Everybody knows the 10 commandments yes? The rules that the Good Book says we must live by to have a fulfilling, meaningful life, to avoid damnation in fact. But have you ever looked closely at those commandments? What do you notice?
How many of them are Negative, telling you what you Should Not Do? Eight of Them!
The whole concept of this list is to restrict and encourage you to conform. To be a good dog. I’m not going to get into the arguments associated with organised religion, so …..
My 5 Commandments of Wealth are exactly the opposite! They are Expansive and Positive and will result in More Success for you in business if you follow them. I was first introduced to the 5 Commandments, ‘C.E.N.T.S’ by MJ deMarco in his brilliant book ‘The Millionaire Fastlane’.
They are part of The Law of Effection, which states that:
To Make Millions You Must Impact Millions
Here’s the first one.
The Commandment of Control
Are you in Control of your business? That is, are you in the driving seat of it? Being in the driving seat means that you are in control of your full financial plan.
If someone gave you the keys to a mean Ferrari for an hour, would you jump in, excitedly slot those keys into the ignition and drive into your own dream, or would you slither nervously into the passenger seat and wait for your driver to take you for that spin?
Taking the passenger seat is how some people approach their business. They settle for that passenger seat and relinquish being the driver. They break the Commandment of Control. If the Ferrari you have chosen to hitch in is driven into a wall at 180mph, guess what?
You die too!
When you control absolutely everything in your business – organisation, products, pricing, revenue model and operational choices, you are in total control. If you can’t control every aspect of your company, you aren’t really driving it!
Here are some examples. You’re in Control if you:
Create an MLM company
Sell Franchises
Offer affiliate programs
Run a hedge fund
Sell stocks
Offer drop-shipping
Offer employment
Accept rents and royalties
Sell licences
Serve the hottest trend
You aren’t in Control if you:
Join an MLM company
Buy a franchise
Join an affiliate program
Invest in a hedge fund
Buy stocks
Use drop-shipping
Get employed
Pay rents and royalties
Buy licences
Join the hottest trend
Take a look at your business plan and decide whether you are sitting in the driver’s seat and are in Total Control, or are you the passenger, relying on a skilful driver, being taken for a ride? If you are in that passenger seat, make sure you are at least learning to drive. Don’t stay in position 2 for a moment longer than you need to.
Don’t be totally discouraged if you aren’t the driver of the Ferrari, not everyone can be, you can still make Good Money or Great Money. Just understand that you can only make the Exceptional Money if you Drive and are in Total Control.
The subject of this blog is Affiliate Marketing. You can learn how Affiliate Marketing works and in the process make Good Money or Great Money by selling other people’s products as an affiliate, but once you know how it works, to make Exceptional Money you need to produce your own product and have affiliates sell it for you. Or, you start a business based on what you learned, ensuring you are in Complete Control.
Then you will have satisfied the Commandment of Control.
The Commandment of Entry
Have you ever been to one of those Networking meetings, you know the ones? You got suckered into going along, ended up joining up and visited your very first monthly or quarterly motivational meeting?
They’re always in rooms which are way too small and have totally inadequate air conditioning for the amount of sweaty bodies that have turned up. You sit there listening to the almost evangelical happy-clappy delivery and wondering to yourself ‘how much money are these mugs really making?’
The truth is, none of them were making much really.
There were too many people, all in one place, doing what they’d been taught by the guru. They were in a traffic jam, not moving. They had all failed to meet the Commandment of Entry.
The Commandment of Entry states that:
As entry barriers to any business path fall or lessen, the effectiveness of that business path declines, whilst competition on the business path strengthen.
Any business that has low entry requirements will be weak because easy entry encourages high uptake and high traffic. Then all of those people cram the same highway, chasing the same goals with this scripted methodology (which doesn’t actually work).
If there is no real tough barrier to entry other than buying a cheap ‘distributor kit’ for a couple of hundred quid, setting you up in ‘business’ in minutes, then that is not a route to consider. It breaks the Commandment of Entry.
A few years ago we were told we could ‘Make Millions on eBay’. It started like a train, with early birds making a killing, but eventually it broke the Commandment of Entry because everybody was doing it! There was no barrier to entry at all, it was over-populated with too much competition.
If the path you follow violates the Commandment of Entry, then you’ll have to be exceptional to overcome it. However, exceptionality is very, very difficult.
Another thing that violates Entry is discounted and free programs. If the business program wishes to generate new applicants and disciples, it needs to attract them and very often the price is dropped to encourage this to happen. The interest floods in because of the price, but eventually the market becomes flooded and the Commandment of Entry is broken.
If the program allows everyone to do it, AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE.
Another important point that allows you to realise if the Commandment of Entry has been breached – all real businesses are actually Processes rather than just single Events. If the business allows you to buy a starter kit and be immediately ‘in business’ then that is an event (not a process) and violates the Commandment.
Starting a business is a concerted series of choices that form the Process. It’s not a single Event. It may take several months before you are even in a position to sell anything. Putting the infrastructure in, writing the business plan and raising the finance are all Processes. Clicking a button on a computer screen and being told ‘You’re now in Business’ is not a process.
‘Everyone is Doing It’ is a sign of overbought conditions and the entrance of ‘Dumb money’
The Commandment of Need
The Commandment of Need states that businesses that solve Needs win. Needs can be pain points, service gaps, unsolved problems or emotional disconnects. Scratch an itch and you’ll do well.
The business must be built on solid foundations. Houses that are built on sand usually fall down. There’s a well known stat that 90% of new businesses fail in the first 5 years. Most of them fail because they don’t fulfil the Commandment of Need.
A business that is started because it satisfies a narcissistic impulse will almost always fail. Don’t set up a business because it is purely your passion, it needs to also satisfy a need! Doing what you love isn’t enough (unless doing what you love also addresses a need). No-one cares about your dreams, passions and desires. What they care about is solving their own problems. They are selfish. It’s not about what you need, it’s about what your customers need!
Consumers buy to solve their own selfish problems, not because you want to own a fast car and prove your parents and teachers wrong! To build a business that is successful, stop chasing money and chase needs instead. Solve those problems. Help people feel better.
The following questions are all examples of Money Chasing
How can I make money starting a business?
What business can I start with $200 and still make $5,000 per month?
What home-based business can I start?
I have a friend who makes widgets, do you think I can make money selling them?
What can I sell on Amazon so that I can get a passive income?
What’s a good product to import from China to sell on eBay?
What’s the best business to start on a shoestring?
If you base your business around these types of questions then your business is almost certain to fail because they show you are totally preoccupied with money. You need to base your business around Needs or Value, or else you transgress the Commandment of Need.
To attract money, you need to forget about money
Here’s how you can help to add value for people:
Make them feel better (Entertainment, Music, Video Games)
Help them to solve their problem
Educate them
Make them look better (Health, Nutrition, Clothing, Makeup)
Give them security
Raise a positive emotion
Satisfy appetities, from basic (Food) to risqué (Sexual)
Make things easier
Enhance their dreams and give them hope
Do any of those things on a large enough stage and I guarantee you will be worth millions!
The Commandment of Time
A business that earns income exclusive of your time satisfies the Commandment of Time. This is the bit where I talk about Passive Income. Can your business make money for you without you working at it? Automatically?
A business related to your time is nothing more than ‘A Job’. Many a time we hear of successful businessmen who earn good money, but they are married to their jobs and work 100+ hours per week to do it. They know they need to put the time in or the money dries up. They transgress the Commandment of Time. They burn out.
A Question For You
Would you rather work
a) 10 hours per week for $60k, or
b) 70 hours a week for $140k?
If you answered b) chances are that your attitude will violate the Commandment of Time. You feel that if you don’t work an extortionate amount of time, you won’t bring in the big cash. This is the biggest Commandment of all.
To smash through the Income Ceiling, You MUST disassociate your earnings from your Time. To do this you must strive for automation of your business.
These types of businesses lend themselves to automation.
Content Systems
Membership Systems
Computer Systems
Software Systems
Distribution Systems
If you can base your business on any of these types, or incorporate them into your business in some way, you can break the link between Time and Money and thus satisfy the Commandment of Time.
The Commandment of Scale
The Commandment of Scale dictates that to make millions of dollars/pounds in profit, your business needs to impact millions of people.
There are 6 business Habitats. You choose to inhabit the pond in your local park, or the ocean.
- Local/Community (Pool)
- County/City (Pond)
- Statewide (Lagoon)
- Regional (Lake)
- National (sea)
- Worldwide (Ocean)
Scale is difficult to realise locally or in a Pool that fits only a small number of people. Magnitude doesn’t come cheap.
If you own a tanning salon or hairdressers, your scope is very Local
If you own an upscale restaurant, your scope is County/City
If you own an Internet company, your scope is Worldwide
Which of these do you think gives you the most leverage and satisfies the Commandment of Scale?
Here’s a couple of equations for you (sorry for the maths lesson, but it’s VERY important)
- Wealth = Nett Profit + Asset Value
- Nett Profit = Units Sold x Unit Profit
If the number of units sold has a ceiling, it stifles your leverage, meaning you can’t create the Wealth exponentially. When you can’t scale using Equation 2, it buggers up Equation 1.
To achieve the Explosive Scale and therefore the Explosive Wealth, the Magnitude (Unit Profit) AND the Reach (Units Sold) must be Unlimited. If you can sell expensive items in millions, you’ll be very rich indeed and will therefore satisfy the Commandment of Scale. You can also satisfy Scale by selling items at increased Magnitude OR increased Reach, but the Holy Grail is both. Do both and you’ll earn squillions.
The ideal Business would therefore be a Worldwide (Ocean) type, with a good unit profit and a massive reach. That’s why online businesses make people millions. That’s why i’m trying to show you how to grow an online business.
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This is some powerful information Dave. The one I like the most is The Commandment of Time. At my work we are always behind and always working overtime and it seems like nothing gets accomplished. It seems more like wasted time and money and kills the morale. Thanks for the great read.
Thanks Tim, the Commandment of Time is the one that holds people back. The finite ‘supply’ of time stops most people from becoming rich because they can never break the link between their time and money. Trading your time for money will never make you rich, unless you have multiple income streams that all follow C.E.N.T.S. Commandments.