The Agreement Seekers Blog

Every business has to have a product or service to be legal.  Simply trading and leveraging money for the purpose of trading and leveraging money is considered a scheme, typically preceded by the adjectives of Ponzi or pyramid. That said, one does not have to be in love with the associated product or service.  This gets a bit dicey to explain philosophically.  However, let me start here.  The goal of business is profitability.  Not every trinket trader is in love with all of the trinkets he imports from China.  He trades trinkets to make money.  It is a basis for commerce.  Anyone can think of 1000 examples. I know an Electrical Engineer who sits at his computer all day in a small office at a large corporation.  He does not like what he does.  However, he is paid well for what he does.  He derives income.  That is his only goal in spending eight hours of his life a day doing what he does. Frankly, at the end of the day, t...

I have written other posts about "the money being in your list".  This post is related.  I have argued that building a large list and monetizing that list is certainly one viable strategy, however not an easy one - both in terms of the resources required to make it happen (a capture page, autoresponder, etc.) AND the entire process to make it happen. Juxtaposed to this is a small list.  A group, if you will... of About 40 People.  Or, a tight-knit community of 40 who share common values, skills, goals... an interdependent, supportive, and cohesive structure all geared to each others' financial well-being.  Allow me to slice and dice this a few different ways. So, why 40?  To be clear, I am starting here explaining the "end state".  This is the place you work toward and where you "end up" after a year's effort.  (You can't blink this into existence). We use a progressive model that builds different income platforms.  The first starts a...

We build things.  On the hub, we build groups of people who share a common interest of greater financial security.  In the spokes, we build other things. We build knowledge and skills which builds self-esteem and self-confidence.  Along with this, we build hope and optimism that people can live a better future by simply participating in a Community Group that exists to steer people in a common direction. We aspire to the good and noble in constructing the elements that form our whole. This whole has every potential to elevate individual lives beyond their current circumstance.  Daily, we lead people to a window and invite them to look outside at a new world of possibility. This cycle simply repeats itself. We build a passion for helping others - with success begetting success - as we grow personally and collectively - as a Community. And, in the manner we approach what we do, we build trust because without trust, none of the rest matters.

One way to look at what we do is simply to get people to agree with us. We have a proposition that involves two components. People work together to leverage money in the context of a Community that is "ours" and something we choose to be a part of. Our foundation is a learning environment where we share knowledge and resources.  Members of our Community are inherently inter- dependent and literally support each other with their ongoing financial participation - all equally, in a "parallel economy to our jobs".  This involves a commitment and responsibility that we all agree to. Our tagline is also our mission statement, "We organize knowledge, people and money for everyone's benefit."   Our goal is to be as simple and straightforward as we can be in describing who we are and what we do.  At the same time, we never want to shy away from the fact in agreeing to participate, each member has a responsibility to grow. Inherent in this growth, you...

I was in the grocery store recently.  There were two young kids with their mom.  The boy was about 7, the girl 4 or so.  Like most kids in the checkout line, they were wide-eyed and grabbing candy bars.  Even before they could ask, the Mom said, "Put it back, we can't afford it".  With a sunken whimper, they complied and that was that. For me, I just stood as a stoic observer, but inside I was crushed for the kids.  They were just doing what kids do... testing limits and "going for it".  But, the thud of the Mom's authority struck me.  Their budget obviously could not withstand a frivolous candy purchase.  She didn't say, "Not this time" (or) "No, we got candy last time..."  It was like, shut 'em down, drop a rock on their head finality - and they knew there was no sense in arguing.  They were being trained to "not afford it". This simple example is how many people live... on the edge and barely making it.  A $2 make...

OK.  This is a college (or education) analogy.  If you go to school, you are expected to learn things.  On these things, you get tested and get a grade.  Some people are honors students, some do the minimum and squeak by with C's and some fail. Owning a business is really no different.  The premise here is that you can choose to go to school to learn and apply new things, or you can choose to do the minimum (or nothing) and let the status quo be "your life".  Note that the word "choose" is in both statements. Now, taking this one more step, the tuition you pay (in real dollars) is next to nothing compared to a conventional college... and the education is essentially free.  What you are paying for with what we do is access to a platform that aggregates and tracks people and money.  There are literally thousands of these platforms. The differentiator, the value proposition of what we offer is the culture and community that surrounds the...