Here is a summary of the 3-hour seminar that Brad conducted in Singapore on 3rd May 07, titled "Billionaire In Training".
BIODATA
A brief biodata about Brad Sugars. At age 22, he is a millionaire. At age 26, his accountant said that Brad is worth $10 million. He is now in his mid-thirties, a multi-millionaire and have read more than 1200 books on finance and business. His franchised coaching business has more than 800 franchised coaches in over 22 countries. In 1994, Robert Kiyosaki had asked Brad to be a speaker in Robert's Business School of Entrepreneur.
EARN OR LEARN?
To adults, which comes first... to earn or to learn? Most of us will say... to earn. Here is Brad's first great advice at the seminar: Focus on Learning First. No wonder he read 1200 books! And no wonder every 3.5 mins, someone buys one of his books from Amazon. And no wonder Anthony Robbins read more than 700 books too.
I still have a lot of catching up to do, having read only around 50 books on personal growth. 95% of new businesses failed and although many reasons are given, these business owners failed to realise that the root cause is the lack of knowledge. For example, business closed down because of cash flow problems. It is because the owner lacks the knowledge on how to manage cash flow. Now you can see, the challenge is to learn first, not to earn.
LEARN FROM WHO?
For those who knows me, I have mentioned this before... to be competent in any field, there are only 3 ways. You have the natural talent or you learn on your own by trial and error or you learn from someone who is already an expert in that field.
This is a great question from Brad in the seminar:
Which is cheaper? To buy a book or to learn from your own mistakes (thru trial and error).
Well, if only the 95% of failed business owners had focus more on learning. And learning from the best teachers.
HOW MUCH CAN YOU EARN?
Are there anyone out there that is earning more or much, much more than you? If there are, then you can do it too. Most people want to be rich but they are not learning how to be rich. For example, the typical worker is too busy making money that he or she has no time to manage money. When we have set aside some funds, we have to know how to manage or grow them thru investments.
There are many tips that I got from the seminar. But the 3 most outstanding ones are:
Get leverage... do the work once and get paid forever. For example, writing a book. This is passive income.
Incidentally, if you have knowledge, you do it once and get paid forever too!
As for the other two outstanding tips... more of it later as we go along.
WHY DO YOU WANT A BUSINESS?
In the first place, what is a job? The true meaning of a job is that it is an apprenticeship to prepare you to start your own business. So find a job that you will learn. If you are in a job that you are not happy now, get out of it.
In a job, you do it once, you get paid once. This is active income. Our goal is then to move up the ladder from active to passive income. The typical ladder is thus an employee to self-employed to manager to business owner. To be successful and be rich, the whole process is a ten year period. If you want to take shortcuts (employee directly to business owner), majority of us are doomed to fail. The explosion of internet business and the bubble-burst is an example of the shortcut way. Most of the young wizards, after getting the funds just build websites. Building websites and running an internet business are two different things.
As we move up the ladder, let us look at some important points.
A job stands for 'just over broke'. And that is because we trade our time with money. As a self-employed we are in a see-saw. Balancing our time to do the business (the selling) and to run the business (managing). After some time, most of the self-employed will find that 'it ain't worth it' and they will go back on a job but this time, being wiser becomes a Manager. As a Manager, we are running endlessly. We are running to rectify the mistakes of our sub-ordinates. So until we are a good Manager, do not expect to get good sub-ordinates. Very often Managers are quick to put the blame to sub-ordinates instead of looking inward first. Then we come to being a business owner. Brad's definition of a business is "a commercial enterprise that works WITHOUT ME." Very often, businesses are built around your strengths or around you. Big mistake. If you have to be there, you don't have a business, you have a job!
WHAT IS A GOOD BUSINESS?
The best way to earn from a business is to buy it, build it and then sell it. This is the 2nd outstanding tip from Brad:
You don't make money running a business; you make money selling it.
And 8 rules of a good business are;
-Repetitive means has repeat orders. Example maintenance of swimming pool vs installing swimming pool.
- Idiot type means the business owner has overlooked some common sense aspect of the business. Example if a coffee shop has capacity for 50 tables but the owner only put 30 tables.
- Low skill means if employees leave, the customers will not follow. This will happen in a highly-skilled business when an expert employee in the business leaves the job.
- Bad marketing means the business owner has overlooked on the importance of marketing and you can capitalise on this.
- Stable or normal product/service... if it is for a niche market and not mass market, it is more difficult to sell later.
- Great manager is like a great jockey riding on a race-horse. Which would you prefer. A great jockey riding on a bad horse or a bad jockey riding on a great horse.
- Buying cashflow is like buying a company that instals air-con vs buying a company manufacturing the air-con unit (manufacturer always has depreciation of eqpt).
- My deal means buy only on your terms. If necessary, walk away from deals and often you walk away more than you take deals. Get a fantastic bargain or deal, not an average one.
Here is amazing tip no 3 from Brad:
Don't chose a business;rather find a business that gives you a good deal.
MANAGING YOUR MONEY
After successfully doing a business (Buy, Build, Sell) you now have a new scenario. Since you are now earning passive income, what you have additional is TIME.
And now it is time to talk about investing your money. Now are are moving towards capital growth. Getting money from your business is income. Now you are ready to climb the capital ladder.
The sequence of the capital ladder is briefly you start buying retail, then you become an investor, followed by buying wholesale and finally becoming an entrepreneur.
Of course for each steps, you have to learn. As a beginner, you buy retail. Then as an investor, you use your money to buy deals. As a wholesaler, you buy in volume and as an entrepreneur you create opportunities by buying deals and selling deals.
For growing wealth, Brad recommends income from business first, then property, followed by stocks. The reason being at the start of the acquisition, you can immediately add value to the business while property it is limited value adding and for stocks, hardly you can add value at the start.
FINAL WORDS
And here are some final words from Brad.
- You must have big goals. Make it into a 10 year plan. We always underestimate what we can do in 10 years and we overestimate what we can do in one year.
- You have but one job in life... to be the best me I can be, not an average me because when you are the best, you can have anything you want (from Jim Rohn).
Oh, by the way, Brad gave a special deal on his books at the seminar. A set consisting of 14 sets of books at a deep discount. I counted easily more than 30 participants buying them.
I was one of them.
Brad is currently on his world tour. Be sure to catch him live. If not, you can buy his books at Amazon.
And my most memorable experience... to have a photo taken with Brad, while I admire his very nice-looking diamond-studded watch.
Now that would be one of my first goal when I hit my first milllion.
Get Brad Sugar's Books from Amazon now!
If there is one thing that you can learn from Brad.... Learn, Learn, Learn. Grab a book, any book from Brad to start learning. After all, many people know what to do but few people do what they know.
Billionaire In Training (Instant Success)
by Bradley J Sugars, Brad Sugars
This book gives more details on what Brad had talked about in the seminar. A must book in your collection if you are thinking about starting a business or if you are a seasoned businessman. I have this book since March last year.
Amazon Price: $11.53 (as of 05/12/2007)
The Business Coach (Instant Success) by Bradley J Sugars and Brad Sugars (Paperback - Dec 19, 2005)
This book gives you the fundamentals of how you can run a proper business so that you run ON the business and not IN the business. Excellent book to confirm if you know what you know in running a business... or what you don't know.
Amazon Price: $11.53 (as of 05/12/2007)
Instant Cashflow (Instant Success) by Bradley J Sugars, Brad Sugars
If you are already in business or an entrepreneur, this book is a must. You can gain instant additional income from areas that are right under your nose but somehow they have been overlooked.
Amazon Price: $11.53 (as of 05/12/2007)
The Real Estate Coach (Instant Success) by Bradley J Sugars, Brad Sugars
Amazon Price: $11.53 (as of 05/12/2007)
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
Brad also recommends that we read books from Michael Gerber. This book is also in my collection. Some useful tips on looking at our inside first before the business.
Amazon Price: $10.08 (as of 05/12/2007)
Tip no 1.
Test & Measure
Another tip when running your business which most business owners overlooked is failing to do a test and measure.In another words, if you have a marketing campaign or advertisement, you have to track the response.Otherwise, it is like watching a soccer game but not keeping track on the scores. So the footballers can be kicking back and forth and you do not know what is happening.
