Dave Iba’s Top 5

Dave Iba’s top FIVE list of how to make money and be successful during the credit crunch.

5. Here is one of the biggest fallacies of success. It’s called goals. Let me ask you something. Have you set goals for yourself? Probably, lets squash those goals. You see goals are for people who are afraid to drift. Here, let me prove it to you. Let’s set a goal right now. Take a couple of objects sitting near you. Like two shot glasses or a couple of ashtrays. Set one right in front of you. Now set the other one about four feet away. Now walk with your fingers (yellow pages style) from one object to the other. Look at all the room there is for failure. I’ve seen failure and I don’t like it. So how do we minimize the chances of failure? By moving the objects an inch away from the other … we shorten the goal! Now walk it again. Not much there to thwart us is there? Shorten your goals… shorten your grief.

4. I always say that to be a success, you must first look like a success. Let’s start by covering the most vital component to success… Image. Image is everything. Question: What do I mean by this statement? Answer: Associate with people who make you look successful. What I’m suggesting is to surround yourself with losers. Hang out with losers and you’ll always look like a winner. Who would you rather compete with a crowd of good-looking well-groomed, well-spoken achiever’s? Or people who have nothing on the ball. For an example, look at a ring setting. When a jeweler has a little, flawed diamond to sell, does he display it with the crown jewels? No. He puts it in a setting with a lot of worthless stones around it to make it look better. That’s how you do it. Hang out with the rhinestones and you’ll be that shining gem in the middle. I have a wide network of low lives I rub shoulders with frequently.

3. Seize the opportunity. Opportunity is everywhere if you just know where to look. So get out your pencils and listen up. If you go to any public bulletin board at the grocery, the Laundromat, the library or wherever, you’ll see tons of notices that say “KITTENS FREE TO A GOOD HOME.” So I go around a collect all the free kittens I can. And I sell them for 10 bucks apiece. Last month, I got 140 kittens. But you have got to get the whole litter. It’s not worth your time or gas to cruise around getting one here one there. I’ve got a little rap down, I tell the owners I’m with an organization that provides pets to the elderly in retirement homes. If you could see how their faces light up. Now, your target market for kittens is chicks and kids. So I set up in front of a mall, maybe a Chuck E. Cheese, and I put them in a big box. You want them to be able to move around; because the more they frolic, the cuter they look, the faster they sell. And I mix them up. I’ll put in a Gray, Siamese maybe a Calico but no more than 4 in a box or people can’t make up their minds. You can always go back to the car for more. So, I price them at 10 dollars and say, “I have to sell them today or they go to the animal research lab. On a good day I can move 35 to 40 kittens. And I’m betting you can do even better.

2. Now, with the holidays coming up, here is a way to make some extra cash. Right around December 15th, I suddenly announce to my friends and family that I have, “cancer.” It cost me $40 to have my head shaved. Now A. You aren’t expected to buy anyone anything, and you will probably find that you get double the gifts you normally would. And then right around January 5th I suddenly go into…”remission.” Pays handsomely.

1. I recently rented the movie Indecent Proposal. Maybe you’ll remember. It’s where one guy pays $1 million to sleep with another guy’s wife. That got me to thinking. Neither you nor I could get $1 million for someone to even make-out with our wife, husband, or girlfriend or boyfriend. But we could get $20, 50,000 times. How many people overlook the obvious?

Well I hope I’ve helped you to succeed in ways you never though possible.