When you first get interested in Wealth Creation one of the first questions is 'so how do I find the opportunities'?

A little bit later, you will find that you are overwhelmed with all the possibilities and opportunities are jumping out at you from every corner.

So how can you tell which ones to pursue?

If you have read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, you will know about the 'Does it Eat Me, or does it Feed Me' question and it's a really useful first yardstick of how good a deal may be.

Does it put money in your pocket or take money out of your pocket? If you have to invest some money to get to the opportunity, how much, for how long, and what will your return on that investment be by the end of the first year? This is known as your Return On Investment or ROI.

If you can see that something will be putting money into your pocket within a year, and there is another deal that won't, which one will you go for?

If you can see that one deal will return you 10% within a year, and one will return 30% , which deal is the more attractive?

What about one deal where the return will be 30% but will take you longer than one year, and be harder work, against a deal that will return 20% but start returning in six months and is safer?

This is where many new investors and entrepreneurs come unstuck. They don't work out their strategy and stick to it; so they alternate between fear and greed, much like the stockmarket has been recently, and go for the riskier, harder deal for a bigger return, instead of the safer, easier deal with a slightly lower return.

Think about how many of the second kind of deal could you do, with less effort, less stress and the faster returns?

The other thing they do is try to 'bend' a deal to work for them, rather than just going to look for another deal that does, effortlessly.

My friend, the much quoted Gill Fielding, says that she would always rather have the easier deal, leaving her time to get her nails done, rather that one big difficult deal where she would have to really work for her money.

And as someone who has 'bent deals to fit' on many occasions, I now have to agree 100%.

 

© Nicola Caincross of The Money Gym 2008. No content to be reproduced without written approval of the author.

Nicola is a Wealth Coach, Author, Publisher and Speaker, and the Director of The Money Gym.

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