Louis Schiff’s book, Business Brilliant, reveals secrets that 99% of people are unaware of and teaches great business tactics through anecdotes.
Do what you love, but follow the money.
You must have heard the phrase “follow your passion and money will follow.” It is impossible to become wealthy simply by following your passion. To become wealthy, you should establish a brand and begin creating under it, or allow others to produce under your brand, so automating your income.
Consider Damian Hirst, the UK’s richest artist. At one point, he was so destitute that he didn’t have money to eat, yet he enjoyed creating art. After working for a construction company in London, he became a curator at a museum. One day, he persuaded one dealer to sell his original artwork. His first piece of art sold for a high price, and he became well-known, and any subsequent work he did was a success. Instead of making art on his own, he established a brand and recruited a number of outstanding artists. Whatever those artists developed, they used to sell it under his name at a hefty price. If he had simply made art with his own hands and sold it one by one, he would not have become the richest artist in the United Kingdom.
Businessmen own a business and allow others to do the work for profit. They make decisions or simply own shares in the corporation. Start by pursuing your interest and tackling people’s issues. Once you’ve reached a certain level, assign the task to more passionate individuals, which will result in wealth creation for both you and them.
Imitate, don’t create.
Most middle-class individuals believe that in order to become wealthy, you must have a unique concept; nevertheless, only a small percentage of people get wealthy through distinctive ideas. The vast majority of people have become wealthy by taking a simple concept and turning it into something extraordinary, or by leveraging their previous experience. However, the media focuses on the few individuals who started from scratch or in a garage and grew into a large organization. For example, Steve Jobs began developing computers in a small garage and eventually grew his company to a multinational, but these are extremely rare individuals. Most people have become wealthy by pursuing an existing idea.
Many people have exploited their previous job experience to form the assumption that they will eventually become wealthy. For example, the founders of Flipkart used to work for Amazon and applied the same concept in India. Amazon began as an online book store, as did Flipkart, and has now expanded to include a variety of products.
Kinkos was a small-time copying company, but its founder, Paul Orfalea, conducted a study on the students who used to visit his shop and discovered that students are always in a hurry and agitated, forget things, and are most active at night. He discovered a solution to these minor issues by opening his businesses 24 hours a day, designing the ambiance in blue to make students feel relaxed, and beginning to give out freebies such as pens and clips, which students had previously forgotten. Kinkos’ concept proved so popular that it grew from one store to 1900 stores throughout the world.
What does this narrative convey to you?
This narrative suggests that instead of seeking for a distinctive idea, pick an average notion that comes to mind that you’re enthusiastic about and begin implementing it differently.
Knowing ‘how’ is good. Knowing ‘who’ is better.
Bill Gates is the world’s richest person. He became wealthy by networking rather than coding. Gary Kindall was a California professor who, after many years of hard labor, created the CP/M operating system.
Steve Jobs introduced the Apple 2 computer in 1997. IBM, an Apple competitor and significant computer manufacturer, approached Bill Gates about developing an operating system for their system. Bill Gates advised that IBM talk to Gary Kindall and use his operating system, CP/M. IBM wanted Gary to make his operating system compatible with their system, and they imposed so many limitations and timetables on him that Gary felt his creative freedom was being constrained, therefore he refused to furnish IBM with his operating system. Bill Gates addressed a local programmer who created QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), a clone of the operating system CP/M. Bill Gates bought his OS QDOS, renamed it MSDOS, and formed a collaboration with IBM for their machines. Despite the fact that there were many faults in that operating system owing to competition from Apple, IBM opted to release it, and as a result, Microsoft OS became the standard operating system for all computers created outside of Apple. Bill Gates may not have been able to create an operating system in such a short period of time, but because to his networking skills, he knew the appropriate person who could provide him with the proper product, and he eventually became the Bill Gates of Microsoft that you know today.
Spread the effort, spread the wealth.
One of the secrets of self-made millionaires is to delegate labor. Some people strive to accomplish everything on their own in order to achieve excellence in a variety of areas, but this limits their ability to fulfill their goals. Richard Branson, the owner of the Virgin Group, was dyslexic as a child, which made it difficult for him to learn at school.
But how did he get so rich?
That’s due of delegating. Richard Branson was unable to read his own financial statements, but he plans to pay skilled individuals to do so. He made limited decisions regarding his firm, and all key technical decisions were taken by the experts he recruited. This is the fundamental difference between millionaires and middle-class people: millionaires focus on strength, whereas middle-class people want to improve everything. For example, in school, middle-class students want to get good grades in math and science; they are not focusing on strength, but rather on improving in all areas.
Win win is a loser.
In his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey recommends that we create win-win circumstances in our lives. You can only create win-win circumstances in life if you understand how to negotiate. If you don’t know how to bargain well and persuade the other person to agree, you’ll always lose in a talk. To persuade the other party to use the least interest principle, simply decide that you will not accept to anything less than a predetermined offer, no matter how eager you are to get the transaction. Let us take the example of an entrepreneur. Philip Kan created Turbo Pascal software that outperformed identical Microsoft software, but he had no advertising budget. So he called the proprietor of the byte magazine and put up a phony office, telling the byte representative that he had secured the first deal with another magazine and would consider byte the following time. He was desperate for the deal because he didn’t have any money. To avoid losing the agreement, the owner of the byte magazine offered Philip the first add for free. A little advertisement in the popular byte magazine Turbo Pascal program became well-known, and Philip Kann profited millions of dollars in a single year. The next time you want to negotiate, utilize the least principle.
Read more about Business Here