If you’d like to quickly build wealth from scratch -- without breaking a sweat or lifting a finger -- then here’s how a few "elite" businessmen did it over a thousand years ago. And why you can do the same thing today with the information in this article.

Listen to this: Back in the olden days, the merchants and “wheelers and dealers” of the ancient world did NOT believe in getting their hands dirty or doing any of the “work” of making their fortunes themselves.

Instead, these experts discovered -- what savvy businessmen still know today -- the best way to make a lot of money very fast is to simply “leverage” off other people’s time, efforts, resources and money.

Take, as an example, someone who happened to be friends with both the local blacksmith and also one of the king’s advisors. If the blacksmith was smart, he'd simply ask this friend to use his "pull" to put in a good word about his wares to the king's people and, hopefully, get a big profitable contract making weapons and armor for them.

And if the blacksmith got the contract, he’d cheerfully pay his friend a percentage of the profits (maybe 10 to 15%) just for “joining” his business with the king’s treasury, and making the deal possible.

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These deals are called "joint ventures" and they were a highly effective way of doing business that quickly made the few people who understood them extremely rich. And the good news is you can use the exact same tactic to pay yourself a bundle of money today just as easily and logically as they did back then.

Here’s how:

Simply find a business already selling a product that would be eagerly bought by another (non-competing) business’s customers, and then “join” them together and take a slice of the profit on the resulting sales.

For example, let’s say there's an auto mechanic and an auto detailer in your town. And let’s say the auto mechanic has a large list of loyal customers who trust him and go to him on a regular basis, even if it’s just to get their oil changed.

All you do is make a deal with the auto detailer and auto mechanic, where the mechanic sends his customers a flier or short letter telling everyone about how wonderful the auto detailer is, how his prices are fair and all the reasons why they should take their cars to him to get detailed.

And then, for each customer the mechanic sends to the detailer, you split the money three ways, with you getting a slice of the profits in exchange for “setting up the deal”.

This way everyone wins: The mechanic makes money without lifting a finger, the detailer gets dozens of new customers he wouldn’t normally have gotten -- many of which will continue to spend their money getting their cars detailed with him in the future -- and you get paid just for bringing the deal together.

And that's all there is to it. This is a nice, simple and clean way of doing business that's been going on for thousands of years. It's ironic how, with high-speed technology and communication, more people aren't doing it today.

Ben Settle is an expert copywriter and direct marketer. If you liked this article then check out Ben's website at http://bensettle.com -- where you'll find over 500 pages of advertising ideas, strategies and tactics just like this one -- as well as rare swipe file ads and hot marketing information not easily found anywhere else.