- Hi guys, it's Mark.
Some of you may have heard the saying,
"Skills pay the bills."
It might sound a bit cliche,
but I think it's very, very true.
I was talking to someone the other day and they said,
"No Mark, I know all about passive income.
I don't really need any skills.
I'm just gonna go and sit on the beach
with a laptop and drink piña coladas all day long."
I mean that sounds good, but here's the problem.
Imagine that elusive passive income is right up here,
but you just can't reach it
no matter how hard you try,
even if you're six foot four like me.
That's why I thought it was about time that we talked
about skills that you need to get there.
I like to imagine it like a ladder
the more the skills you master,
the higher you can climb towards that passive income.
This is how I was able to build a passive income
of over $25,000 per month.
And that's not even counting all my other income streams,
but building this ladder was definitely not easy.
I had to learn my skills through the school
of hard knocks and experience.
So today I thought I would make the video I wish I had
when I was younger.
And by the end, my goal is for you to know the skills
that you need to make up each stage of the ladder
and share with you the golden rule
that ties them all together.
Sound good?
Well, first of all, you need the materials to
make your ladder and we've got a special on today.
It's just one big smash
of that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
So the first step
on the ladder is leadership skills.
No matter what you want to do in life, the ability to lead
and inspire others will help you along the way,
especially when you're trying to free up your time
to make some of that sweet passive income.
School really didn't teach me any leadership skills.
This is probably because the modern education system
was designed to teach future factory workers to be punctual
and docile and not free thinkers and leaders.
That's why it's very common
for C grade students to actually hire A students.
To be honest, I can't even spell dyslexia,
so that's how dyslexic I am.
I just had to jump in and learn from experience.
When I first started my business in my twenties,
I was working seven days a week without any vacations.
I knew that if I didn't make it work
then I'd have to go back to my nine to five job
earning minimum wage and feeling trapped.
So I decided it was time to hire my first employee.
My first employee was actually 20 years older than me.
Now this felt really strange at the time,
but I wanted someone with knowledge.
His name was Dave.
Whenever I thought of a good idea
that would move the company forward,
instead of just telling Dave to do it, I liked
to make him think that it was his idea in the first place.
This reminds me of one of my favorite films, "Inception".
They go into someone else's dream
and they place an idea into their head,
so they think it's an original idea.
I've always found that
when someone thinks an idea is theirs,
they'll work a lot harder
and do a much better job as they want their idea to succeed.
This freed up a lot of time
and created lots of passive income for me.
I could take some time off from time to time
when I wished without the business losing any money.
I could use that extra time to think
about starting a few new side hustles.
It's all about accepting that you aren't the best
at everything and finding the right people to help you out.
Just take Elon Musk, for example, he can't know everything
about electric cars, space travel and neurology,
so he hires the top people that do
because he's a great leader of people
and people love to work for him, sometimes
for less money than they could earn elsewhere.
Right, so the next step on the ladder
for me has to be time management skills.
Being a time lord is the real key to making passive income
and I don't mean going back and win the lottery
although that would be very nice,
but the reality is once you master your time,
you can spend it starting a new business
or a side hustle, but maybe more importantly,
you can manage other people's time better.
This came in really useful for me
when the wages in China started increasing
and it became more and more expensive
for me to produce my products abroad.
I flew out to the factory determined to find some kinds
of solution.
It was great that the workers were getting paid more,
but I also needed to find a way to reduce the costs
in order to keep the business successful.
I completely redesigned the production line
which meant that we're able to make double the amount
of products in half the time.
This simple change nearly doubled our profits
and it's all because we were able
to find a more efficient way of doing things.
The factory also adopted my strategy across the board
as it was a much better way to operate
and make more profits in less time
for the owner and still pay higher wages for its employees.
Everyone was happy.
Now, maybe you're not dealing with factories in China,
but you might be able to look at your life
and see where you're losing valuable time.
Quite often, you may be losing time by traveling too far
for work or simply laying on the sofa, watching TV,
being bored.
I don't know if you've checked out the documentary
on Netflix called "The Social Dilemma",
but I found it fascinating how social media
is stealing time from us.
This makes time management more important
than ever and freeing up your time could help you
start building passive income streams
that are going to pay you while you sleep.
Now, we come to the negotiation step.
This is probably one of my favorite skills
as it can help anyone get more from life,
from kids asking for a later bedtime,
to negotiating million dollar deals, it's really unlimited.
One of the first times I realized the power
of negotiation was when I was called up
by a Hollywood film crew who were working
on a movie called "Black Hawk Down".
The whole film relied on Black Hawk model helicopters,
but they had a problem.
The model helicopters they were using
for the film were faulty
and it was holding back the entire production.
They came to me and asked me how much I would charge
to fix the models and come out to Morocco
and fly the helicopters.
Firstly, of course I just thought about charging
what I'd normally charged in my everyday business,
but I decided to use some of my negotiation skills.
I did a bit of digging around and eventually found
out that if they didn't have these helicopters flying
by the end of the week, they would lose,
as a fine, $350,000.
In negotiation, this is known as finding the black swan.
Knowing that one piece of information
can give you such an advantage instead of charging
based on my time,
I charged based on the value I would bring to them.
I had the power to save them lots of money,
so therefore I could ask for more than I first thought.
It's very hard to make enough money to invest
if you're only charging based on your time.
That's why learning how to negotiate based
on value is really important.
From that one deal, I earned enough to buy a rental unit
which went on to generate me lots of passive income.
So we're almost at the golden rule.
The fourth step is the skill of selling.
When people think about sales, they often think
about a sleazy old salesmen who want to rip them off,
but that's actually just the bad ones.
Having sales skills is more
about helping the other person realize
that you're the clear choice.
When you're making passive income,
you're usually selling some kind of service or product.
If you're not able to close the deal,
then you're not able to make any money.
It's as simple as that.
I learned this skill
when I was flipping cars as a teenager.
I'd always buy cheap cars that I liked, fix them up,
and then sell them for a profit.
One day I was selling one of my favorite cars.
It was a Ford Escort Mk 2
and it was hard for me to see it go
cause I'd spent so many hours
on it until it was absolutely perfect.
But at this time, I didn't have any choices.
I didn't have much money and I really needed to sell as soon
as possible because I needed to escape the debt I was in.
I arranged a meeting with the most promising buyer,
but instead of meeting him where I live,
I decided to meet him on a posh, private estate.
This was to create a feeling of trust as
because if he was more comfortable,
he would be more likely to buy the car.
When the guy arrived, I offered him a test drive
and while we were driving around, I made sure
to have a good chat with him.
We talked about everything from his job to his family.
This was so he liked me more.
People are more likely to buy
from people that they like.
I also mentioned that the color was rare for this model
and there were not many of them around.
This introduced a little bit of scarcity
as if he didn't buy from me there and then, he was not going
to be able to find another one.
I was determined to get top price
and I was ready for a hard negotiation,
but because I've done such a good job,
I needn't have worried.
He paid full price.
Wait for it.
(cash register bells chime)
This is because I'd managed to hit many
of the mental triggers like trust, likeability
and scarcity.
You can also use these mental triggers
to help you sell anything.
Having the skill of selling is all about being able
to make something stand out from the competition.
Maybe that means selling yourself in a job interview
and getting a high paid job or selling your product.
The truth is that those who have the ability
to sell are much more likely
to make much more passive income as they understand how
to make something irresistible.
So step number five is probably the skill
that I overlooked the most,
but has created me the largest amount
of passive income, networking.
When I started my business, there was lots
of entrepreneurs that used to meet up for coffee mornings.
I always thought that they just wanted an excuse
to go out for a chat and feel like they were working,
but now I'm slightly older.
Well, just slightly.
I really understand the importance
of having a strong network.
I say all the time that your network is your net worth.
At the time, I wasn't the most sociable guy,
so coffee mornings really weren't the right place for me,
but as soon as I started racing cars and playing golf
lots of new opportunities came my way.
It's all about being yourself
and building the best network possible.
I get deals coming across my desk every day
due to my big online and offline network.
A couple of years ago I was given the opportunity
to buy an entire business and all of their products.
Just by selling these products online,
I was able to make over $300,000 in pure passive income.
Now for the golden rule that ties all of these together,
I see so many people that think the skills are
just one size fits all,
but most successful people know that they're able
to adapt to each situation and person that they come across.
The same style of negotiation won't work with everyone.
The same is true with leadership, time management,
selling, and networking.
So my golden rule is to always keep learning and adapting
every time I come across someone different.
So I'm always honing my skills and moving forward.
I don't want my ladder to ever get rusty,
so I'm gonna leave the next video right up here,
but don't click on it just yet.
If you want to grow your wealth, then consider subscribing
to the channel.
Ring that old bell
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I'll catch you on the next video.