How To Make a Fortune in Finders Fees

Table of Contents

Make Your Fortune as a Professional Finder

Have you considered the lucrative opportunity in finders fees? You could become a professional finder and earn a fortune from this alone. Alternatively, you could supplement your present income with finders fees.

A finder is someone who finds something for a person or business. The amount paid for this service is called a finders fee.

What is the difference between a finder and a broker or commissioned salesperson?

A broker or commissioned salesperson gets paid a percentage of the sale made. Usually, such person acts as an agent for the owner of the goods or services sold. He becomes actively engaged with the sales process, supplying information to facilitate the sale, negotiates the contract, arranges financing, and completes paper work.

On the other hand, a finder simply introduces a buyer to a seller for a fee. He does not become involved in the sales process and is not an agent acting on behalf of the seller.

The best areas to earn finder’s fees are those in which you already have expertise and interest. For example, if you are an expert on airplanes and have connections in the aviation industry, you could earn finder’s fees finding suitable planes for those needing them.

You can earn finders fees in many areas including equipment (used or new), equipment leasing, finding locations for franchises or vending, scarce materials, commodities, financing, et cetera.

Connections are the inventory of a finder. You are being paid to find something of value by someone who doesn’t know where (or doesn’t have the time) to find it. Your knowledge of where and who to get something from is invaluable information that people are willing to pay for.

Protect yourself with written contracts. Also, document all efforts you have made to earn your finders fee.

Before you introduce a buyer to a seller, have the seller acknowledge in writing that they have agreed to pay you a finder’s fee of so much upon successful completion of a sale. After obtaining a properly executed written contract (which may be a simple one page letter agreement), inform the person by written correspondence (sent by registered mail) about the buyer. Keep all copies of correspondence and other written documentation in case it becomes necessary to enforce your rights later. Proper documentation should help you to avoid any misunderstandings.

Just as the business that sells something pays its sales staff, likewise the seller generally pays the finder’s fee. The seller is the one that makes a profit from the sale and so usually is the one that pays commissions or finders fees.

However, if a buyer is particularly anxious to buy something, he might offer a finders fee. Therefore, it is possible to collect such fees from either the seller or the buyer.

It is possible to find finders fees opportunities offered in magazines, newspapers, and newsletters. You can find additional opportunities by doing your own research. Use your contacts, reference and phone books at the library, the Internet, persons you know (or don’t know) who might have the information you need, as well as other sources to find what is needed.

For example, if someone tells you they can’t find a pilot with an airplane outfitted with geophysical survey equipment, have you considered talking to airport employees, pilots, business acquaintances, exploration companies and manufacturers?

Make sure that all your communications and dealings (telephone, correspondence, letterheads, contracts, et cetera) reflect the professional nature of your business.

You must be willing to do the necessary legwork and research required to earn your finders fee. As well, you must project a business-like, professional image and protect yourself with written contracts and other documentation. Above all, you must follow through and diligently apply what you have learned. In that way, you, too, will become a highly paid professional finder.

How To Make a Fortune in Finders Fees in Regulated Fields

This is NOT legal advice. Consult your lawyer.

Although finders fees in real estate and financing are among the most lucrative, you must proceed with extreme caution.

Many jurisdictions have laws that forbid the payment of commissions and finders fees to anyone who is not a licensed real estate broker.

Likewise, only licensed mortgage dealers, insurance sales persons, stock brokers, and so on, may legally be able to collect finders fees or commissions.

Is there any legal way of collecting a finders fee in any of these regulated fields? There are actually several. Let’s start with the most overlooked but obvious one.

1. Get Licensed

By becoming licensed as a real estate broker or salesman, you may legally collect your commissions. Take the required courses and pass the examination.

The same principle applies to other areas such as mortgages, securities, insurance, et cetera.

Considering the potentially high finders fees involved, don’t you think it’s worth the effort to get legally licensed?

2. Act Only as a Finder — Not a Broker

Do NOT become involved in negotiations involving real estate or similarly regulated areas. You are not a real estate broker or sales person. You simply find the property sought by someone.

Under no circumstances should you become involved in the sale of a property when it’s illegal for you to do so.

Once you get the two parties (buyer and seller) together, you should let them conclude the transaction using their own professional advisers (accountants, lawyers and brokers).

It MAY not be illegal to collect a finders fee in your area, if you act simply as a finder. Check with your lawyer to be sure.

3. Act as Principal — Not as Agent

Instead of collecting a commission or finders fee on the sale of real estate (which often requires you to be legally licensed), why not buy the property yourself and resell it.

For example, you could acquire from a seller an option to buy a property for $1,000,000. And then sell the option for $1,050,000.

Effectively, you have earned a $50,000 “finders fee”. However, you actually bought and sold the real estate as the principal and not as an intermediary. Since you are not acting as broker, you do NOT need to be licensed as such.

4. Act as a Consultant — Not as Broker

Instead of charging a finders fee for finding a real estate property, charge a consulting fee for researching a property.

For example, if a client wants a property suitable for his business, offer to research suitable locations for a fixed fee, which will be paid whenever a suitable property is bought.

Since it is a fixed fee, it is not a percent commission.

The fee is payable whenever the property is bought because the purchase concludes the consulting assignment.

Even if the client buys a property from another source and/or involves a licensed real estate or business broker, the fee is still payable as you have performed the necessary research that he contracted for you to perform.

5.The Contingent Advertising Fee

In Jim Straw’s Finder’s Fees – The Easiest Money You’ll Ever Make!, he describes a similar tactic, which he calls the contingent advertising fee. Basically, you charge a flat-rate advertising fee payable upon the successful purchase or sale of the real estate.

How To Make a Fortune in Finders Fees as a Consultant

It is customary for consultants to charge by the hour or a flat-rate for the services they render. This is not a bad model. However, consultants can also earn finders fees from their clients.

Earning consulting fees on a contingency basis is not the norm. However, you can be of service to your client and earn finders fees in the process.

Your clients should be happy because they only pay if you get them results.

Point out to your client that there are many areas where you could help them with on a contingency fee basis (in other words, a finders fee). If you don’t get the results for the client, then you don’t get the fee.

Here are a very few possibilities:

-While working with your small business client, you discover he only sells his manufactured product in this country. It is an excellent product for exporting. Introduce the client to an export management agent for a finders fee.

-Find new products for your client to sell for a finders fee.

-Does your client sell by drop shipping? Find him drop ship products for a fee.

-Is there dead or slow-moving inventory? Find a closeout or surplus dealer and earn a fee.

Use your creativity to come up with other ways of earning finders fees from your clients.

How To Make a Fortune in Finders Fees on the Internet

Of course, you can do research on the Internet to find things that people are willing to pay for.

You can find sellers wanting buyers. You can also find buyers looking for sellers.

Here is another way you can use the Internet to make a fortune in finders fees:

Affiliate Programs

You can earn finder’s fees (or referral fees) by simply introducing someone to a website. Your finders fee earned this way is called an affiliate commission and it is paid by the seller who operates the affiliate program that you joined.

As an example, if you referred someone to the Walmart website using your affiliate code and the visitor buys, you would earn a commission on the sale (assuming you are Walmart’s affiliate).

You don’t really do any selling. That job is performed by the company operating the affiliate program. They have a website designed to sell their products.

You simply refer qualified persons to their website and if they buy, you make commissions. Learn how to earn a fortune in affiliate commissions at Finders Fee Fortune.

What Finders Fees Are Possible?

“How would you like to earn $75,000 per month for 5 years? One Finder did. He saw an item in a newsletter offering 10,000 barrels of Crude Oil per day for 5 years. Putting that seller together with a buyer at a small refinery, he earned a fee of only 25¢ per barrel, and collected his fee of $75,000 every month for 5 years.”
Finder’s Fees: The Easiest Money You’ll Ever Make by J. F. (Jim) Straw

“In 1969, a Floridian made $65,000 on a single sale of a European antique collection. Again, his “pay-off” was a Finder’s fee.”
How To Make A Fortune In Finders’ Fees: A Comprehensive Guide To The Only World-Wide Business You Can Start Anywhere With Less Than A $200.00 Initial Investment by Jack Payne

“What’s the biggest fee we ever heard of earned by a financial broker/finder? The biggest fee we’ve been told of (in writing) is nearly $2-million for placing one $167-million loan.”
Big And Easy Moneymaking Ideas For Finders, Beginning Wealth Builders And Licensing Agents by Tyler G. Hicks

Of course, these results are not typical. Most people won’t make any money at all.

The author, J. Stephen Pope, President of Yenom Marketing Inc., has been earning finder’s fees on the Internet since 1998.

Appendix 1: Make $100,000 Per Year as a Finder

Millions of people dream about being self employed with a business they create and own for themselves.

The desire to be your own boss and to have the blissful freedom to set your own hours is a powerful force for just about anyone.

But what most often bursts the bubble of those who dream of self-determined financial independence are the immediate road blocks that present themselves. The most common barriers are:

The need for large amounts of start-up money.
The need for a special skill or educational level.
The need to find a business that can support you as well or better as your current job.
The need to find a business in a field that is not already crowded with competition.
The need for a business that does not require special and expensive equipment.
The need to find a business that can be done anywhere in the country, namely, where you live.

Most often one or a combination of the above keep people where they are – in the rut of their current dreary, low-paying job, or unemployed.

That’s why we went searching for a kind of business that leapfrogs all of the above, and which just about anyone can start right away with little or no star-up cash, and do it no matter where they live or what their level of skill or education.

A job that fits the bill is to become a Finder.

What is a Finder?

It was the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein who once said: “It takes a genius to see the obvious.”

That axiom is true for the job of being a Finder. This is a concept for making big self-employment money which is incredibly simple and lucrative, but perhaps so simple that most have overlooked it because it is so obvious.

Ask any marketing expert about the best way to make money in America, and he or she will tell you to isolate a problem or need, and then find a way to solve that problem or fulfill that need.

A problem and need which millions of people have is that they need to find something. Millions of people need to find the perfect apartment. Millions are looking for the perfect spouse or mate. Millions of people are looking for a roommate. Millions of people are looking for more clients to build their businesses. Millions of people are looking for special items, like rare books, antiques, classic automobiles, baseball cards, famous signatures, the best trout streams in America, the best restaurants in New York – the list is absolutely without limit.

The bottom line is this: You can help people find what they need, and they will pay you for it. You can start your own business as a professional finder, and never be without clients, cash flow or financial security ever again.

Whether you decide to be a finder of husbands for lonely women, or rare beer cans for collectors, the fundamentals of being a finder are generally the same. First, let’s look at two examples of successful finding businesses, and then go on to a more general discussion of how to set up a finding business.

Classic Car Finding Service

Thousands of people are in love with automobiles, especially classic models. You can tap into this trade instantly with a few small classified ads in auto magazines, and also in general upscale magazines with a wealthy subscribers list.

You ad could simply say: “We find rare and classic automobiles. For fast, experienced service call: 555-5555.”

When you ad breaks, you’ll start getting calls. To each person who inquires, send a single sheet of paper which outlines your fees, and perhaps a business card. You need nothing more elaborate than that. Ask for a minimum of $100 to $500 per search. You can get from $2,500 to $5,000 if you score a find on a rare model.

As a rule, you can claim from 5 to 10 percent commission on the car you find. For example, a stainless steel Delorian prices at $20,000 will net you $2,000 if you match up an owner with a buyer.

To be successful, you’ll spend time developing something few other people have – the inside track on where all the rare, classic and high demand automobiles are. If you are a car nut, this task will be a shear pleasure for you. It means a lot of time poring over specialty car journals, attending trade shows, and getting to know dealers and even manufacturers.

Sometimes you can double your money on each transaction by collecting from both buyer and seller. Why not? You’ll be doing each of them a service, and most will be happy to pay a middleman to get what they want.

That’s it! Now let’s take another example.

Roommate Finding Service

It’s a fact of life that rental increases continue to out-pace wage increases, especially in large cities like New York and Los Angeles. Add to that the fact that many apartment complexes are being converted into expensive condominiums and you have a problem for millions of people who just need an affordable place to live.

While it may difficult to find cheap housing for people in this housing climate, you can save people thousands of dollars by finding them a roommate to share the rent.

Start out with ads in your local newspaper. They should be short, direct and simple: Save thousands on rent! We’ll find you the perfect roommate! Call: 555-5555. When calls start coming in, ask for a $25 registration fee to get your cash-flow started right away.

Take a polaroid snapshot of each client. Have each person fill out a form indicating the kind of roommate they can live with, that is, smoker/nonsmoker, male/female, drinker/nondrinker, age category, and so on.

Before long you will amass a large file of people looking for a roommate. Your job, then is to match up your clients with the kind of people they have indicated they can live with. When you make a match, charge an additional fee of 10 to 15 percent of their first month’s rent.

If you sign up just 200 people a month, you are already earning $5,000 a month. With the fee you get from each successful roommate match made, your income will easily double. Can you earn $100,000 a year with a roommate finding service? Absolutely! Furthermore, anyone can do it, it takes no special education or skill, just a sense of organization, good people skills and persistent advertising.

If People Want it, Find it for Them

Now, you may know nothing about cars, and perhaps you do lot live in a major urban area where rent is high and roommates are in high demand. In that case, the above two examples do you little good.

But the job of finding is not limited to cars and roommates. You can become a finder for just about anything, Consider:

Finding new clients for professionals, especially dentists, doctors and lawyers. Professionals compete heavily for clients in each specific region. If you can help your local doctor increase his patient load, you can collect a fee for each patient found.

Finding antiques and collectibles for collectors. Need we say more about this. Some people will pay top dollar for a rare beer can, an oil lamp or rare comic books. Pick a collectible category and start finding!

Finding rare coins and currency. The fact is, one of the hottest businesses in America is coin and currency collecting. It’s called numismatics. Today, there are thousands of full-time numismatics professionals whose sole purpose is to buy, sell and trade coins every day. If you can help these folks find the items of currency they want, you’ll cash in every time.

Finding items of historical interest for large corporations. A Michigan man recently spotted a car company ad in a rare old magazine dated 1890. He sent a copy to the auto giant’s headquarters, and soon received an offer of several hundred dollars for the original magazine. This is not limited to magazine ads. Anything you can find – from an old plow to cigar boxes – may be worth a lot of money to the corporations who produced the products years ago. Such items are valuable for public relations and advertising purposes, as well as office and lobby decorations.

Finding used and rare books. Many people make a lucrative full-time living by finding books that are either out-of-print or hard to find. Take out classified ads in literary and writer’s magazines, and you’ll soon get requests for books that people want you to find.

Finding second or third mortgages for people who need money. Many people take out second, third even fourth mortgages on their homes. You can start a service in which you act as an agent between lending institutions and the people who need loans. Take out a classified ad that says: “Need a second mortgage? We can help! Call 555-5555.” You’ll soon get calls and you’ll soon be in business. You can collect 5 to 10 percent on each mortgage you secure for a client.

The list is endless. You can find anything from food stuffs, to rare metals. All you need is an entity willing to pay a fee for what they need found.

You can also set up shop as a sort of “general” finding service. Run an ad that says: “We find anything for you! Call 555-5555.” One kind of finding often leads to another.

Becoming a finder is something anyone can do with next to no start-up capital needed, and where your competition is likely to be nonexistent.

If you are looking for a top-notch self-employment opportunity, we urge you to consider your own finding service. You may soon find yourself self employed, financially secure and free of the bonds of you boring day job. Find yourself free as a full-time finder.

Appendix 2: Earn Your Fortune In Finder’s Fees: The Easiest Money You’ll Ever Make!

Would you like to earn $75,000 per month for 5 years?

One Finder did. He saw an item in a newsletter offering 10,000 barrels of Crude Oil per day for 5 years. Putting that seller together with a buyer at a small refinery, he earned a fee of only 25¢ per barrel, and collected his fee of $75,000 every month for 5 years.

How about trading less than $1 in postage and a couple hours easy work for $100?

Not a big fee but it was so easy another Finder couldn’t pass it up. Reading a “collectors” magazine, he came across an ad seeking some college memorabilia from a college near his home. He made some local telephone calls, located the items wanted, wrote a letter, and earned an easy $100.

Do Fast-Food Franchises interest you?

More than one Finder makes staggering fees each year by just finding “locations” for fast-food franchises. Others earn smaller, but consistent fees, finding locations for Vending Machines and Coin Operated Games. It takes some research, time, and an eye for consumer buying habits, but some of the fees would boggle your mind.

Two Finders – Two Fees!

One Finder had a “seller” offering a warehouse full of closeout & surplus inventory. The other Finder had a “buyer” looking for closeout & surplus inventory. They saw each other’s listings in the same newsletter. After a few telephone calls and letters, they earned over $25,000 each.

Did you know there are firms in this country who “manage” hotels, mobile home parks, apartment buildings, etc., for the absentee owners?

Those firms often pay substantial Finder’s Fees if you can find properties for them to manage.

Would you believe over $50,000 per year by just matching Newspaper Classified Ads with the Telephone Book Yellow Pages?

One Finder makes that much and more each year by just matching-up the wants & availables in Newspaper Classified Ads from neighboring areas with the Yellow Pages in his town and other Classified Ads from other newspapers.

If you can think creatively, you might be able to pull-off one like this!

A company had been trying to dump a huge volume of lead weights for ages. They couldn’t find a buyer. Then a creative Finder figured out that those weights could be used in the commercial fishing industry. His creative thinking was rewarded with a substantial Finder’s Fee.

Television Advertising pays big bucks to Finders, too!

NO! You don’t have to run any TV advertising. Just find people who need TV advertising and connect them with TV stations who will run their ads. Of course, first you have to strike a deal for “dead” air time.

It would take a couple hundred pages to tell you about all of the Finder’s Fees earned in machinery & equipment deals.

As you probably know, there are literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of pieces of machinery & equipment setting around, in almost any industry you can name. Find a buyer. Earn a fee.

If a product or service can be sold or bought, there is a potential Finder’s Fee just waiting for a Finder with the “know-how” to earn it. There are Finder’s Fees to be earned in every small town or big city, in every state and country. All you need to do is match-up the buyers and sellers, put them together, sit-back and collect your fees.

And…you can start your own Finder’s Fee business for less than it would cost you for a good meal at a fine restaurant. – All you really need is a typewriter, business letterhead, and a telephone to get started.

“Why would any company pay a Finder’s Fee?”

There are over 240,000,000 people in this country — and millions of businesses (small, medium & large). Can any business know of ALL of the sources of supply, potential buyers, or providers of necessary services? — Not on your life!

Why should a company spend thousands of dollars, and tie up essential employees to do nothing but research the existence of these suppliers, buyers, and providers — when they can easily let a Finder go to the trouble of locating the contacts they need. And, those fees are considerably less than what they would have spent if they had done the research themselves.

Finders EARN their fees by weeding-through the unqualified leads and flakes; by following all of the dead-end paths; and eventually putting their hands on a real, honest-to-goodness source, buyer, or whatever. — THAT is what a Finder gets paid for doing.

A company, or individual, who pays a Finder’s Fee, pays it so they won’t have to chase down all of those unqualified leads, blind alleys, and dead-ends.

It is really far easier than you might imagine…but… if you don’t know how to do it (and do it right), you may chase down all the blind alleys without ever finding a profitable match. – That’s what happens to most amateur finders – a lot of blind alleys but NO Fees!!

I’ve spent over 30 years of my life as a finder – gathering facts and doing the things that you need to do to be a professional finder. Starting with a $42 unemployment check, I became a multi-millionaire.

During those 30-plus years, I made every mistake ever made by amateur finders – until I learned how to do it right. — I have earned Finder’s Fees for locating everything from a World War II bayonet (for a collector) to buyers for Oil Field Equipment.

Over the past 10 years, I have watched as literally thousands of men, and women, have tried to become Finders. – Most of them don’t even know, for sure, what a Finder’s Fee is, or how a Finder earns those fees.

The real tragedy of this situation is that there are literally millions, upon millions, of dollars out there just waiting to be claimed by someone who can “find” the buyer, or seller, needed to complete the transaction.

What Is A FINDER?

Unfortunately, most people…even many of those who call themselves “finders”…..don’t really know “what” a finder is, or how to start earning Finder’s Fees.

In order to define what a Finder “is,” let’s first point out what a Finder “is not.”

A FINDER is NOT a PRE-SELLER — Pre-sellers accept a selling price from a product source, add-on what they feel to be a fair margin of profit, and sell the item. After they make a sale, they then buy the product and ship it to the buyer.

A FINDER is NOT a DEALER — Dealers take-on a product, or service, for continuing promotion and sales. They are responsible for the distribution of a product, or service, from the prime source to the end user.

A FINDER is NOT a REPRESENTATIVE or AGENT for either the buyer or seller. — Representatives & Agents are empowered by their clients to negotiate the purchase, or sale, of specific products or services. They can legally sign documents obligating their clients.

Too many “supposed” Finders are not really Finders at all — they are Salesmen, Agents, Representatives, and/or Pre-sellers.

A Finder is nothing more than a “match-maker” for a fee. The professional Finder simply matches QUALIFIED buyers with QUALIFIED sellers, or vice versa – “FOR A FEE!”

Finders DO NOT sell anything; except their knowledge. Finders DO NOT negotiate anything; except their own fees. Finders DO NOT add-on their profits.

“Contacts Are A Finder’s Stock in Trade”

“Contacts” are the bread and butter of the professional finder. All he is really selling is names & addresses of QUALIFIED contacts.

The following are the most important points to remember:

(1) Be a FINDER; not an Agent, Representative, Salesman, or Pre-seller. DO NOT try to sell anything; simply offer QUALIFIED contacts to your clients who offer a Finder’s Fee. Nothing more.

(2) As a FINDER, let your contact and your client negotiate their own deal; once you have brought them together.

(3) Use the finest materials (letterheads & envelopes) available, and maintain the most professional business approach in all of your dealings.

(4) Furnish only QUALIFIED contacts to your client. UNqualified contacts only come from UNqualified “amateur” finders.

(5) NEVER give your client the name & address of another Finder. When you do, you start a Daisy Chain, and are not entitled to any form of Finder’s Fees.

(6) READ…READ…READ…ever increasing the number and quality of your contacts.

(7) Keep chronological and complete files of all of your correspondence (even telephone calls) with both your contacts and your clients.

(8) Always FIND IT FIRST, before contacting a potential client. This one action, alone, will save you a lot of money in paper that doesn’t go into the waste basket.

(9) If you don’t get a response from the potential client, DO NOT do what childish amateurs do DO NOT blame the advertiser; blame yourself. You probably didn’t offer the potential client what he wanted; so, try again, or give up, on that particular finding opportunity.

NOTE: If one advertiser doesn’t respond to your contact offer, you should keep your eyes open for a similar Finder’s Fee opportunity; to which you can make the same offer. – BE SURE to re-confirm your contact.

(10) The “key” word in being a successful finder is PATIENCE. The reason most amateur finders never earn their first fee is because they push for a fast close. They try to negotiate the deal for the principals. DO NOT do it!! Let your principals close their own deal, in their own time. A “right” deal will close itself. A “wrong” deal will never close; no matter how hard you push and shove.

As a finder, you can work anywhere you want, at any time you want – just by keeping your eyes & ears open. Even an offhand comment overheard on the street can lead to a finder’s fee.

Whether you live in Podunk, or Metropolitan New York City, you can earn constant, and sizable, Finder’s Fees all year, every year.

Your family, friends, business associates, and local merchants (as well as people all over the nation, and around the world) can make you a fortune — if you know who will pay you a Finder’s Fee for information you hear and see every day.

Using the information in this report, you can be well on your way to earning your fortune in Finder’s Fees.

Earn Your Fortune In Finder's Fees: The Easiest Money You'll Ever Make! by J.F. (Jim) Straw

Having spent over 50 years in business, doing business successfully, J.F. (Jim) Straw now shares “Practical Instruction in the Arts & Sciences of Making Money” at the Business Lyceum. — http://www.businesslyceum.com . This report was excerpted from the complete, master course, “Finder’s Fees – The Easiest Money You’ll Ever Make” by J.F. (Jim) Straw; the only professional finder to ever write on the subject. The complete, master course has been the bible of professional finders since 1978.

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