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Photo: Soldiers in the Afrika Korps with an 88mm gun.
A wise man once said "wars are won by legs, not by arms".
One interpretation of this quote is: battles are won by distance covered, not by physical strength exerted in one battle.
By covering more distance, smaller armies throughout history have been able to wear down massive opponents and take victory over large distances.
Atilla the Hun was able to wreak havoc on the much larger roman legions by having a fast, small, elite, mobile force.
Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps were able to beat the british into the submission in World War II with a small elite, mobile force.
Lawrence of Arabia employed similar tactics in the pre World War II era that have evolved into modern day guerrilla warfare.
There are two commonalities between Atilla the Hun, Erwin Rommel and Lawrence of Arabia. All 3 men employed the following into their strategy and tactics:
- Speed
- Distance
In the days of the Roman empire, business and war were synonymous - there was no separation between business and war. Business was war and war was business. Men in Roman society became wealthy through the spoils of war and later in life would venture into real estate, trade or politics. This is why books like "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu are found in the Business section of the book store and not the War section. The same principles that apply in warfare also apply in business.
Speed and Distance are just as powerful on the battlefield as they are in the boardroom and let me elaborate on why.
In business, speed wins. First mover advantage, speed of implementation, and velocity of money are all concepts that revolve around speed. In business if you have a chance to be fast or slow, most of the time it is better to be fast.
In business and warfare, distance is just as important as speed. Strategically, we need to have a short position, a medium position and a long position. Whether we are building a company or managing an investment portfolio.
Our ability to win over distances whether short, medium or long is imperative to success.
Strategies that are effective in short positions may not be effective in medium positions and medium positions will not offer the same advantages as long positions.
In business, we need to have an effective mix of 3 types of strategies to be effective over distances and become a leader in the market.
In my past businesses, I focused too much on "long" positions and neglected my short and medium positions.
I would load up my real estate portfolio with long position buy-and-hold cash flow real estate. In my music business, I would pour my time, effort and energy into producing a long term brand strategy and forget my short term strategy. In my debt buying business, again, I had a long term cash-flow strategy but no short or medium position.
These businesses were aggravating, painful and hard to grow because there was no short or medium strategies to generate the cash needed to properly grow and expand.
This summer I began to study JT Foxx. JT Foxx is a very successful real estate investor who has transacted over 500 deals in five years, partnered with some very large money partners and currently owns a huge speaking and coaching business.
JT has very good business acumen and I noticed that he has weighted his business transactions around short positions and the "shortest ways to make money".
The 4 Shortest Ways to Profit
1) Flipping real estate - Flipping real estate has always been one of the fastest ways to make money in history. Real estate allows an investor to make huge leveraged gains with little or no work and if you do your homework, real estate can be turned in 30-90 days with little to no effort. If you're in real estate, this should be a strategy used often as part of your portfolio and overall strategy.
2) Local marketing/branding other people - Selling marketing and branding services to local businesses is a very fast way to make large profits. Most business people have no clue about marketing and branding and will pay large sums of money to learn marketing and branding techniques. This is especially apparent in Real Estate Investing and Internet Marketing. Where there is pain, there is profit and branding/marketing is place where many entrepreneurs feel lots of pain. Many companies make large fast profits by relieving this pain.
3) Public speaking - Donald trump charges $250,000 an hour to speak in public. Raymond Aaron and Tony Robbins have both made over $1,000,000 in an hour giving speeches. Most people would rather be dead than to be speaking in front of an audience. However, this is one of the fastest, most lucrative endeavours for an individual if executed properly. There is enormous leverage in public speaking and tons of branding opportunity. Consider the value of this avenue for a short term strategy in your business. This strategy can be offered for free (just for branding value and lead generation) or it can be monetized - who doesn't love options?
4) Joint ventures - This year I built my company from the ground up using none of my own money because I used joint ventures to build it. Joint ventures are the fastest, highest leverage business tool available. Only 2% of entrepreneurs know how to use Joint Ventures and this gives savvy entrepreneurs an advantage. Credit Card companies and fortune 500 companies derive major profits from Joint Ventures while small entrepreneurs try to do everything themselves. Whenever I am missing a resource, I will source a JV partner; "why try to own everything?" I have become a specialist in Joint Ventures and I am never low on resources because I know how to create favourable deals for everyone. Some greedy entrepreneurs don't like Joint Ventures because they have to give up a percentage of their business for access to extra resources. In the words of Mark Cuban; "Would you rather have half a watermelon or a whole grape?"
After learning the 4 "shortest ways to profit", I began to re-think my business. I have began restructuring it and adding short and medium positions to my long positions and have begun to find balance. Today my business is healthier than ever and my strategy going forward is more sound. I recommend you review the "4 shortest ways to profit" and plan to implement at least one of the 4 strategies into your business in the next 60 days.
Thanks for reading,
Stefan Aarnio
Freedomway.ca
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