Ideas on How to Become Rich - be the scavenger in the business

Ideas on How to Become Rich - be the scavenger in the business

Hi good day folks! It has been a long time since I last blogged here on Ideas on How to Become Rich. I was busy making money through salvaging old stuff and being a scavenger in the business. What does being a scavenger mean?

Oftentimes, people say that you have got to be the first to win, the first to be there to be counted, and to be the first in everything. Well, sometimes being the last or the scavenger is a great idea to becoming rich. The reason is very simple. Lots of people want to make money but have no patience to wait a long time, so they give up halfway, and therefore if you are the next in line, you get the golden pot. You become the scavenger. Ah, how does it work? Let me share some of my insights.

When people rushed into ventures and may make a loss or encounter problems, you come in and be the "angel hero"; you need not spend lots of money to rescue the operations, yet you may reap the end part of the bargain which can sometimes be better than the beginning. Not all businesses end in bankruptcy. Not all businesses end in profits or losses either. Some people just want to give up because they have lost interest or lost the motivation to do the same business or even have other minor reasons that are of no importance. If you are the one who can smell or sense this kind of opportunity, you can jump in at this right moment and rescue the operations by being the "salvaging hero" . In this way you can become rich if you try new ways of running that business or even try to remarket the sale of the "poor" business and make a sum if you are able to play the game right or calculate the sum correctly. Some people call this playing the turnaround game.

Many people lose windows of opportunities around them when they are actually looking for areas or avenues to become rich. Warren Buffet is one such guy who salvages "lousy" businesses and make them turnarounds; he might buy up businesses which are fledging and make them grow. The way to go in becoming rich is to have an open mind, an open heart and an open wallet, in which you keep some spare cash. This is the way to enjoy riches if they come your way.

I am like a scavenger. I do not normally start a business but I may end up owning other people's businesses and becoming rich "incidentally". Some of my scavenger hunts are the following: Once, there was a friend who needed money as he lost money in stocks and shares and needed money, so he had to sell his apartment quickly. I gave him the cash which he badly needed and got a great bargain - a huge discount for that apartment. After some time, I resold the apartment for more than triple the amount. Another "salvaging" incident of jumping onto an opportunity was when a business friend of mine could not get some funds to sell LCD cards which measure the body's temperature and the level of stress. I bought all his cards at a good discount and resold the cards at a reasonably nice price, and lo and behold, I made a bit from this scavenger hunt. My friend got what he needed- the money - and I got profits within a very short time of less than a month. What more can I say?

There are other incidents of profit making situations which are out there. It is up to us to grab the chance and go get it. To become rich is indeed not difficult. It takes guts and the right decision to do it when you may feel afraid. Well, I will continue to share other incidents of profit making situations and share with you ideas on how to become rich in my next post.

Go and find the opportunity. Open your eyes and open your ears. The money may be just right here.

Cheers and good luck hunting

Sally Klaus

Ideas on How to Become Rich

Case study: Robert Kiyosaki, part 3

Case study: Robert Kiyosaki, part 3

This is the third and last instalment on my research into Robert Kiyosaki's ideas and sayings on how to become rich. I will be using Kiyosaki as a case study to learn ideas on how to become rich by considering what he actually does to make money. In the previous two posts, I analysed what he teaches and preaches to people on how to make money, as well as the controversies surrounding his thinking and writings. In this post I will analyse what he actually does to make money and ask the central question whether we can take him as a case study to make money.

Firstly, just to recap, these are the materials that I have researched and talked about in the previous two posts on Robert Kiyosaki:

These are the key central money and financial ideas from Rich Dad Poor Dad as well as other books written by Robert Kiyosaki:

1. financial independence comes about from investing, real estate, owning businesses, and the use of finance protection methods and mechanisms

2. do not be an employee, but be someone who controls the means of production
3. formal education is not the correct education in the knowledge based economy

4. we can earn money using passive income and active income, not just active income alone

5. The Cashflow Quadrant idea according to Robert Kiyosaki - ESBI:
Employees work for others
Selfemployed owners are their own boss earning money
Big business owner with a system of making money
Investor who spends money to earn money

6. Financial literacy is important.

In addition, I also covered why these cannot be believed as ideas on how to become rich, as there are several controversies surrounding Robert Kiyosaki's methods on how to make money and his ideas about finance, money, education, and the like.

These controversies and counter reasons, in my own personal opinion, were:

1. that there are no details and no particulars, only generalities.

2. there is no way of differentiating between fact and fiction in Robert Kiyosaki's writing, and so that might pose a problem.

3. Kiyosaki is very repetitive, and although in my first post on Robert Kiyosaki I wrote on his book Rich Dad, it turns out that many consider his other books very similar to that one - and Robert Kiyosaki has only a very few and limited ideas on how to make money

4. Robert Kiyosaki makes his money writing books, giving seminars, selling board games, and is known to do MLM. These may make him a lot of money, but are these skills replicable and do they help his readers in their quest to learn how to make money and how to be financially literate? Perhaps not.

5. There is no one who can sum up what Robert Kiyosaki says and teaches properly, accurately and in a succinct manner because what he writes is so vague, that everyone reading it has a different perspective and a different opinion on what was written. This is unlike Warren Buffett, because what Buffett has written and talked about has come from Benjamin Graham's analyses and there have been many documented sources.

Now the question is, can we use this statement in my research to learn ideas on how to become rich? "Robert Kiyosaki makes his money writing books, giving seminars, selling board games, and is known to do MLM." It seems only fair that we work from this premise, since this is what he actually does to make his money. Here is the analysis:

Writing Books to become rich

This is a good way of making money, if you can write, if people like to read your writing, if you have good ideas, if you can express yourself fluently, if you can cook something up that people want... there are many factors involved. It is only a good way of making money if you are able to have all the factors come together in your favour. Robert Kiyosaki should not be the role model in this sense, because you would be better of emulating JR Rowling or other famous authors or novelists.

However, if you do ultimately intend to write financial books and make money this way, the catch is that you would have to be famous for making money first before you can write books on how to make money. That is to say, with the probably rare exception of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, other financial books' authors were rich and famous before they wrote those books. Trump, Buffett, Lynch and other such authors for example.

What Kiyosaki has done is rather rare, so I would say that it is harder to make money this way. By comparison, other authors who are creative make a lot of money by writing fantasy, stories, and in the case of Dan Brown, even nonsensical stuff that criticises established society also makes him famous, and even movies can come out of his stories. Therefore, if you intend to use Kiyosaki's idea of writing books to make money - try to write novels, as that is more lucrative; unless of course, you can pull off what he has done - to make money out of writing financial advice.

Giving Seminars - in particular, motivational seminars

One might be inclined to say that this is not a good way of making money, but according to my research, this is one of the best ways of becoming rich if you are so inclined. In fact, Anthony Robbins is going to be the subject of my next case study on how to become rich by looking at some rich people.

Motivational seminars did rather well for Kiyosaki, and also did rather well for Tony Robbins, so that is worth one entire post for Robbins and how he made his money speaking motivational stuff to millions worldwide, and how we can learn from what he has done.

Selling board games (in particular board games that make money)

This is a good one. Kiyosaki has also cunningly written his books in such a way that there is the sales aspect of his board games inside. What I mean is that, while he writes about financial literacy and other motivational aspects, he also puts advertisements of his games into his writing, and some of his books are designed around the sale of his board games. That is, some of his writing is no more than mere sales pitches for the real product - his own games.

We can learn the idea of developing board games or for that matter, modern times you see, online games or online board games because that might be a very good idea on how to make money. Selling these games and promoting their use would be very good, and such games, if popular could make you a winner. This goes beyond Kiyosaki now - Monopoly, Hotel, and other such games come to mind, because these help people learn about finance while playing games, and you can make money selling the complements to the games as well as the substitutes. Couple this with some business seminars and the idea is complete. I adopted all these key ideas from reading about Kiyosaki's life and methods on how to make money - running a business seminar, while using and selling your board games, seems to be a very good winner. Might be worth a try!

MLM - not going to be discussed here, but in future posts, analyses and research will be devoted to this topic specially

MLM (or the famous or even infamous Multi Level Marketing) is one big, complex thing that will be dealt with in another series, not right now.

That's the end of the Kiyosaki case study, and hope you learnt some stuff out of it! In the next post, the final case study in my case study series, before I resume other financial articles. I will be dealing with Anthony Robbins and his methods on how to make money - motivational seminars. Do stay tuned, thank you very much and cheers!

Do stick to my site here and you can find here all sorts of materials on the righthand sidebar on investment, technical analysis, fundamental analysis, financial instruments ranging from forex to money market funds, CDs and FDs, as well as quotes from rich men, and case studies and much much more.

Ideas on how to get rich!

Case Study: Robert Kiyosaki, part 2

Case Study: Robert Kiyosaki, part 2

This post is the second part of my Robert Kiyosaki case study on ideas on how to become rich by making a lot of money through various means. In this post, I will now show criticisms and controversies surrounding Robert Kiyosaki and his ideas on making money. Unlike Donald Trump and Warren Buffett, who are also featured on other posts here on my money making ideas blog, Robert Kiyosaki has been strongly attacked by John Reed and there are controversies surrounding Robert Kiyosaki's methods on making money and his various ideas, as well as factual inconsistencies in what Robert Kiyosaki has writtten.

One thing is for sure though - and I say this tongue in cheek - that this is surely one very good way of making a lot of money:

write books and develop board games on financial education and how to make money

(I got this idea directly from Robert Kiyosaki himself, because that is how he makes his money. Since Buffett makes money from investment, and Trump makes money from books, real estate and TV shows, we can learn from Robert Kiyosaki in terms of what he ACTUALLY does, not just what he preaches and teaches. In a certain monetary sense, there is a way of making money - by emulating and copying closely what rich men do, although sometimes there are indeed things that rich men can do that we cannot do. Therefore, copying Robert Kiyosaki's ideas on how to make money by extrapolating the need to write books on financial education might be a good, money-making idea after all.)

Now on to the main part of my topic on Robert Kiyosaki:

Controversies

1. The main problem with Robert Kiyosaki's ideas and teachings on how to make money is that there are no details and no particulars, only generalities. For instance, even my ideas on money making site here where I issue ideas, discuss investment, discuss forex and the like has details on various methods of making money. I have explained technical analysis and fundamental analysis and even taught for free proper ways to read annual reports, and much more. Yet, Robert Kiyosaki has not done that - he has merely made his financial education book Rich Dad Poor Dad a form of story telling.

2. There is no way of differentiating between fact and fiction in Robert Kiyosaki's writing, and so that might pose a problem. This means that the Rich Dad and the Poor Dad could be - either metaphorical, in which case Robert Kiyosaki has no claim to learning real ideas on how to become rich; or real, in which Robert Kiyosaki is unable to reveal or does not want to reveal who these two people are.

3. Robert Kiyosaki is very repetitive, and although in my first post on Robert Kiyosaki I wrote on his book Rich Dad, it turns out that many consider his other books very similar to that one - and Robert Kiyosaki has only a very few and limited ideas on how to make money. All of them, apocryphal and anecdoctal, actually.

4. Robert Kiyosaki makes his money writing books, giving seminars, selling board games, and is known to do MLM. These may make him a lot of money, but are these skills replicable? This means, while Robert Kiyosaki teaches a lot of stuff on how to make money, he never practises any of them; while Robert Kiyosaki makes his money selling books, giving seminars, selling games and doing MLM, he does not tell us how he makes his money; the only thing we can learn are from OUTSIDE of his books and therefore, why should one even buy or read his books or boardgames, when we are actually learning by observing what he does in real life? This is quite unlike Buffett and Trump, who have detailed what they do and how they do it in books and publications. This means that Robert Kiyosaki does not practise what he preaches. This also means that Robert Kiyosaki makes his money through methods that he does not preach explicitly.

5. This last point is related to the rest - but it is the most important and key point. There is no one who can sum up what Robert Kiyosaki says and teaches properly because what he writes is so vague, that everyone reading it has a different perspective and a different opinion on what was written. This has been heavily documented - no one can actually say for sure and categorically state what Robert Kiyosaki has taught regarding money, making money, investment, ideas on making money and ideas on how to evade taxes and the like. Therefore, since Robert Kiyosaki's writing is so ambiguous such that no one can summarise properly what he says and no one else can verify what he has written, there is no reason for us to trust what he says. This is unlike Buffett, again, because what Buffett has written and talked about has come from Benjamin Graham's analyses and there have been many documented sources and independent sources that verify what has been said. This verification and un-ambiguity and clarity and sharpness are all missing from Robert Kiyosaki's books and writings. He seems to be more, therefore, of a motivational writer than a real financial educator.

With all these critcisms in mind, do remember that I am still a fan of Robert Kiyosaki in some ways - his writing is indeed motivational, and there are good things that we can extract and learn from his personal life and from what he writes. Nonetheless, we should take what he has to say with a major pinch of salt due to the criticisms mentioned above.

More to come in future posts on Robert Kiyosaki and what other lessons on money making, investment and financial education that we can possibly learn from him. My idea is that - we can get ideas on how to become rich and make money by observing, learning and extrapolating from rich men who have already become rich. Stay tuned for more, and thank you very much for staying with me and reading. Cheers!

Ideas on how to get rich!

Case Study: Donald Trump, part 1

Case Study: Donald Trump, part 1

Here, on my ideas on how to become rich site, I will now talk about Donald Trump. Donald Trump is a billionaire who made most of his money in buildings, construction, casinos, and who can forget the TV series - The Apprentice. Donald Trump is the focus of this post in my case studies on the rich and famous and how they make money. Some people may not like him and indeed there are some who might be unhappy with Trump as a role model, but I think that he is great and he is definitely an expert in making money in real estate.

I first came across Donald Trump when reading Forbes, because he is one of the richest men on earth and certainly a big name in the real estate industry. I read about how his father was actually a rather successful builder, but a rather small time construction person, because even though Donald Trump's father was a good man who worked hard, he never earned billions of dollars. Basically, Donald Trump managed to do that.

Writing a case study on Donald Trump for my ideas site turned out to be easy, relatively speaking, because Donald Trump has written many books on how to become rich and how to make money. He once said that people ask bakers how to bake bread....and so it is wise to ask a billionaire how to make money.

Without further ado, today's case study is on Donald Trump and in particular, his book

How to Get Rich.

Aptly titled, isn't it? And this is a very fitting subject for my ideas site on how to become rich, so much so that one could possibly say that this book was written for me to conduct my research. I will not be lifting materials from his book but rather analysing and then summarising what I see to be the key points and key learning points on how to become rich.

According to Donald Trump there are many key ideas to becoming rich, and they are:

you have to be a general

you have to stay focused on the important parts

you need to maintain your momentum

you need a great assistant

you need to take responsibility

you need to speak clearly and properly

you need to ask yourself "Is there anyone who can do this job better and cheaper than I can?"

you need to have a very good idea

you have to have talent

you have to consistently learn and improve and upgrade

you need to think big and live large

you need to be tenacious

you need to brand yourself and you have to toot your horn

you need to be optimistic, yet you need to be prepared for the worst

you need to know public speaking skills

you need to pay attention to the details

you need a positive attitude

you need to do your homework

you need to dress well

you need to invest simply and effectively

you need to have negotiation skills (- sounds familiar? You will be able to find such materials around my site here, so do use the right sidebar.)

Immediately one can see that Donald Trump's basic message has two key elements, according to my research - one is common sense, and the other is marketing/ branding/ advertising, depending on how you look at it.

You can examine the key ideas I learnt from his book.

These are all common sense ideas on how to make money and how to become successful at a job or in business, and some of the key ideas in those words are known to business students or Economics students:

you have to be a general

you have to stay focused on the important parts

you need to maintain your momentum

you need a great assistant

you need to take responsibility

you need to speak clearly and properly

you need to ask yourself "Is there anyone who can do this job better and cheaper than I can?"

you need to have a very good idea

you have to have talent

you have to consistently learn and improve and upgrade

you need to be tenacious

you need to brand yourself

you need to be optimistic, yet you need to be prepared for the worst

you need to know public speaking skills

you need to pay attention to the details

you need a positive attitude

you need to do your homework

you need to dress well

you need to invest simply and effectively

you need to have negotiation skills

These are all ideas related to marketing/ branding/ advertising:

you need to speak clearly and properly

you need to think big and live large

you need to brand yourself and you have to toot your horn

you need to know public speaking skills

you need to pay attention to the details

you need to dress well

Hence, Donald Trump's personality can be seen in the way that he works and makes his money. He has a lot of common sense. He also has a lot of marketing and branding power, as can be seen from the TV series and the beauty paegeants that he organises and hosts. Clearly, Donald Trump is proof that his money making system works - it is about applying solid common sense to making money, with a no nonsense approach with a clear mind, as well as branding, marketing and advertising oneself and one's organisation. If it works for him, then these skills and thoughts may be worth trying out and may be worth considering seriously.

More to come on Donald Trump in the next post, here on my ideas site, on ideas on how to make money by looking at successful billionaires and successful businessmen, and their methods on how to become rich.

Ideas on how to get rich!

Case Study: Warren Buffett, part 2

Case Study: Warren Buffett, part 2

Simply put, here is the distilled wisdom of making money on the stock market in long term investment:

See stocks as businesses

Many people buy stocks and see them as pieces of paper that give dividends or capital appreciation. Yes, that is actually what stocks are, but to make money in the stock market, Warren Buffett suggests a different approach. Why not see stocks as businesses, or part of businesses instead?

Every stock certificate is linked to a company, and there are many considerations in fundamental analysis that can show you the various parts of a company. Stocks are indeed linked to businesses, and the prices of the pieces of paper stem from the businesses. If you believe this paradigm, then the stocks yield money when the businesses are healthy.

I would say: is there a market for the good? Is the company doing well now? Is the company under good management, or are the people in control known for not being trustworthy? Simply put: see the stocks as linked to businesses, and apply fundamental analysis. Warren Buffett reads a lot of annual reports a year and therefore he makes a lot of money when the decisions turn out right, based on fundamental analysis.

Use market fluctuations to your own personal advantage to make money in the stock market

Warren Buffett and Ben Graham often talk about Mr Market. This is an allegory.

A man called Mr Market turns up every day and quotes prices to you. He is basically a price quoter and does nothing but quote prices to you, and you are the one who must decide whether to buy or to sell. Market fluctuations therefore help you if you can sell to Mr Market when he quotes high prices and buy from him when he quotes low prices. It is that simple. Mr Market is occasionally optimistic and occasionally pessimistic, but as long as you buy and sell at the right prices, there is no need to worry because you will make money. Why? Simply because you are able to profit from folly and profit from market fluctuations, and you did not join them.

The importance of margin of safety and not cutting things close

Another metaphor here is wise: Warren Buffett once mentioned a bridge and suggested that you do not drive heavy trucks over a bridge meant for heavy loads, but rather, you drive small trucks that are light over a bridge that can bear more load. This is the idea of margin of safety.

Another way of looking at it would be: it's better to buy a dollar for 40 cents than it is to buy a dollar for 70 cents. You don't cut things close. This enables you to make money from the difference.

What do we learn from the bridge metaphor and from the dollar analogy? We learn the value approach. Just as we do not want to fall over a precipice by driving a heavy truck over a bridge, and just as we want to make money by buying dollars cheap, we should do the same for stock investments. Do not cut things close.

Use your common sense - or Warren Buffett's common sense

Last but not least, use common sense.

This may prove harder than the more technical aspects of value investment, like margin of safety and fundamental analysis, and the other elements of Warren Buffett's system that I mentioned already. The reason is that this needs to develop via experience. Diversification may not be a good idea if you know what you are doing, but if you don't know, then diversification might save you. That kind of common sense is sometimes counterintuitive and may take some time to acquire.

In addition, Warren Buffett does not always make the right decisions - and in some cases he even lost money. For that he has a good joke, and one we can learn from:

There are two rules of investment. The first is never lose money. And the second rule is, never forget the first!

More to come on other case studies and other rich men here on my ideas site on how to make money and how to become rich. Cheers!


NOTE/ DISCLAIMER/ SMALL MESSAGE: This is an ideas on how to become rich blog and should cover every possible idea on how to make money and how to become rich, not just in the financial market or in the stock market. Yet there is a focus on the stock market, among other financial devices and financial markets. At the same time, I write a lot about Warren Buffett and will continue to do so because he is one of the best investors in the world and the ideas that he preaches and practises have been proven to beat the market.

Not everyone will agree with what Warren Buffett teaches and what I write. This is true, natural and only to be expected - after all, opinions and ideas always differ. At the very least, you learn from me one major idea on how to get rich, and in the way and manner of your choosing - you can choose someone who is very rich and then make a mentor of him, learning his skills and ideas and concepts that have enabled him to make money, be it in investment, in a job, or in banking, or in real estate and the like. That means that if Warren Buffett and value investing is not your cup of tea and these don't interest you, the other case studies here on my ideas site might help you. Cheers!

Ideas on how to get rich!