When I ask why you don't start your own business, I always hear, "I don't have money to start a business."

This is a common excuse people give for not starting their own business.

There is truth in the statement. You actually need money to make money or to start a business. But the question is "Do you need a lot of money or little to start a business?" and "Whose money do you use?"

Yes, I admit that it does take money to make money but it doesn't need to be your money!

Recently, one of my friends closed his restaurant business due to staff problems. But he quickly jumped to another business opportunity.

The business idea is so good that I want to share with you.

He is now running a training company. He focuses on corporate training. Basically, what he needs to do is to bring in famous trainers to his workshops. Market and promote the workshops and get people sign up for the workshops.

How much money do you think he needs to invest to organize one workshop? From getting the speaker to marketing, from selling tickets to renting a venue?

It will definitely cost a lot of money! Even if you only talk about marketing.

You know how much money my friend put in to organize a workshop? Close to zero!

How could that happen? How on earth that he doesn't use his own money to organize a workshop but all the profits go into his pocket?

Here is how.

He got the idea to look for sponsors for his workshop. After a few rounds of searching and corresponding, he managed to get big companies to be the sponsors for his workshop.

For companies to become my friend's sponsors, they need to contribute money to promote the workshop. This single idea helps my friend to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing.

Not only that, his sponsors also help him to market and sell tickets for his workshops. He also can leverage on the sponsors' client databases.

Of course, my friend doesn't mind to give some commissions to the sponsors from the sales of tickets. It's only a small fraction of the whole profit.

By making such an arrangement, a lot of work is off-loaded from my friend. It's like having a well-oiled machine working for you without much of your involvement.

My friend doesn't need to invest a big sum of money for his workshops. Someone else will pay for his workshop expenses.

Does this sound like an excellent business idea? Of course, it does.

This is what I call ideas at work. Making money does not necessarily require huge capital, it's all about coming up with ideas that other people are willing to invest in.

As Napoleon Hill once said, "One sound idea is all that you need to achieve success." And also stressed by Robert Kiyosaki "Money is an idea."

Abel Cheng offers small and medium enterprises exclusive global profits insider tips in his free publication, Abel Cheng's Business Diary. To officiate a bi-weekly subscription, please go to http://www.abelcheng.com/diary.html