NOVEMBER 2002
Greetings & Salutations:
Most people spend all their life looking for money in one
form or another. They look for it in the strangest places
and under the weirdest conditions, but they never seem to find
it. -- The sad part is they really have more money than
they ever imagined; they just don't know it.
If you don't know what money is, how can you expect
to get someone else's money to use?
So -- before we can get down to the nitty-gritty -- there
is one lesson you must learn. It's not a hard-to-learn
lesson, but most people never learn it and go through life looking
for something they already have.
What is MONEY?
MONEY IS ONLY A MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE. -- That simply
means that ANYTHING that can be exchanged for something else
is MONEY.
Until you finally learn and accept the fact that ANYTHING
(and I do mean anything) you can exchange for SOMETHING ELSE
is money, you will be doomed to a life-long futile search for
something you already have.
Now ... let me tell you a true story about George. He
"borrowed" a whole factory.
George is a real person, but, since his company is still in
business and I'm sure he wouldn't want a bunch of crazy telephone
calls interrupting his business days, I have not given you his
last name or where his company is located. I've also used
"generic" terms to describe his business; rather than
the specific product lines, just in case you're in the same kind
of business and might recognize him from clues in his story.
When I first met George, he was a successful manufacturer
of an industrial product. -- That's a product that is sold to
other manufacturers who use it to manufacture other products.
One day, in my office, over a cup of coffee, we were swapping
war stories about our various business activities. After
telling George how I had started my business, he told me how
he had "borrowed" a whole factory to start his business.
Before he was a manufacturer, George was a salesman; selling
the same industrial product he later started manufacturing.
He was a pretty good salesman and made enough to support his
wife and 7 children comfortably but not lavishly.
George had always dreamed of owning his own factory.
He had approached a number of lenders, but had always been turned-down.
The money he thought he needed was just too much for his provable
limits.
By the way, one of the reasons George was a successful salesman
was because he was (and is) a meticulous record keeper.
He made it his personal responsibility to take exceptional care
of his customers. And, his customers knew they could depend
on him because he had proven it over and over again in their
dealings.
When George celebrated his 40th birthday, he started considering
where he had been, where he was, and where he wanted to be.
If he was going to make his dream come true and own a factory
of his own, he had better get moving, or he would be too old
to enjoy it later.
Taking a look over all of the packages and proposals he had
prepared for various lenders over the years, George made a list
of all the things he thought he needed to get his factory going.
After he had that list, he went through it again and again.
Each time, he eliminated more and more of the nice-to-have items,
until he had a bare-bones list of only the most necessary items.
That list included:
1) Incorporation of the business.
2) A building to work from.
3) Office equipment & supplies.
4) Manufacturing machinery.
5) Employees.
6) Raw materials & supplies.
7) Operating cash.
Everything on his list could be had with "cash,"
but George didn't have, and couldn't get, that kind of cash.
So, he "borrowed" all of it, one piece at a time, until
he had all of it.
To get started, George felt he had to, first, incorporate
a business.
Since George didn't have cash for the attorney fees, filing
fees, etc., he talked to a friend of his who was an attorney.
After George explained that he was going to manufacture the same
product he had been selling for about 20 years, the attorney
prepared the corporate charter, paid the filing fees himself,
and agreed to act as Secretary of the corporation for ten thousand
shares of the company stock (out of 1,000,000 authorized shares).
After all, he knew George could sell the product and make a profit,
if he could manufacture it.
George's proven skill of selling the product had gotten him
one item on his list. -- Only 6 more to go.
Down the road from George's home, there was an old run-down
mill building. It had a railroad siding, loading docks,
and even a set of old truck scales, but it was really in a sorry
state of disrepair.
George had driven past that old building thousands of times.
He really hadn't noticed it until he started looking for a building
for his factory. The only real reason he noticed it even
then was because, after pricing buildings for rent or purchase,
he had all but given up on finding a building he could afford.
The owner of the building lived in a house on the other end
of the property. The old building had been there when he
bought the property, about 10 years before. He had meant
to do something with the building, or tear it down, but he just
never got around to it.
After a number of conversations, the owner agreed to let George
use the building for a period of 2 years, rent-free. During
that time, George would repair the building, make it usable &
presentable, and clean up all the debris that had accumulated
around the building. At the end of 2 years, George would
either vacate the building leaving all of the improvements, or
he would enter into a rental agreement with the owner at $1,500
per month for the next 3 years.
George had his building -- but -- it was far from being serviceable.
Working nights and weekends, with help from his wife &
children, George managed to get the building cleaned-up; inside
& out. At work, during the day, he enlisted the help
of other salesmen. At church, on Sundays, he enlisted the
help of his friends.
As time went by, more and more of his friends helped-out with
the painting, wiring, plumbing, and general fix-up of the building.
And, a friend of a friend, who worked for the telephone company,
even put in an extension of George's house telephone; since it
was less than a half mile from George's home. -- The old building
took on a new life; to the amazement of the property owner.
While George and his friends were working on the building,
his brother-in-law closed a small branch office of his Insurance
Brokerage. Since his brother-in-law didn't have a place
to "store" the excess office furnishings, George told
him about the factory. -- George borrowed the office furnishings,
including an almost-new typewriter.
George was well on his way. He had his business structure,
building and office, but an empty factory doesn't produce much
products.
Because George had worked in the industry for a good many
years, he knew most of the manufacturers. So he knew that
two of the manufacturers had replaced some older, out-dated equipment
with brand-new equipment over the past two years. -- Maybe one
of them would have some used equipment he could get.
Talking to the two manufacturers, George discovered that between
the two, they had enough old equipment to set-up one full production
line. Although neither of them would agree to let George
just "use" the equipment, they both agreed to allow
him a one-year option to purchase. -- George would move the equipment
to his location and at anytime during the year, he could pay
for the equipment or arrange financing. If George did not
buy the equipment within one-year, he would be required to reimburse
the companies for the use of the equipment at a set rate per
month on each piece of machinery, and pay all cost involved in
returning the machinery (if he didn't have someone else to buy
it).
Actually, the manufacturers were so glad to get the machinery
out of their buildings, they used their own labor and trucks
to deliver the machinery to George at his building.
It's one thing to have machinery, but yet another to operate
it. Especially when you don't have any cash money to cover
payrolls for employees.
Talking to some of the machine operators at the other factories,
George made a deal with 3 of them to run his machines for him
in the evenings and on weekends. And, since he didn't have
any cash money to pay them salaries, he made an agreement with
them to pay them a percentage of each order produced and shipped.
This way, they would get their pay as soon as George was paid
for the products they produced.
After he had his machinery installed and ready to operate,
and had his signed agreements with his part-time employees, George
went after the Raw Materials and supplies he would need to manufacture
his product.
By showing the suppliers of the Raw Materials and Supplies
through his factory, George was able to get them to agree to
ship their materials and supplies on a 90-day billing.
That meant he would have 90-days to pay for those materials after
the materials were delivered. But, George could only get
the materials he would need to fill each order. Therefore,
he would have to show the suppliers confirmable Purchase Orders
before they would ship the goods.
George quit his job and went on the road selling the same
products he had been selling for years -- but -- this time, he
was selling for his own company.
As George got Purchase Orders from the buyers, he took them
to the Raw Materials Suppliers so they could be confirmed. --
The raw materials and supplies were shipped on the agreed-upon
90-day billings.
When the raw materials and supplies were delivered, George
notified his part-time employees. They produced the product
and shipped it to the buyers.
Even though George invoiced his customers on a net 30-days
basis, there was a time lag between billing the customer and
receiving payment. During that time lag, some things that
George couldn't borrow had to be paid for with cash money.
Such things as electricity and gas were increasing in direct
relation to the amount of manufacturing being done. And,
the freight lines that delivered the product to George's customers
required cash payment or George's product wouldn't be delivered.
To get the cash money he needed to cover operating costs,
George ran a classified ad in his local newspaper; something
like this:
PRIVATE INVESTORS WANTED for going manufacturing
concern with orders in hand and production scheduled. Call
George at 555-1111.
Although the response to the ad wasn't very big, George showed
each of those who responded his new factory, the purchase orders
he had in hand, and delivery slips & invoices on the product
already manufactured and shipped. George sold enough of
them some of his stock at $1 per share to cover his cash operating
cost until the cash started coming in from the billings already
made.
George had "borrowed" a whole factory.
When you finally accept the fact that money is ANYTHING you
can exchange for SOMETHING ELSE, you may be able to do even greater
things than George did. All you have to do is break your
desires down into their basic component parts. Then acquire
each of those component parts using someone else's money in whatever
form it may take.
Of course, you should ONLY use someone else's money for things
you really need. Beyond that, you must always remember
that when you do use someone else's money, you take on a responsibility
far beyond any you would bear using your own money. If
you mis-use someone else's money, you will pay penalties that
could be disastrous to your financial position for many years
to come. And, it doesn't matter whether the money you use
is "cash" or something else of a tradable value.
Believe it or not, I have just revealed to you some of the
most powerful tricks, techniques and methods used in the world
of business and finance. - Tricks I have used over and over myself
to build my own fortune. - The beauty of those methods is that
anyone can begin using them immediately to achieve financial
independence. But, I'm not going to itemize and annotate
them for you.
If I were to itemize and annotate the various and many tricks,
techniques and methods, you would simply nod your head and never
use the information. But, if you really want that knowledge,
you'll read and re-read this report until the knowledge you seek
strikes you like a bolt of summer lightning.
Anyone can get all of the money they need; someone else's
money, when they finally learn what money really is.