One of the most popular topics to talk about on the internet is "how to make a whole lot of money". Two of the leaders on this topic are Grant Cardone and Gary Vaynerchuk. While they are not the most popular in the online world, they do have huge followings, and big personalities. Now, I have never really been a follower of Cardone, but I have been a follower of Vaynerchuk for a few months now. I recently started hearing about Cardone and YouTube started advertising some of his videos on my news feed.

After a post I did yesterday comparing two YouTube celebrities was widely successful here on Steemit (I got my first $100+ post overnight which shocked the mess out of me, and I would like to thank all those who voted. It really showed me that Steemit truly is invested in quality contributors and it's not motivated by other biased factors. I would also like to do a post about the process I used to research for and write that post so as to be helpful to other Steemians who might be interested in learning the techniques I used to write a good Steemit article)...but as I was saying, the success of that post inspired me to consider two new YouTube celebrities today for comparisons.

Check out the other post here

So, today, knowing that these two men talk alot about how to become successful, I decided to search specifically for what they say about people who are starting from absolutely ZERO income. The reason I chose to search for their philosophies on this topic is because I find that it is really easy to encourage people to "stay positive" and "shoot for the stars" and get a million followers without giving them any practical advice about how to actually achieve their goals. So, if these two men are telling people they can be widely successful. Then, I decided to see what kind of practical advice they had for the billions of people WORLDWIDE who have NOTHING to start with. Following this, I will give a brief analysis about my thoughts on their methods, and I invite readers to share their own thoughts on this topic as well.

While there are some similarities in their messages, there are also huge differences. Some similarities include:

• both talk a lot about entrepreneurship
• both seem to agree that the old system (school-work-retirement) is a broken paradigm

In fact, Gary has appeared on Cardone's show. See video below.

Now, here is where they differ.

A lot of Gary's message has to do with:

• following your passion
• focusing only on what you love
• trying and failing
• working hard
• staying committed for the long haul
• keep things in perspective

Cardone's focus is:

• if you are broke, get money by getting a job even if you hate it, because you need money to start a business
• reinvest the money in yourself
• become a salesman
• get multiple streams of income
• learning to be a salesman

So, after searching through their channels specifically for videos related to "starting from nothing", I came across a few from each of them. I will start with Cardone's video below and break down the methodology he describes. After that, I will analyze Gary's method.

Grant Cardone's Method to go from poverty to prosperity

Step 1. Increase your income. Get a job. Even if you don't like it. (Just do whatever it takes to avoid government assistance!) Whatever your skill is, begin to sell yourself. Become a contractor. Become a salesman. Sell yourself. For example, if you are a plumber, go around town and tell people, "I am a plumber. I don't do anything else but plumbing. I can fix your plumbing. Hire me."
Step 2. Begin to generate multiple streams of income. Look for other things attached to that skill and attach a 2nd stream of income to your job/personal business/brand. This can be a product like selling something to unclog drains (if you are a plumber).
Step 3. Only save money to reinvest in your brand not in the bank. Grand Cardone seems to be anti-savings, but only in the sense that he seems to feel that money should be used to make more money and not to sit somewhere in a bank doing nothing.
Step 4. Reduce your debt to zero or less. Your debt can be less than zero if you are a lender. That is giving loans and collecting returns with interest.
Step 5. Keep reinvesting!

Grant Cardone doubles down on his points a lot in his videos. He emphasizes reinvesting and staying off of government assistance A LOT! He makes it clear that absolutely under no circumstances should one get on government assistance unless they are completely debilitated or incapacitated. He even says if you are in a wheelchair you should wheel yourself over to some kind of opportunity if you can.

Other points he makes are that you should seek a job with real income potential. So, when you are trying to get that first income stream coming in, you want to get something in sales or Multi-level Marketing, but he seems to allude to the point of staying away from minimum wage jobs as much as possible. He seems to be speaking to people without college degrees and low earning potential, because he directs them to jobs like nannying and sales to get started.

His final point is that you should always be focused on getting more money at all times. If money is what you want, he says that you should be focused on it otherwise you are deceiving yourself.

Gary Vaynerchuk's Method to Start a Business with No Money

The first video I found that alluded to Gary's mindset was on somebody else's channel in a video titled "Gary Vee reveals the secret how to start a business with little or no money!" I then found the same video on Gary's channel and here it is:

The method he outline here is mostly based on flipping. If you have little to no money, he is encouraging people to start small flipping very cheap things, and then slowing increasing their investment. I found a more detailed video about his mindset. See it below.

In Gary's first video, he explains that there are many routes to making money. He makes it clear in this and many of his other videos that people are poor, because they have chosen to sacrifice productivity (and as a result profits) for convenience. He starts off in the first video by saying that all one needs to do is go online and Google "how to make money" and you will come up with more results than you will know what to do with. Then, he decides to get practical and gives a very specific strategy for anyone interested in getting started immediately.

Step 1. Wake up at 5AM on Saturdays and go to garage sales. Gary says there are usually a lot of garage sales selling very cheap items in good condition at garage sales. With the convenience of your cellphone and an ebay or amazon price checker app, you can see what the going price is for any item is and figure out what price you would have to list it online in order to make a sale.
Step 2. List stuff on e-Bay or Amazon on Sunday morning.

Alternatively, he says you can buy from a site where things are cheaper (like e-Bay) and sell on a site where the going rate is higher (like Amazon) and make a profit.

He is challenging his followers to try to make and extra $20,170 in 2017 using his method. In fact, one of his followers already made that amount in one month.

Gary takes a very unorthodox path to making money. Similar, it seems, to Cardone, he is interested in educating his followers about HOW to make money. However, it almost seems that the extent that Vaynerchuk does this is almost at the expense of the person's personal income potential. I, personally, don't think I would ever engage in flipping, because I believe it is just too much work. I believe it is for people who are interested in making money for money making sake (which is not a bad quality, these people tend to be the richest people are Earth). To me, there is no heart in flipping. That is why I could never find myself doing it. Not only that, but to put in the effort of learning the market, and following trends and watching prices just seems like a lot of work that would take a lot of time and mental energy from me that I am not willing to sacrifice.

Some of the lessons Gary hopes he can teach his followers through this method include:

• Understanding supply and demand
• learning the craft of sales
• learning speed of execution
• learning how not to price too early
• learning how not to price too high
• learning branding (give something a good name/description)
• learn search
• understand the marketplace

Although these methods are clearly geared towards an American audience, and are not as applicable throughout much of the rest of the world (especially if you don't have access to jobs like the ones Cardone talks about or sellers accounts like the ones Vaynerchuk talks about), there is still something to be taken away from them no matter where you are. For example, they both talk of sales, and sales is a skill that is relevant and applicable EVERYWHERE in the world! Where there is a human, there is a buyer.

So, what do you think guys? Whose method do you think is the most helpful for people who are starting from scratch to try to build their wealth? I'm looking forward to the discussion!

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More about me:

Nwudo is about encouraging Africans to read, write and do business in their own languages.

Mission Summary: I believe the world is big enough for everybody to enjoy it's abundance and we all have to learn to work together not taking away from each other, but complimenting each other, because when everybody feels empowered, everybody wins. I think some of the biggest problems we face in the world today comes from an imbalance of power. It is impossible for two people to see things eye-to-eye when they are not on level playing field. So, I think when everybody feels like they are living to their full potential, everybody is encouraged to help each other fairly. That is why I love the blockchain system that we are moving into. That is why I love the information age. That is what I hope to encourage Africans to take advantage of.

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