Steve Healis
Retired Founder, Pass the Baton

Retire sooner than ever imagined. Keep your income for the rest of your life. How? Simply by applying three values to your professional life: laziness, pessimism and disdain.

Value #1: Laziness. Be lazy. Get someone else to do your tasks. If only you can do your job, then you are handcuffed to it. My rule of thumb: if an employee can accomplish 60% of the same task I can accomplish, delegate it. Of course, set high expectations and follow up. But the 60% rule allows you to relinquish more tasks. You also criticize your employees less and celebrate their successes more. As a result of laziness, you work less and enjoy life more.

Value #2: Pessimism. Actually, I prefer the term “optimistically pessimistic.” When my janitorial services company customer would request three cleaners for Monday morning at 9 a.m., my competitors would schedule three people at 9 a.m. and get frustrated when the expectation wasn’t met. With optimistic pessimism at work, I would schedule six people for 8 a.m., because half would not show and the rest would be 45 minutes late. My customers appreciated my optimistic pessimism.

Value #3: Disdain. Hate your job? Absolutely. I encourage you to hate the elements of your job that prevent you from reaching your goal.

Steve Healis
Retired Founder, Pass the Baton

Based on my experience, I have formulated an incredibly simple but effective career path that:

• We can explain in 20 minutes;
• you can achieve in 20 years or less;
• will pay you $20,000 a month for the rest of your life.

Whether a college student, an employee or a business owner, you possess the potential to achieve this dream. This is not a get-rich quick scheme, it is a get-rich slowly strategy.

The Pass the Baton career path is simple to learn; hard to master.

Step 1 – College – Learn to Learn

A college degree, while not imperative, is important. Learn how to learn, to work effectively in groups, to analyze, to speak publicly, to make things happen.

Step 2 – Large Company – Give and Take. The days of a 30-year career followed by a life-long pension are history. “Give” it your all at a major company, but know you will leave. “Take” by learning to manage, hire and fire; set and achieve goals; build and maintain budgets; sell and market. This experience trains you, moves you, tests you. Take time, outside of work,999 to find the company you want to own.

Step 3 – Small Company – Find the Ferraris. Look for a successful company. Steer clear of hobbies; it could destroy your love for the hobby and may also be a money-loser. Leverage your network to identify what business works for you. Get involved in the business part time to make sure you love it. Consider a business that doesn’t demand hourly work to generate income.

Step 4 – Key Employee – Pick Me, Pick Me! Join a company with one objective: becoming its key employee. Treat the company as though it is your own (it will be). Learn and master every working part of the company. Prove to the current owner that you can take the company to the next level.  As a key employee, grab the baton so that we can show the owner the benefits of a Baton Partnership.

Step 5 – Your Company – Pass the Baton! You, as the business owner, hire key employees that foster growth and success. Under normal circumstances, the dream of selling the company for a million dollars and sailing off into the sunset is next to impossible. Pass the Baton provides you with $20,000/month for 50 years. Treating the transaction as an installment sale provides huge tax benefits, maintains minimal involvement in the company (one day a month), and eliminates the headaches of day-to-day operations. Spend guilt-free time pursuing other goals –charities, launch new companies, pursue hobbies, travel.  We help you define and live your dream.

Wherever you are on this path, contact Greg Saffer for a complimentary one on one consultation. We help you take these steps. It will be an incredible journey!

Ralph Rodheim
President, Rodheim Marketing Group

Can you profit from a non-profit? It only takes four steps.

In our complex English language, many words have multiple meanings. Profit is one such word. Of course there are the sages, who are said to be prophets. Making money can mean being profitable. And by helping others, we all profit.

And then there is the world of non-profit. If you participate in your children’s PTA, church group, AYSO, a health-related cause or a business organization, you can profit from a non-profit. How? Here are four easy steps.

1. Join an organization that you are passionate about. You must feel strongly about the organization in order to do a good job, and when you do a good job everyone will benefit. Don’t join the opera society if you hate opera! How do you find the right organization? Ask friends what they do to make their community a better place, check with your children’s schools, your church, and research where business associates are volunteering.

2. Join a committee with the ultimate goal of becoming a board member. All too often, we go to networking activities and then are disappointed that no business is developed. Only by joining a committee and doing a great job will people notice that you’re competent and quite possibly want to work with you and your business in the future.

3. People do business with people they know and trust. Once you develop relationships in a non-profit organization, you have common interests and can begin the process of business development.

4. Cold calling is tough. However, calling on behalf of your favorite non-profit is easy. Why? Because you are passionate about what you’re doing! Again, once the relationship is developed, you can transition from non-profit to profitable business development.

Just do it! Involvement is the key to profiting from nonprofit participation. The organization is not as important as what you do once you participate. Make sure you do an impressive job wherever and whenever you volunteer. Don’t over-commit; non-profits can consume considerable time if you let it.   Good luck! Remember: by participating in a non profit everyone wins. And who knows? You might even “profit”!