Your TIME is the biggest investment! #NoAI

Investing YOUR time the right way

Sure you know that the money supply is always expanding and we would wish that TIME would behave in the same way, but it doesn't.

Give give give and than receive... Give the right way and to the right persons... I am working on a new business position which I am trying to explain to different people. Some people tend to distrust any construct that doesn't fit a regular frame of reference so hear me out.

The Nudger

I have been talking more extensively about what is a Nudger in my latest article Should you become a Nudger? In short a Nudger is a business person looking to slowly bring together two business interests the right way. He would look at opportunities in the market from a global perspective, connect dots on different fields or parts of the world intentionally by bridging faster the most difficult task: the initial getting to know the opportunity phase. Here is how you can do it:

Step 1 Establishing Trust in a new brand you found

Trust comes from getting your homework done. You should never try to put together people that you didn't extensively vetted trough different channels. Use OSI (open source intelligence) to gather as much data about the persons as possible. Use EQI (extensive questions intelligence - :) ) to gather personal information about the person and also question everybody around that business. How do I do it:

• I look for relevant outstanding businesses - this can only be trained by frequently looking at conventions, fairs and by listening to a lot of books so you can identify the outliers in an industry
• After identifying first those outliers, I talk with the business owners and I try to get their own business story
• I identify some of the customers they already have and ask them "why did you choose this brand?"
• Looking at the stand they have and local brand reputation, you can asses how fast they have grown
• Looking at their marketing materials, how many markets they have approached you can identify "gaps" where you can find relevant business partners. For example they don't have representatives in x,y,z markets, which usually happens for fast growing local brands, markets where you can connect the dots.
• Seeing how much money they have invested in marketing. Usually if they have invested a lot in marketing, or they have a significant stand it means that other people or themselves trust that the business could be really successful or they already are successful on that market
• Test the products if that's possible, buy as many as you can if they are in the affordable product range and see how the owners react, do they give you discounts if you tell them you can be a potential distributor? If you don't buy how could others trust you?
• Would you give that product without being worried to your child?
• See if you would be willing to work long term with that brand, with the person in charge. You are a nobody to them, it's the best position to be in. If they are giving you a lot of attention when you are really small it's most likely that they would also give you attention when you would be more important

Step 2 Find the right partner

Most of the things about the partner are already at step 1, but one thing is clear. Your end goal should be long term. If you focus on earning money right now instead of in 3 - 5 years from now you would tend to be less ethical, thinking less long term.

Make it clear to the person you are talking to that:

• You intend to earn a percentage of the generated business if it succeeds after 3 - 5 years
• The partner has to be open to the opportunity. The higher his level, the more he values his time, so especially if you tell him about something he has never heard of, which doesn't fit his frame of reference he will clearly push back and be distrustful, so make sure you make it clear the way you would earn (see point 3)
• Your time and resources are really limited so you would be like an investor in your own endeavors, if you don't find the best partner you would really loose time that you would be able to invest in a much better venture this in itself will enable trust, by you giving them your time, your resources, but thinking long term they will understand that you are there not just to make some quick money
• You are fine (and you should really be fine) if they refuse. You want to keep the lead for other potential opportunities.
• It should be a pleasure to talk to this person, make sure you click. You share the same values, they don't waste your time, you don't waste their time.
• Establish your earning potential. The only way that it would work is if the projected growth of that company would be way higher than expected, or the new area where the partner would invest in would give significant market advantage so that his time / value generated long term would be significant
• Weed out the partners that are not a match for you fast! It will take some time to identify time wasters on both sides, but you will get good at it. If somebody needs information from you and you can give it, better make a video about it and give it for free.
• Be nice! No matter if you meet the cleaning lady or the boss of a huge corporation, anybody can hold the key to the gate you need to the right partner and might even open the door for you.

Step 3 Make clear how you would earn

Because this way to do business in unknown, distrust is generated if you are not clear that you want to earn. They also don't want to invest their own time in discussions... There are so many people that talk a lot and don't get things done.

• You are earning if this business succeeds and you invested your time in the right endeavor
• Establishing the percentage. This is a really hard part and I still have to think about it. Clearly establishing the percentage depends from business to business, from the willingness of the business owner to give you a percentage, or from the supplier.
• This should give you access to levels of the market you could not access before
• Any business you would invest your time in should be at a relevant level or have significant potential, otherwise don't waste your time

Ask and you shell receive (and listen intentionally)

Developing a new way of thinking takes time, but this shouldn't stop you. All you need to do is ask, offer, try, retry and persist... All you need... It's funny how hard it is. It's hard to ask, try, retry, persist especially when the concept is new.

Train yourself to ask and to find new opportunities. Join business clubs, show yourself as a reliable person, trustworthy, don't sell snake oil. The more areas you intersect, the more people you will get to know, so more businesses or interest that didn't intersect before get in your known circle.

Identify outliers / super connectors / global connectors

After a while you will get it. Joining several intersecting business / interests groups you will see some people being in more than one circle. Sure that they might work also somewhere else ;). Use those intersections/bridge people to expand towards new groups even if you don't join.

• Your time is limited
• Your money is limited
• Your own ability is limited so... :
• Find people that you naturally are attracted to and keep an ongoing connection with the superconnectors
• Don't limit yourself only to superconnectors as you will be only be interest based, but make sure you integrate some of them

Parallels

People find it difficult to understand this concept and distrust new models so you have to give them familiar frames of reference and bring out similar way of thinking:

• Realtors are investing a lot of time and energy in promoting a property (so like this concept) before making a sale, sure that most properties should go out of the market really fast, but that unique one, where the owner wants a certain price, where the buyer needs to match the property, it might take years to get the fruits of
• Investors give money and wait 5 - 7 years to get some return if any, a lot of businesses go bankrupt so they need to get really a lot from the one that succeeds, you can't afford that. So tell them you are investing the most scarce resource on the planet "time". How much would they sell their time to right now? (read Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell to understand how they value time)
• What is a credit? It's way to get a house without owning it, you own it only after you have paid, so you only invest at the beginning without knowing that you will own it, you must work really hard to make sure you will have it after all, the same way it's in this concept... you wouldn't want to have all that money and time invested without getting to "own the house".

How to get my biggest investment: TIME

Would you be willing to invest your biggest asset with my biggest asset? If yes we must make sure that we are a match:

• You already have an outstanding business in some way already
• Your company is growing fast and you unsure that your market will survive long term and you want to use the current capital to spin off in a new direction, but being busy with the day to day operations you just can find the time
• You have some problem to be tackled that puts breaks on your company growth and you just don't have time / energy or you are stuck on it and just want to get it fixed
• You have an established core business and clientele and you want to expand into new segments with an outside view

My TIME is limited. I would only invest it where it counts and where the percentage I would get in the long term future would move things for me in a significant way.

My current TIME investments are in:

• My own current businesses (generating over 1.3 Mil eur revenue directly and over 6.5 mil eur in generated business)
• Expanding my knowledge base across all fields
• AI
• Epigenetics
• Smart Factory Automation
• Business Groups Expansions
• Real Estate /selling / ownership Expansion

If your TIME requirements from me could prove relevant, I would be interested.