle, he goes to bed with an empty stomach and too many empty stomachs in a row means death for the lion. The lion has no security and must be better than the gazelle to survive.

To be a gazelle is to be average.

To be a lion is to be a champion, a performer and an athlete.

Every day, both the lion and the gazelle are running, to survive. But what makes the two animals different is “who” they must be on a daily basis to survive.

In every business, every industry and every market, there are lions and there are gazelles.

Every morning when you wake up, you must make the choice between running the field as a lion or a gazelle. No matter which one you choose, you are going to be running anyways.

Are you committed to being the best in your field and taking the lead as the lion? Or would you rather blend into the crowd and take your chances as a gazelle?

In the end, it doesn’t really matter which animal you are. Either way, you will be running. But if you’re running anyways, you might as well choose excellence and learn to be the lion.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
facebook.com/stefanaarnio
https://twitter.com/stefanaarnio
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/stefanaarnio

P.S: Please share this article if you found it helpful