Two Billionaires agree on ONE Critical Quality to Succeed in Business

- related to readers who want Better Income level

Over 60% of Chartered Accountants ventured into businesses either as CEO or self-employed. Why? Because for the same amount of time you put in as a 9-5 job, you earned much more.

What is the KEY to intensifying my income?

But what are the essential qualities to success? ONE actually needed.

World's Richest No. 1 and No. 2 billionaires agree on this.

I am so excited. Will I be successful business-baby?

It all boils down to our attitude rather than aptitude. 

Ask yourself,

Do I look forward to go to work the next day? No?

Do I have sufficient rest and family time with my current job commitments? Not enough?

Are my expenses rising faster than my income? Worries?

Well, if you are answering that I could do better, seek more opportunities in business income.

Most employees are 'trapped' in full time job. They can't venture out as quitting job now is just too risky in this weak economic environment.  This is incorrect approach. To venture out, one has to educate oneself to find which business is best suited that can increase income without huge financial investment commitment.

There is an ACCA Graduate who climbed her way to Managing Partner in a mid sized audit firm in Johor. She was successful with high income but unsuccessful with too little time spent with her 2 children. Wanting to change, she educate herself in biotechnology sector. Despite her colleagues prediction that she will be the last person on earth to succeed in this high growth sector, she persisted.

Today, she already earned over cumulative sum of RM4,300,000. Without need to initially resign, she went for training and do the business simultaneously with her full time job.

Difficult? Of course!

Worth it? Definitely.

Her business monthly passive income is generating five figures while she has time for family and with love ones. That's right, she is earning passive income without active work.

How does she do that? That is related to the article I wrote, on how to position yourself in business that generate the most income. Click here to view it.

Open your mind and eyes. You will see abundant opportunities. Remember, Tony Gaskin observed:

But in business, Chartered Accountants lament,

• I am not a good sales-person, 
• I don't know how to talk, 
• don't know how to meet and negotiate with people.

You will be surprised that is far from the truth. Well, that will be for another article, doesn't it?

Stay tune.


But, let us get one thing clear first. What is the critical quality to succeed in business as Billionairres Bill Gates and Warren Buffet so clearly emphasise. Please see article below. 

Tell me, what you think.

World's Richest men on same bed

Two titans of business took a tour of a mattress factory and seemed to be having the time of their lives. And that merry jaunt during Berkshire Hathaway’s BRK.A, -0.53%  annual shareholders weekend in May is not unrelated to why they’re both billionaires. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates chat and laugh, as they loll about the Buffett-owned Nebraska Furniture Mart in Omaha, Nebraska.

“My real vocational goal was to be a mattress tester,” Buffett told Gates in the video posted online. “I thought that would be a terrific job.” (Instead, he bought the company.) When asked if he could remember buying his first mattress, the Oracle of Omaha answered, “Well, I didn’t do much of the purchasing in our family. I can’t recall ever buying anything, actually.”

But Buffett and Gates agreed on one thing that drove their success. They did something they enjoyed: Buffett — investing and finding good deals (rather than shopping) and Gates — building computers and software. “Building Microsoft was incredibly fun and because we were right about software we had the wind at our back,” the co-founder of Microsoft MSFT, +0.27%  said.

The chairman of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway said it’s critical to choose a profession or vocation that you love. “Being successful in almost anything means having a passion for it,” Buffett said. “If you see someone with even reasonable intelligence and a terrific passion for what they do, and get people around them to march even when those people can’t see over the top of the next hill.”

It’s something that other successful entrepreneurs always look for in potential investors. Case in point: Max Gunawan, founder of a San Francisco-based Lumio, an LED lighting company, appeared on ABC’s “Shark Tank” in 2014 to seek investment after raising $578,000 on Kickstarter. He asked billionaire Mark Cuban and the other sharks for $250,000 for an 8% equity stake in his business.

The sharks loved the product, but they were also impressed that Gunawan spent four months camped out at his factory in China perfecting the product. They knew he believed in his lights. All five sharks offered him a deal and he accepted $350,000 for a 10% equity in Lumio from investor and panelist Robert Herjavec. Lumio is now sold in high-end stores all over the world.

 

Can you do business like Billionaire-President of USA Donald? 

Not everyone agrees with the passion approach to finding success. As Cal Newport wrote in his book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love.” “If a young Steve Jobs had taken his own advice and decided to only pursue work he loved, we would probably find him today as one of the Los Altos Zen Center’s most popular teachers.”



  
“But he didn’t follow this simple advice,” Newport wrote of Apple’s AAPL, -0.59%  co-founder who died in 2011. “Apple Computer was decidedly not born out of passion, but instead was the result of a lucky break — a “small-time” scheme that unexpectedly took off. I don’t doubt that Jobs eventually grew passionate about his work.” (Or perhaps his passion was finding solutions to problems.)
Back in Nebraska Furniture, Gates and Buffett stumbled upon another money-making trick in retail. It’s easy to get in, but hard to get out. “How do we get out of here?” Gates asked. “Well, we don’t want you to get out of here. It’s well designed in that respect,” Buffett replied. “It’s like a casino,” Gates said. “Let me get oriented now,” Buffett replied. “The truth is I don’t know where we are.”

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/07/billionaire-bffs-warren-buffett-and-bill-gates-went-mattress-shopping.html

Stock Market Goes to the Moon - Should you invest in Stock Market?

Consistently, I encourage Chartered Accountants to be more entrepreneurial. Go beyond budgetting, forecasting, compliance accounting, tax submission work. To add value to company, hence your own income potential is to look for new investments.

 

Dow Jones in USA is at record high, over 23,000 index points. Yet, billionaire Warren Buffett with estimated worth USD73billion predicted it will go up another 4,000%. Insane?

 

Well, you need to look from his perspective in USA open and transparent level playing field economy. USA is home to over 70% of world's Largest companies like Walmart, Dell, Amazon, Home Depot, Reeboks and the list goes on.

Should you invest in stocks? Emphatically YES! But timing and required capital is needed.

Where to find businesses to build your capital?

What are the strongest qualities of a successful entrepreneur?

Look out in my next article.

To your Profitable Future, 
Marcus

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Warren Buffett Predicting Dow 1,000,000 May Not Be So Insane

 

It would be hard to argue against anything Warren Buffett espouses on investing and markets. The legendary investor always has some sage advice and wisdom to pass along. Recently he said he thought the Dow industrials would reach 1 million in value in about 100 years. The Dow is at about 22,000 now.

Seems wild and outrageous, but on a compound basis it's really not farfetched, and actually might be too low! This prediction assumes about a 4.7% annualized rate of return, yet the industrials can probably do somewhat better than that.

"Whenever I hear people talk pessimistically about this country, I think they're out of their mind," Buffett said Tuesday in New York at a party celebrating the 100^th anniversary of Forbes magazine.
He pointed out the Dow was at 81 a century ago. It was first created in the late 1890s to represent a basket of 30 big American companies.

He noted that since Forbes created its first list of the 400 richest Americans in 1982 -- Buffett was worth just $250 million then -- some 1,500 different people have been included.

All with one thing in common.

"You don't see any short sellers," he said, according to Reuters.

Over 100 years, there are so many obstacles to overcome, but his point here is to stay with the markets, as they will rise over time. And while not many of us reading this today will be around if this comes true, milestones (even wild ones) are fun to discuss and wrangle over.

If there is one person whom we could believe in, it would probably be Warren Buffett. Let's take away from this his enthusiasm for investing in U.S. businesses, the finest and best in the world. Let's hope the generations that follow heed the advice to invest and stay invested, as these markets are tremendous wealth creators -- if you stay the course, like Buffett.

Source: https://www.thestreet.com/story/14317048/1/dow-1-million-in-100-years-maybe-buffett-s-forecast-isn-t-so-crazy.html

Why Business Positioning is Critical to success?

Thoughts from Grant Cardone (on who is he, please click here) ,

 

I can promise you that will not get rich by skipping your daily latte. Look, if you don't have income then there is no money to save. Don't let anyone give you the idea that you need to skip your Starbucks coffee and save $3 a day and that will somehow turn into a fortune.



You can skip your $5 Starbucks every day and save $10,000 over the next five years, but if you think $10,000 is going to change your life, you're not just broke, you're being silly. Of course you should spend less than you earn, but if you make $50,000 a year with a couple of kids, what money is there left over to save?


If you are serious about getting rich, you need to get your mind focused on income. Increase your income enough and you will be able to save something substantial.

Thoughts about Business Positioning. 

Are you in the right place, right time? Able to capitalise it? Your energy and time is a commodity. Anyone and everyone has them. It is how you use it by strategically positioning yourself to capitalize on emerging opportunity.

How much do you think a Coke sells in :


Position One: School?




Position Two: Restaurant?

 



Exactly identical commodity drink, but different position. Possibly a can of coke is RM2.00 in school but RM18.00++ in high end restaurant.

It is not how hard you work that counts, but where you divert your energy. Choosing the right platform is critical to success.

Thus, the golden question is are you increasing your income using the right platform?

You don't need to go far or wait 10 years to find out the answers (the hard way). Look at your seniors, have they got time and financial comfort? Tough to find such ones.

Can you increase your income from your current position? Many accounting professionals do freelance accounting work or GrabCar. Well, that is a start.

But you need to be extremely good in something that adds value to people. What kind of industries are very suitable? A lot. If you open your eyes.

Well, that could be another article.

TOP 5 Ways to attain Wealth

Who is Grant Cardone? He was a drug addict that rehabilitated at 25 years old. Like average youth, wasted his time and life on non-essential activities.



Pic 01: Bestseller Book

Fast forward, today at 58, he has net worth over USD350 million. Well, there must be something to learn.

According to him, here are FIVE Top Ways:

1. Invest in you
Successful people invest time, energy, and money in improving themselves. A man told me once, "The best way you can help people in need is to not be someone in need." Help yourself out so you are in a position to help someone else out. This means investing in yourself to become great at something.

I invested in sales training when I was 25. That made my income-producing ability skyrocket. Investing in yourself is the best investment you can make.

Use this trick to get rich, says self-made millionaire   

2. Find a job in the right vehicle
The rich are able to get in with the right company where there is opportunity for growth. My VP of sales Jarrod Glandt started working for me over seven years ago for $2,500 a month. He wasn't making anything but he was in the right vehicle. He grew his skill set and was able to multiply his monthly income many times over because he knew I was looking to expand.

Too many people just look for a job. You need a job, but you need the right vehicle. All companies live from this thing called revenue. Get commissions rather than just a salary and you will finally be in control of how much you earn.

 Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz greets employees and others at one of the company’s locations in Charleston, S.C., June 19, 2015.

3. Get great at what you do
Commit to being great, not just average. Any industry can be a painful profession for average and bottom performers, but massively rewarding for those that are great. Those that live, breathe, and eat their profession, those that are obsessed, become great.

I have never met a great who wasn't all in and completely consumed by their trade. Have you?
The fact is, if you aren't great, you are average. The rich get great.

 

Invest in marketing and communication skills.

4. Get multiple, connected income streams flowing
You won't get rich without multiple flows of income. That starts with the income you currently have. Increase that income and start adding multiple flows.

You want what are called symbiotic flows. Do not just add disconnected flows. Instead, find other ways you can add income to the job you already have. My video guy does advertising for me — and after proving himself, he started making advertisements for those connected to me. He didn't start a doughnut shop.

Too many people go from one flow to a second flow, resulting in two flows that do nothing. Your flows should always be connected.

"Saving $100,000 shows that you have an ability to make money and keep it. Most people can't do either."

5. Hit $100K, then invest the rest
First, try to save $100,000. Why? You need to prove to yourself that you can go out and get money. If you only have $10,000 saved, your only priority should be increasing your income so that you can save more.

Saving $100,000 shows that you have an ability to make money and then to keep it. Most people can't do either of those things.
 
Once you can earn and save, then you can start building wealth. I'd recommend multi-family real estate if you are conservative like me. I never looked to get rich quick, but I did look to get rich.

Source: Grant Cordon, 2017, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/05/self-made-millionaire-here-are-5-ways-to-get-rich.html.

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While it is important to work hard, it is even more important to find the right vehicle to position yourself to make multiple source of income.

To be successful, we need to be focused on our priorities. Are we willing:

•  to make sacrifices?
•  to learn new skills including non-accounting knowledge?
•  to come out of our comfort zone? Which later you will find out not so comfortable after coming out.
•  to develop new habits? 

I know of real estate agents who invest in properties following their key clients who are expert in the area. Fast forward 20 years, they have wealth.

Wealth is different from riches. Well, that would be another day, another topic.

Tell me what you think, putting your opinions below.

Appreciate, professionalism in your language used. No profanities, prejudices or political sensitive remarks please.

AVOID 10 TRAPS that won't get you rich

Pic 01: Spends tomorrow's money.

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Dreaming of owning a big house, nice car and a boat? Or just having enough cash to be comfortable?

Here are 10 signs that you are not (yet) on the path to financial freedom.

You don't think about ways to make extra money

If you are paid a salary and nothing more, you are limited in the ways you can get ahead. The only way to save is to spend less. But if you switch it up and start to look for ways to earn more, your horizons open up.

Most of the world's super wealthy have more than one income stream - some of which are usually passive, requiring no regular input. This could be something such as rental income from an investment property or network marketing products that your social circle consumes such as Vitamins, Hair care, Beauty care and Health solutions. Add in some sensible savings habits and you will be on your way.

Can you generate some extra income with a sideline business, such as sharing ideas on how to look prettier and energetic?

You leave your savings in a savings account

If you stick your cash in a savings account, it is basically doing nothing. You are better to look at ways to put that money to work. You could put it in a managed fund, buy shares or even lend it out via a peer-to-peer platform, to get a better return. Make sure you get good advice to understand what you are doing.

You borrow to buy

Borrowing to buy a house is fine. Borrowing to buy a car is (generally) not. If you are putting all your purchases on finance or credit card and paying them off with high rates of interest, you are pouring money down the drain. Live within your means if you want to get rich.

You don't know where your money goes

The first step to getting on the right track is to have a clear idea of what you're spending money on. If you don't know, chances are you're wasting it.  Have a look through your recent bank statements, draw up a budget. Stamp out some discretionary spending and you'll have more of that money to put to work that we mentioned earlier.

You're putting off planning for your retirement

If you think you are too young to have to worry about the future, you are doing yourself a huge disservice. When you are working towards a long-term financial goal, such as retirement, time is a huge asset to have on your side. The power of compounding is the greatest opportunity you will have.

 

Albert Einstein said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it. Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.”. The later you start business building income, the smaller your compounded growth in business.

You hate risk

It is great to be careful with your money but if you never take a risk, you miss out on returns. Over the long term, the biggest gains are usually from riskier investments, such as equities. You may also find ways to wealth by getting out of your comfort zone. Quitting your job and starting a new business is risky and scary, but could pay off if you have planned it well and know your stuff.

Learning on how to better present your business ideas could yield strong initial part time income and can snowball to surpass your fixed employee income.

You don't have a plan

If you don't know how you're going to get rich, it probably isn't going to happen. Write down your goals. What do you want to achieve this week, month and year? What about in 10 years? If you can, identify someone who is in a position you'd like to get to and find out what they did to get there. Work out what you need to do to follow suit and break it down into small, achievable steps.

You think you're bad with money

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think you are bad with money, you won't pay any attention to your finances and they will get out of control. Stop thinking money is some sort of secret club that you could not possibly understand. Everyone can get a handle on it.

You don't know the basics

You don’t study successful business leaders by mixing and surrounding yourself with positive innovative people. Instead you prefer to dwell on mundane unproductive topics with like minded people on office politics, food, sports, complaining about limited income and (perceived) injustices.

CONCLUSION

Be open to business ideas. Test your hypothesis and assumptions. Study and analyse the business opportunities by seeing case studies if the business model works.Look for business mentors who can guide you.

Source: SUSAN EDMUNDS