The Porsche Carrera 4 Cabriolet: Have you ridden a car like that?

For a magical fifteen minutes over the Lunar New Year, I was given a preview of what it would be like to ride in a car just like that. Zipping to about a hundred kilometres per hour in 6 seconds, I felt like the entire ride was like a roller-coaster going down the slope, and I fought hard not to scream at first. Then as I got used to its dizzying speed, I couldn't stop the grin from creeping up my face as the driver sped again. I loved that car!

The owner of the Porsche (as well as 4 other branded cars) is Colin, the owner of a fairly large logistics and warehousing company with a fleet of about 200 trailer trucks, and the multi-millionaire uncle of my girlfriend, Sandra. He asked me "So how? When do you want to get your Porsche?" when he noticed my wide-eyed grin after the ride. "8 years", I told him. But I wanted to know how HE did it.

And so, Sandra and I sat with him on the swing in his garden for an hour, hungry for clues to help us buy that amazing car.

Here were some Key ideas that I got from him:

"Plan Your Target!"
Colin started to say. "Plan when you want to first break even, and then when you'll make your first $10,000, and then your first 1 Million dollars". He stresses that this was an important part of his success.

"First you have to know when you want to achieve what. Do you have a plan already?" he asked us.

We were thoughtful for a while.

"Because if you don't, then you are not ready to do business yet. How will you grow if you don't give yourself a deadline to reach a certain target?"

Commitment to Play on a Higher Level
Colin also told us about how he forced himself to expand his fleet of trailer trucks.

"Did you know," he began, "that I made a commitment to myself that I will purchase one new trailer truck for my fleet every 3 months?"

"Wow, does that mean your business is growing consistently?" Sandra asked with unmistakeable awe in her eyes.

"Not always."

"What? So why would you want to buy a truck every 2 months?"

Colin gave a knowing smile before he answered, and I knew that he was coming to the most important point. "Because in that way, I will be forcing myself to expand my operation."

"What I mean is this: everytime I buy a new trailer truck, it's thousands of dollars spent. And if it isn't utilised, then it becomes a liability. So when I do that, I will go out there and make sure that I'll have enough business to justify the purchase of the trailer truck!"

"Like forced motivation" I offered.

"Exactly! That's right!" He remarked.

"But I wouldn't do that," Sandra chipped in, "I would just keep marketing my services, and until I get enough business, then I'll buy the trucks. It saves me money if I do that."

"But if you do that, your business will take far longer to grow. Just think: you'll just keep finding just enough business volume to fit your resources. And even if you do get lucky and stumble upon a large project, you won't be able to equip it yourself to handle it on time! If you are planning to expand only when you have the money, your business will stay stagnant on the same level."

I thought about that for a while and had to agree: I've had the same kind of forced motivation pursuing the Business Builder's Club in Unicity, and it had, in a way, forced me out of my shell of comfort and doubled my activities. Business activities and revenues have now gone up to a new high!

I liked the sound of that: these are stuff that are coming right out of my training sessions with Team Rich!

Know What you are going to Become
This last idea gave me the most kicks!

"You must know what you want to become," Colin said, "some people want to give back to society, so they become politicians; others want to become rich, so they become business owners. You must know what you want to be, then plan from there. "

And I looked straight up at him in shock! Isn't that what Eng Hai said about Being-Doing-Having? You must first "Be" the person that you want to become, then you can "Do" the things that are expected of that kind of person, and then you will "Have" the things that that kind of person would have. "'Being' is the most important." Eng Hai would tell me, and that has been a big focus for myself and my team. And now, here was a highly successful owner of a traditional business saying the exact same thing. So we must be doing something right!

---

It was almost 2am when we left his house. The mahjong sessions have ended and everyone just can't wait to go home and have a good night's rest.

But before we left, I wanted to know where I stand as far as my business is concerned.

"Uncle Colin, I want to ask you something."

"Yup, ok" He smile.

"I've been in my Networking business for 3 years now. I'm not making tens of thousands of dollars yet, but I've already broken even and am now getting a consistent residual income that keeps me afloat. Am I still on track, or am I going too slow?"

"Well, you're doing fine! It doesn't matter if you aren't making alot of money yet; what's most important is that your business must have a constant cashflow." Some new businesses don't make a constant cashflow until many years into their operation. I'm just glad that it's far easier to do that in Network Marketing!

As a parting shot, I asked Colin to pose with me by his Porsche, and got Sandra to take a picture for me. I was planning to use it for this blog entry where I could share it with every one, and here's how it turned out:

...darn.

So how to get a Porsche Carrera 4? Listen to the advice of someone who owns one!

Author's note:
After reading the original entry, I realised that I missed out an important point that Colin had mentioned.

He said that an important thing to do is to also focus on what we are doing right now. He tells us that as a business man of many years, he's come across people who will go from one business to another, and not really make it big and established in any of them.

"They don't have confidence in what they are doing. That's why they keep looking left and right at other businesses. Until they do, they won't be able to make it big." He said, at one point.

So fellow business people, especially all you Network Marketers out there, stay focused and stick to it! Its not going to happen in 6 months - even a multi-millionaire like Colin got his first BMW 8 years into business! Cheers! :)