People always say, “It takes money to make money.”
But what if you don’t have a lot of extra cash?
How can you make more money in your business or profession out of seemingly thin air?!
Chris Miles shares his experience of how he dug himself out of a huge debt hole with NO SAVINGS and NO CREDIT. It took him using his special formula, SPARF!
Tune in to find out how you can Monetize Your Divine Genius!
Chris’ Bio:
Chris Miles, the “Cash Flow Expert,” is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and has spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results.
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Listen to the podcast here
Make Money WITHOUT Money (SPARF)
I’m excited about our show and life in general. It’s been such a blessed time. I’ve enjoyed working with many of you, being able to serve you and giving you so much value. I love the feedback that’s coming back as well. Thank you for reading and sharing this show. It has made this fantastic and I love that it’s blessing people’s lives, even some of you I’ve never met before. Thank you so much. I’m grateful for this topic because I thought I had taught this. I’ve taught it on so many other people’s shows and forgot to do them on my own.
I want to talk about how you make money when you don’t have any money. This is something that you hear all the time. There are always financial people out there telling you how to make money if you’ve got money or savings. We even did an episode about what you could do to increase your chance of retirement and things like that.
However, what if you don’t have any money? What if money is tight? Especially if you’re an entrepreneur, you’re probably realized that you’ve spent some time working on building your business. When you make extra money, a lot of times, it goes right back into your business again. You want to bring more home but sometimes you feel like you’re trying to make more but are not feeling like you have anymore.
Many times, people will say, “I want to get my business growing and get things moving but I don’t have the or money to do it.” I’m going to tell you how I did it when I didn’t have any money, savings and credit. I had pretty much nothing. Some of you have heard my story before. This is back during the Great Recession when I lost about everything. I was in the hole of about $1 million and was short about $16,000 a month at one point. I figured out how to reverse it. I had to get creative and do some major things to improve that. That included increasing my income in my business.
I want to share with you the things that I learned, especially in 2008 and 2009, that shifted and allowed me to make more money. That’s what I want to talk about in this episode. If you love business but you’re feeling your burnout out sometimes, I’m here to tell you to give you hope to help you realize, “There is a way to be able to create more with less.” Even if you don’t have financial resources, it’s okay. Let me talk about the raw materials you can use to create money out of seemingly thin air. The equation I use is called SPARF. It sounds like something you throw up on the rug. I know.
Here’s the equation. S times P times A times R times F. Here’s what it means. S stands for Strengths. What strengths do you have that you can use to serve people? Remember that dollars follow value. If you want to receive more dollars, you got to figure out how you can create more value for more people or deeper value for fewer people. It’s possible to serve fewer people but if you’re charging more money for it, it is possible to still make more money. It’s about how you go about serving. What do people usually pay you for? Do they pay you for your weaknesses or strengths and gifts?
To receive more dollars, you must determine how to create more value for more people or more profound value for lesser people. Click To TweetThey pay you for your gifts. We know this. This is common sense, a no-brainer. Many of us will focus on trying to develop our weaknesses and improve those things rather than improving and focusing on our strengths. Each of you has your unique combination of strengths that no one else on this planet has. I call this unique fingerprint, this divine genius that you have. With that, you have the ability to serve people when no one else can, solve problems that no one else can and therefore make money as no one else can. There’s one great way if you want to figure out what strengths you have. There are lots of tests you could take.
When we do our event, Monetize Your Divine Genius, we teach this stuff. One thing you can do is message or call up 10 to 15 people and ask them. These could be people from all different walks of life, people who’ve known your whole life, people who have known you for a few months, people that knew you at work and people that knew you at home. Whatever it is, ask these people, “What do you see that’s unique in me? What can you count on me for? What do I do that you admire or think is special?” Ask them this. Let them know you’re not having a midlife crisis. You’re not dying or anything like that. You just say, “I’m reading this blog and this guy is a crazy guy. Chris Miles says try this out.”
You do and let them answer. If they give you some additional feedback, more than a few words, that’s great. It could be a few words they give you but ideally, they give you a little context behind it. What’s cool is when you start to get it back, you’ll start to see that there are people that don’t know each other. Those people have known you from different roles that you’ve played in your life. They’ll say some of the same things.
I call this get a clue because if they’re telling you something and telling you the same thing, they’re telling you why they would pay you money, why they think you’re special, why you should be able to create more and why they want to hire you for things. Some people say, “I don’t know how to make money from listening because I wasn’t a good listener. I’m not a psychologist.” You don’t have to be but I can tell you that listening works in any line of work in any business.
Especially if you’re dealing with anything with sales, listening is key. People will buy more from a listener than a talker. Don’t despair. There are lots of ways to make money with that. You don’t have to create a job around listening but know that a lot of times, whatever role you’re playing or business you’re in, you can apply a lot of these same strengths inside those businesses. The more you apply them, the better it is. I have a great ability to see not only the big picture but seeing how things interrelate in ways that people don’t see. I can see things with numbers, the way and how I can make everything move around.
It’s almost like Ironman with his little computer screen and how I can make those numbers and move. I have fun with it. I enjoy it. I get a thrill from it, not the numbers in and of themselves but what’s possible. I love creating possibilities and options and solving problems that way. That makes me unique. That allows me to do things, especially when I focus on cashflow and teach about abundance versus scarcity. Any of you who reads knows that I teach a lot of unique things. I come from a unique perspective. I teach about stewardship. That makes me who I am. That creates a niche. That’s why people would have me on their shows. Whether it be radio, TV or whatever, I get booked to speak a lot because I have a unique niche.
You want to find that niche because that niche will help you make you become rich. That’s one. Find those key strengths. Number two is Passions. That P is the sense for Passions. You got to love what you’re doing. If you don’t love what you’re doing, I can guarantee you that people that are in your same field will pass you by. They will surpass you in what they’re able to do. They’ll run faster and achieve more than you will. You’ve got to have passion. If you don’t have passion, you probably won’t stick with it. Passion is a multiplier of your strengths.
When I was doing ballroom dancing, I was able to multiply my strengths. I was able to learn faster and improve my skills more because I love to teach. I love to dance. I had fun doing it. For people that were doing it since they were 4 years old, where I was like 18 instead, they would get lackadaisical. They wouldn’t have as much passion. They wouldn’t care as much. They would practice but they didn’t have that same intensity behind it. As a result, I was able to even beat some of those people in competition from time to time.
That’s the point. Passion is a multiplier. You get to have passions. Trust me. There’s nobody else that will touch you if you combine those two areas together. You’ll do things that nobody else will want to do. Do them in a way that nobody else can. You got to still do the next letter. A is Action. You got to be willing to take action. You can’t think you can sit around and learn more about your craft. You got to practice and do it. The more you do it, the better you get. That also amplifies your ability to create value; therefore, more money follows.
How do you create action? You do that through your Relationships. That’s R. S was Strengths, P is Passions, A is putting into Action and then R is Relationships. This is crucial because it’s only through people that we’re able to serve. Money only comes when you serve people. Even when you don’t serve people in a monetary sense that they don’t exchange money with you, a lot of times when you go and serve people, they will want to reciprocate in some way, shape or form. A lot of times, that can lead to more happiness, love and even money. We want to take advantage of that. Relationships are key.
One of the coolest things that happened with me and my business is that I’m good at connecting and serving people. People can see I’m genuine. They see I’m not trying to be a charlatan or do anything to mess them over in any way, shape or form. As a result, people will trust me. They’ll say, “I like you. I even trust you with my audience. Why don’t you come to speak? You should meet so-and-so. This person is great.” One of my friends said, “I like this guy. You two should meet because he’s full of integrity. You guys are a lot alike.”
That’s a huge compliment to me but that takes practice. That takes me still serving people and doing things that, seemingly upfront, don’t look like I’m going to have a lot of benefits or make money. I’ll tell you that my business hit six figures in the first year because I did this. I wasn’t just trying to sell people. I was trying to create relationships first and serve them any way I could, whether with knowledge or relationships. That is what exploded. There’s the last letter. We said S is Strengths, P is Passions, A is Action and R is Relationships.
Passion is a multiplier of your strengths. Click To TweetThe last one is F for Faith. That’s not religious faith necessarily, although that can be part of it but faith in principles, yourself and confidence, not just hoping for success but knowing success, knowing that you’re called here for a reason. You were alive at this time doing these things. You’re in the place where you’re at. The people in your life are here for a reason and purpose. There are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason. You’re here to serve those people and to last.
Even if you’re the most talented person in the world, passionate, loving and can help people, if you don’t have the faith to keep pushing forward, you will stop. You will get stuck and be toast. Your business will not last. You got to have more faith and the ability to say, “I know this is going to happen. I’m doing what’s awesome. As a result, success follows.”
The more confidence you have and the more knowingness you have around that, the more it shows up. Here’s one of the coolest things that happened to me. I remember back in 2009. Someone told me to meet with these two owners of a very large network marketing company. I was intimidated. My palms are sweaty and everything. I was wondering, “Can I make this work? Why am I here? Who am I?” I remember when I said that, these are the words in my head saying, “Chris, you know who you are. Go and exchange with your brothers.”
It hit me hard because I realized, “They’re amazing and successful. They did $1 billion in sales in their company but I’m amazing too. I’ve got unique gifts and talents they don’t have. They’ve got unique gifts and talents that I don’t have. Therefore, we can exchange with each other. We each can exchange our gifts and talents.” That’s the way it’s meant to be. We’re meant to serve the best of who we are. You can’t do that if you don’t know who you are and what you can offer. This is why you got to use this equation.
As that confidence started to build, later in 2009, all of a sudden, the right relationship showed up in my life and our business. It exploded. Within a year, we’re ten times their business. It was huge, not to mention my income more than 10 times but at least probably 10 times the income too. It was awesome. It was in a year. It didn’t have to wait for 3 to 5 years. It happened quickly, all because I was prepared to be serving where I needed to serve.
That is what’s so important and what makes us so special. That’s what I mean by SPARF, Strengths amplified by Passions, multiplied by taking Action and multiplied for more Relationships. The more you serve, the more successful you are and then multiply it by your Faith, your belief in yourself, your belief in principles and following those principles and knowing you can create success with it.
That is the key. You don’t need money to be able to make money when you do that. I’ve had people apply this and it’s so cool. We have this event called Monetize Your Divine Genius. We’re doing it again. I invite any of you to check that out and have more details on that at YourDivineGenius.com. I was looking through some of the results people were getting. I messaged some of them. There was one guy whom we told that he was not designed to work. He’s supposed not to work as hard or make a bunch of dials for his business. He stopped it.
The next Monday, he had two credit unions he was trying to work with reach out to him and say, “We want to talk to you.” These are people he tried to reach out to for months and wouldn’t answer. All of a sudden, when he starts to relax and back off, they reach out to him. The whole point is that you say who you are, stand in your power and say, “Here’s what I have to offer and how I serve.” Invite them into your space and let them invite themselves. It worked. We have had some people massively saying it’s changed their business by not having to work as much because there is a minority population of you that are not supposed to work hard.
You’re supposed to stand as a guide and a counselor and become more using the Law of Attraction and things like that. Others of us, like myself, get a thrill from doing things. We’re meant to serve, build, contribute, help, grow and all that stuff. It’s cool because I saw other people that said it’s changing their business. There’s one lady who said, “I spent years to be able to create my biography that I can share with people. Now, I was able to do it using that blueprint you shared with us.”
I love hearing those stories because that’s the stuff that gets results, especially when they start telling me, “We’ve spent thousands of dollars on different events, seminars and coaching. This was the coolest thing ever.” If you’re interested in that, I invite you to check it out. We only have one more coming up that we have planned. That’s called Monetize Your Divine Genius. Check it out at YourDivineGenius.com. You can read more there. SPARF is one of those central concepts in that event. If you use that, watch what will happen. Watch how you start to expand and grow. You’ll start to work less but make more money. That is the key. Find your niche. That’s how you can get rich. Join us again next episode as we share some other cool stuff. Thank you so much.