By Martin Thomas


One of my associates once asked me "if you had your wallet taken away from you and you were dropped out of the sky into a strange city with nothing but the shirt on your back, what would you do and how long would it take to get financially established?"

I liked the challenge of the idea and thought long and hard about the answer. To be honest, I can essentially say the difficulty would be overcome by time but it would not be insurmountable within say in under 6 months. I believe for the sake of the exercise, you would define "financially established" as say $100,000. With this amount you could properly begin to utilize leverage through other people's money and take loans for real estate. This is where the real compounding would begin.

Within another 6 months I would have $1 million give or take, or at least be definitely on my way to a million. It's this first $100,000 that would be the real challenge. With experience you know exactly what you would do. If you hadn't done anything like it before, (make $100,000 in 6 months) then you may find it more of a challenge.

The biggest challenge in this situation would be not having intimate knowledge and experience in this hypothetical city. Knowing what's available and where to find the things you need is a big obstacle that it takes time to establish contacts and takes time to accumulate the experiences you need to drive that business to a point where you are taking real profits.

So, broke, no money, no contacts and nowhere to live. The first thing I would do even before I found a place to live is to find some easily accessible retail markets. Of course without a single dime to my name, I would be forced to avoid commercial rental premises. What I mean is find places where crowds gather. Fairs, trash and treasure markets, pavilions, I would take note of anywhere that people congregate en mass for recreational or consumer purposes as long as it was open air and was accessible to me without needing to pay for the exposure.

Without a single dime to my name, I would be forced to start at the very bottom. I would have to offer some sort of impulse service. I am working on establishing a seed capital account of around $500 and will have to do what it takes to get to this point. It would depend on your own personal skills and personality. I could find an old crate and borrow a black marker to make a sign and give neck and shoulder rubs for $10 for 15 minutes. Maybe I could busk as a humourist and make a large racket and get a crowd to gather. It would really depend on the circumstances I find what I would do here, but I would have to be restricted to offering some sort of service that people will be readily willing to pay for.

I would probably have to spend a few nights sleeping out in the cold, so I can preserve my seed capital but once I had $500 I could begin my entrepreneurial activities and compound my seed capital. I would work on sending out the whole $500 out on a daily basis to work for me. Working on a mark up of say 30%, I could compound that into $5000 within say 2 weeks.

To make the money work for me, I would become a middle man (my favourite place to be) I would seek out retailers and wholesalers and make deals. Whether it's fresh fish or leather hand bags or a mixture of both (fish leather handbags?) it makes no difference, the only goal here is to make a minimum profit of 30% or more. I am sure I would experience some windfalls here or there where I have 100% days but I wouldn't count on them.

Once I had a network established, I would hire some reliable labour to continue with pick ups and deliveries, while I began to scout around for investment objects and start investing in high demand small ticket items. Cars, boats, etc. Items that will offer a quick turn over.

Real estate is my ultimate goal, but I think over time I could quite confidently move towards that goal and get to the point where finance was possible and real estate investment was the next step.

Martin Thomas

About the Author: Martin is a professional investor and Entrepreneur. If you would like to discover more about being an entrepreneur, you can read "The Million Dollar Mentor" by Hayden Muller. Martin recommends this work highly and has used the very concepts contained in the work for his own successful entrepreneurial activities

By Dave Gallagher, The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Wash.
Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News


Nov. 6--Lynn Giuliani wants business owners to realize that the smallest things they do makes a huge impression with employees and it will affect the company's bottom line.

Giuliani, a national sales training consultant who lives in Whatcom County, was one of several speakers at the Whatcom Business Conference on Oct. 27. She spoke to more than 50 business owners and managers about creating a more vibrant workplace.

While she touched on a variety of topics and gave tips on how a company manager can be thought of as a leader, instead of a boss, one point she drove home was the idea that many people base their overall opinion of the company they work for on the actions or inactions of their immediate supervisor.

"Do you realize that at your employees' Sunday dinner, you are probably the topic of conversation?" Giuliani said, receiving a chorus of moans and groans in response. "Some of you may not care, and some of you are a little scared to hear that, but it's true. What they are saying about you at the Sunday dinner will also reflect their performance at work."

Giuliani's point is that a company will never treat its customers any better than employees treat each other, and it's the management that sets the tone.

"If management shows a lack of respect to its employees, it would be hard to believe that those workers will show much respect toward the customer," Giuliani said.

In her experience working with companies, Giuliani found it's the little things that management most frequently forgets that add up to bigger problems. For example, Giuliani remembers a company executive who had the habit of walking as quickly as possible from his office door to the exit, not speaking a word to anyone along the way.

"That person didn't realize there was anything wrong, but it gave the employees the impression the boss shouldn't be bothered," Giuliani said.

She suggests that every supervisor have conversations with each of their employees every day, even if it is just for a few minutes.

"It doesn't always have to be something important, but by regularly having conversations with the employees, it shows that you are accessible," Giuliani said.

She said anyone could say they are approachable, but employees will pay attention to supervisors' actions to determine whether they can talk to them about work issues.

Even when a boss makes the effort to talk to workers, they can still be intimidated and offer little information. Giuliani suggests asking open-ended questions that require more than a yes or no response.

"Asking open-ended questions can be hard to remember at first, but it helps draw out the employee and you get a better idea of what is happening in the workplace," Giuliani said.

By having more conversations with employees, managers will not only better address issues in the workplace, but it will could lead to employees becoming more invested in their work and offering ideas to actually improve the business.

"The degree to which you look at your employees' point of view is the degree you differentiate yourself as a leader instead of a boss," Giuliani said. "Being viewed as a leader is a huge improvement than being viewed as the boss."