Society seems to give the idea that it isn’t nice to negotiate. It feels like asking for a lower price says that you can’t afford to pay the full price. Or that you are being rude. Many people think that you can ask for a lower price at a garage sell, flea market or car lot, but not anywhere else.

Bargaining is a great way to get a good price. Prices are always up for negotiation. That’s why they are often called the “suggested retail price”.

Whenever you purchase an item from a store or a service from a business, you are entering into a business transaction. You have the right to negotiate for the best terms when it comes to how much you pay. If the sales price isn’t acceptable to you, you can try to change the terms by bargaining.

Step 1: First, you must be prepared to lose, which you will do a lot. Keep your attitude polite and friendly. Remember, you want someone to do something for you. You have to be nice.

You probably won’t be able to walk into a department store and get 50% off on a new camcorder. But if you find one you like that has a minor flaw, such as a scratch, you should ask to talk with the manager about the pricing.

You’ll find that most locally owned stores will bargain with you if you are polite and reasonable. Don’t automatically ask for 50% off, but if you ask for a 15% or 20% discount on a damaged item, you will probably succeed. Use your status as a senior citizen, student or organizational member to receive a discount.

Step 2: If you are buying more than one large item from a store, ask for a discount based on buying multiple products. When I purchased a new stove, fridge and dishwasher for my kitchen, I requested a discount and received it. It helped that I am a good customer that buys all of my appliances through the store in question.

Step 3: When you wish to bargain with a manager or store owner, be discreet. The person in charge doesn’t want to advertise the deal. Be polite, charming and honest. Don’t try to bargain when a store is busy. Wait until business is slow and sales people are looking to make a sale. Ask for a discount for paying in cash. Cash can talk quite loudly. Look for merchandise that has been in the store for a while. I’ve purchased floor displays for up to 40% off.

Step 4: Look for items without price tags. If it isn’t marked, feel free to make an offer. Look over items carefully for damage or flaws. Make sure that items you purchase have cosmetic flaws only. For example, a scratch on the side of a refrigerator could be hidden against the wall of your kitchen. No one would ever know.

You won’t always find people willing to bargain with you. If they don’t seem open, don’t waste your time. You can always try again somewhere else.

Step 2: How does the government make its money? That’s right taxes. Taxes on property and income are the major money makers for good old Uncle Sam. So the government in order to make money has to have citizens who number one make money and number two own property. We all know that the only way to make money is to have money, so it makes sense that the government would want to provide this impetus (money in the form of free grants) to people in relatively small amounts, in hopes that people will turn this into large amounts of profit. If this happens everybody wins!

Step 3: So the only stipulation for eligibility for these free grants is that they will be used in specified ways that will create revenue for the recipient and in so doing for the government. Examples of grant uses are small business grants, housing grants for down payments, real estate grants to improve existing buildings and areas to attract consumers, public housing grants, education grants, and the like. All in hopes of stimulating the economy.

Step 4: The next important thing to know is that there is more money available than is being handed out and so there is no shortage and you are almost guaranteed money if you make the appropriate application. Perhaps the only difficulty is learning how and where to apply. This information is available for free but is (because it is government run) very unorganized and messy. The best way to learn about free grants that are available is to purchase (for a relatively small fee when compared to the profit it will bring) lists that different companies have organized that have all the information that you need. You simply get the list and look in the areas that apply to you, apply, and once accepted receive the money and go to work.

There is a formula to amassing great wealth that can be learned and put into action immediately. Throughout the ages to the present, the greatest minds and the greatest wealth builders have used a secret factor called Entrepreneurial Leverage. Leverage is: less is more. Leverage can also be defined as making a disproportionately high rate of return from a relatively small input, effort or investment. Leverage is borrowing money, resources, talents, knowledge, and people to grow the value the entrepreneur sees ahead of the market (their vision).

Each of us has a calling or purpose. Research shows that almost 70 % of people are mismatched with their jobs, careers and their companies. They are not living the life of their dreams.

To be entrepreneurial, you have to realize the government is not going to make you wealthy. Rarely, will you grow wealthy with stocks, bonds, houses or trading forex and commodities (unless you are managing other people’s money).

You must learn that jobs do not provide security or wealth. Investing, owning your business or income producing real estate has been where wealth has been created. Being an executive in a growth company, getting a salary and options, helps. Being a celebrity or an employee of a growth company at the beginning is another way. Managing money for others, as in money management or hedge funds, is also a path.

However, when you boil it down, most people are left with companies and income producing real estate as options. But, you say, 55% of businesses fail within the first 4 years. Well, just think of how much you have lost in the stock market, your 401K, and your house. On average, people are down 25% to 40% if they are honest with themselves. Now that’s risky.

Do you think your financial planners or stockbrokers know much more than you? Few do. Otherwise, you’d be making money, not just them.

Fact: the average American has less than $20,000 investible assets. However, the top 1%, as stated, earns over 20 % (that’s 20 x the average!) of income and control over 30 % of the wealth (that’s 30X the average!). Do what they do? Utilize the art of leverage as explained in the following:

You need to think of leverage as a means of concentrating your power. If you focus the sunlight through a magnifying glass, it will burn a leaf. When you use a crowbar, you focus your body’s energy in order to pry open objects that can’t be separated by human hands alone.

We transfer the focus of energy and force in such a way that we can use a much smaller effort to get an optimal result or what I call positive leverage. In today’s age of speed and the Internet, you must achieve positive leverage to stay in the game.

However, without that concentration, you will achieve negative leverage, where much hard work will produce disproportionately small returns. When you are in a negative-leverage situation, you are doing the same things over and over with little or nothing to show for it. You experience diminishing returns. Negative leverage becomes enormously frustrating and energy draining.

Most people and companies fail before they start toward achieving a vision or goal.

Let’s take a company as an example. Most companies fail before they get out of the gates because they do not offer a compelling solution that in the minds of their potential customer is a high priority—a must-have.

What I am saying is that most failures can be traced back to the preparation. Famous golfer Jack Nicklaus stated that 85% of the golf swing is in the setup.

Just as Jack Nicklaus learned the fundamentals from his coach, the greatest wealth builders and minds learned through apprenticeships.

You can trade your skills, knowledge and talents for a piece of the action (ownership):

1. Go on the internet and find companies that align with your purpose.
2. Call them.
3. Tell them you’ll work for free to build their business. Most need help. Many of them can’t market, sell well or write very well. You will learn on their dime to be aligned with your purpose. You will earn a piece of the action or more skills.

Sound crazy?

Here are 4 more success strategies:

1. Have an outrageous, unreasonable goal! Small goals won’t sustain you.
2. The key to wealth is relationships. Be a networker. Listen for opportunities.
3. Welcome the craziest ideas. Most people immediately reject an idea; instead, do the opposite. Why? You start to learn what people are thinking and how they present themselves. You may just find the opportunity of a lifetime.
4. You can match up those with money to those with opportunities. That is what the wealthiest people in the world do. Think Goldman Sachs.
Soon, you will see more opportunities than you ever dreamed.

Where do you go to find the best deals?

Go to seminars, many are free. There are angel capital networks where entrepreneurs with their deals meet investors. When you go to these events often you find that it is a matching game like dating. The idea is to put together the right matches.

Entrepreneurs frequently commit to things and then run around to find the resources. Investors typically commit and often don’t have the full amount of the capital that they are committing. This means that there are gaps between entrepreneurs and investors’ resources and capital, which always creates potentially great opportunities for the person or company that can fill in the gaps.

Just remember, there will always be gaps and opportunities in up or down markets. If you miss one opportunity, there is always another.

Jump into the arena. Learn to become comfortable with the uncomfortable, and go for it.

Implement these success strategies and you will have executed the secret factor to wealth and fortune – Entrepreneurial Leverage™.

Go get wealthy! Good luck.

Step 1 Never engage in leveraged investment that exceeds your own tolerance for risk

There is really no hard and fast rule for leveraged investment – except that, if it bothers you, then maybe you should recoil from it. Your own personal tolerance for risk is the greatest security barrier there is: if it seems like too much a risk, then it probably is – and it is far better to risk to little and ‘miss out’ then to risk everything and lose everything.

Step 2 Keep your business priorities in order

What are you really hoping to achieve? What are the things you want your business to accomplish? What were the imperatives in your mission statement? Any business gets itself into trouble when it diverges from its core competencies or starts to get its business priorities ‘out of whack.’ If you know what really matters, then you will know when to leverage and when never to leverage.

Step 3 Only use leveraged investment in exceptional circumstances

Never get into the habit of thinking that investing using borrowed money is the way to go; that money is still someone else’s money and, whenever something else is borrowed, there will be expectations that it will be paid back – and usually with interest. Furthermore, liability always attaches itself to those who lose another party’s money as well as their own. Only use leveraged investment as a last resort in instances where you are trying to achieve a significant corporate objective.

All told, leveraged investment should always be an exceptional matter; if you make it into more than that, you will end up with trouble on your hands. Stay modest, stay on target, and avoid investing money you don’t have –unless you really, really need to do so.

The Answer: Like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Edison, Ford, Carnegie, and numerous others like Moses, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Lao Tse and Confucius, today’s Mega Millionaires all use a similar approach to achievement and success called Entrepreneurial Leverage.

Step 1 – The 7 Essential Elements of Entrepreneurial Leverage:
1. A Entrepreneurial Mindset
2. A unique voice
3. Leverage
4. An uncanny (intuitive) ability to understand the Dynamic Market Forces of their time
5. An openness to counsel others
6. A communication style that infects others to carry out their unique voice and vision
7. Ability to adjust to change and feedback

Step 2 – The 6 Approaches Mega Millionaires Take To Find and Exploit Opportunities Using Entrepreneurial Leverage:
1. They decipher Paradigm Shifts or dramatic changes in the way we see the world, e.g., Computer Age; Knowledge Workers; Internet Age.
2. They figure out the contexts or frameworks that result from the Paradigm Shifts e.g. globalization: instant communication.
3. They understand how old and new Dynamic Market Forces are set in motion by the paradigm shifts and affect the marketplace, e.g., how you communicate (mobile phones, e-mail) when (24/7 online) what (online information) why (save time; get more faster).
4. They review and prioritize the opportunities that result from these Paradigm Shifts, Contexts and Dynamic Forces.
5. They review what strategic investments are the best to take advantage of the opportunities and Dynamic Market Forces.
6. They Leverage the opportunity. Once you know you can make money, accelerate growth; reinvest profits; create compounding and increasing returns.

Step 3 – The 15 Major Dynamic Market Forces: Mega Millionaires Are Now Leveraging:
1. Speed
2. Internet
3. Time
4. New Technologies
5. Culture – what is fashionable; what and who attracts the thought leaders and creates organic buzz.
6. Depreciation of the Dollar
7. Overregulation
8. Cost of protection
9. Narcissism Self Indulgence and Instant Everything
10. Relativism. You make up the rules.
11. Mass to Niche Marketing
12. More Is Better-Long Tail Strategy
13. Globalization
14. Flattening Of The World: outsourcing; networking; multi-sourcing.
15. Knowledge Workers

Step 4 – What Mega Millionaires Know About the Internet That They Are Exploiting:
· The Internet is an entrepreneur’s dream, one of the greatest leverage tools ever invented.
· Small can compete with large and succeed. Small can become big very fast and create substantial wealth.
· It is where the imaginative resourceful entrepreneur can leverage various combinations of speed, time, community, collaboration, networking outsourcing.
· A vehicle for delivering instant communication, instant gratification and innumerable options. Overwhelming amounts of information and a global marketplace. The Combination Information, Directing Marketing and the Internet is the perfect wave for making lots of money and creating Mega Millionaire wealth.
· It is a medium for information that lowers prices; cuts out middlemen; allows for anyone to voice an opinion.

Step 5 – The Internet Also Has the Following Characteristics Which Entrepreneurs Look to Exploit:
· Alters traditional time and space relationships by operating 24/7 in cyberspace (non physical).
· Ironically, is seen as having strength in seeking truth, real facts and democratization of thought.
· Yet, its strengths are also its weakness in that it creates an environment of invented identities that can cheat, misrepresent, or misinform. Amateurs masquerade as professionals and experts.
· Makes possible Social Media such as Facebook and MySpace that make the average Jane and Joe their own heroes. “It’s all about me.” “Look at me!”
· Makes Direct Marketing King-and the basis for the new way of doing business on and off-line.

Step 6 – The Huge Price of Not Recognizing the Power to Leverage Paradigm Shifts and Dynamic Market Forces Such As the Internet:

If you deny or do not respond appropriately to these Dynamic Market Forces like the Internet, you will never reach your full potential. Even if you have a profitable and growing business you will exhaust your resources and productive capacity and burn yourself out in a process.

Step 7 – Mega Millionaires And Their Companies Use Entrepreneurial Leverage to Create Strategies Which Take Advantage Of:
· The Internet
· Collaboration
· Networking
· Information Marketing
· Direct Marketing Techniques
· Outsourcing
· Inventory on demand
· Multi-channels of distribution

Each of these strategies allows the Entrepreneur to communicate and leverage their unique voice or unique selling proposition (USP). By using various combinations of these strategies entrepreneurs and leaders get their message out; attract attention; create a dialogue; and engage their new and old customers.

Think of Microsoft, Amazon, General Electric, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and Virgin. These are the Mega Millionaire leaders that are all using strategies that employ Entrepreneurial Leverage to exploit The Ages of Speed, the Internet and Time Poverty.

No matter how big or small the companies, Entrepreneurs look to accelerate their growth by aligning with and leveraging market changes; market forces; and market opportunities.

In the end, the Mega Millionaires are visionaries, jugglers and decoders of numerous variables to find the right opportunities to make strategic investments; create value; and catapult their business career or life to the next level.

To exploit Entrepreneurial Leverage you should constantly be aware of what changes are occurring in the market place. Determine how you can get the right people at the right time in the right place to exploit the opportunities and maximize your rates of return using the leverage strategies mentioned above.

In many cases, you will be able to find organizations on a local level that cater specifically to people in your situation. This can greatly limit the competition you face for grant money, and it can often give you the opportunity to connect with a group that will work closely in developing your project.

Step 2 - Applying for a government grant is much easier than most people think. There are certain steps that must be followed, but most agencies spell them out clearly for you before you ever start filling out the paperwork. In many case, you will have to register with the CCR (central contractor registry).

If you are applying for a grant for an organization, you will most likely have to register yourself as an authorized organization representative (AOR) before you can move forward with the process. Once the paperwork is in place, it will take several days to process, so you will have to wait before you take the next step.

Step 3 - The next step will depend upon the grant you are applying for. Usually, artistic grants will require you to submit past work, the present project you are working on, or the future piece you are trying to develop. Grants for new businesses are often dependent on business plans or an organization’s commitment to community.

Grant requirements are as varied as grants themselves, so it is crucial that you fully understand the specific agency you are contacting before applying for a government grant.

Many people associate the term leverage with financial leverage or borrowing money. Here are the simple steps to leverage:

Step 1 Look at all cash transactions: I can invest $1 cash and double it (2x) and have $2 cash.  I made a $1 profit ($2 – $1 original investment = $1 profit).

Step 2 Look at the alternative of borrowing: Or, I can still invest $1 but borrow $9 and invest a total of $10.  If I double my total investment of $10, I now have $20.

Forgetting taxes and interest on the debt, I can pay back the $9 I borrowed: $20 – $9 borrowed (my leverage) = $11 net cash. $11 – $1 original cash investment = $10 profit

In my all cash example, I made $1 profit.  In my leverage or borrowed money example, I made $10. 

In sum, with leverage I enlarged my bet from $1 to $10 and made 10x the profit ($10 profit in example 2 versus $1 profit in example 1).

Now, this example shows positive leverage – you make money on the money you borrowed or leveraged. 

The reverse can happen – negative leverage - where you lose money on borrowed money.  That is what was at the heart of the financial crisis – over-borrowing personally, in business and in finance. 

In effect, investors put too little money down to buy and control real assets.  Personally, people borrowed to buy stuff – not real assets, which include their house.

Go to http://www.stepsto.com/home to learn how to start up your business, grow your business, make money and live the life you want! We have advised and evaluated thousands of companies from start-ups to Fortune 500 Companies. Steps To combines this knowledge with 25 years of research on the right steps the Greatest Minds in History took to achieve extraordinary success.