- Intro
- Good fortune? The fact is The more that you practise, The harder you sweat, The luckier you get.
- Ideas? We've had'em Since Eve deceived Adam, But take it from me Execution's the key.
- The money? Just pester A likely Investor. To get what you need You toady to greed.
- The talent? Go sign it. But first, wine and dine it.
It's tedious work With a talented jerk.
- Good timing? To win it You gotta be in it. Just never be late To quit or cut bait.
- Expansion? It's vanity! Profit is sanity.
Overhead begs To walk on two legs.
- The first step? Just do it And bluff your way through it. Remember to duck! God speed ... and Good Luck!
- Preface - Can this book really make me rich?
- Money is power. Power is an aphrodisiac. It even says so in the Bible: 'Wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things' (Ec. 9:10). Money did not make me happy. But it quite definitely improved my sex life.
- Knowledge learned the hard way combined with the avoidance of error, whenever and wherever possible, is the soundest basis for success in any endeavor.
- You can get it if you really want but only if you really do want. And only if 'you try ... try and try ... and try again ...
- If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it - it's cheaper in the long run.
- Whatever qualities the rich may have, they can be acquired by anyone with the tenacity to become rich. The key, I think, is confidence. Confidence and an unshakeable belief it can be done and that you are the one to do it.
- Tunnel vision helps. Being a bit of a shit helps. A thick skin helps. Stamina is crucial, as is a capacity to work so hard that your best friends mock you, your lovers despair and the rest of your acquaintances watch furtively from the sidelines, half in awe and half in contempt. Luck helps - but only if you don't seek it.
- The vast majority of the self-made rich worked, secretly or openly, like billy-o to acquire their wealth.
- The follow-through, the execution, is a thousand times more important than a 'great idea'.
- If you think that it can't be done and dwell on that thought too long, then you are likely to remain poor.
- Time is the most precious thing in life that riches can supply. To make the money to do what the hell you want.
- Introduction - How rich?
- The richer you are and the more financial advisors you employ, the less likelihood there is that you can ever discover what you are really worth.
- 'If you can actually count your money, you are not really a rich man.' - John Paul Getty
- Riches do not confer happiness!
- Part one - Reasons not to get rich
- Chapter 1 - Pole positions
- “No task is a long one but the task on which
one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare.” - Charles Baudelaire
- Money is colour-blind, race-blind, sex-blind, degree-blind and couldn't care less who brought you up or in what circumstances.
- Anyone not busy learning is busy dying.
- Curiosity has led many a man and women into the valley of serious wealth.
- Ambition, fearlessness, self-belief, stamina, a degree of callousness, a willingness to learn. These are your advantages over the middle-aged and the old.
- They fear losing what they have already gained - challenging work, congenial colleagues, a certain status and the promise of promotion and pay rises. Fear holds them back, with the exception of those rare individuals who are content with their lot.
- “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” - Goethe
- You enjoy much greater leverage than you might believe. But you will never find that out until you go for it.
- My earnest advice is to get yourself a young and fearless partner with tons of stamina. Choose him or her with care. It's your best chance to get rich.
- Chapter 2 - A million to one
- People in poor health usually find it difficult, no matter how clever they are, to muster the stamina that becoming rich demands.
- If I had my time again, knowing what I know today, I would dedicate myself to making just enough to live comfortably (say £30 or £40 million), as quickly as I could - hopefully by the time I was thirty-five years old. I would then cash out immediately and retire to write poetry and plant trees.
- It's no excuse, but making money is a drug. Not the money itself. The making of the money.
- Whoever dies with the most toys doesn't win. Real winners are people who know their limits and respect them.
- Part two - Getting started
- Chapter 3 - Harnessing the fear of failure
- Knowing that fear of failure is holding you back is
a step in the right direction. But it isn't enough, because knowing isn't doing.
- If you wish to be rich, you must grow a carapace. A mental armour. Not so thick as to blind you to well-constructed criticism and advice, especially from those you trust. Nor so thick as to cut you off from friends and family. But thick enough to shrug off the inevitable sniggering and malicious mockery that will follow your inevitable failures. Not to mention the poorly hidden envy that will accompany your eventual success. Few things in life are certain except death and being taxed. But sniggering and mockery prior to any attempt to better yourself financially, followed by envy later, or gloating during your initial failures - these are three certainties in life.
- The Germans have a superb word for the (secret) pleasure humans obtain from the misfortunes of others. It is Schadenfreude.
- The truth is that getting rich means sacrifice. And the worst of it is, it isn't always you that's doing the sacrificing.
- Fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth.
- Chapter 4 - The search
- We do get to choose, if we are determined enough, what it is we want to do for a living.
- If you feel absolutely moved towards a particular vocation, then that's exactly where you should head. But be aware that if you want to make huge sums of money, then earning a living by slowly swarm- ing up the greasy pole is rarely the way to do it.
- You should have no long-term, or even medium-term, requirements of the first two or three companies you work for. Promotion is always welcome and brings with it the opportunity to learn more, but you are there to ensure that you take every opportunity to suck out the marrow of what you need to know, to understand it and place it within a greater context for a future purpose. The purpose of getting rich.
- Those who can never be rich may not want you to become rich.
- Few inventors or 'creative types' make very good managers or businessmen.
- Ownership is power.
- Your inclinations really do count. You have to pay attention to them.
- “Luck is preparation multiplied by opportunity.” - Seneca
- “The harder I practised, the luckier I got.” - Gary Player
- “Luck is a dividend of sweat.” - Ray Kroc
- Fortune favours not just the brave but the bold. Boldness has a kind of genius in it.
- All around us, every day, opportunities to get rich are popping up. The more alert you are, the more chance you have of spotting them. The more preparation you have done, the more chance you have of succeeding. The more bold you are, the better chance you have of getting in on the ground floor and confounding the odds. The more self-belief you can muster, the more certain will be your aim and your timing. And the less you care what the neighbours think, the more likely you are to take the plunge and exploit an opportunity.
- Whatever your inclinations, your aptitude, your abilities or your preferences, never shrink when opportunities arrive. If you have weighed the odds and find yourself convinced, ignore the protestations of sensible people and their conventional caution.
- Chapter 5 - The fallacy of the great idea
- You cannot patent an idea. You can only patent your own method for implementing an idea.
- Having a great idea is simply not enough. The eventual goal is vastly more important than any idea. It is how ideas are implemented that counts in the long run.
- The original is not the greatest. Not always. If you want to be rich, then watch your rivals closely and never be ashamed to emulate a winning strategy.
- Ideas don't make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does.
- Chapter 6 - Obtaining capital
- There are only six ways of obtaining capital. You can be given or inherit it; you can steal it; you can win it; you can marry it; you can earn it; you can borrow it.
- Gambling, even for those at near genius level, is time-consuming and totally exhausting.
- “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.” - William Shakespeare
- Venture capitalist short-termism, with its eye firmly glued to the sale of an enterprise within three or four years, is the hallmark of nearly all venture capital activity.
- Should you decide to approach venture capitalists, and by some miracle should they agree to back you, then I urge you to seek the finest legal advice that your money can buy for the ensuing negotiations. Just one sentence, even a phrase, within the initial contract can make all the difference in the world to the outcome a few years down the road.
- Persistence is a powerful tool in the hands of a hungry young hustler on the make.
- Human nature does not change and, at bottom, we are cooperative animals.
- Nothing is more humiliating or debilitating than trudging the rounds with your hand out, no matter how good your project or fierce your determination. Everyone has to do it and everyone hates it. For a self-made man or woman there is no avoiding it.
- “When going through hell, keep going.” - Winston Churchill
- Chapter 7 - Never give in
- “Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never, never - in nothing great or small., large or petty. Never give in., except to convictions of honour and good sense.” - Winston Churchill
- If you want to be rich, then you must walk a narrow, lonely road to get the capital to make it so.
- 'I cannot help it that my pictures do not sell. Nevertheless, the time will come when people will see that they are worth more than the price of the paint.' - Vincent van Gogh
- Why bother to punish yourself in such a way? Nobody else does it - why should you? Go on, make every- one around you happy.
- Why not give in? If you are merely a wannabe, then the siren voices will prevail, and they will be right to prevail. If you are a gonnabe, then they will not prevail. Like Odysseus you will stop your ears with wax or bind yourself to the mast. You will learn to walk your narrow, lonely road - and to hell with the siren voices. You will not give in. And you will be rich.
- Chapter 8 - The five most common start-up errors
1. Mistaking desire for compulsion
- All error springs from flawed assumptions. If there are no assumptions, there can be no error.
- Consider very carefully whether you are truly driven by inner demons to be rich. If you are not, then my earnest and heartfelt advice to you is: do not on any account make the attempt. What are riches anyway, compared to health or the peace of mind that even a modicum of contentment brings in its wake? In and of itself, great wealth very rarely, if ever, breeds contentment.
- Do not mistake desire for compulsion. Only you can know the song of your inner demons. Only yon can know if you are willing to tread the narrow, lonely road to riches. No one else can know. No one else can tell you either to do it or to refrain from the attempt.
- When the going gets tough, when all seems lost, when partners and luck desert you, when bankruptcy and failure are staring you in the face, all that can sustain you is a fierce compulsion to succeed at any price.
- Better to have chosen a different life, a quite different path, than have placed yourself and those you love in harm's way when early reflection and thought could have advised you differently. I repeat: do not mistake desire for compulsion. Those that do nearly always fail, at great cost to themselves and those around them.
2. Overoptimism concerning cash flow
- Cash flow is the heartbeat of your company. If cash flow is good, then no matter how badly run or poorly managed a company is, there is always a decent chance of turning its fortunes around.
- You can delegate many tasks when creating a new business, but monitoring and forecasting cash flow is not one of them. It's your responsibility and your task. Nobody else's.
- Keep payroll down to an absolute minimum. Overhead walks on two legs.
- Never sign long-term rent agreements or take upmarket office space.
- Never indulge in fancy office or reception furniture, unless your particular business demands that you make such an impression on clients.
- Never buy a business meal if the other side offers to. You can show off later.
- Pay yourself just enough to eat.
- Do not be shy to call customers who owe you money personally. It works.
- In a city, walk everywhere you can. It's healthy and sets a good example.
- Check all staff travel and entertainment claims with an eagle eye.
- Always meet payroll, even at the expense of starving yourself that week.
- Issuing staff credit cards, company mobile phones or cars is the road to ruin.
- Leaving lights, computers, printers and copiers on overnight is just stupid.
- A vase of beautiful flowers in reception every week creates a better impression than £100,000 worth of fancy Italian furniture.
- They want your business. Play one supplier off against another. Ruthlessly.
- Keep your chin up. It could he worse. You could be working for them.
3. Reinforcing failure
- 'There is no victory over customers.'
4. Thinking small and acting big
- 'Success is never permanent; failure is never fatal. The only thing that really counts is to never, never, never give up.' - Winston Churchill
- Once you begin to believe that you are infallible, that success will automatically lead to more success, and that you have 'got it made', reality will be sure to give you a rude wake-up call.
- Believing your own bullshit is always a perilous activity, but never more fatal than for the owner of a start-up venture.
- By acting small, I mean remaining in touch. Remaining flexible. Constantly examining how your company could do better. Keeping a sense of proportion and humility. Not throwing your weight around playing the great 'I Am'. Remembering that much of your success so far has been achieved by dumb luck. Acting small in the early days of your business sets an example to those around you. If staff see you indulging in long lunch hours and purchasing yourself a fancy company car, then they are either going to resent it or they are going to emulate you. This is not a good thing. You can do all that stuff later, when you've made your first fifty million.
- Most of the worst errors I have made in my life came from forgetting to act small. It's hard to do when you're rolling around in coin and everything is going your way. But acting big leads to complacency, and complacency is the reason that many successful start-ups falter.
- Every day you have to hit the ground running, putting in more hours than even your most dedicated member of staff. You have to stay flexible. You have to be willing to listen and to learn and to emulate success elsewhere. If you don't, if you think you have already made the cut, if you're thinking 'game over: time to party', then bad stuff begins to happen very quickly.
- Think big, act small. It's a recipe that never goes out of style. While especially important for start-ups, it will serve you faithfully long after you have established yourself as a serious player. A successful and naturally modest entrepreneur is an object of reverence and respect in the business world.
5. Skimping on talent
- You need the talent to identify, hire and nurture others with talent.
- 'There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all the virtues are of no avail.' - Aldous Huxley
- Talent is the key to sustained growth, and growth is the key to early wealth. You have to identify and hire talent. You can't skimp on it.
- Talented people want a good salary, of course, but surprisingly often they are more attracted to new opportunities and challenges.
- When you come across real talent, it is sometimes worth allowing them to create the structure in which they choose to labour. In nine cases out of ten, by inviting them to take responsibility and control for a new venture, you will motivate them to do great things.
- Talent is usually conscious of its own value. But the currency of that value is not necessarily a million-dollar salary. The opportunity to prove themselves, and sometimes the chance to run the show on a day-to-day basis, will often do the trick just as well.
- You must identify talent. Then you must move heaven and earth to hire it. You must nurture it, reward it property and protect it from being poached. If necessary, dream up a new project. Better still, get the talent to dream it up.
- By the time talent is in its mid-to-late forties or early fifties, it will have become very, very expensive. Young talent can be found and underpaid for a short while, providing the work is challenging enough. Then it will be paid at the market rate. Finally, it will reach a stage where it is being paid based on past reputation alone. That is when you must part company with it.
- 'Everybody has talent at twenty-five. The difficult thing is to have it at fifty.' - Degas
- Talent is indispensable, although it is always replaceable. Just remember the simple rules concerning talent: identify it, hire it, nurture it, reward it, protect it. And, when the time comes, fire it.
- Talent does most of the work for you.
- Part three - Getting rich
- Chapter 9 - Cardinal virtues
- Persistence
- “If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.” - W. C. Fields
- Stubbornness is not persistence. Stubbornness implies you intend to persist despite plentiful evidence that you should not. A stubborn person fears to be shown he or she is wrong. A persistent person is convinced that he or she has been right all along, and that the proof lies just around the corner. That with just a little further effort, the veil of failure will be torn away to reveal success.
- 'Never give in' is a useful catchphrase. But don't take it too literally. We must all surrender at some time, to love or desire or death. You will be forced into the last of these, and a fool if you never surrender to the first. But never give in easily. If you can, attempt one step further along the road than appears sensible before giving in.
- So-called 'persistence' is a vital attribute for those who wish to become rich, or who wish to achieve anything worthwhile for that matter. As is the ability to acknowledge that one has made a mistake and that a new plan of action must now be made. Any such acknowledgement is not a weakness, it is a sign of clear thinking. In its way, it is a kind of persistence in itself. Try, try, try again, does not mean doing what has already failed, over and over again.
- Quitting is not dishonourable. Quitting when you believe you can still succeed is. You must keep the faith. Belief in yourself and faith in your project can move mountains. But not if you insist on trying to scale the mountain by an impossible route which has already failed.
- Do not be afraid to change tack, alter course or make new plans with whatever you are attempting to achieve. Especially if you sense that you are on the wrong track.
- Above all, avoid banging your head against the same piece of wall. The wall will not get any softer. And don't give up - if you want to be rich.
- Self-belief
- “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
- Do you believe in yourself?
- If you will not believe in yourself, then why should anyone else?
- Without self-belief nothing can be accomplished. With it, nothing is impossible.
- If pain was to be eliminated from humankind, how would we receive warning that something was happening to our body requiring urgent attention? In many situations, pain must be ameliorated - during surgical operations, recovery from serious injury or in the throes of dying, for instance. But to eliminate pain entirely from our lives would not be a sensible objective or in our best interests.
- There is nothing wrong with doubt, or with fear. They are immensely useful tools. But you either learn to incorporate them into your thinking and your life, or you will be ruled by them. There is no 'middle way'.
- It is doubt multiplied by the fear of failure, unconfronted, which leads to the creation of a vicious cycle where self-belief is eroded and nothing is achieved. Doubts can and should be confronted, as should fear.
☆ Write down your doubts and fears. Examine them. Hold them up to the light. Suck the wisdom out of them and discard their husks in the trash.
- If you have ever escaped from very serious trouble indeed, or have been at the point of death, then one of two things happens. Either you become cautious to an absurd degree, or you are liberated from many ordinary fears. With liberation comes the knowledge that nothing is really very important in the lives of men; nothing is as terrifying as the fear itself. And from that, paradoxically, comes self-belief - a belief that anything is possible.
- You should remember that you are unique. No other human was ever born, or will ever be born, with the same combination of upbringing, flaws and qualities that you possess. Why should you not believe in yourself?
- How then, could you not believe in yourself: Nature did. Destiny did. Or, if you wish, your God did.
- If you want to be rich you must work for it. But you must believe in it, too. You must believe in yourself, if only to armour yourself against the laughter of the gods in your quest. Your mad quest to be rich.
- Trust your instincts
- If you want to get rich, trust your own judgement when it calls - and leave those whose job it is to manage your business to pick up the pieces.
- Make more baskets: diversify!
- Take any business and any idea. You need focused, tunnel vision to get it on the road and to begin making some money. You can expand it, maybe franchise it or take it to other cities or even other countries. But, in reality, it is still the same basket with a lot more eggs in it.
- Either you learn to go with the flow and change as rapidly as you are able, or you will be left stranded, like the last dinosaur, by the last warm take, on the last continent the ice age has yet to teach.
- During the start-up, you concentrate on that one basket as if your life (and the life of your first-born) depends upon it. But once you have something that's working and making some money, start looking around quickly for another opportunity. The more baskets the better.
- Listen and learn
- When you stop listening, you stop learning. And if you stop learning, it's time to get out of the kitchen and let someone else do the cooking.
- Listening is the most powerful weapon after self-belief and persistence you can bring into play as an entrepreneur.
- It's usually better to leave no doubt in your visitor's mind if you're not interested in their project or idea. In a way, it's kinder, as well. While the temptation is to say, 'I'll confer with my colleagues and get back to you,' this will eventually come back to haunt you and waste more of your most valuable resource. Time.
- No one can copyright or patent an idea. You can only protect the execution of the idea, which must be unique.
- Chapter 10 - A few words about luck
- Lesson No. 1: Never make your finance director or CFO the MD or president of anything!
- Lesson No. 2: Never go on vacation when a deal is going down.
- Lesson No. 3: When you change accounting systems (or accountants, for that matter), have the numbers checked over and over again.
- Lesson No. 4: Never personally underwrite business loans for your company unless you absolutely, positively, are forced to. Even then, set limits in the agreement so that, as the loan figure is reduced over time, you are released from your undertakings commensurately.
- Lesson No. 5: Listen to people who are good with money and always invest in property with a good address - providing you can pay cash for it and will not need to sell it for a few years.
- 'Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.' - Seneca
- Luck is preparation multiplied by opportunity.
- Preparation is the key. Be prepared. Do the heavy lifting and the homework in advance. Get on with the job, but remain alert enough to spot an opportunity when it arrives. Then hammer it.
- If you haven't prepared yourself, the opportunity will go begging. It will be yet another regret in your life, another 'if only ...' And even if you have prepared, but are too busy, probably buried in the minutiae of management, or a messy divorce, or moving house, or a hundred and one other things, then luck will again evade you. Months or years later you will be saying, 'If only I had spotted that opportunity. I was ready for it, but I wasn't paying attention.' 'If only...' are the two saddest words in the English language.
- To become rich you must behave as a predator. I will go further, you must become a predator.
- Lady Luck doesn't love star-struck suitors like Albert. She wants crazy bastards who will tell her to take a hike or get lost if they feel like it. She won't come calling to anyone who needs her or needs to worship her.
- 'Fortune favours the brave,' says the old proverb. And that's right enough. But it seems to especially scorn anyone who wants money too badly. And it positively appears to despise men or women who fear to lose what fortune they already have.
- My advice concerning luck is to laugh in the face of the Lady when she presents herself. Take what you will of her bounty and act swiftly to take advantage of good fortune. But never thank her for it. And forget her the moment she leaves to seek another victim. In modern, sexist parlance: 'Treat her mean to keep her keen.' Pimp her, don't court her. And don't go looking for her or make enquiries about her.
- Prepare yourself for luck, but don't seek her out. Let her come to you.
- Make your own luck.
- Don't whine or ever describe yourself as 'unlucky'. (You're alive, aren't you?)
- Be bold. Be brave. Don't thank your lucky stars. The stars can't hear you.
- Stay the course. Stop looking for the green grass over the hill.
- Don't try to do it all yourself. Delegate and teach others to delegate.
- Remember that most predators are lucky most of their lives, unlike their prey.
- Whiners and cowards die a hundred times a day. Be a hero to yourself.
- If being a hero isn't your style, then fake it. Reality will catch up eventually.
- Just do it. It is much easier to apologise than to obtain permission.
- Never take the quest for wealth seriously. It's just a game, chum.
- Next time you bump into Lady Luck, giver her a whack on the rump from me.
- Be lucky. Get rich. Then give it all away.
- Chapter 11 - The art of negotiating
- 'Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.' - John F. Kennedy
- If you 'negotiate out of fear' you are not 'negotiating'. You are surrendering in all but name. As to the second half of his pronouncement, he is saying that it's always worth listening to the other side in the search for mutually beneficial agreements.
- A few tips on negotiating:
- Remember that few of us are any good at detailed negotiations. That includes your opponent, by the way.
- If you are a poor negotiator, like me, then set a limit on what you will pay or accept and on any conditions attached. Do not deviate. Your first thought is your best thought.
- Most negotiations are unnecessary. Don't enter into them. Remember that 'the fortress that parleys is already half taken'. Save serious negotiations for serious occasions.
- Do your homework. And do it rigorously. What you don't know or haven't bothered to find out can kill you in any type of serious negotiation.
- The devil really is in the detail in serious negotiations. Get all the professional help you can trust. But do not surrender control of the negotiations or the agenda to such professionals. They are not the ones who will have to live with the consequences - you are. Professional advisors are there to explain and advise. not to decide.
- If your advisors are leading you down a path you don't approve of during your negotiations, call a 'time out' and tell them privately that if they continue down that path you will get yourself some new advisors. The world is full of them.
- Never fall in love with the deal. A deal is just a deal. There will always be other deals and other opportunities.
- Avoid auctions in business like the plague - unless you are selling something, that is. You will nearly always pay more than was wise if you are the 'winner' of an auction process.
- The negotiator opposite you is not your new best friend. He is not your partner. He is not your confidant. You have no obligation, outside of ordinary courtesy, to please him or satisfy his demands. He is the enemy. If you do not understand that real winners and real losers emerge from serious negotiations then you will be robbed, whatever the circumstances.
- Take no notice of management manuals that tell you to leave passion and emotion out of the negotiating room. If you are emotional or passionate about something, then let it show. But leaven emotion with courtesy, and, if possible, with wit. If you're not the witty type, then flattery and self-deprecation are good substitutes.
- Listen when engaged in serious negotiations. Then listen some more. You are in no hurry. Nobody ever got poor listening. Also, use silence as a weapon. Silences are disconcerting. People tend to fill silences with jabber, often weakening their bargaining position as they do so.
- Choose a rogue element to your advantage and bring it into the negotiation at a late stage. You'll be amazed at how often this tactic produces results.
- Permit no such weaknesses in your own camp, I have often banned senior executives from taking part in negotiations simply to avoid this trap. Better you are in there on your own, outgunned, outflanked and outmanoeuvred, than to have two or three of you silently squabbling.
- Everyone thinks they are a great negotiator, but most of us simply are not. If it's your company, then, for better or worse, you are the final arbiter. That remains true whether you are a good negotiator or a had one.
- If you suspect you perform badly on such occasions, do not attend, even if you are the 100 per cent owner. Get someone else to do it after setting out your response to every conceivable option that might arise. This tactic can be devastating to the other side, and Peter, Bob and I have used it on many occasions in the past. You have to completely trust your nominee, though.
- Above all, establish where the balance of weakness lies in any serious negotiation. Most strengths are self-evident, especially strengths like cash and infrastructure. Weaknesses are usually hidden. Ferret them out, hold them up to the fight and make a battle plan.
- Whatever you agree to during a negotiation, fulfil the bargain. Nobody wants to do business with a weasel or a chisler. Written in the Zoroastrian Scriptures two-and-a-half thousand years ago was this: 'Never break a covenant, whether you make it with a false man or a just man of good conscience. The covenant holds for both, the false and the just alike.'
- “If you would work (negotiate with) any man, you must either know his nature and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so persuade him; or his weakness or disadvantages, and so awe him; or those that have an interest in him, and so govern him. In dealing with cunning persons, we must ever consider their ends to interpret their speeches; and it is good to say little to them, and that which they least look for. In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not took to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.” - Francis Bacon
- Chapter 12 - Ownership! Ownership! Ownership!
- Being rich is fine, and at the very least is better than being poor. But it shouldn't be the be-all and end-all of your life, or anyone's life. If you can laugh in the midst of early poverty and in the face of real adversity, and if you can still laugh when you're coining it in, then you will almost certainly continue to coin it in.
- But if you chase money desperately in the earnest belief that you can never be happy without it and seriously think that the chase is a meaningful occupation, I doubt very much you will succeed. You have to be fiercely determined, true. But an appreciation of the absurdity of the chase helps enormously.
- To become rich you must be an owner. And you must try to own it all. You must strive with every fibre of your being, while recognising the idiocy of your behaviour, to own and retain control of as near to 100 per cent of any company as you can. If that is not possible, in a public company, for example, then you must be prepared to make yourself hated by those around you who are also trying to be rich. That is the dirty, rotten little secret of it all, my friend. Just like Gollum, it is your Precious and they are all 'filthy little thieves'.
- To become rich, every single percentage point of anything you own is crucial. It is worth fighting for, tooth and claw. It is worth suing for. It is worth shouting and banging on the table for. It is worth begging for and grovelling for. It is worth lying and cheating for. In extremis, it is even worth negotiating for.
- Never, never, never, never hand over a single share of anything you have acquired or created if you can help it. Nothing. Not one share. To no one. No matter what the reason - unless you genuinely have to.
- Nothing counts but what you own in the race to get rich.
- Except for your loved ones or closest friends, it's every man for himself in diis world, in case you haven't noticed.
- Ownership isn't the important thing. If you want to be rich, it's the only thing.
- That's the best part of a true partnership. You always have a brother to help carry the load. And if things go wrong, you have a built-in drinking buddy with whom to drown your sorrows! And you have a built-in conscience, too. No bad thing.
- A partnership is not a marriage. In a marriage, you should be willing to die for your partner. To share everything. To kill for them, if you have to. But in a partnership, the making of money comes first. Friendship and affection comes later - if you're lucky, as I have been.
- Time is the only thing we cannot replace, apart from our health and our lives. I resent wasting a moment of it.
- But if you want to be rich and you are forced to take minority shareholders on board, then I guarantee that, sooner or later, you will waste weeks or even months in the attempt to obtain mutual agreement. It is unavoidable.
- If I was the majority shareholder, I would never permit the shootout to appear in the Articles of Association. If I was a minority shareholder, I might not invest without it being there.
- Unlike a marriage, you must contemplate the end game before taking the plunge. Just how will it end? How can it be ended with least damage to the business and the hearts and minds of the partners? These are questions you must consider seriously before you sign the partnership documents.
- In summary, unless you already own a successful business outright, then I do not recommend you enter into a partnership of any kind if you can avoid it. It's time-consuming and distracting. If you have any choice whatever in the matter, walk your narrow, lonely road to riches all on your little ownsome. As I mentioned before, it's a nasty, lonely business getting rich.
- Insider trading is an easy one to understand. If you help to run a public company, nobody gets to know how you are doing before everybody gets to know.
- Chapter 13 - The joys of delegation
- “Work is of two kinds: first, altering the. position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.” - Bertrand Russell
- In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell #book
- The exercise of delegation, used responsibly, allows you to bring out the best in others and to make yourself rich in the process.
- Do not seek a replica of yourself to delegate to, or to promote. You have strengths and you have weaknesses in your own character. It makes
no sense to increase those strengths your organisation already possesses and not address the weaknesses.
- The work undertaken by your colleagues and employees is more important than your work. Your job is merely to lead, perhaps just to point in the right direction.
- By making myself the chairman of all my companies, I can choose to attend or not attend senior management or board meetings as it suits me. On average, I will attend four to six such meetings a year for each company.
- The chair is usually taken in my absence by the MD, the president or the CEO, Verbatim minutes are taken. (I do read all the minutes of these meetings very carefully, and I can get a mite cross if diey are not produced promptly and accurately. For me, they are not a memorandum of past events. They are a tool to understanding current positions.)
- My vetoes are carefully explained and very well known to all of my executives, who agree to abide by them before they join the board.
- Without my express permission:
1. They may not vote anyone on or off the board.
2. They may not physically move the headquarters of the company.
3. They may not dispose of, or shut down, any substantial asset.
4. They may not purchase, or launch, any substantial new product or business.
5. They may not award themselves bonuses or salary increases.
- If things go wrong in a particular part of the business, then I will get involved. When we are about to launch, sell or close something, I am always involved.
- I learned to delegate a long time ago and to accept that you must allow young managers the opportunity to make mistakes without crushing them or blaming them when things go wrong. (You can always fire them if they make the same error over and over.) Because I love to see talent grow in the stable and watch it come hurtling out of the box at full gallop. Because it make me a little proud to be a part of such a process. Because I get easily bored. For all of those reasons.
- If you go on holiday or a business trip and keep obsessively in touch via a mobile phone or Blackberry with the office, what does that say about your management style? About the trust you have in your colleagues 'mind- ing the ranch'? It says you don't trust them. It says you cannot delegate meaningfully. It says you are a meddler and a micro-manager So don't do it!
- Chapter 14 - A piece of the pie
- I am a great believer in sharing the annual pie around. That is, I believe in incentives that help concentrate the mind and bring a sense of competition and purpose to management.
- Use the annual profits of a company to grow the business by all means. One of the ways of making it grow is to carefully craft bonuses for those who work for you to achieve margin, cost and revenue targets.
- Employees work for a salary. That salary is guaranteed. They are also awarded pension contributions from their company and, in some instances, health care and other perks. They risked nothing but a small potential embarrassment when they applied for the job in the first place. They are not owners.
- “The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights.” - John Paul Getty
- Risk equals reward. 'An honest day's work for an honest day's pay' is not risk-taking. If you work in my mine, I'll pay you fairly, try to make it a great mine to work in, incentivise you if it makes sense for the company to do so, contribute to your pension, perhaps contribute to your health care and the health care of your family, teach you to grow your skills and thereby improve your personal net worth, ensure you have paid vacations, ensure you are not bullied or in any way discriminated against, and concern myself with your personal safety at work.
- Very senior managers who turned down attractive offers from elsewhere to stay with the company and grow it, perhaps. Very long-term employees. Key employees who made a crucial difference to the viability and growth of the particular asset about to be sold. They should certainly be considered for a piece of the asset-sale pie, but generosity should be tempered with the facts set out above concerning risks and rewards.
- Your aim, as an owner, is simple: it is to improve management efficiency, productivity and frugality, and thereby improve future profits while still encouraging growth. But the balance is crucial, and many managers attempt to reach their targets simply by cutting costs. This can be fatal. Any fool can cut costs anywhere at any time. For one shining moment it will look as if he or she is a genius at increasing the bottom line. Then the moment will pass (unless the cuts were from an excessively fat cow) and quality will collapse.
- For whatever reason, a surprising number of first-class employees (managers or otherwise) are not overly motivated by money. They want security, or respect, or the chance to learn or the opportunity to shine. Often they require little more than a decent salary in a company where they feel motivated and valued.
- 'Set thy heart upon thy work but never upon its reward. Work is not for a reward: but never cease to do thy work.' - Bhagavad Gita
- Love of any work, diligently under- taken, no matter what it is, brings contentment and, eventually, respect. But it will rarely bring you riches.
- My advice on competition is always to ensure that you want to fight, and ought to fight on a larger competitor's ground. If he is anxious to buy you, determined to park his tanks on your lawn, maybe you should let him. For the right price. If your competitor is smaller, try to hire him or buy him or join with him. If he won't budge, take drastic action and smash him. If that won't work, then learn to be friends and collude against the woolly mammoths together. But don't fight tigers, my friend. Not if you want to get rich.
- 21 ways to make more pie
1. Make annual bonuses generous
- If you want your managers to concentrate on improving margin and profitability while growing the business, then they have to feel the light is worth the candle. Pay them well for performing well.
2. 'Ring fence' investment costs from 'ongoing' business
- By 'ring fencing' all investment money for new projects and growth in your annual accounts, you can encourage managers to work on margin and profit from their 'ongoing' parts of the business while offering them the chance to grow and take some risk.
3. Keep costs down
- Always. 'Overhead walks on two legs' and will eat you out of house and home. No company, new or old, can avoid 'Stealth' growth in overhead.
- Prune overhead regularly.
4. Never delegate bonus arrangements
- I had delegated a task to them I should not have delegated.
5. At senior level, insist on collective responsibility for bonuses
- If senior managers sense one of their number is slacking and fear they may all suffer for his or her transgressions, they are likely to let their feelings be known.
6. Praise excellent work
- Employees respect a boss who knows the difference between the mundane and the exceptional.
- Remember that not all employees respond well to incentive bonuses or a dangled carrot of any kind. They seek recognition, not bribery.
7. Fire malingerers, incompetents, toads and glory hounds mercilessly
- Not only does firing them make you feel better and contribute to a more pleasant working atmosphere, it cheers up the whole staff.
8. Turn a cold eye on company 'perks'
- These can add up to huge sums.
- I am still uneasy about company-issued credit cards; company-issued mobile telephones; travel and entertainment of any stripe at the company's expense; company air travel in any class but economy.
9. Avoid all 'jollies'
- Ignore protestations from sales managers to the contrary. A day set aside in a quiet environment, prepared for carefully, to assist sales teams improve their presentations to clients, is sensible. As is sales training from reputable training agencies.
10. Offer legal perks that you have paid for yourself to employees
- I allow my employees, for example, the use of my Rolls-Royces or Bentleys for their weddings. I permit them to stay at my homes around the world if they have performed well. I send every child born to an employee (well, I used to in the early days - there are too many of them now) a massive soft toy. Such perks are legal because I paid for them myself from after-tax dollars or pounds.
11. Set an example
- If, as an owner, yon want fancy furniture in your office or works of art or Persian rugs, then bloody well pay for them yourself.
- How can you expect frugality when a junior manager, who works in a cubicle, comes to visit you, knowing that the company paid for those accessories?
- There is nothing wrong with them being there. It's who paid for them that counts.
12. Encourage senior managers to go over annual results with you one- on-one
- You will learn more from off-the-cuff remarks and opinions expressed at one-on-one meetings while looking over financial results than you will in a dozen board meetings.
- This tactic never fails to produce food for thought, often on both sides.
13. Back up your managers
- Back up your managers, in public, whenever and wherever you have to.
- If they do not perform, speak seriously in private to them. If they still do not perform, fire them.
- Reprimand other managers who bad-mouth their peers. Nearly everyone's ego and self-confidence is more fragile than the outside world believes.
14. Search out and promote talent
- Talent comes in all shapes and sizes and is often inarticulate and shy.
- When you find it, test it. Groom it. Work it until it's ready to drop. Load it with more work and responsibilities. Praise it. Reward it. It will make you loads-a-money.
15. Interview your rivals' talent
- I have never known a single person in a rival organisation, however well paid or cosseted, who has refused to meet me for a quiet drink after work.
- No intelligence-gathering exercise is ever entirely wasted in business. There is only so much pie. Talent bakes that pie.
16. Discourage secrecy
- The more you take middle and senior managers into your confidence, the more they will respect you and the harder they will work for you.
- Many managers disagree with this policy. They love the feel- ing of power that comes from knowing what others do not know.
- I don't care about power, I care about getting rich.
17. Save a little bit of pie for suppliers
- Save a little of the annual pie to wine and dine key suppliers. Or let them wine and dine you. If you like them enough, invite them to your home.
- We all remember to call often upon our major customers. But it is worth remembering suppliers. And they often have important market information.
18. Never bad-mouth rivals
- It's a sign of stupidity and weakness. I try to go out of my way to praise my rivals when I can.
19. Sell early
- Real money rarely come from horsing around running an asset-laden business if you are an entrepreneur. You are not a manager, remember? You are trying to get rich.
- Whenever the chance comes to sell an asset at the top of its value, do so. Things do not keep increasing in value for ever. Get out while the going is good and move on to the next venture. More money is usually lost holding onto an asset than is made waiting for the zenith of its value.
20. Enjoy the business of making money
- The loot is only a marker. Time cannot be recaptured. There is no amount of pie in the world worth being miserable for, day after day. If you find you dislike what you are doing, then sell up and change your life. Self-imposed misery is a kind of madness. The cure is to get out.
21. Never miss an opportunity to promote your asset
- Chapter 15 - The power of focus
- If you wish to become rich, look carefully about you at the prevailing industries where wealth appears to be gravitating. THEN GO TO WHERE THE MONEY IS! That is where you should focus your efforts. On the ball marked 'The Money is Here.'
- There is no substitute for good timing. There is always luck involved, but it's often the kind of luck you help make yourself.
- Human capital is by far the most important element of your environment, whether you are just starring up or deep into the game. By focusing hard on obtaining that human capital you will vastly increase your chances of becoming rich.
- Stupid people are easy to hire. The world is full of stupid people. Many of them are extremely pleasant and will give you a lovely smile every morning. But such people will not add to your wealth. In the early days, you should avoid them like the bubonic plague. What you need are clever, cunning and adept people.
- Focus tips when choosing human capital:
- Never choose an important employee or a key supplier alone.
- Get others to interview them or talk to them as well, either with you or separately.
- You need the input of others to choose the right candidate, although the final choice, in the early days, must be yours and yours alone.
- Go further than reading a person's references.
- Make an appointment with a potential employee's last company or with a supplier's other customers.
- Go and see someone there. Make nicey-nicey. Listen hard. You will discover more about your potential employee or supplier in a few minutes in this way than in hours of conversation with them.
- Make notes. Speak little.
- Have a series of questions handy to shoot out when they grind to a halt. Then focus like mad on what your instinct and your intuition is telling you - as well as your ears.
- As to speaking little yourself, remember you are being interviewed, too. It is impossible for the other side to tell that you are not as clever as they are if you keep your mouth shut.
- 'Better to have the world suspect you a fool than to open your mouth and put the matter beyond doubt,' as the old saying has it.
- Good suppliers respect attention to detail.
- Don't hesitate to challenge quotes or invoices - after you have done your homework.
- At the beginning of a relationship, everything will usually be hunky-dory. Later, hidden or unacceptable costs may creep in. Challenge them.
- Constantly request quotes from your supplier's rivals. Demand refunds if a supplier screws up, based not on the cost of the goods or services, but the financial consequences of the screw-up.
- Pay employees well. Bonus better.
- Your company's salaries must be competitive. Bonuses should be more than competitive, they should be tempting, generous and based ruthlessly on meritocracy and delivery. That's the way to get employees to really focus.
- Be alert for 'cross overs'.
- All positions in your company, except your own, are temporary.
- Nothing pleases a candidate who has failed to get a particular job more than being contacted some time later and offered a job out of the blue. It is like a vindication and they will almost certainly say 'yes' if the job title and money matches or exceeds their current position.
- Only hire winners.
- Hire winners or people you believe will become winners. Fire whiners and moaners swiftly.
- Ignore your prejudices, likes and dislikes.
- Some of the most successful colleagues and employees who have worked with me and for me over the years were not my personal cup of tea at the beginning.
- Loyalty, effectiveness, honesty, integrity and stamina are crucial. Cleverness and cunning can be useful. Professionalism is vital. A desire to shine in the world is worth more than a university degree. All of this is important. Who you like and don't like is irrelevant. If an employee makes money for you, you'll get to like them later, I promise.
- Promote from within when you can.
- An external candidate, a candidate from outside the company looking for a senior position, had better be at least 30 per cent better than any internal candidates to get the job.
- You know all the faults of an internal candidate - they may have worked for you for years. But external candidates come to you free from errors made in the past. All you are faced with is an impression at the meeting and a list of their achievements. Failures are not a part of anyone's CV.
- Don't leave senior employees in any job too long.
- You will get the most out of any senior employee in their first year or two in a new position. After that, they enter a 'comfort zone'.
- If a man or woman heads up one of your companies and has been there too long, consider asking them to create a new division or company for you. But do not leave them to quietly go to seed - they will get bored and resign anyway, if they're any good.
- There is no point in owning 100 per cent of a rubbish company. Whatever it is you intend to do to get rich, get good at it. Hire people who are better than you at it. Listen and learn and get better still at it.
- Focusing on doing an outstanding job is an important part of getting rich.
- Part four - Trouble shooting & end game
- Chapter 16 - Whoops!
- “Being young is greatly overrated. Any failure seems so total. Later on, you realise you can have another go.” - Mary Quant
- So look at your own, ailing beast. Can it be something else? Can you make it a tiger of a different stripe, or can somebody else? Is it really not a valid business? Would more capital help, or would that be throwing good money after bad? Your analysis must be ruthless. If there is anyone with business savvy in the world you trust, now is the time to seek them out, tell your story and listen.
- So just before you dump your dream into the gutter, ensure you do the rounds of other companies in your neck of the woods. It only takes two of them to become interested and you have the chance of getting an auction going.
- The more honest you are about your misfortune with those affected by it, the easier the comeback will be.
- The more you weasel and fib or tell outright lies or blame somebody else, the less likely it is that anyone will want to do business with you again.
- “You've done the crime, now do the time. No whineing.”
- If you use your company's money to buy yourself a fancy car or a house or a boat or anything at all of that nature without declaring it, you are a criminal.
- Pay your taxes, remembering that no less a person than a lord chief justice of England once said that an English citizen has not only the right but a duty to pay only the minimum tax applicable to him.
- Pay the least tax that is lawful. But pay it.
- If your company can afford to pay you money, then that's fine, as long as you declare that it has been paid and get ready to pay the tax on that payment. If you find other ways of moving the company's money into your own pocket without reporting the movement or using a company asset for your personal life, you're almost certainly milking the cow in a way that is not permitted.
- Keep it simple, and to hire competent tax advisors just as soon as you begin earning money over and above your salary.
- Chapter 17 - A recap for idlers
- “There is no fortress so strong that money cannot take it.” - Cicero
- “And Achilles replied, 'Do not speak soothingly to me of death, glorious Odysseus. I would rather live on earth as a bondsman to the meanest peasant, than be king of all the shadows.'” - Homer, The Odyssey
- If you are young and reading this then I ask you to remember just this: you are richer than anyone older than you, and far richer than those who are much older. What you choose to do with the time that stretches out before you is entirely a matter for you. But do not say you started the journey poor. If you are young, you are infinitely richer than I can ever be again.
- Money is never owned. It is only in your custody for a while. Time is always running on, and the young have more of it in their pocket than the richest man or woman alive. That is not sentimentality speaking. That is sober fact.
- No one is 'independent' of the human race. 'No man is an island entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.'
- The rich are not happy. I have yet to meet a single really rich happy man or woman - and I have met many rich people. The demands from others to share their wealth become so tiresome, and so insistent, they nearly always decide they must insulate themselves. Insulation breeds paranoia and arrogance. And loneliness. And rage that you have only so many years left to enjoy rolling in the sand you have piled up.
- The only people the self-made rich can trust are those who knew them before they became wealthy.
- You cannot spend your life assuaging the fear of failure (and success) that is the common lot of the risk averse.
- Cutting loose can be painful. I have heard of very few men or women who made a ton of money who did not leave, or divorce, their wives or husbands or lovers sooner or later. Or who were not estranged from family members, often their children. It comes with the territory. Even if you hand over large sums as a gift to those you had to cut loose from to get it, they will never really forgive you.
- It isn't the money, you see. It is because you have humiliated them, in their minds anyway, both by succeeding and by valuing the time it took for you to succeed over their part in your life. And that, in a nutshell, is why it is so important to cut loose, especially in the early days.
- Focus, determination and relentless drive are wearing in themselves - both to you and those around you. Any distraction whatever can cost you a chance that may not come again. And, for the purposes of this book, family, lovers and friends are distractions, plain and simple.
- The world is full of money. Some of that money has your name on it. All you have to do is collect it.
- You must avoid the trap of going into what you
think will make you money if you have no empathy or feeling for what you are about to do. There's no future in that.
- Don't do anything because you feel you have to. Go for what attracts you. Go for something that exploits your natural talents.
- “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.” - Edmund Burke
- Just try. Try for just a single day, a whole day when you refuse to acknowledge fear of failure, fear of making yourself look like an idiot, fear of losing your lover, fear of losing your job, fear of your boss, fear of anything and of any kind. Fear will creep back, usually at three in the morning. Laugh at it and tell it to take a hike. Smash it in the teeth. Spit on it. Put your arms round it and make nicey-nicey. Then slip a sharp blade into its stinking throat just as you're French-kissing it.
- It is fear that rules us. Love and respect and other such emotions make it bearable, at a price. But fear rules us all, and always has.
- 'Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.' - William Shakespeare
- You must act at the slightest hint of a chance to make money. You must go, go, go!
- The only three valid reasons for not attempting to become rich are: 'I do not wish to be rich.' Or, 'I wish to be rich but I have other priorities.' Or, 'I am too stupid to try to get rich.'
- Children do not care if parents are rich or poor, providing there is enough money for basic essentials like food, clothing and shelter. What they care about is unconditional love.
- Watch out for blowhards. There are a lot of them out there and they are very negative influences. They can stop you from getting started, from getting going, from taking a massive running leap into the dark. Always remember that they want you to fail, just as they did. Ignore them.
- The upside-down pyramid for getting rich:
1. Commit or don't commit. No half-measures.
2. Cut loose from all negative influences.
3. Choose the right mountain.
4. Fear nothing,
5. Start now.
6. Go!
- Chapter 18 - How to stay rich
- Drugs can be great, for a while. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or ignorant. But they will very often kill you and wreck your life. That is the problem. And, while they do it, they stop you from getting rich. Better to forget about drugs and move on.
- Keep giving it away.
- The faster you give it away, the more money will flow back to you. Not because of 'karma' or 'universal cosmic forces', but became you then spend less time defending it and more time making more of it.
- Investing in private companies you think can do well is another sensi- ble ruse to staying rich, but giving it away on a continual basis is a surer route.
- As soon as you've spent it, gifted it, loaned it or invested it, forget it.
- It's gone, forget it. If any of it returns to you, fine. But that should not be your primary concern, unless you invested for safety's sake.
- Do not waste time playing the 'blame game' over investments, loans or outright gifts, however large. The blame, if there is any, is yours,
- Never loan it to friends.
- If you loan money to a friend, you will lose your friend as well as your money. Give them whatever you feel like giving. Then forget it. Ditto with relatives.
- Broadcast your policy loudly. This will spare you from many embarrassing demands that will otherwise vex you.
- Get 'first flush' barminess out of your system as fast as possible.
- The sooner you can work through this 'barmy' phase, the better your health will stand up, and the sooner you will get your second wind.
- Your oldest friends are your only friends.
- Only your old, trusted mates can tell you when to get off.
- Get used to being 'cut off'.
- If you do not begin to isolate yourself pronto when you get rich, then you will be driven mad pretty swiftly.
- It isn't that you have changed so much, (although believe me, you have), it is simply that you are now a loaded galleon, a supertanker, and all the pirates have lookouts. There just isn't enough time in the world to deal with them all. Avoid them instead.
- Avoid developing 'plate-glass vision'.
- 'Plate-glass vision' won't make you poor, but it will drive you crazy.
- Develop a passion outside of making money.
- Get your own private advisors.
- There is no substitute for a first-class lawyer, tax advisor, accountant, auditor, estate manager and business advisor.
- Watch out for fraud in the early days.
- Do not try to be friends with your staff.
- Being fair and friendly is always cool. Trying to be 'one of the boys' is pathetic.
- Do not sleep with your staff.
- It's dumb. It's unfair. And it sucks. Period.
- Choose personal aides with enormous care.
- If a personal aide is not working out, then fire him or her just as soon as you know. But be very generous when you do so. Tell them it's your fault - it probably is.
- Close aides like these can become your friends, and usually do, over time. That's understandable. But try to keep a little distance 'just in case'. Ensure they are employed under a very different contract than employees of your company. They must work for you, not your company.
- Don't abuse it.
- Being rich doesn't give you the right to abuse anyone.
- Be safe.
- No need to get paranoid about it, but effective security for you and your family has to become a priority.
- Never stop looking for talent and promoting talent.
- As the owner, you have the right to seek out talent, both inside and outside of your company. You have the right to insist it is promoted or hired. Make use of that last right. If you get known for making use of it, the talent will start coming to you.
- No deal is a 'must-do' deal.
- More entrepreneurs get themselves in trouble
by overreaching than exercising discipline.
- No deal is a total make-or-break deal. Not one. If you cannot get the terms you know make sense, then walk away.
- This is one occasion when you have the right to overrule senior management in your company, if you feel strongly enough. Listen hard. But if you are not convinced, insist they walk away.
- Lead. Do not be lead.
- If you sniff an opportunity, then get them to consider it. If they prevaricate, call a meeting and brainstorm.
- Your employees and advisors are just that: employees and advisors. You are the owner. You must follow your instincts. You must lead.
- Stay as healthy as you can.
- Staying healthy long enough to enjoy your wealth must make some kind of sense.
- If you're bored with a business, sell it.
- You will not be able to disguise your lack of passion for a business if you fall out of love with it. Your lack of enthusiasm leaks out of you and infects those around you. They can sense it and they will find it hard to forgive and easy to emulate. Sell that particular business pronto. Then go and invest in something that doesn't bore you.
- Try to sell before you have to.
- You're an entrepreneur. Your companies are not your 'babies', they are tools for acquiring wealth. Try to sell them before they peak.
- Retirement will kill you.
- For most men and women who have made a lot of money, retirement is usually a living death sentence.
- Remember you are only richer than them.
- Not smarter than them.
- Chapter 19 - The eight secrets to getting rich
1. Analyse your need. Desire is insufficient. Compulsion is mandatory.
2. Cut loose from negative influences. Never give in. Stay the course.
3. Ignore 'great ideas'. Concentrate on great execution.
4. Focus. Keep your eye on the ball marked 'The Money Is Here'.
5. Hire talent smarter than you. Delegate. Share the annual pie.
6. Ownership is the real 'secret'. Hold on to every percentage point you can.
7. Sell before you need to, or when bored. Empty your mind when negotiating.
8. Fear nothing and no one. Get rich. Remember to give it all away.
- Chapter 20 - Remember to duck!
- Technology changes. Tools change. The social land- scape changes. Human nature does not change.
- 'Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.' - Benjamin Jowett
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