By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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"Loyalty is the fabric that holds relationships together." - Stefan Aarnio

Loyalty is one of the rarest commodities to be found these days. In a world where everyone seems to have their own agenda, where can one find loyalty and how can we measure it?

I have always found it easy to do joint ventures with other business people and investors because I understand one key fundamental. To work together, two parties must share one common goal, or mission. If two people have the same mission, working together on a venture is simple. Loyalty happens when two parties can keep their missions aligned over time.

As my business grows, I have to bring on more and more team members. I have been burned in the past with bad team members, but have slowly built an outstanding team. Entrepreneurs and self employed business people are always apprehensive to add more team members because we want to have full control at all times. However, the larger we get, the more team members we must add.

How do I choose my team members?

I have always believed the mantra of the American billionaire Bill Bartmann "Hire slow and fire fast" and "hire for aptitude, fire for attitude":

1) Hire slow and fire fast: When considering bringing on a new team member, take your time and make the "courting" process long. Have the new team member jump through many hoops before offering them a position. I used to belong to an organization that thrived on having all potential employees work for free before becoming full time staff. The organization had stellar people working for it because the bar was set high. On the flip side, when the disease of negativity is spreading through your ranks - fire fast! As soon as you sense a team member becoming jaded, negative or poisoning the minds of your other team mates, then fire them as fast as possible. Negative energy and negative attitudes are a cancer that must be dealt with quickly if your business is going to survive.

2) HIre for aptitude, fire for attitude: When I am bringing new people onto my team, I do not care if they have paper "qualifications". I am more interested in their passion and personal ambition. I want to know if this team member finds their work exciting and enjoyable and if it fits into the larger vision in their life. Happy people are infectious and they attract success. In contrast, a poor attitude of a single team member can destroy an entire team. I was recently going to hire a realtor to sell a house I had just finished renovating; she had all of the qualifications and was recommended by one of my colleagues - she had the aptitude. However, her attitude was so negative that after listening to her talk for 5 minutes, I changed my mind and fired her on the spot. Attitude is everything, especially in selling and business, the right attitude can bring your organization to the stars and the wrong attitude will smash it on the rocks.

Recently, I have been looking for an apprentice to become my successor and take over the daily operations of my real estate business. There are many qualified individuals and many people who would like the have the position. With so many qualified prospects, decision making can be hard, how will I make a choice?

The #1 attribute that I am looking for in an operations manager is loyalty. Loyalty these days seems to be a forgotten virtue of ages past, but I can still find a few loyal people if I look hard enough.

But what does it mean to be loyal?

Loyal people stay faithful in their primary relationships, stay with their employer without "shopping around" for other jobs, and can manage to create relationships for life through exclusivity.

There are far too many business people who will chop of the heads and hands of their partners to get one step ahead. Unfortunately, the world does not need more of these people.

So how do you find the best and most loyal people for your team?

Divide the people you know into three categories:

1) The loyal and trusted - These people are proven, they are loyal and have the same mission as you - they have no reason to change course! When you have someone in this category, do everything you can to keep them happy and keep them on your team. Billion dollar businesses are built by assembling teams of these people. The loyal and the trusted are gold, especially in today's economy.

2) The "watch carefully list" - as soon as I see someone on my team show signs of disloyalty somewhere in their personal life or business, they go on the "watch carefully list". Does this mean I will not do business with these people? No. It just means that I must handle these people with extreme care and know that they will not  be around for the long term. They are short sighted and can't see the big picture. If these people get too greedy or ambitious, they may become traitors.

3) The blacklist - These people are proven traitors. When I am betrayed by a team member and trust is broken, I may forgive, but I will keep proven traitors on the blacklist and they will receive no further business from me. The quickest way to stop bleeding is to cauterize the wound and seal it with fire. As soon as I can sense betrayal, I will quickly move the offending team member to the blacklist from which they shall never return. "Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, shame on me".

The lessons I have learned about loyalty, traitors and relationships have been hard fought from the school of life. No business school in the world can teach you how to spot a traitor or how to deal with them. Business schools also cannot teach you about cherishing loyal partners for life. Sometimes the hardest lessons in life must be learned first hand, but once you have weeded out all of the bad apples, you will be left with nothing but the sweetest fruit on the tree.

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

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

Remember: Please share this article if you found it enjoyable!

By Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

This weekend I had the pleasure of flying to Edmonton with one of my partners to hear Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad speak. Robert is around 65 years old now and has had some very hard experiences in the past few years.

1. He has severed ties with a founding partners of the Rich Dad company. These people were stealing from him and betrayed him.
   
2. He was recently in the media for going "bankrupt" and was sued for breach of an agreement with Learning Annex.
3. CBC Marketplace did a fairly slanted review of his education company in the last few years and really mis-represented his brand in canada.

Life is not easy when you are on top... Everybody wants a piece of you.

Even still, Robert is tough as nails and still able to evolve, grow and innovate his business.

As an audience, we were treated to an entire morning and most of the afternoon with Robert sharing some of his most recent thoughts. Many of the things Robert taught were contextual and very high level concepts that have brought his life into a new level of focus.

Robert's talk today was mostly self development and had very little to do with money at all. He talked mostly about character, context and personal growth (which is in my opinion more important than the nuts and bolts of money).

One book that has recently changed Robert's life is called "Turning Pro" by Steven Pressfield.

Robert has a communication style where he is able to take a hopelessly complicated subject and make it simple.

For example, Robert can explain financial derivatives (a topic that no one REALLY understands) by using the analogy of oranges: Oranges are the underlying asset, orange juice is the derivative, a box of oranges is a package of derivatives that were sold as an "investment". If the oranges in the box are bad, then the juice and the box of oranges are bad. This is how the American real estate bubble was built and collapsed after people found out "the oranges were bad". This analogy makes derivatives so simple a 3 year old could understand it.

People understand oranges, orange juice and boxes, but they do not understand complicated financial concepts. This is why entire countries can get robbed by a few smart white collar criminals and no one goes to jail. It's also whywhy Robert is the king of his field.

Today Robert shared with us a concept from the book "Turning Pro"

In business, or in life, there are 3 types of people:

Professionals, Amateurs and Traitors.

1. Professionals are people who solve problems. These are the people you can call on, hire to solve a problem and it is fixed without any hassles and is done on time and on budget. These people you will want to call again and keep close to you. These people are worth their weight in gold, cherish them.
2. Amateurs are people who create problems. Amateurs are people who are in a field, but cannot fix problems with 100% satisfaction. They often fix a problem but do it incorrectly and create another problem in the process. These people are not professionals because they do not practice the basics and have little discipline. They charge the fees of a professional, they think they are a professional but are NOT professional by any means.
3. Traitors are people who steal life. Traitors can disguise themselves as professionals or amateurs and steal money, time and life from other people. They are often not conscious of their thievery and often mean well. However, either by incompetence, greed or another character flaw, they end up stealing the lives of other people. The only way traitors can get what they want is by stealing from others.
   

Robert shared a story with the group today about a group of AMATEURS he hired to maintain his lawn. Robert paid the AMATEURS a cash deposit and in few weeks his lawn looked worse. He then asked the AMATEURS why the lawn was worse and they said "pay us more money and it will look better"... A few weeks later, the lawn looked EVEN WORSE. Robert said again "why is the lawn worse?", the AMATEURS replied "pay us more money" once again. The cycle went on until the lawn looked terrible and Robert fired the AMATEURS. At the end Robert was frustrated, wasted money, time and had a lawn that was nearly destroyed.

After Robert's lawn was nearly ruined, he hired a PROFESSIONAL and asked him "what will it take to fix this lawn?" The PROFESSIONAL said "$5,000 and five months". Sure enough, in five months, the lawn looked absolutely beautiful. No hassles, no mess, on time, on budget and Robert was extremely happy.

"Your life sucks when you are hanging out with amateurs and traitors, you give them money and you don't get results." Said Kiyosaki.

3 quick questions you can ask a potential business partner to find out if he is an Amateur, Professional or Traitor:

1. What is your goal in your business or working with me?
2. What are you will to do to achieve this goal?
3. If the answer to #2 is "nothing" then this person is not a professional and likely not the best asset to your team.

"Some of the biggest traitors (in society) are school teachers. They don’t have the guts to resign." said Robert. School teachers can steal and ruin more lives through mis-educaiton and mis-information than any other person in society... worse off, they always get paid whether they do a good job or bad.

Professionals practice the rudiments of their art form every day and strive to be better each and every day. Their goal is to become the best in their field and are willing to pay the price required for success. In the words of Nido Qubein success is "Painful", which means you have to PAY-IN-FULL for it. Nothing in this life is free. 

Amateurs are happy with just doing enough, but do not have the drive to be the best. They are happy operating at a mediocre level, posing as professionals and charge people even when they don't get results.

Traitors are people who have to steal to get what they want in life. They may look like amateurs or professionals and have good intentions, but when it comes down to their actions, they become thieves and steal time, money and resources.

One exercise that Robert had us do was to write down 25 people that we spend time with in our personal and professional lives.

Write the word "professional", "amateur", or "traitor" next to each name and find the patterns and associations in the names.

I did this for myself and noticed that I have been running my career as a "Pro", my private life as an "amateur" and have a graveyard of "traitors" that I try not to think about.

More interesting is that all of my "pro's" are associated and work together as a team with me in their respective fields. The "amateurs" are all associated and transact together. They stick together, are tightly bonded and through their daily choices, are committed to mediocrity without even knowing it. I noticed the amateurs in my life referred more amateurs to me who posed as professionals (this was very alarming). The "traitors" were all associated and approached me as a group as well. They were a tight knit group that was like a pack of wolves. Very scary to see a group of traitors aligned in business and all working together, you can get killed if you find yourself working with a pack of traitors. It cost me dearly to deal with these people in the past.

It was extremely revealing to see how my social circles were constructed when measured by this system.

Please take a moment to do this for yourself, you may find out something new about who you are transacting with. You will even find out how you are running the different aspects of your life.

P.S. Don't be afraid to load up the "traitor" category, this a very important category and I overlooked it because I generally do not focus on people who have "screwed" me. This category is in some ways more important than the other two.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca

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