Have you ever felt it impossible to make more money because you don’t have a lot of money?
Worry no more!
In this episode, I’m going to teach you how you can make money WITHOUT money. It might surprise you how easy it really is.
Listen in if you want to make money without money!
Chris Miles Bio
Chris Miles, the “Cash Flow Expert,” is a leading authority showing entrepreneurs and their spouses how to quickly free up and create cash flow and lasting wealth TODAY, spending time doing what they love most! He has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate.com, interviewed internationally on TV & radio, and has a high reputation with his company, Money Ripples (https://www.moneyripples.com/), getting his clients fast, life-altering financial results.
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Listen to the podcast here
How Can I Make Money WITHOUT Money?
I’m excited because this is going to be a fun show. I’m excited because we’re going to be talking about how to make money without money, which is an awesome topic. I don’t care if you feel like you’re broke or if you make good money, but you say, “I would love to be able to know how to make more with less resources.” How to make money with less? That’s what’s all about and the fun part of it.
We’re going to show you and talk about how to make money without money. Before we do, make sure you go visit our site at www.MoneyRipples.com. Check out our free resources, blogs, and events, things like that we have coming up. Stay tuned and keep track of what’s going on because there’s always something fun going on typically. Anyways, it’s great stuff. If you haven’t read the previous shows, I recommend you do it.
In fact, we are now officially on iTunes. You can now download this and all the previous shows. There are a lot of great shows that you want to check out and be a part of. If you’ve noticed a lot of these shows, I’ve done it for the purpose of writing a book. A lot of these topics I’m taking out are subheadings or chapters and things like that I’m putting into a new book that I’m creating. I’m a guy that’s ambitiously lazy. I don’t like to have to work harder than I have to. I’m trying to do this so I can then transcribe it and create material out of it, so I don’t have to go and write from scratch necessarily. That’s why I’m doing this.
Get Rid Of The Belief That Money Makes Money
Let’s get into this. Let’s talk about how to make money without money. The first thing I want you to understand is when it comes to making money without money is that you have to get rid of the belief that it does take money to make money. Many people will tell me, “Chris, I would love to make more money, but I don’t have any money. How do I go about doing this?” I don’t blame you one bit for thinking that way. Most people teach you, especially those who want your money, that it takes money to make money. Banks are great at this.
Most financial institutions, financial advisors, and banks pretty much try to convince you that you can save up this indeterminable amount of cash, and then from that money, you’ll make X amount of dollars or you hope to make an X percent of money. You’re always taught to live off the interest. We talked about this in previous shows about the rules of the bank and how they work. If you look at what banks do, they have money, but they have to keep it tied up.
When it comes to making money without money, you first have to get rid of the belief that it does take money to make money. Click To Tweet
For example, there are a lot of banks that will have to keep several million dollars in a bond to be able to even create their first branch or an institution. When they do that, they have to keep it locked up. Where did they get their money from? They get it from you, me, and other people. The first thing they start doing when they open their doors or maybe even before they open them is, “We’re looking to take deposits and pay a great introductory rate right now. They’ll try to get people in to give them money. They then can start the ball rolling.
In that case, they do use money but it was other people’s money. That’s always a great way to be able to make money without money. One great question to ask is, “If I don’t have the money, then who does? How can I make it in their best interest to be able to have that money and make this a win-win for them so I can go and create more with it?
Oftentimes, that’s where bank loans can come into place. Many people will say, “Bank loans are horrible. I don’t want to get into debt.” You don’t have to. If it would cost you millions of dollars in your business by not getting that bank loan, why wouldn’t you do it? Even for a $10,000, $20,000, or $25,000 bank loan that you’re trying to get from the bank, that’s all you’re trying to get, and if that costs you $100,000, I’m pretty sure that the interest you pay on that money, if you pay the minimum payments forever, would not exceed $75,000 from a $25,000 loan. It won’t happen.
Leverage Your Mental Capital And Social Capital
What kind of stewardship are you missing out on because you’re not willing to do that? That’s one way to make money with other people’s money. Maybe you don’t have the money, but you’re still using money. This is in particular cases where you need that thing as well. Now, the two areas I’m going to focus on to be able to make money without money are 1) How do we start to create money without money using your mind, ideas, or mental capital? 2) How do we start making money from the social relationships we have, relationship capital, or social capital, as some people would call it? Your ideas and relationships are the two key areas that I’ve learned specifically about how to make money without money.
Before we dig into these, I want you to see how you’ve already used these in your life. Many people will say, “Chris, I’m creating something new and I’ve never done it or experienced it before.” “That’s easy. Look back in your life when you have because I bet you have it. You didn’t know it.” For example, how many of you are broke, either in high school or college students? Probably all of us.
Most of us weren’t raised with a silver spoon in our mouth where money was readily available and had tons of it coming in. Most of us had to work hard to build to be able to get the money that we have now. How do we even have any money? If we didn’t have money back then, how did it take money to make money?
Even if you’re a broke high school or college student, you are here now. You survived. Congratulations. On top of that, you’re probably more prosperous or making more money than you were back then. It didn’t take money to make money. I’d like to compare it to this, look at your personal resume. I’m not just talking about the resume you’d give an employer, but I’m talking about the resume of your life. It’s the same things you might put on a resume for an employer.
For example, you might put on something. You’d say you’re experienced, “Here’s my past experience. Here’s what I’ve done in the past.” You might say, “Not only my past experience, but I’ve also got things such as my education and training.” It doesn’t have to be a college education necessarily, but it could be some training. Maybe you get some real-life experience and some real wisdom came from that. Not just knowledge but wisdom. How about different talents or strengths that you have? Things that might seem unrelated but still make who you are.
Do you have very unique talents or strengths? Are you a good listener? It’s so funny how people will say, “Chris, how do I make money being a good listener? Everybody tells me I’m a good listener. How do I make money and become a psychologist?” I’ll say, “No, not necessarily because anywhere, in life or business, how valuable is a good listener?” It’s invaluable. A good listener can oftentimes be the best salesperson or business arm because they get the best idea from those people. They’re willing to listen. There are all kinds of ways to use listening to prosper and become wealthier. That’s one thing you might have of many. What are all those talents that you have?
The other part that you’ll put on there too is after you put on all those things, maybe you put in some passions or hobbies, and things like that, everything that makes up who you are. On top of that, you’re going to put references. You’re going to put on those relationships or people that you have personal credit with. Those people will say, “Yes, absolutely. This person is amazing. Here’s why they’re amazing.” “This person would call me up at 3:00 AM, broken down on the side of the road, I would go pick them up.” Those kinds of relationships.
A good listener can oftentimes be the best salesperson. Click To Tweet
That’s the wealth that you have. It’s a personal resume, and that resume works everywhere. Not to get a job, although I can help you a lot, more importantly, as I always tell people, and you’ve read this time and time again, “If you want to make more money, you have to find more ways to serve more people.” It’s only through service and solving problems for people, giving them something that they don’t already have or providing some value that they want to pay you money.” If you want to make more money, the secret is not having more money.
Having more money doesn’t mean that it creates value for anybody. The reason you think that is because some institutions are going to tell you, “Give us your money so we can make a lot more off of you, and then we’ll pay you the table scraps.” They let you pick up the crumbs off the floor. That’s what they’re doing, but you’re saying, “No. How can I go and be that person?” If you want to make more income, cut out the middleman and become that investment or very person that’s able to go and create value, solve problems, and serve people in a way where they want to exchange money to get that value in return. That is the key. That is the real way to creating wealth.
Use Your Ideas To Serve People
Here’s the key one, mental capital. What are some ideas that you have? Here’s a good question to ask yourself that will help with this. Number one, what are things that people keep asking me for? What do you think are the things that they keep asking me to do? Do you ever get asked the question, “Can I pick your brain for a minute?” Have any of you guys ever heard that before? I know I have. I get that asked a lot. That’s one way you know for sure that you’re going to be asked or be able to offer some value.
If somebody asks, “Can I pick your brain for a minute?” Especially if it’s the same question over and over, in my life, I call that, “Get a clue.” That means what can I do right now? What can I do to make that happen? People want that for me. How can I keep giving it to them? This is where listening does pay off. Why do they keep asking you for knowledge or information? Do they ask you to do something for them?
Another great book is called Acres of Diamonds. It’s a very short book. It’s more of a talk than anything given by Russell Conwell, who’s the founder of Temple University. He gives an example, a merchant. He was talking about himself when he was a young teenage boy. You have to understand that he was raised during the 1800s, and passed away in 1917. This is a man that passed away many years ago, but the principles still ring true now.
He talked about you better learn how to create wealth and create those acres of diamonds. You basically run a general store where pretty much you’re offering all kinds of products and services, especially products to people. He’d have farmers come in, and when his dad would leave him in charge of the shop, they would say, “Do you have this?” He’d say, “No, we don’t.” As he says, he’d go on whistling a merry tune. Another person comes in and says, “Do you have the same item?” “No, I don’t.” Why does everybody keep asking me that? “No, I told the last person we don’t have it.”
The third person comes in and asks the same thing. “Do you have this item?” Why people do people ask me this? “Do you see it in the store? Do you see it anywhere? No, we don’t have it.” He said, if you were smart after the first person asked for it, he would’ve said, “No, I don’t, but let me find a way to get it,” and then start offering it. He said that’s money that he was stepping over like crazy, as a teenager, he didn’t realize.
Many of us do the same thing that we have so many ideas and things we offer. People ask us for help with things. Maybe they don’t even know what to ask us or you haven’t told them, but you’ve had some unique experience that allows you to do what you’re doing every day. You’ve got some unique knowledge, skills, or a way to solve a problem. It’s amazing how life can teach us the best lessons to help and serve other people.
I truly believe that in life, there are no accidents. I believe that everything happens for a reason, whether you’ve interpreted it as being good or bad. There’s always something to learn from it. I was working with another company at the end of 2007. We started to realize we were in trouble. Money was getting tighter. We couldn’t get money out of the real estate and for ourselves, personally. A lot of people that we’re dealing with were in real estate investing. When real estate investors can get money, we don’t get paid. We had this difficult time trying to find money, which went into 2008 and even into 2009, so we did this.
What was interesting was that I was trying to figure out how to solve my own problems. I was figuring out how to get out of my own cash crunch because I had no money. This is how making money without money became a big thing for me because I didn’t have any. I maxed out my lines of credit. I had lost all my savings by that point. I had no equity in my property because it became upside down.
If you want to make more money, you have to find more ways to serve more people. Click To Tweet
In fact, that’s where I talked about the people where I went from millionaire to upside down millionaire and being in a hole of about $15,000 or $16,000 a month. I had to figure out how to get creative and get out of that hole. I didn’t expect anybody else to do it for me. I knew there’d be no government bailout, had to get out of it, and didn’t want to have to file for bankruptcy. There were times I was wondering, “Am I taking the harder path?” The answer was, “Yes, you are taking the harder path.”
I didn’t file for bankruptcy, but I tried to figure out how I was going to dig out of this hole. We sold off a ton of assets and got rid of our $250,000 home and a lot of things. We kept a few things, but for the most part, we sold off a good chunk of our assets to be able to make ends meet. I realized that time, “What do I have that’s really a value?” I used to hide behind those things. I used to think that those things made me valuable. When everything was stripped away, that’s when I had everything to work with. That’s when I realized where the real wealth was. It was still within me.
I experienced a lot of the economic downturn before most people did. A lot of people that did deal with real estate felt that faster than most people. As I said, “This has been fun for me, and I have to start getting creative in my own life.” That’s when you start hearing questions from people saying, “Chris, I would love to hire you, but honestly, I don’t know where to get the money. I don’t have the money to pay you.” I remember this thinking, “I know you’re better off financially than I am. I bet you I could find the money.”
I started to have people and said, “Show me what you’ve got and let me see it.” We started to create some things. One of my friends, Dale Clark, and I got together. I said, “Dale, I know very little about doing Excel spreadsheets. Can you help me create something like this?” We start off by creating a very rudimentary-looking type of monthly tracker. We did that at first. It was ugly, even worse than what I have now. We still use Excel spreadsheets, but it’s way prettier than it used to be.
We sent people that, and then we said, “We’ve got to look at assets and liabilities. We have to look at their balance sheet and that thing.” We started doing that as well. It was interesting because, during this period of time, I started realizing, “There are some ideas I can give them.” I started to find some things. In fact, I remember one morning, it was September of 2008, I was going to a church meeting and everybody said, “We did a challenge in our neighborhood. Can everybody build up 2 months of savings, 3 months of food storage, and 2 weeks of water supply? You got 2.5 months to do it.”
I remember right after everybody said amen, all of a sudden, people started saying, “This is hard. I can’t rub two nickels together.” I remember thinking the same thing, and it drove me nuts for a week. Finally, it woke me up early one morning, about 4:00 AM. I went out for a run, and I remember that question was still burning in my mind driving me nuts because I knew they were in a better situation than I was.
All of a sudden, as I was out there, “I bet you can find the money. Here’s how to find the money.” I remember these ideas popping into my head like a download. I said, “I got to get home.” I ran home. This is about 5:00 AM. I got on my computer and typed for about a half hour straight. I typed about 12 to 14 points. After half an hour, I looked at it and said, “Cool.” I even quoted Christian scriptures and things like that to back up my topic here.
I realized that this is pretty amazing. I didn’t know what to do with it at that time. I had no clue. I said, “This is neat. I don’t know what to do with it, plus a little bit religious in nature. I can’t use it with everybody, but I’ve got something that is valuable. I don’t know how to use it necessarily.” That’s where I started practicing using on people.
Eventually, I started creating things like the cashflow index and how to know what debts to pay off first. That happened with me playing Robert Kiyosaki’s Cashflow 202 game. When I started to see how that relates to my real life, all of a sudden, I realized, “Here’s how I find the best rate of return of paying off my debt,” and things like that. All these kinds of things are based on cashflow, and it all started coming together.
Right about the summer of 2009, it felt like it was starting to gel together. That’s when we’re going through a real low. Most people left the company that we’re a part of. There are only a few of us left, but that faith has kept us moving forward. Finally, in September 2009, the business took off and exploded. We got some key relationships that we had involved with us. The next thing we know, everything got big. It went from trying to weasel out a matter of hundreds of thousand dollars a year in the business to now making millions.
A big part of that was because the capital process was introduced, which is now what I’ve based the whole thing on Money Ripples that everything is pretty much based upon my real-life experience, not just book smarts, but what I’ve experienced myself. If I haven’t experienced and understood it, I don’t teach it, plain and simple. That’s why you see us do certain topics in business and money, and even then, I won’t cover everything in business because I believe there are still lots that I’m learning. I will continue to learn forever.
Having more money doesn't mean that it creates value for anybody. Click To Tweet
I build upon that. That’s the key. When you have your ideas, how can you take those ideas and use them in a way that serves people? How does it answer a question that they’re asking? Right now, there are more problems than ever that people need to be solved. How can you use those ideas in a way that’s going to want them to exchange money with you? The great thing is a lot of times it’s free.
I’ll get some people that’ll say, “Chris, I want to start coaching people. How to get started?” “First thing you do is take out a piece of paper and draw a line right down the middle vertically. On one side, you say what you’re going to give them. On the other side, you write a price. That’s how you start.” In most cases, when it deals with education, knowledge, and things like that, it requires no real money out of pocket.
The beautiful thing is that a lot of times, you can offer things of value. It could be your labor or service. How can you serve people in a way that they want to pay you money? When you work for a company, it’s no different from what I’m talking about here. You are offering a service. The better your resume looks, the more they want to pay you.
It’s no different with being a business owner too. The more that you’re able to become valuable to other people or invaluable to people, the more you become indispensable to the point where people want you in their lives. They’re better off with you in their lives and without you. That’s when you know that making money is going to be a lot easier. That’s what you got to figure out and the ideas.
Build Relationships
The second thing is relationships. This one is critical because it can’t be knowledgeable. I see some people, and it’s funny because they’ll think they’re all that in a bag of chips. They’ll say they’re amazing and smarter than everybody else out there. They get jealous of people that are out there marketing better than they are. They’ll be out there and say, “I’m better than everybody,” but nobody knows about them. They don’t let anybody know about them. They sit there and be arrogant and broke. That’s it. You can’t and do not want to ever be that person.
You will be an arrogant broke person. It will do is create more insecurities in yourself, and you’ll become more arrogant, and eventually, you’ll drive more people away to where nobody wants to work with you anymore. From time to time, I run to those people and my heart goes out to them because it’s not a fun place to be. You got to essentially be in a place where you’re finding ways to provide value for people. Find any way you can to serve people. Be excited and love what you do. I love how you go out and serve people, even in your business or in your job.
If you’re in a job right now, I would be as excited as possible. Make that your profession, even if you’re an entrepreneur in your business. If you say, “I make widgets for people.” “What kind of widget? Do you make a widget that’s the best in the world?” Brag about it, whatever it might be, even if you’re on the assembly line of that widget.
If you’re in business, you say, “I help people. I bring health and wellness to those people.” Be passionate about that. I’ve helped hundreds of people do that. I love the fact that I’ve helped thousands of people be able to become more financially free now. They’ve created more cashflow in life and more financial benefit like real results. I love that. It’s so rare. You’ll ever find anybody out there that will teach about money and be able to have the real benefit.
It’s always about 10, 15, or 30 years from now. Maybe when you hit retirement, then you’ll be financially free. I want to create financial freedom now. I don’t want to wait 30 or 40 years. I might be dead by then. What about now? It doesn’t mean that’s going to happen overnight, but now might mean within the next few years.
If you could drastically change your life to where you go from making tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year, is that not a worthwhile investment? By the way, if you don’t, bury that in the backyard. You’ll still have more money. Those people are trying to save, scrimp, hope, and pray that someone else will pay that money. Somebody else will pay them enough interest to make it.
It's amazing how life can teach us the best lessons to help others and serve other people. Click To Tweet
Take control of your own life now. When you do that, you find ways to be passionate about what you do. Find people that are going to serve. I’m almost done with a two-year non-compete. It’s something I’ve wanted to honor. I’ve had a start with brand new relationships. I reached out to people I either knew but hadn’t been in contact with for a while or people that I’ve heard about that I thought had a good reputation. I’d reached out to them, and I went to those people, and I invested in tons of meals. I went to tons of lunches for a few months.
For the first few months, I didn’t make a ton of money. I did go and announce it on Facebook. I said, “I’m going to offer a discount on service, but 95% less than what I was charging with the previous company I was with. I’ll give you that for much less, so messaged me.” I got some money coming in by taking on new clients. I told them, “In exchange for getting a deeply-discounted service, one, I want a true commitment that they’ll go and do the work because if you don’t charge enough, people tend to not value it and blow off the things I try to go have people do they get results.”
Secondly, I say, “I want to get new testimonials that I can’t necessarily have otherwise,” and that’s what I did. I started off right that way, but eventually, I started building a reputation. I try to serve those people. In fact, when I went out to those lunches, I didn’t want to talk about my business. I talked very little about my business. I wanted to learn more about them. I might talk to them about my philosophies on life, money, business, and stuff like that. I won a ton of raving fans because we matched philosophies.
If you haven’t noticed, I matched the entrepreneur philosophy, especially when I met with other business owners who said, “You’re awesome. You’re perfect. This is exactly what my people need.” Even though I was talking about them almost the entire time, seeing as we create good friendships, not just business relationships, that wasn’t my goal. I want to create real friends.
Eventually, they paid us over $5 million in the next couple of years after that. That’s from one relationship that we were able to serve. We serve him and his own close relationships. They all get excited because I had one of the coaches that worked with that guy. He freed up $100,000 in tax savings alone. He was ecstatic that he didn’t even finish working with me. We didn’t even finish the whole process.
The best and safest way to make money is to go out there and find ways to serve people. Click To Tweet
By serving people, it gives you that launchpad and the ability to do it. It doesn’t always happen overnight, but it doesn’t have to be. When you start combining these two things, you take your ideas, come out with relationships, and try to find more ways to serve people in this, it’s easy to make money without money. In fact, it is probably the best and safest way to make money, in my opinion. The best and safest way to make money is to go out there and find ways to serve people. That is the true way to be able to make that happen.
That’s why I’m going to ask you to do to make money without money. You can use other people’s money. If you don’t have the money, I know people that have it, but more importantly, find ways to use your ideas in a way that serves other people, solves problems for them, or is able to create value for them in their lives. That is the real key to making money without money.
I appreciate you being with us. We’ve got one more show next time. You’re going to want to be on, trust me. We’ve got a great topic coming up. We’ve also got guests starting to come up. We’re going to have some amazing guests, and it’s going to be so much fun. Be sure to keep tuning in next time. It’s all about living prosperously now, not 30 or 40 years from now, but how do you live properly to live your life and love your life. Have a great prosperous week.