"Richer is the man earning 1% of the efforts of a 100 men than 100% of his own efforts." - J. Paul Getty

It really doesn’t matter where you find yourself today - doing three deals a year or 200. If you are the sole catalyst for your production, if it is primarily your efforts creating whatever level of business you’re currently enjoying... you are working in your business and, eventually, are doomed to either peak out or, worse, burn out.

The problem is, there are only 24 hours in a day. And if you are trading your time for dollars... which you are doing when you work in your business versus on your business... you have placed a serious limitation upon your earning capacity.

Not to mention the fact that to earn it (whatever it is), you will often find yourself working sixty, seventy, even eighty hours per week. And, you can’t take time off! If you do... your production and, your business suffers. Your income suffers. Your lifestyle suffers.

If such is the case, I can assure you... career burnout is just around the corner. It took me over ten years of working inmy business (tens years of being bored, beat-up and broke!) to finally realize that the "rewards" simply weren’t worth all the time, hassle, and expense of creating them. I mean, what good is being a million dollar producer and pocketing a few thousand bucks when you don’t have a life apart from the business to enjoy it?

What makes the difference? Leverage. Leverage allows you to multiply your efforts, time, and energy which means multiplied income and time to enjoy it.

Ideally, your goal is to convert your existing business, or the one you are about to create, into a perfectly organized model for thousands more just like it. In other words, most profitable way to view and build your business is in with the creation of a "franchise" in mind. And that means you either have to have a thousand yous available to work in each and every one of those businesses... or discover a way to "clone" your work and have this clone (your systems) keep on working for you... even while you’re out playing life somewhere.

Of course, this is the ideal situation, albeit a difficult one to achieve. So while you’re striving towards that end... focus on leveraging yourself.

Leverage is utilizing assets (people, time, money, connections, systems, knowledge, family, strategic alliances) to get the maximum return, results, and rewards with the minimum risk, effort or investment.

Becoming a listing agent is a classic example of the power of multiplying yourself and your efforts through leverage.

You build an inventory listing by listing. No leverage there. However, any one (or all!) of those listings can be sold, and income generated, for you and your business... totally independent of your efforts.

That’s leverage.

Published: December 8, 1998

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Robert Fore is the president and CEO for Realty Profit Systems. He is a nationally recognized marketing trainer and strategist who specializes in combining the proven principles of direct response marketing with the cost-effective, worldwide penetration of the internet. Realty Profit Systems publishes the Online Real Estate Marketing Report at http://www.hometeam2000.com and offers a free, weekly e-zine of real estate marketing tips at http://www.top10realty.com.