Anytime you open a business, you have to be effective in promoting whether it's a franchise or not. You'll need to learn to be a Web marketer extraordinaire. There's plenty of material out there.

After losing everything, I went on a quest to find out how money really works, how I could get control of it, and how I could have confidence in handling it.

Be intense, passionate, and fired up, but about things that matter, things that change your life and your legacy.

Too many people try to do the new job, new spouse, new house, new car thing in 18 months. That's a good way to end up broke. We've got to resist the temptation to catch up with our parents in 18 months. Slow down. You have the rest of your life to play catch up. After all, it's just stuff.

Instead of just purchasing an ad campaign, target test and measure. Give an ad a small try. If the response is enough to pay for the ad, make it larger. With a franchise, ask the most successful franchisees what they did. Ask the bottom five guys what they did and avoid it.

Making mistakes and learning from them is crucial to winning.

My children were taught at an early age how money works and that it comes from hard work. They've been on a commission - not an allowance - since they were little. They learned that if they worked around the house, they got paid. If they didn't work, they didn't get paid.