Rich Archives - BOLLYWOOD SURKHIYAN

Wealth Building – Other People’s Money (OPM): What the Rich and Wealthy Have Known for Years

Getting rich isn’t all about hard work. In fact hard work has got little to do with getting rich. It’s not that I don’t advocate hard work, I do. I love working hard but I especially like to see myself and others working smart. I know that getting rich and achieving success is not exclusively the domain of blood, sweat and tears. I’ve seen friends, work colleagues and family work themselves to the bone for little or no reward.

The Cult of Hard Work, Self-Sacrifice and The Golden Goose

There is a cult of self-sacrifice evident in our culture that warrants you to be extra busy, working super hard, and putting in crazy hours. When it comes to personal wealth building and attaining success, you’re the golden goose. However, you can only push the golden goose so hard before he/she stops laying those golden eggs. Without exception every golden goose will eventually run out of energy, capacity or enthusiasm. Therefore, learning how to utilise Other Peoples Time, Money and Skills (i.e. leveraging) is a pre-requisite to becoming rich, building wealth and achieving success.

Other Peoples Money & Leverage

In general terms, getting access to Other People’s Money (OPM) is a form of leverage that enables you to go beyond the limits of your own resources and instead apply resourcefulness to everything you do. In business terms, leverage is the key that differentiates self-employed person who owns a job from the business owner who own a business. In financial/investment terms it means getting access to cash that’s not yours in order to buy assets that you control and that produce income.

What the Rich and Wealthy Have Know for Years

The richest and especially the wealthiest people in the world have known about leveraging Other People’s Money for years. Everyone from Jean Paul Getty, Aristotle Onassis and Donald Trump have excelled at this wealth building principle numero uno. Their use of OPM to buys assets is legendary. Onassis in particular is known for having secured contracts to transport ore and oil in ships and tankers he didn’t yet own and then going to the banks securing the loans to buy the ships and tankers using the contracts. A brazen and gifted deal-maker if there ever was one!

People go about building wealth or acquiring assets in different ways based on their background, past experiences and what they have been taught or know about money. For the most part people think of great riches and wealth as largely unattainable because of the model or mindset they have about money. What most people fail to understand is that you actually don’t need money to make money. Sure it helps but what you really need is access to Other People’s Money in order to make money.

The Benefits of Utilising Other People’s Money

OPM buys you time; it enables you do things before you would otherwise be able to do them. It allows you participate in deals your own resources don’t allow you to do. It enables you make choices you couldn’t otherwise make. It takes the average person many, many years to accumulate wealth or build a business entirely from their own resources. By utilising the power of Other People’s Money you can fast-track your personal wealth building or the growth of a business. Importantly, your personal wealth building is no longer limited to what you have been able to save and invest from your earned income.

Getting High on OPM – Real Estate

Most people’s typical first experience of using Other People’s Money is when they take on a mortgage to buy their home. Typically, their initial down-payment combined with their contract of employment that demonstrates their ability to produce future income is enough for them to secure a mortgage loan against home. Unfortunately your home is not an asset, well it is, but it’s the bank’s asset as they are making income from the loan advanced, not you. If you can get a bank to advance you a mortgage loan so as to purchase an investment rental property (an asset) whereby you get to retain what remains of the rental income after you pay the mortgage, then you have used Other People’s Money to buy and asset to produce income. In order to secure this loan you need to demonstrate to the bank that you are a safe bet. They will typically want to see that you have at least 20% of the purchase price as a down-payment and sufficient net income being generated by this asset and other sources to ride out any changes in interest rates, rental void periods etc.

Getting High on OPM – Business

In business, entrepreneurs and business owners get access to Other People’s Money when they write a business plan which they present to a business agent or venture capitalist i.e. investors. This process is known as raising capital. In return for the money (known as capital) received the investor who provided the capital typically receives equity (i.e. shareholding) in the business. Money can also be borrowed from a bank and the bank is repaid the principal and also receives interest on the loan. It’s the business owner’s job to put this capital to good use; to produce products or services that generate sales revenue to pay back the loan and, of course, all the other expenditures of the business.

Other People’s Money is always available and accessible to a greater or lesser extent depending on overall market conditions. Your first responsibility as an entrepreneur or investor seeking capital is to understand and inform yourself as to the multiple sources of OPM and numerous deal structures that utilize OPM.

Jumping Through the Window of Opportunity

Finally, the chief take-away from all this talk about Other People’s Money is that rather than saying to yourself “I can’t afford to start a business” or “I don’t have the money to invest in that deal” you now know there are no real excuses or limitations. Not that using Other People’s Money is without its pitfalls. Like every financial transaction there are inherent risks. Firstly, you are liable to repay the capital borrowed and generally provide an agreed additional return to the investor. However, that’s not up for discussion here. The key thing for now is to realize that you can always get access to Other People’s Money to enable you participate in deals and do things you previously thought weren’t possible. You can start jumping through the window of opportunity when it’s open…and as you begin implementing this principle of Other People’s Money into your business and personal wealth building endeavors you begin to realize its open all the time!

Sound is a Sound Reason for Business Success! How to Get Rich in Any Business?

It sounds good:

I know you do some relaxation exercise or reading some magazines in your drawing room leisurely. You hear a number of sounds that come from the street outside. Some are attractive while some distract attention! You like it or not, you need to hear all these noises.

Nutty business:

Now also you here a bell-ring sounds differently, with a unique musical rapidity.

You know, it is a special sound coming from a hot selling item on the street: It is the peanuts! Some call it groundnuts too!

This ringing noise is coming from the street and that too you know it is from a peanut seller pushing his handcart. The steel spatula generates the sound by hitting on the rims of an iron Chinese woke.

Sound Attraction:

He has a small stove burning, which heats the sand filled Chinese woke for hot dry frying the peanuts. He pushes the cart, shouts loudly with his special voice and makes the sound just by hitting the rims of the iron woke.

Interesting Musical Note:

By this, a peanut seller informs that he passes on the road; he sells hot fried tasty groundnuts; this shows that he is closer to you on the street; further alerted by the sound that may leave at any time.

Desire with Flavor:

Now the spatula makes a different sound by turning and frying the nuts. It is also unique and your nose is sharper to inhale the flavor of the hot frying of the nuts in the sand bath. Aha, you want to taste it instantly.

Act Fast to Taste the Nuts:

You are just calling your maidservant to go and get it immediately as the peanut merchant may leave at any time. She bought it; you got it! You simply admire at the taste of round bold hot peanuts.

Now, on the business side, let us find what has happened and perceived in this groundnut selling process.

Small Mobile Shop:

The pushcart is a small shop of 6 feet by 3 feet by size drawn on the road. On one side, it is true that the cart is a small retail shop. On the other side, one can expand the business to the size of the world, as much as one can draw the cart.

That is to say, the cart moves to the nook and corner of the city or the village. The business can be expandable with the capacity of the drawing retailer. Naturally, he will get more business with more area and more people.

Further, the process shows the following steps in selling process.

Attention:

The sound is the key factor that initiates the business. If the cart moves on the street with out making any sound, then it would have gone with out the notice of the potential customers residing in the houses. The vocal sound of the street vendor with the noises generated from the hit tings on the Chinese woke is the prime factor that introduces the shopkeeper on the street.

Interest:

The unique noise that emanated from the spatula while frying creates further more interest for the insider.

Desire:

The unique smell of the frying groundnuts brings in desire to the potential buyer.

Action:

Then it is over as the potential buyer moves out, goes near the seller and makes the buying process. The retailer finds the requirements of the purchaser and completes the process of delivering and collecting the sale proceeds.

The students of business management science are learning about the salesperson’s success techniques. The above said example of selling of peanuts is a very simple and true selling process. Of course, the peanut seller knows or not, this has built in scientific sales process!

We call it “AIDA principle”, comprising of the following.

1. Attention is drawing customer’s awareness.

2. Interest is increasing curiosity for the customer.

3. Desire is creating crave by exhibiting more characters and creative visualization.

4. Action is pressing for customers’ accomplishment for completing the sale.

Sound is a Key to Business:

Besides, we learnt that sound is a key factor in bringing business here. You hear the bell ring sound from churches and temples and sacred voice from the mosques. They draw the attention of the people and invite them for the prayer.

The bakeries and roadside fast food counters use radios and speakers to pull the crowd. The street circus player makes sound with drums. Different kind of ring tones are used for different commodities like ice creams soft cotton candies etc. With a threadbare analysis of this sound subject, we can understand that it has unique role in very many ideal businesses.

Hence, sound is a sound business idea to bring more customers into our business.

AIDA is more scientific method of selling anything on earth!

Similarly, there is more number of customer pulling tools.

We shall see them next.

Move Your Assets Cheaply – How The Rich Stay Rich With Registered Mail

As an educated precious metals investor, I am often asked about my methods for securing such lucrative items. Specifically, those who approach me are interested in how I make a business with a product (precious metals) that can be easily stolen and melted down. In the old days, a lock box, stagecoach and armed guard wasn’t enough. Nowadays, hiring an armored truck is a pricey option reserved for businesses or the filthy rich. Surely I must spend a fortune transporting gold and silver coins across the country.

What I tell them strikes a response I always enjoy seeing. I nod my head and say: “Actually I transport my gold and silver the same way the Hope Diamond was shipped.” That’s the diamond worth over $200 Million. Seriously. Then, of course, I spend the next few minutes explaining how the Hope Diamond was donated and transported from New York City to Washington D.C. in 1958. The total shipping charge was $145.29 and only $2.44 was for postage, the rest was for insurance.

Sure, that was over 50 years ago, but the reality is this shipping method is still available. And available to everyone. Few people seem to realize that they have access to such a secure form of shipping.

Where is it available? Your local post office. That’s right, the Hope Diamond was shipped via registered mail by the United States Postal Service. Registered Mail is one of the most secure shipping methods available to the public, yet only a handful of people know much about it.

That’s what brings me here, writing this article to share my method. It’s really not a secret, it just seems to have been lost as general knowledge over the years. The postal service has been around for over 200 years. They have developed a time-tested method for transporting items securely. Registered Mail implements a chain of custody that requires an act of God to break without someone knowing who broke it. For starters, items shipped are protected by safes, cages, sealed containers, locks and keys. It’s easy to complain about the price of stamps going up, but the USPS has a monopoly on offering safe, secure, insured transportation.

I am honestly more leery of the people around me in line than when I actually hand over my box of gold and silver coins at the post office. I have shipped hundreds of boxes of precious metals over the years and I have yet to be disappointed. Registered mail sometimes takes longer than standard shipping, but that’s because of the added accountability at each step. Everyone, and I mean everyone, who comes in contact with my box of precious metals is documented and accounted for.

The cost is minimal for the service offered. Still, it would be nice to tell people I have a private armored truck or mob ties that make me untouchable. The only reason I can think of for why more people don’t know the secret about registered mail is because it is a steal of a deal. If everyone started using it, I doubt the Postal Service could keep up without taking a loss.

Not my problem though, so the secret is out. I have been buying and selling precious metals: mostly gold and silver coins, in bulk for years now. It is a feeling of empowerment to open a simple cardboard box and reveal the shiny treasure inside. My precious metals retirement account makes me rich in the long run but doesn’t let me see my treasure until I retire. I think the feeling of opening a treasure box is what keeps me in this business.