How to broker or facilitate deals and succeed... and not to be a joker broker

Have you been trying to close any deal for years? Tired of potentially great money making a business that suddenly falls apart? Worst, closing the deal and not being paid your commissions? Watch this.

If you have been through this for years without another source of income, you might be living in a car, a sofa, a basement, sleeping on a bench in a park and barely making it to eat and doing your laundry, taking care of your personal hygiene and paying your cell phone bill and internet.

 Of course, for those who succeed, the story is different. In some business deals, it just takes one closing and you can retire rich immediately. Other deals produce fewer profits but can be closed easily and once you close one, you can close many and create your own distribution channel.

My father, before becoming a wealthy recording artist, made his fortune brokering forest products. There was no internet, just phones, and TELEX and you traveled to meet the parties. Yes, there were tons of crooks and corrupt politicians and government employees, like today.

Onassis made his fortune and rose from a poor kid to a very rich and famous guy, brokering a deal, without money, where he sold used ships to Argentina, many years ago. Hundreds of stories like this created this industry.

Now we have great communications and the internet, traveling is, in real terms, a lot cheaper. Why is so difficult to close even a routine deal? Hopefully, watching the banter between the two joker-brokers in the YouTube video at the beginning of the article gave you a hint.

This could be a very long article or a book, as the possibilities are almost infinite, but will take care about the most basics, the ones those wanting to be a broker and make a ton of money faces.

Many successful entrepreneurs and other great people faced struggle while creating, or before closing that big deal. Silicon Valley has many of these stories. Look at the Whats-App guys, who were living on food stamps or even people like Mark Cuban. President Obama, a son of a single mom started his adult life very poor; President Clinton was a son of a poor single mom living on the wrong side of the tracks. Many now celebrities and wealthy people, like Sir Richard Branson, were far from wealthy and in some cases, even destitute when starting.

Of course, no matter how romantic the crucible of struggle looks, it, by itself, may not make you succeed or even be a good person, or support great ideas, it is amoral and idea neutral.

Adolf Hitler failed to get admitted to a university, spent seven years as a homeless person and had his break in the WW1, where he fought bravely. He went to jail for a coup attempt, where he wrote "My Struggle." He became a spy for the big interests inside the Unions and got into the high leadership. After killing the Unions high hierarchy, the army was sworn to him, personally, and in ten years he took Germany from a bankrupt country to the verge of conquering the world, of course, at what price.

So, do not get addicted to the pain of the crucible of struggle. Stay thirsty my friends but, be aware that, being hungry and thirsty may help to put the mind to work, even if as an act of sheer survival, but it does not guarantee anything.

One does not have to be an expert in behavioral economics to know that everyone has a breaking point where one must cut losses, even if to take a break before coming back with a new vision and renewed energies (and capital). Sometimes one must loss a battle in order to win the war.

First, it could be instructive to give a look at this already famous video dealing with the banter between two joker brokers at the beginning of this article.

Although the job of facilitating or brokering deals can be neutral to the deal, still, one of the most important things an aspiring and, in fact, any facilitator should do, is to have enough understanding of the industry their deal is, or is willing to work very hard acquiring it in order to be effective in putting the deal together. Of course, it can help to team with others who know and share commissions, many times, the lion's share.