By: Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and I asked her for her opinion on the local Asper school of business.

Her answer surprised me "needed for some, not for others."

Formal education usually has mixed reviews in the business world. Some people love it and swear by it, others think that it is an outdated dinosaur of the industrial age.

Although I did attend the University of Manitoba, and did take classes at the Asper school of business, I am a business school drop-out. My ambitions for taking classes at the school were quickly quenched when I learned that they were grooming me to become an employee and not an entrepreneur. No matter how much education is received from an institution like Asper, the teachers are employees and they train people to think like employees.

Many of the world's greatest entrepreneurs were drop outs: Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerburg of Facebook, Henry Ford and others. These men build their businesses on passion, experience, and practical hands-on-study in their fields. 

"Formal education will make you a living, Self education will make you a fortune." - Jim Rohn

With enough hands on study and experience, these great entrepreneurs build the most valuable asset of all - sound business acumen. The greatest difference between most WANTrepreneurs who have day jobs and real entrepreneurs who derive their livelihood directly from their businesses is:

1) Entrepreneurs live off of their business acumen
2) WANTreprenerus trade time for money

Where entrepreneurs can turn their ideas and passions into assets that create strong enough income to reach their dreams, many WANTrepreneurs are stuck trading time for money building someone else's dream.

In Robert Kiyosaki's game CashFlow, there are two circuits:

1) The Rat Race, a wheel that the players circulate around in collecting pay checks. In the Rat Race, these players have jobs and trade time for money. It doesn't matter if the player has a low paying job like a Janitor or a high paying job like a Doctor. All of the players in the Rat Race trade time for money, have a limited earning potential, are susceptible to the pitfalls of relying on a fixed income i.e.: players may become downsized and lose 100% of their income for a short period.

2) The second circuit in Cash Flow is called the Fast Track and on the Fast Track players move much faster. The Fast Track is reserved for players who have strong enough business acumen to create enough passive income to exceed his expenses. In other words, these players have become smart enough to not need their jobs  and live off of their ability to invest and create income. Players on the fast track make disproportionately more money, have larger deals, cannot be downsized, and are unaffected by many other disadvantages of the rat race.

One circuit relies on trading time for money, the other relies on business acumen.

Many new investors and WANTrepreneurs want to make the transition from the Rat Race onto the Fast Track, but the sad thing is, many of these WANTrepreneurs refuse to invest in their financial education - the most important asset of all.

Your education and business acumen is the greatest asset, far more valuable than Gold, silver, cash, stocks, real estate, companies. All of these "real" assets mean nothing if there is not a strong base of skill and education backing these symbols of wealth.

But if formal business school teaches most people to be employees, then where can one get an entrepreneur's education.

There are many places to get an entrepreneur's education:

1) Books written by real entrepreneurs
2) Seminars for teaching business put on by real entrepreneurs
3) One on one coaching from real entrepreneurs
4) Mentorship or apprenticing under a real entrepreneur

The key word with all of the above is REAL entrepreneurs. When choosing to learn about entrepreneurship or business from someone, it is counterproductive to learn from a good employee. Employees are trained to think differently from entrepreneurs and they collect pay checks instead of build companies.

ACTION STEP:

In your life, ask yourself; "are you living off of your business acumen?" Or are you trading time for money?

What do you need to get to where you want to go?

Who do you need to help you get there?

Thanks for reading,
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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By: 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!

Jim Rohn, an american entrepreneur, once said "If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much."

I always struggled with the idea of getting a job. Some people call their job a J-O-B which stands for Just, Over, Broke.

From age 17 to 24 I struggled every year with employment. When I was in university, every summer, I had to go out and "get a job" to pay for next year's tuition. Every year I would procrastinate, the idea of a job bored me, and I felt in my heart that I didn't want to work for someone else. Every summer was different, I worked at Tim Hortons, local restaurants, odd painting jobs, and even had a short taste of direct sales. Nothing felt good and every year as the summer would approach I felt myself feeling depressed.

In 2008 when I graduated from university with an Arts degree, the game was over. My parents and society both agreed that it was time to leave the fantasy world of school and join the "real world" and get a "real job".

I had made most of my money in university by teaching guitar lessons out of my mother's living room and had made a good little cash business out of it. I also played numerous music gigs throughout the city and had experienced the life of being self-employed. Now that I was done school it was time to "wake up", shut down my little business and join the real work force.

I followed the advice of my parents, society and the status quo and got a real job in telephone sales. I worked in the middle of the night, on straight commission and although I was one of the top performers in the office, I only made about $10 an hour selling on the phone. My life was completely upside down, I was making less money at my "real job" than I was making it my guitar teaching business, my quality of life was the lowest it had ever been, and I was isolated by working the graveyard shift.

After a few weeks of working my real job, I fell into a depression. Everything I had done was "right". I went to school, got a degree, and got a job, but I was living a miserable life and was making less money than I made in school doing things I enjoyed less.

What was wrong with me?

Looking back, I realize that I was living a life of convenience, not a life of choice. Everything that was in my life came to me by way of convenience. Nothing was consciously chosen by me and this was the source of my unhappiness.

They say there are only two sources of unhappiness in the world:

#1 is not getting what you want
#2 is getting it (not what you want)

When we get something we do not want, unhappiness ensues.

The downward spiral of unhappiness and dissatisfaction continued for years until I learned to take control of my own mind and use it towards endeavours of my choice.

As the great Napoleon Hill writes in his book "Think and Grow Rich":

Everyone comes to this world with the privilege of controlling the power of his mind and directing it to whatever ends he may choose.

At birth, everyone carries the equivalent of two sealed envelopes:

1. The RICHES You May Enjoy If You Take Possession Of Your Mind & Direct It To The Ends Of Your Own Choice.
2. The PENALTIES You Must Pay If You Neglect To Take Possession Of Your Mind & Direct It

In the contents of the first envelope named RICHES are the following blessings:

• Health
• Peace Of Mind
• A Labor Of Love Of Your Own Choice
• Freedom From Fear And Worry
• Positive Mental Attitude
• Material Riches Of Your Own Choice & Quantity

In the envelope labeled PENALTIES are the prices one must pay for neglecting to take control his/her own mind:

• Ill Health
• Fear & Worry
• Indecision & Doubt
• Frustration & Discouragement Throughout Life
• Poverty & Want
• The Evils of Envy, Greed, Jealousy, Anger, Hatred and Superstition

For many years I allowed others to take control of my mind and I drifted through life living a life of convenience with very few elements being of my own choosing. After I hit "the bottom" through depression, poor health, fear, doubt, worry and debt, I began to design the life that I wanted.

Today, I have made drastic changes and every aspect of my life has been chosen by me. Perhaps there are parts that are not 100% of my choosing, but every single aspect is improving steadily towards my vision and my ideals.

All of the improvements in my life came from having a concrete vision of what I desired. I began to write down my goals, my wants, and my vision. I began to reverse engineer and design the life that I wanted. I am very happy to enjoy the blessings that Napoleon Hill names above and be free of the penalties he warns against.

In your own life, ask yourself: Are you living a life of convenience or a life of choice? If you are living a life of convenience, begin to write a vision plan detailing every aspect of your ideal life. When your vision is put into words and written down, the subconscious brain will begin working towards the life of your dreams.

Thanks for reading,
By: 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
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!

This last week I have been officially closing a previous chapter of my life. I have been selling off all of my music gear; guitars, basses, amps, speakers, cords, mixing boards, cases, microphones – everything! I used to be very heavily involved in writing music, performing music and teaching music. I used to derive 100% of my income from music and was a professional in the field. Today, I am selling off all of my music gear and I did receive some backlash from my girlfriend and my mother.

“Why?” they protested.

“Won't you be sad?” they wanted to know.

The answer, is “no, I will not be sad.” and the reasons are simple.

Years ago, when I quit basketball in high school, my coach, whom I will never forget said to me “there is nothing wrong with quitting, as long as you take all of the energy you put into basketball and put it into music.” Music was my passion at that point in my life, not basketball, and it was what I wished to do professionally.

Today, I am officially quitting the music chapter of my life and I'm using the energy to pursue my path as an entrepreneur. Selling all of my music gear is a way of clearing my mind, my space and my path.

But what happens to the years of my life, and all the money that I spent accumulating knowledge and equipment in the music business?

In physics, energy is never lost, the same holds true in real life. The skills, the experience and the wisdom I gained in the music industry carries over to my real estate career and the best part about skills and experience is that they can never be lost.

True value does not lie in the musical equipment. True value lies in the skills I learned from the equipment. I will always know how to sing, how to play instruments and perform. These skills can get rusty, but they never go away.

But how does this apply to real estate?

In real estate, so many investors cling to their buildings and are terrified of losing material wealth. Most of us think that our buildings are assets, when in fact, they are just lifeless bricks and mortar. Real value, even in real estate lies in the experience and the knowledge of building and operating the business.

Years ago, Henry Ford, the founder of Ford automobiles was asked by a reporter “Mr. Ford, you're a billionaire – so what? What would happen if you lost it all tomorrow?”

Mr. Ford smiled and replied “I would have it all back and more in 5 years!”

I truly understand what Mr. Ford meant by these words and I feel the same about the music business or even my real estate business. The knowledge I have gained by building the business from scratch will never leave my mind and the wisdom is the true asset – not the equipment or the buildings.

In the classic book “The Richest Man in Babylon”, the characters in the book are given a choice between a large sack of gold and a clay tablet with wisdom inscribed in it.

The book explains that the man who chooses the gold will quickly lose it, whereas the man with the knowledge will eventually get the gold.

Henry Ford and the Richest Man in Babylon both agree, true value is in the knowledge not the gold, the money, the buildings, or the companies.

Early in my real estate career, I made of point of investing in my education through seminars, coaching, training, mentoring, books, audio files etc. To build my education as fast as possible. Education, knowledge and experience form the backbone of business and entrepreneurship. Where most people rely on their job, their salaries and the government to survive, entrepreneurs rely on business acumen thrive.

It always startles me to see young investors and entrepreneurs forgo business and real estate education and jump into the field with both feet. I have made this mistake in the past and it is extremely costly to experiment with real world dollars.

If you are in business, real estate investing or entrepreneurship, please ensure that you allocate a portion of your earnings to ongoing education. For myself, my education has made all the difference and has allowed me to grow my real estate business from a one time investment of $1200 to a multi million dollar portfolio.

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!

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

By: 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!

“The richest people in the world build networks, everyone else looks for work” - Robert Kiyosaki

Love him or hate him, Mr. Kiyosaki is onto something.

I recently spent a weekend with my mentor and I asked him “how can I find more great deals?”

The answer was: “networking”.

Other investors might ask: “how do I find money to fund my deals?”

The answer is “networking”.

This past weekend I was looking for a someone to clean a house I owned.

The solution came from “networking”.

As humans we are pack animals. We roam in gangs, we help each other, we are who we associate with. With people, just like in nature, lone wolves get slaughtered by packs of other wolves. If you are in business, you don't want to be the lone wolf.

Early in my business/real estate investing career I used to act like the tough guy and “go it alone”. I was a one man band, a chief cook and bottle washer and the guy with all the answers. I was the smartest guy on my team, had no connections to mentors or coaches and didn't belong to any networks.

This was the recipe for disaster. Instead of joining a few small local clubs and accessing the information of other investors and entrepreneurs in the market, I tried to re-invent the wheel. The mistakes were painful and costly and I will never forget the lessons I learned.

In business, we are always limited by the resources, skills and knowledge of our team. To grow the business we must access the skills, knowledge and resources of others and there is only one way to find the pieces of the puzzle that we are missing; and that is through networking.

The truth is, everything we need is “out there”. The question is, “who do we need to know” to get what we need?

When I started in real estate investing as a full time investor, one of the first things I did was sit down, write out a list of names of people who would potentially have money to invest with me. What amazes me today, is that almost anyone who knows 100 people can put together $1,000,000 cash to do a deal. Almost everyone, no matter how broke, can access $10,000 cash or credit and if you know 100 people, 100 x $10,000 is $1,000,000. We all have access to at least $1,000,000 – sometimes, we just don't know it.

The top 3 reasons why people don't like to network and why they are wrong:

1. They think that there is no one new to meet
   
   

Just when I think I know “everyone in the business”, I am proven wrong over and over again. Networking events attract all types of people and often it's not the initial person you meet who is the most important – but the people that they know that are most important!

1. They don't want to pay fees to belong to clubs
   
   

Leads, connections and relationships are very expensive to find and maintain. Paying nominal fees to networking clubs and groups is often a very economical way to find all of the above. In many cases, the fee paid to get into the club pays for itself many times over if it's the right group for you.

1. They think that networking is a poor use of time
   
   

The best opportunities never see the light of day. Whenever a great opportunity comes along, it always goes out to someone's personal network before going out to the public. The only way to capitalize on “hidden” opportunity is to be well connected and have a great network. For myself, when I have a deal, it is often gone in less than 30 minutes because the investors in my network snatch it up before I have a chance to show it to any outsiders.

Networking is one of the easiest ways to get a great ROI on your marketing dollars. I spend a considerable amount of my time daily networking, meeting people and finding opportunities. I also dedicate a portion of my income to clubs and associations and make sure I am an active member to maximize my opportunity for my business. If you don't belong to any clubs, it's time to join.

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!


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

By: 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!

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
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!

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

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 enjoyable!

Today I received a magazine in the mail that read on the cover “Why Canadian Real Estate Will Plummet 20% and Stay Down For Years”. After seeing the title, I immediately stopped what I was doing, put my schedule on hold and had to read the doom and gloom article.

Canadian real estate is such a broad term that it is impossible to make a general statement about it. Canada is the second longest land mass on the planet after Russia and we cover so many square kilometers that for all intensive purposes, comparing Vancouver to Toronto to PEI to Winnipeg really makes no sense. The Canadian cities are so spread out and so independent of each other that each market is influenced by a completely different set of forces.

The article claims that Canada will plummet 20% and only mentions speculative real estate in Vancouver and Toronto. More specifically, when “experts” talk about Canadian Real Estate, they mostly focus on the Toronto Condo market, which has been red-hot with record sales of 28,000 units and another 240,000 units to be built in the near future.

Detached homes in Toronto were seeing buyer mania with buyers bidding $100,000 over asking price for a detached home. When cheap, dumb money enters a market, idiotic buyers will pay $100,000 over asking for a single detached home in Toronto.

… But what is Cheap, Dumb Money?

Cheap, Dumb Money is cheap because interest rates are at an all time low. Money has never been this cheap in history, so buyers make crazy decisions that they normally wouldn’t. Along with being cheap, the money is also dumb because it comes from someone who is ignorant and uneducated about the market making a speculative play on a piece of real estate. In investing, when cheap, dumb money enters a market, it’s time to sell. When the dumb money is leaving the market, it’s time to get in. In investing, being smart is easy - just do the opposite of what the stupid people do!

When we compare Canada’s real estate to the USA’s markets, Canada has been steadily climbing since the early 2000’s while the US took a nosedive in 2006. Many uneducated people think that Canada and the US are so similar and so connected that Canada is due for a crash as well.

However, what we don’t consider is that the US did not really have a housing crash. What the USA had was mass mortgage fraud. The prices that homes in the US sold for in 2006 were completely fictional and fraudulent prices that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Cheap, Dumb Money entered the US market via NINJA borrowers (No income, No Job, No assets) and suddenly clerks working at Safeway could own 5 brand new homes in the suburbs where they were planning to “flip” them for a profit. Everyone was speculating with Cheap Dumb Money and prices went insane. The banks underwrote mortgages on completely insane lending standards and lots of fraud happened. The US market crashed because mass mortgage fraud occurred. The low prices we see today in the US are very low compared to the fraudulent prices that were paid in 2006, but they are in line with construction values and rental values in many ways. Real Estate in the USA right now is worth a value closer to the intrinsic value of the actual property and that makes the US market a good place to buy right now.

In my home market in Winnipeg, I write 5 to 25 offers a week and have to acquire a property every 15 days to run my business. I am seeing a divide in the Winnipeg market that has been red-hot for quite some time. Some sellers think that their house is red-hot and needs to sell for an insane valuation; other sellers think that real estate is going down right now and will settle for less. The market is fragmented between those who think the mania that went on in Winnipeg for the last 2 years will continue forever and the realists who think that the market is correcting.

For myself, I think that real estate in Winnipeg will correct in the next 12 to 24 months, and that is only because Winnipeg has been hot for so long. Cheap Dumb Money has been running around in the Winnipeg market for far too long and things have been selling for prices that don’t make sense. It’s not that Real Estate in Winnipeg is “going down” or “getting worse”, it’s just that the mania has to stop. We will likely see less bidding wars, less homes selling over asking price and less insanity in the market.

For myself, I am very happy about this, but I am a professional. Whether the market goes up or down, I’m happy; I can make money either way. All that this means for me, and for you, is that Canadian Real Estate in many markets will be easier to buy in the next 12 months than it has been in the past. Negotiating will be easier, getting discounts will be easier and for myself, the business will become more fun (I love to buy).

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

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

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

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

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

Robert Kiyosaki defines intelligence as “the ability to make distinctions”. For example, an interior designer will be able to make distinctions between 15 shades of blue giving them specific names like “azure”, “indigo”, “sky blue”, “royal blue”, “navy blue” etc.

A cigar connoisseur will know the difference between a fine Cuban cigar and a fake.

An investor should know the difference between money and wealth. Unfortunately, most investors do not know the difference.

Everyday we wake up and chase the pursuit of happiness. For most people, money is part of the equation. Everyone would like to be rich and rich means an abundance of money. However, there is a huge distinction between money and wealth.

A person can be wealthy and not have any money. Logically, the opposite is true as well; you can have lots of money and zero wealth.

Sports stars that make millions of dollars per year and lottery winners are examples of people who can make lots of money but have zero wealth.

On the other hand, a retiree with a solid income from their investment portfolio may have wealth but very little money to throw around.


What is wealth? What is money?

Wealth is measured and defined in time. The question we must ask is “if I stopped working today, how long could I survive?” If the answer is “forever”, then you have wealth. Many people who live paycheque to paycheque could only survive for a few months if they stopped working. These people have very little time to survive and very little wealth.

I recently heard a statistic that over 50% of American households are 1 paycheque away from bankruptcy. This may or may not be true, but it paints a grim picture of the lowest level of wealth. One paycheque is only 2 weeks worth of wealth and a very low level of survival.

Money on the other hand is much easier to define. Money is measured in dollars and all we have to do to measure dollars is count. The key with money is to learn to exchange dollars for wealth.

Traditionally speaking the rich are very good at trading dollars for wealth (assets that produce passive income), the middle class are good at trading dollars for liabilities (houses, cars, cottages) and the poor are good at trading dollars for expenses (flat screen televisions, booze, rent).

This year in my Real Estate portfolio I focused mostly on wealth rather than money. I built wealth this year through multiple income streams of both business and real estate. To myself, I consider it important to build income streams early in my life. I wanted to create wealth and the ability to survive “forever” without a paycheque so that I could become creative in my free time.

At the time of writing I have multiple income streams and can survive “forever” which means that my passive income is greater than my expenses. However, wealth alone is not enough to win the game of money. We need both cash and wealth to get the most out of life because dreams aren’t cheap.

In the words of the American billionaire Bill Bartmann “Cashflow buys you time, profits buy you praise”. Both cashflow and profits are required to win the game, the question is which one do you focus on today.

For most people with a paycheque, they should focus on learning to create wealth and multiple streams of passive income through real estate, dividend bearing stocks, internet businesses, traditional businesses, or joint ventures.

For people with wealth, they may be interested in creating more cash and liquidity through business, real estate and joint ventures.


The game of money is a game of balance and this year for myself, I will be starting the year off with a “cash” strategy; I have achieved a level wealth, which has freed up my time and will be pursuing my strategy to take my brand to the next level.

What are you doing this year to take your game to the next level? Will you be pursuing cash, wealth or both? Please discuss your strategy in the comments below.

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 enjoyable!

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 enjoyable!

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

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